The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1909-12-04
Aunt of Dead Woman Believed
to Have Been the
Murderess
THREEC0MPANfEs REFusEToPlY
THE POLICIES on WoMAN's LIFE
Assert That They Have No Proof That
the Woman In Whose Name They
Are Carried Is Dead-Police Arr
Still Baffled.

New York, Dec. 4.-Probers into
the mystery of the death of Mrs.
Ocey w. NJ. Snead. the victim of the
East Orange bathtub tragedy, found
themselves wandering, today in
labyrinth Of insurance finance.
Papers found reveal countless
memoranda in the hand writing Of
Miss Virginia Wardlaw. the aunt of
the victim now under arrest and
charged with the murder, nearly all
having to do with the subject of life
insurance. Policies aggregating $24.-
900 on the life of Mrs. Snead are
known to be in existence and other
policies running into thousands are
believed to have been written for her.
Although as to the actual respon-
sibility for the death of Mrs. Snead,
little has been brought to light.
Several clues upon which the authori-
ties are working, it is said, throw the
real circumstances of the case into
relief, may bring out the motive of
the crime and fix the responsibility.
Companies Refuse to Pay. q.
The three great companies in which
Mrs. Snead held life insurance
for upwards of 100000, announced to-
day that they will refuse to honor
their policies until it has been proved
that the body of the half-starved
woman found in the bath tub is that Of
Mrs. Snead The policy for $4,000
on the life of her husband, Fletcher
Snead, who is missing, is also unpaid,
and no claim has been put in for the
insurance. A company agent detailed
to the case said today:
eve do not believe Snead is dead.
We do not know that Mrs. Snead is
dead. 1t seems incredible that any
woman. not hypnotized or drugged.
could be persuaded to endure such
ingenuities of mental suffering and
bodily privation as this poor girl now
in the morgue underwent, if she had
any claim on the. ties of blood ane
family devotion
I'VE do Enuw that three senar4.e
sets of policies in duplicate on the
life of young Mrs. Snead were issued
in favor of. her. aunt, Miss Virginia
Wardlaw, now under arrest at East
Orange, on the plea. in each instance,
that the previous set had been lost.
Was money borrowed on these dupli-
Gates? We do not know"
The police are busy with bundle
of papers and scattered memoranda
left by Miss Wardlaw in drug store,
and recently discovered. They con-
tained thousands of words of z coin
pilation on insurance policies and
what could be borrowed on them,
mingled irrelevantly with letters Of
recommendation from some Of the
foremost educators of the country, all
tesrifying to the refinement of sensi-
bility and intellectually of the grim
old woman who now sits obs;inately
mute in a cell:
Such names are signed to them as
Alice S. Freeman. principal of We.les-
ley college; Alexander T. OrE,and.
professor of medical science at Prince
fessor of English literature at Colu.n-
bia university, and others.
In addition the papers indicate that
young Mrs. sne;.d was the daughter
of Col. Robert II. Martin, who Oree
lived handsomely i1 New York ard
left her fortune Of 100000, which
has completely disappeared. Ills
widow, Mrs. Snead's mother, has also
disappeared as utterly as her son-in-
law, Fletcher Snead. The mother and
sister us Mrs. Wardlaw, who are liv-
ing in lodgings in New York, still re-
fuse to go to East Orange to identify
the body supposed to be Mrs. Snead's
and will not discuss their family at
fairs. The insurance companies in
sist, however, that all these details
must be thoroughly ventilated beto.e
the policies are paid.