The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-04
DEMAND PROOF IN SNEAD CASE Companies Refuse to Pay
 Insurance. BELIEVE HUSBAND $ ALIVE Will Not Hensr Policies on Two
 Lives. Physician Hints That Dead wemas Was Under Hypnotic spell Fortune Left to Mrs. snead
 Completely Disappears
 After Marriage.

New York, Dec. 3--The three great companies in which Mrs. Ocey Ward- law Martin Snead held life insurance for upwards of s30.000 annopnced toe day that they will refuse to honor thctr policies until 1t has been proved that the body of the half-staryed young w0- man found in the bath room of an un. furnished house In East Orange. N. I. on Monday last. is that of Mrs. snead.
 The policy for S34.0o0 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 casea said today:
 We don't believe snead Is dead, ws don't know that Mrs. Snead Is dead. It seems incredible that any woman not hypnotized or drugged could be persuaded to endure such agonies of mental suffering and bodily privation as this poor girl now in the morguo underwent if she had any claim on the ties of blood and family devotion.
 We don't know that three separate sets of policies in duplicate on the life of young Mrs. Snead were issued In favor of her aunt. Miss Virginia Ward, law. now under arrest at East Orange. on the plea. in each instance. that the previous set had been lost. Was money borrowed on these dupiicates? We don't know"
 Inspect Bundle Of Papers.
 The police today were busy with 2 bundle of papers and scattered memo randa left by Miss Wardlaw in drug store recently discovered They com tained thousands ef words of a compi- lation on insurance policies and what could be borrowed on them. mingled irrelevantly with letters of recommen- dalton from some of the foremost ed- ucators of the country of the grim old woman who now sits obstinately mute in cell. Such names are signed to them as Alice S Freeman. President of wellesly College; Alexander c. Or mond, Professor of Medical science at Princeton University: Charles Young, Professor Of English Literature at Co., iumbia Universally. and others.
 Tn addition the papers indicate that young Mrs snead was the daughter of Colonel Robert w.. Martin. who once lived handsomely in New York and left her fortune of s100,0o0 which had completely disappeared.
 Ills widow. Mrs. snead's mother. has also disappeared. as utterly as her son-in Jaw. Fletcher Snead. The mother and sister of Miss Ward law. who are living In lodgings in New, York, still refuse to go to East orange to identify the body supposed to be Mrs. Snead's. and will not discuss their family affairs.
 Hints at Hypaotism.
 Dr. Jacob Wachsman told the Brook iyn police tonight that on September last he called on Mrs. Snead at the in- stance of Julian Carabbn. the attorney who drew her third will. The young woman, he said. was apparently under hypnotic influence. When he was ak1e to shield her eyes from the glance ot the others in the room, she frightened perceptibly.
 He found her suffering from neuras' thenia, produced by hypnosis and star vation. There ere stitches In her side. remaining from an operation of sonne weeks previous. He suggested that they be taken out.
 Miss Virginia Wardlaw then suE- gested," continued the physician, ''that I take the stitches out. and to sase the young woman from any pain that use choloform. told Miss Wardlaw that chioroform was unnecessary and in Mrs. Snead's weakened condition might cause death.
 Miss Wardlaw insisted that usa chloroform but I refused. left after she said she would notify me the next day if my services were further re- quired. never heard from her again"