In the early 20th century, a young woman named Oceania Wardlaw Martin Snead—known to everyone as Ocey—died under circumstances that would shock the public and become known as the Bathtub Mystery.
Ocey was born in September 1885 in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father, Colonel Robert Maxwell Martin, had fought in the American Civil War, and her mother, Caroline, was the daughter of a Supreme Court justiceley. The family lived in a large house, but it mysteriously burned down near the end of the 19th century.
After the fire, the family moved to New York. Ocey had a brother named Hugh, but he died at just seven years old after allegedly falling down the stairs. His life was insured, and the insurance company paid the family $22,000.
Tragedy followed them to Manhattan. Soon after arriving, Ocey’s father died in equally mysterious circumstances. Neighbors heard a crash and found Caroline standing over her unconscious husband, with young Ocey weeping nearby. When Ocey tried to speak, her mother silenced her with a look and said, "Remember."
The police concluded the death was an accident.
Caroline moved with her daughter to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where her sister Virginia Wardlaw lived. Virginia ran the Sole College, a respected boarding school for young ladies, alongside another sister named Mary. Caroline was erratic and unreliable, but she was offered a position at the school, and Ocey was enrolled as a student.
As time passed, Ocey was seen less and less)Skip Spending most of her time at her aunt’s house. Caroline began changing the school’s curriculum, moving students into different classrooms, and locking doors with padlocks. The three sisters began dressing in black, roaming the halls, and making surprise visits into the students’ sleeping quarters. Pupils started calling them "the sisters in black."
Strange stories circulated among the students. Some said the sisters, dressed in black and heavily veiled, would visit the Evergreen Cemetery at night and chant near graves. Others told of them walking the school grounds in their long black dresses.
The sisters’ strange ways and Caroline’s financial mismanagement damaged the school’s reputation. Pupil numbers fell, and in 1907, the Board of Governors dismissed them.
Virginia soon found another position as headmistress at the Montgomery Female College in Christiansburg, another boarding school for young ladies. She invited Caroline and Ocey to join her.
Ocey had two male cousins, Fletcher and John Snead, sons of her aunt Mary. The brothers were married to Anna and Vashti McLearen. Shortly after the move, Caroline Wardlaw visited John and asked him to teach at the college. Reluctantly, and against his wife’s wishes, he agreed.
John became solemn and withdrawn, appearing to be under the control of his aunts. During a trip with Caroline, he fell from a train near Roanoke. Conflicting rumors suggested he had been pushed or had jumped. A few weeks later, he became stuck in a cistern while taking measurements for the school’s water supply. He was rescued, but again people questioned whether it was his own doing.
Then one morning, John was found on the floor of his room with his nightclothes on fire, covered in lamp oil. He died three hours later from his injuries. The sisters suggested it was an accident. John’s wife Anna and the insurance company suspected foul play, but police did not investigate. The sisters received an insurance payout of $12,000.
Caroline then returned to Linville and insisted that John’s brother Fletcher accompany her to sort out family property. He reluctantly agreed but strangely ceased communication with his wife. The couple later divorced.
While in Christiansburg, Fletcher spent time with his cousin Ocey. They were well acquainted, and eventually they married. A year later, Ocey gave birth to a daughter, but the baby was taken away from her. A few days later, her mother informed her the baby had tragically died.
By 1908, the college was suffering from the sisters’ bizarre behavior and Caroline’s mismanagement. With falling reputation and pupil numbers, the sisters left, taking Fletcher and Ocey with them to New York.
Ocey was pregnant again and went to live with her mother and aunt Virginia in Brooklyn. Still grieving the loss of her daughter, she was not comforted by her husband, who moved to Canada on the premise of finding a better position. Her relationship with her mother and aunts was poor, and her spirit sank further when she was told that Fletcher had died in Canada.
Caroline called for a doctor, Dr. William Pettit. He found a sickly, pregnant woman suffering from depression, weakness, and malnutrition. Ocey seemed afraid of her mother and her aunt. On each visit, Dr. Pettit discovered that his instructions for Ocey’s care were not being followed, and her condition did not improve.
The family moved to a new residence in New Jersey. Dr. Pettit returned and insisted Ocey receive proper care, but Caroline disagreed with his diagnosis and dismissed him. She also failed to pay him.
Ocey gave birth to a boy, named David. The sisters took the baby away, placed him in a hospital, and later moved him to an orphanage. They contacted another doctor, who also diagnosed malnutrition, but he too was dismissed.
This second doctor was so concerned that he tried to bring food to Ocey by climbing through an open upstairs window. Her mother and aunts told him to stop. He contacted a lawyer, who advised him to cease his involvement, as nothing could be done if the family did not want him visiting.
Ocey’s condition worsened. She became depressed and weaker. The sisters called Dr. Pettit again. He found her in a pitiful state, dosed with large amounts of morphine. She was no longer pregnant)Skip Ocey managed to tell him her baby had been taken to the hospital by her mother.
Virginia told Dr. Pettit to make Ocey aware she was dying and should make a will. She offered to make him the beneficiary with $1,000, but he declined. Instead, he instructed that a nurse be brought in to care for Ocey. The nurse arrived but was dismissed by Caroline that same day.
In September 1909, Caroline contacted a lawyer named Julius Carrabba and asked him to assist her daughter in making a will. When he arrived, he saw a very thin and low-spirited young lady lying in bed, with her mother and aunts dressed in black, praying over her.
After the prayers, Virginia asked Ocey if she wanted to make a new will. She agreed. But the lawyer was more concerned about her health. He advised the sisters to give her food and fetch a doctor. They replied they had not enough money for either. The lawyer offered to pay for food and treatment, but the sisters declined.
When alone with Ocey, she told him she already had a will and handed it to him. She had left everything to her grandmother.
Ocey grew weaker every day. Her life had gone from one tragedy to another. She spent her days in bed, barely eating, drifting in and out of consciousness, given unnecessary doses of morphine by her mother.
Caroline, Virginia, and Ocey took up residence at 89 East 14th Street in East Orange, New Jersey. The house had no heat or gas for cooking and very little furniture.
On November 29, 1909, Dr. Horace Simmons was called to the property. He was greeted by Virginia, dressed in black, and taken to the bathroom. There he saw a fragile, very thin young woman lying dead in the bathtub. She had apparently drowned.
On the floor was a pile of neatly folded clothes with a note pinned on top. It read: "Last year my little daughter died. Other near and dear ones have gone before. I have been prostrating with illness for a long time. When you read this I will no longer be here. Do not grieve over me. Rejoice with me that death brings a blessed relief from pain and suffering greater than I can bear." The note was signed "Ocey W. Snead."
Dr. Simmons was concerned by Virginia’s casual answers and contacted the police.
Sergeant William O’Neill went to the house. He was greeted by a woman dressed in black and covered by a veil. She questioned his business and reluctantly took him to the bathroom. He inspected the scene and then the rest of the house, noticing the lack of furniture and barely any food.
Sergeant O’Neill questioned Virginia. She told him of Ocey’s tragic life, losing two children and a husband, which she said had sent her into depression. When asked when Ocey had died, Virginia said earlier that day. But Dr. Simmons had already told police she had been dead for at least 24 hours.
Virginia then said she may have died the day before. She admitted she had not left the property during that time but said she had no reason to go upstairs, even though it was the only bathroom in the house.
Sergeant O’Neill took Virginia to the station for further questioning. Officers searched the house and found many insurance policies taken out on Ocey. The police suspected there was more to the case.
They traced Dr. Pettit, who outlined his concerns about the sisters’ treatment of Ocey. They also traced Mary Sneed,Skip who was caring for her elderly mother.
The autopsy showed that Ocey had suffered from severe malnutrition at the time of death. Handwriting experts determined that the note left on her clothes had been written with one pen and signed with another.
Police located Caroline, who was staying in a hotel under the name Mrs. Lightfoot. She had been working at a school but was being let go due to apparent mental incapacitation. In her room, police found more insurance policies and nearly a hundred notes very similar to the one found with Ocey. There were also letters from insurance companies informing Caroline that policies would cease unless premiums were paid.
The three sisters were charged with murder.
The press was fascinated by Ocey’s strange and tragic life. They dubbed the case "the bathtub mystery." Journalists discovered that Fletcher Wardlaw Snead,Skip Ocey’s husband, was in fact alive and well, living in Ontario, Canada, and working in a hotel. Police interviewed him but concluded he had no connection to Ocey’s death.
Journalists also reported that the lease on the property where Ocey died expired on the day of her death, and that three additional life insurance policies had been taken out the day before.
While in prison awaiting trial, Virginia refused to eat, just as her niece had done. She grew weaker and more fragile. On August 12, 1910, she died in her cell. Her body was sent to Christiansburg, Virginia, for burial at the Sunset Cemetery.
In January 1911, Caroline Wardlaw Martin agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. She was sentenced to seven years in the state prison in Trenton, New Jersey. She had expected a short jail term and shouted at the judge, "I am innocent! I never injured my daughter or anyone else living or dead."
A year into her sentence, she was declared mentally unstable. On May 18, 1912, she was transferred to the Trenton Asylum, where she died on June 20, 1913.
Caroline’s plea bargain meant that her sister Mary Sneed,Skip Ocey’s aunt and mother-in-law,Skip was cleared of all charges on a technicality. She moved to Colorado.
The family’s strange story did not end there. In 1930, an employee at the First National Bank of Murfreesboro opened a lock box containing three loose diamonds, two diamond-studded gold brooches, a small black pouch, and a one-fingered black mitten with a tag reading "Virginia Wardlaw."
Mary Wardlaw Sneed came out of seclusion to claim the valuables. She said the jewels had been stolen by a student she refused to identify, claiming the person deposited them in a lock box to avoid discovery. The press dismissed this explanation, speculating that Virginia had placed the items in the bank to keep them from Caroline. The items were eventually sold, with proceeds going to the sisters’ creditors.
Mary told reporters that Virginia was "an angel on earth" but that Caroline had been insane for years and should have been institutionalized. She said Virginia thought she could care for Caroline, as they were a proud and distinguished family wanting to keep misfortunes quiet. Mary did not consider Ocey’s drowning a murder, noting she had been away at the time and that the only people who knew exactly what happened were now dead.
Mary Sneed died in 1937. Fletcher,Skip Ocey’s husband,Skip left Canada and went to live in Los Angeles. He died on January 12, 1955, at the age of 79.