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Morbid

The Black Sisters and the Murder of Ocey Snead

Morbid

Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart

Comedy, Paranormal, True Crime, Dark History

4.4100.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2023

⏱️ 99 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When East Orange, New Jersey police were called to the home of Virginia Wardlaw in late November 1909, they knew only that there had been an accident involving Virginia’s niece, Ocey Snead. Once they’d arrived, however, officers discovered Ocey’s body in an upstairs bathtub, dead from what appeared to be suicide by drowning. After just a few weeks of investigation, it became clear that Ocey’s death was no accident. Suspicion quickly fell on Virginia and her two sisters, who were soon charged with Ocey’s murder, which investigators believed was committed in order to collect on a large insurance policy. The murder of Ocey Snead was an undeniable tragedy, but her death was only the beginning of what would become one of the early twentieth century’s most captivating crime stories. As detectives and the press dug deeper into the background of the three women accused of starving and drowning their niece, a bizarre story emerged that sounded as though it had been pulled directly from the pages of a classic southern gothic horror novel. And like any good gothic horror story, the trial of Virginia Wardlaw and her sisters was full of unbelievable twists and culminated in a shocking conclusion. Thank you to the Wondrous Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for Research! References New York Times. 1910. "Alienists declare Mrs. Martin insane." New York Times, September 21: 6. —. 1909. "Bathtub mystery no murder, she says." New York Times, December 2: 2. —. 1909. "Bathtub principals are twice indicted ." New York Times, December 23: 4. —. 1910. "Miss Wardlaw dies; starved herself." New York Times, August 12: 1. —. 1911. "Mrs. Martin pleads to manslaughter ." New York Times, January 10: 2. —. 1910. "Mrs. Martin's cries halt lunacy trial." New York Times, November 8: 7. —. 1909. "Mrs. Snead's family full of fatalities." New York Times, December 9: 20. —. 1910. "Ocey Snead was drugged ." New York Times, January 21: 1. —. 1910. "Say Miss Wardlaw is dying." New York Times, August 11: 4. —. 1909. "The Snead msytery." New York Times, December 18: 12. Rife, Luanne. 2016. "The Black Sisters." Roanoke Times, December 1: 116. Roanoke Times. 1909. "Christiansburg woman is held." Roanoke Times, December 3: 1. West, Mike. 2009. "Fearless Confederate died mysteriously in NYC." Murfreesboro Post, February 15: 8. —. 2009. "'Sisters in Black' sour Ocey's domestic bliss." Murfreesboro Post, February 22: 8. Zierold, Norman. 1968. Three Sisters in Black. New York, NY: Little, Brown.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to a morbid network podcast.

0:07.0

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

0:09.0

And I'm Elena. And this is morbid. This is more bad and oh boy is it a doozy that I have for you today. You always

0:32.2

get this certain look in your eyes when you're about to really fuck me up.

0:36.0

This story just, mmm, I have...

0:40.0

Even Mikey is making a face, he's like, oh, it's, I mean, Dave, when we were talking about it, was like, why is this not its own like movie series? Like, it's a wild tale oh no there's so much to it and like a lot of

0:57.2

mystery but it's just really really intense so okay you know I think you need to buckle up for it but

1:05.6

hold on to your but hold on to those but but before we get into it I just want to

1:11.0

say we got to go on the stage with Podmeats

1:15.4

worlds it was the coolest thing I think we've ever gotten to do we got to hang

1:21.0

out with Tapananga, Eric, and Sean from Boy Meets Worlds.

1:26.8

Harley.

1:27.8

And fucking Harley Kiner.

1:30.2

And they are just the nicest people.

1:32.8

I'm telling you, you know that whole thing, we say it all the time where like,

1:36.1

oh, you always get scared, you're like, don't meet your heroes, don't do it, because they can disappoint you.

1:40.5

And like, meet your heroes.

1:42.2

I was, I'm just always scared because I'm like I just

1:45.3

really hope this doesn't like you know just like blow up in our face I'm telling you guys

1:49.2

it's Daniel official Will Fride Ryder Strong, and Danny McNulty as Harley-Kiner.

1:56.6

And I'm telling you, they were the sweetest people.

1:59.3

Truly.

...

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