I have a writing project underway and today's story is more
of an aside to that work.
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| This tree is sort of spooky but not really. |
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It has piqued my interest enough so that I am reading Three
Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy (1968)
by Norman Zierold, which was an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime (1969).
The story concludes with one of the most
notorious criminals in 1910 being interred in an unmarked grave at Sunset
Cemetery in Christiansburg, Virginia.
While I'm not supposed to side with a killer, I have to admit that the wardrobe of the sisters is what originally interested me.
Known as the "Black Sisters," the women were seen as a
peculiar family of sisters who wore all black clothing and black veils to hide
their faces. As someone who wears black, I don't find this peculiar. There were other strange aspects to the sisters. They had odd eating habits where they wouldn’t touch any food until it was a day
old. As someone who likes food, I find this very odd.
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Newspaper: The Standard Union, August 12, 1910.
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In 1909, a bathtub drowning in New Jersey became one of the
most bizarre criminal cases in American history when police discovered the
emaciated and abused body of Ocey Snead. The young woman was face down in the
bathtub. Her death was said to be an apparent suicide by drowning. There was
even a suicide note left behind.
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| Ocey’s alleged suicide note, 1909, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons |
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| Newspaper: The Knoxville Journal, April 21, 1946. |
As the truth slowly came out, and hundreds of
suicide notes written in the same handwriting were discovered, it became clear
that Ocey’s mother and aunts, "The Black Sisters" were involved in the crime.
One of these sisters, Virginia Wardlaw ran the Montgomery
Female Academy in Christiansburg. She was said to possess "hypnotic
control" over young girls. Investigators believed that the murder was
planned and intentional since Wardlaw, at the time she inquired about renting
the house, asked specific details about the size of the bath tub.
Wardlaw also
insisted that once she took possession of the house, she did not want the
owners visiting the space. She also wished to move all of her belongings at
night.
Wardlaw and her sisters, Caroline and Mary, were accused of
murdering family members for insurance money.
In order not to be convicted, Virginia Wardlaw starved
herself to death before the judge in the case could rule against her.
Wardlaw's
body was sent back to Christiansburg, Virginia to be buried in a private family
funeral.
Today the grave is not marked, or perhaps over the years it was damaged. I've seen various stories about that and about the place being haunted. Virginia Wardlaw's Find A Grave profile includes some spooky stories in the biography, which aren't included in this write up as I could not find a source. Trust me, I really wanted to
find an old newspaper article about the sisters going to the cemetery "making gestures skyward
and murmuring incantations" but I did not find a thing in the papers.
