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“Was it daylight or dark?”
“Light,” she said.
“And how long after she called you did you go for help from the Mulhausers?”
“Right away.”
And that was all. She’d just been there to establish the existence of a child for the talesmen. Ruth ached for some contact with Lora, just the tiniest wave of hello, but not even a stray glance was exchanged as the nine-year-old was escorted out by the bailiff. She was not the only one in the courtroom crying when the door shut behind the girl and Samuel Miller interrupted the mood to say, “The defense calls Henry Judd Gray to testify in his own behalf.”
Because of his wariness, his earlier slavish devotion to Ruth, his general neglect of the goings-on now, and his melancholy slump in his chair at the defendant’s table, reporters had depicted Judd as “inert,” “a scared rabbit,” “a putty man.” Playwright Willard Mack sneered that he was “a man, I am sure, who couldn’t put up a croquet set without help.” And Peggy Hopkins Joyce snidely compared him to “a bunch of dough that somebody forgot to knead.” But when called to the stand, Judd went with confidence, a fast stride, and an officer’s bearing. Well-tailored as always, he wore a dark, pinstriped, double-breasted suit, a white silk shirt, and a finely chosen tie. His face was jailhouse pale; his undulant, nut-brown hair was freshly cut; he surprised the courtroom with his baritone voice. Justice Scudder would much later reminisce that while Mrs. Snyder struck him as “frivolous and coarse,” the ever-obliging Gray “gave off the appearance of a divinity-school student.” Even cynical journalists soon were judging him as a pious and repentant gentleman, “well-educated, well-bred, well-mannered.” And he was Ruth’s opposite in that his testimony conformed not just to each item of his confession but adhered so closely to the police department’s established facts that the district attorney hardly interrogated him.
Had it been possible to plead guilty, Judd would have done so and resolutely gone straight to the penitentiary, so there was no protection, censorship, or surprise in his recital, just minor clarifications, frequent forgetfulness, and an alcoholic’s wakened consciousness of how crazily intoxicated he’d generally been. Singer Nora Bayes would note with amazement after he testified, “There’s not that much liquor in the world!”
Within the afternoon Judd and his defense attorney had gotten to the murder, and Ruth held her face in her hands, crying, as Judd recited his account of that night, and he saw his mother crying, too, and then Judd was done for and fell apart, and Samuel Miller was forced to ask for a recess.
Even Willard Mack’s negative opinion was altered. Holding forth on the courthouse steps, he shouted, “I say to you that if ever human lips uttered the truth, this was the time.”
There was an announcement that the pathological details of Judd’s sexual liaisons with Ruth were expected to be so shocking and revealing that ladies would be barred from the courtroom. But in a joint conference with the attorneys, Justice Scudder interrogated the relevance of that line of questioning, and there seems to have been an agreement, because in cross-examination the next day, Dana Wallace focused solely on the murder. Demeaning the codefendant whenever he could, Wallace even requested that Judd get up and demonstrate exactly how he’d held the sash weight high over his head in both hands in order to gash in Albert’s skull. Afterward, Ruth’s attorney noted, “You had not the same emotions just now as you had yesterday.”
“No, sir,” Judd said. “I don’t think so.”
“Was that because you were preparing yesterday under direct examination to be emotional at just that time?”
“It was not, sir, no.”
“So the recital for your attorney brought tears to your eyes, but the actual enactment from your memory brought none, is that right?”
“I wouldn’t say that, no, sir.”
Wallace let that go and scoured his notes. “Will you tell us, so that we won’t have to rehearse it all, when was the first time you heard Mrs. Snyder propose getting rid of Mr. Snyder?”
“In January nineteen twenty-six.”
“And from that time on it was discussed very often, wasn’t it?”
“A number of times, yes, sir.”
“And in fact, to use your own expression, she kept hounding you with it, is that right?”
“That is true, sir.”
“And told you of the attempts on his life that she made?”
“She did, sir.”
“Although you have recited many attempts, as she told you, to destroy her husband, as a matter of fact Albert Snyder was alive up to the time when you first entered the room, wasn’t he?”
“He was alive then, yes, sir.”
“In other words, no harm came to him of a serious nature until you became an accessory, is that it?”
Wallace would continue along that line to illustrate that it was Judd, not Ruth, who governed the relationship and sought the death of his rival, and it was he who orchestrated the particulars of the murder plot. But Judd did not veer in his testimony. Character witnesses then spoke on Judd Gray’s behalf, including next-door neighbors and lingerie buyers—though no one from Benjamin & Johnes—and at five the court adjourned.
Sunday, May 8th, was Mother’s Day, and so there was the inevitable photograph of Lorraine signing a card for her Mommy, and as the ever-solemn Mrs. Josephine Brown cooked dinner the reporters wanted her feelings about the probable outcome of the trial. “I have no idea what the jury will do,” she said as she mashed potatoes. “Men are so strange.”
Some journalists who’d sentimentally watched Lorraine testify at the trial felt they needed to nudge and nag Ruth about the anguish she must have been feeling in not having her daughter around for the grand occasion of Mother’s Day. She said she’d eaten roasted chicken and spaghetti that she’d gotten from Roberto Minotti’s Italian restaurant, which was in the neighborhood. She wouldn’t divulge who bought it, and she otherwise gave them very little, just stayed on her cot and gently smiled when she saw her pet mouse scooting around, but she did finally stand at the jail bars to read aloud the telegram she’d be sending Mrs. Brown.
“‘Mother’s Day Greeting,’” she read. “‘I have many blessings and I want you to know how thankful I am for all that you have done for me. Love to you and kiss Lorraine for me. Ruth.’”
