Vengeance Is Mine: The Scandalous Love Triangle That Triggered the Boyce-Sneed Feud

The Gathering Storm: The Killings Begin

44 4 C H A P T E R The Gathering Storm The Killings Begin WHILE THE WINNIPEG PRESS was whetting the voyeuristic appetite of its readers with blow-by-blow accounts of John Beal Sneed’s windmill-tilting tactics with the Canadian immigration officials, the Fort Worth press carried an entirely different kind of story— different, but one that was equally fascinating to its subscribers. Colonel Boyce and his wife had come to Fort Worth to testify before the grand jury on behalf of Al. While in town they were interviewed by a Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter. The story he filed was not nearly as humorous as the Winnipeg musings, but it certainly was a lot more inflammatory. Colonel Boyce was quoted as saying this: “Nobody will believe that my son abducted Lena Sneed . . . She is as sane as anybody . . . I know that they sent Mrs. Sneed to the sanitarium to get her away from my son . . . She planned the whole thing, and I am going to see that my son’s name is cleared of this false charge.”1 But the quote attributed to Al’s mother topped that. Mrs. Annie Boyce, an intelligent and articulate woman, had this to say: Albert was hypnotized by that woman. She hypnotized her husband , too, or he wouldn’t have offered a big reward for her. She has ruined her husband and my son, and has broken my heart . . . Lena Sneed came to see me many times during the last year . . . She told me she loved my son and that she wanted to The Gathering Storm 45 be my daughter. She told me that she had asked her husband to let her get a divorce and that she would get a divorce somehow, and marry Albert. I told her it would be wrong . . . I argued with her and did everything I could, and I was so relieved when I heard they had sent her away . . . I told her what was her trouble, too much money, too much time to waste, and reading too many cheap novels. She was sane as anybody and planned the whole business herself. I am sorry for her in spite of the ruin she has brought upon us. We would rather have followed Albert to his grave than have him do what he has done—he was hypnotized.2 To twenty-first-century Americans, Annie Boyce’s assertion that when the love affair between Al and Lena became public it caused a family scandal of such proportions that it had “ruined” both Al and Beal Sneed and that she and Colonel Boyce would rather have “followed Albert to his grave than have him do what he has done” seems hyperbolic at best. Hyperbolic to modern ears, yes, but not to 1912 Texans. Annie Boyce’s comment spoke volumes about the prevailing cultural climate of that time and place. In another statement to the press, Annie Boyce vowed that she and Colonel Boyce would “contest every step of the ground” in fighting any criminal prosecution of their son. She said: “We know our son did wrong, but we know that the charges against him are false, and we will not sit by and see him sent to the penitentiary.”3 <= Al’s parents voiced their extreme frustrations, their anxieties, and their anguish at becoming unwillingly embroiled in this catastrophic family scandal as well as their understandable concern for their son. It was also understandable for them to place most, if not all, of the blame on Lena. No doubt it was therapeutic for them to vent these pent-up emotions, and from their perspective, it was simply a matter of stating undisputable facts. However, when the Snyder and Sneed families read the Boyce interviews, they were infuriated. From their perspective the Boyce remarks were more than intemperate; they were outrageous. To the already enraged John Beal Sneed, of course, 46 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E the Boyce remarks were not only inflammatory but also amounted to inexcusable meddling in his business—still more people interfering with his plan. However unintended, the Boyce interview escalated the war between the families and drove a wedge between the two factions that could never be bridged. In retrospect, it is clear that the Star-Telegram interview of Colonel Boyce and his wife was a turning point in the unfolding tragedy. To add yet more fuel to Beal’s fire, when he returned from Canada he had to quell a rebellion from within his own ranks. At Minneapolis, Beal had turned Lena over to Henry Bowman and Lena’s father, Tom Snyder, with orders to take Lena back to the Arlington Heights asylum. Beal then returned to Canada to renew his attack on Al. But Tom Snyder, instead of taking his daughter back to Fort Worth and recommitting her, decided to take her to the home of Lena’s sister, Susan Snyder Pace, wife of attorney John Pace in Clayton, New Mexico. (Tom Snyder and his wife were then living with the Paces. At that time Henry Bowman and Lena’s other sister, Eula Snyder Bowman, were keeping Lena’s daughters in their home in Plano, Texas.) When Beal learned of Tom Snyder’s insubordination, he wired Snyder to meet him. John Beal Sneed was in no mood to brook any disobedience. Accordingly, on January 11, 1912, Beal met with Snyder and promptly squelched that insurrection. Snyder quickly relented and agreed that his daughter ought to be locked up in the Arlington Heights asylum once again. Lena was not invited to participate in, or even attend, that executive session. However, the next day when she learned of her fate, Lena managed to slip away and wire this plea to Henry Boyce: “For God’s sake protect me. Beal and Henry Bowman are here to put me in an asylum by force.”4 The next day that is exactly what Beal and Bowman did. On the train ride from Amarillo to the Fort Worth asylum, Beal yanked the “Forever Al” ring off Lena’s finger and flung it out the window.5 However, this time Lena was not alone and helpless. This time Lena was receiving support, both financial and influential, from the Boyce family. Al had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to keep track of Lena and see where Beal would next imprison or hide The Gathering Storm 47 her, thus resulting in a most interesting matchup: the Boyce-hired Pinkerton Agency versus the Sneed-hired Burns Agency. Also, while in Canada, Lena granted the Boyce family power of attorney to represent her interests, including the authority to employ lawyers on her behalf. Therefore, if Beal once again had Lena locked up in an insane asylum, the Boyce family could hire an attorney to file a habeas corpus proceeding and thus challenge the legality of her commitment on grounds that she was not insane. If the court found her sane, then, of course, the asylum would be ordered to discharge her. The same stone would also kill two other birds: first, having been declared sane, she would then be competent to testify in any court proceeding; and second, if she were sane, and if she would testify that she voluntarily consented to the escape with Al and to all sexual relations she had with him and that she voluntarily gave him possession of her jewelry, then it would effectively defeat the Texas state indictments alleging rape, abduction, and kidnapping as well as the Canadian charge of grand larceny in connection with the alleged theft of Lena’s jewelry. To that end Colonel Boyce wished to reassure Lena of his support and thus ensure that Lena would testify favorably if and when any criminal cases against Al were brought to trial. Therefore he wrote a letter to Lena that was destined to become a vital, and much debated, piece of evidence in the subsequent murder trials. It would become known as the famous “stand hitched” letter. He wrote the letter to John Pace, whom the Boyce family mistakenly believed to be an ally. In the letter Colonel Boyce wrote: I hereby authorize you to say to Lena that I am with her. Since conditions have changed wonderfully since I last saw her that she now has my deepest sympathy, and she can count on me standing hitched to the end, provided she stands hitched.6 Lena and the Boyce family may have correctly assumed that John Pace and his wife Susan, Lena’s sister, were on their side—at least initially. But, if so, that all changed when John Beal Sneed had a heart-to-heart chat with John Pace. Lena later wrote to Al that Beal had threatened John Pace; told him that if he supported Lena, he 48 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E would “blow his ___________ head off.”7 Somehow, in view of later developments, that account had a ring of truth to it. In any event, the “stand hitched” letter was soon in the hands of Beal Sneed. By this time he knew that Lena had given power of attorney to the Boyce family, and John Pace had warned him of the likelihood that the Boyce faction, on Lena’s behalf, would file a habeas corpus action if he recommitted Lena. Ignoring this information , headstrong Beal Sneed was determined to have his way, and he proceeded to have her incarcerated anyway. In response, the Boyce family hired a Texas Panhandle law firm from Dalhart, Texas, which in turn employed Fort Worth counsel, state senator O. S. Lattimore, to represent Lena and contest her commitment. The Boyce family’s Dalhart lawyer, Reese Tatum, in referring the case to Lattimore, wrote: “While there is no question that Mrs. Sneed is absolutely sane, and in fact a very smart woman, still they will perhaps use every means they can to have her adjudicated insane in order to make it hard on Boyce.” Al’s brother Henry added that he did not want “to see Lena shot full of dope and taken before a county judge and declared insane, and Al railroaded to the pen.”8 On the same day that Beal once again had Lena committed against her will, Colonel Boyce was also in Fort Worth where he succeeded in persuading the head Tarrant County prosecutor, John Baskins, to dismiss all three state indictments against Al on grounds of “insufficient evidence.” Once again somebody else had frustrated Beal’s plan. But the ever-resourceful John Beal Sneed had another ace up his sleeve and had done some legal maneuvering of his own. Perhaps anticipating that his attempt to convict Al Boyce on the state indictments returned by the Fort Worth grand jury would fail, he hired another lawyer. And not just a private lawyer either. Beal hired a federal prosecutor to prosecute Al. His name was Will Atwell. Atwell, it just so happened, was then the U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, which included Fort Worth, Dallas, and all of North Texas! As it turned out, Beal Sneed and Atwell’s friendship went back a long way. Both Sneed and Atwell graduated The Gathering Storm 49 from Southwestern University at Georgetown, Texas, and Atwell was married to Lena’s cousin. Sneed hired Atwell to act as his private attorney in his battles against Al Boyce and the Boyce family, while at the same time encouraging Atwell, acting in his official capacity as a federal prosecutor , to obtain a federal indictment against Al Boyce. The federal criminal statute in question was the Mann Act, also known as the “White Slavery Act,” which prohibited the transportation of females across state lines “for immoral purposes.”9 The gist of the allegation asserted that Al had transported Lena, a married woman, across a state line for the immoral purpose of having an adulterous relationship with her. From Beal’s standpoint this was the ideal prosecutorial weapon, since the sanity or insanity as well as the consent or non-consent of the so-called victim were both immaterial. Beal now had on his payroll a prosecutor whom he could control. Will Atwell, brazenly, made no bones about his dual role. It was a blatant conflict of interest, even by 1912 standards. By today’s standards, Atwell’s egregiously unprofessional conduct would likely have earned him disbarment. <= January 13, 1912, was the pivotal day in the unfolding tragic drama— the day that Beal recommitted Lena only to learn that the Boyce family would probably hire an attorney to challenge the commitment, the day that Beal learned about Colonel Boyce’s “stand hitched” letter, and—even more galling—the day he learned that Colonel Boyce had talked the Tarrant County prosecutor into dismissing the state indictments against Al Boyce, Jr. All the while, Al Boyce was free and still beyond his reach in Canada. John Beal Sneed was furious . The very idea that anyone would have the audacity to challenge his righteous crusade! Another incident undoubtedly fueled Beal’s rage, and it would soon have great legal significance during a murder trial. Beal was informed that Colonel Boyce’s old nemesis, W. H. Fuqua, then president of the First National Bank of Amarillo, had heard Colonel 50 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E Boyce make a most crude and insulting remark about Lena. Fuqua said that he had overheard an all-male conversation in an Amarillo drugstore during which someone had wondered aloud what it was about Lena that made one man willing to spend $20,000 to steal her and another man spend $20,000 to get her back. Boyce, being present, and being accustomed to blunt man-talk, voiced a very crude speculation on the matter. While today such remarks would, no doubt, be deemed crude, sexist, and offensive, in 1912 Texas, if the same were uttered to describe a man’s wife, mother, sister, or daughter, it was an open invitation to violent redress. That same day, Henry Boyce read the inflammatory interview his father had given the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and wired this wise advice to Colonel Boyce: “Don’t talk so much.”10 Wise advice—but too late given. That was the state of affairs on the fatal evening of January 13, 1912, when the paths of Beal Sneed and Colonel Boyce crossed in the Metropolitan Hotel in Fort Worth, the city’s finest establishment . Colonel Boyce was sitting in the lobby talking to a friend, E. C. Throckmorton, a Fort Worth real estate dealer and the son of former Texas Governor J. W. Throckmorton, while waiting to catch the train back to Amarillo and give Annie Boyce the good news that the Fort Worth indictments against their son had been dropped. At that time Beal Sneed, Henry Bowman, and Will Atwell entered the lobby. Colonel Boyce noticed them and hailed Will Atwell, who came over to where he and Throckmorton were seated. He requested that Atwell allow him to present witnesses on behalf of Al Boyce when the federal grand jury considered the white slavery charge. Atwell would later testify that in an effort to head off a white slavery indictment , Colonel Boyce boasted that he could prove in half an hour “what kind of woman Mrs. Sneed was.”11 Atwell, Bowman, and Sneed had intended to take their evening meal at the Metropolitan Hotel, but after encountering Colonel Boyce in the lobby they changed their plans and decided to eat at Joseph’s Café nearby. Bowman and Sneed then left the hotel lobby while Atwell was talking with the Colonel. After Atwell’s brief conversation with Colonel Boyce he departed the Metropolitan Hotel lobby and joined Sneed and Bowman at the café. During their The Gathering Storm 51 evening meal, the trio undoubtedly rehashed Colonel Boyce’s “stand hitched” letter to Lena, his crude remarks about her, and his boast about proving in half an hour “what kind of woman” she was—all that on the heels of the Colonel’s success earlier that day in persuading the Tarrant County prosecutor to drop the state indictments against Al. Beal was also now informed by his lawyer—U.S. Attorney Atwell—that Colonel Boyce intended to oppose Beal and Atwell’s attempt to indict Al in the federal courts. Undoubtedly they also discussed the probability—almost the certainty—that the Boyce family would exercise the power of attorney Lena had granted them to file a lawsuit on her behalf challenging the legality of Lena’s confinement , and that if such a suit were filed, then Beal and the Allison family would have the burden of proving that Lena was insane. Beal Sneed was furious—not only at Al Boyce for running away with his wife and shaming him publicly, but also at Colonel Boyce and the rest of the Boyce clan for what he obviously considered was their unwarranted and outrageous interference in his personal affairs. After their evening meal, Sneed, Bowman, and Atwell left Joseph’s Café and walked back down the street past the Metropolitan Hotel. Colonel Boyce was still lounging in one of the comfortable lobby chairs chatting with his friend Throckmorton. Beal peeled off as they went past the Metropolitan and entered the lobby. (He would later claim that he entered the Metropolitan in order to go to the toilet although there was a toilet in the café he had just left. He would also claim that he thought Colonel Boyce had already departed en route to his home in Amarillo.) Ed Throckmorton would later testify that only about forty minutes had elapsed from the time Bowman, Atwell, and Sneed left the lobby after their initial meeting until Beal Sneed reappeared. According to Throckmorton, Colonel Boyce exclaimed, “Oh, my God, there’s Sneed now.”12 Then without warning, Beal Sneed drew his .32-caliber automatic pistol and opened fire on the unarmed old man. The first shot hit the Colonel while he was still seated. The Colonel leaped up, staggering, and attempted to flee. But John Beal Sneed kept firing. Five or six shots rang out sending other startled hotel guests in a panicky retreat, some diving for cover. Colonel 52 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E Boyce fell about six feet from his chair. Throckmorton would later testify that after the last shot, Beal Sneed snarled, “Now you’re done with. You’re out of it!” Throckmorton said he saw four bullet holes in Colonel Boyce’s body, some of which he thought entered through his back. Then Beal bolted for the door and fled.13 An ambulance was called, but Colonel Boyce died en route to the hospital. He was seventy years old. Forever. John Beal Sneed was thirty-three. And counting. S. M. Cherry, a salesman from Galveston, was in the lobby when Colonel Boyce was shot. He later testified that although he didn’t witness the shooting, when he heard three gunshots he turned around and saw Beal Sneed exit the lobby. Cherry said that Sneed then walked back into the lobby and gazed around for a moment before leaving again. Cherry followed closely behind as Sneed walked down the street to the corner of Eighth and Main streets, stood there for a moment, then turned west on Eighth Street. Cherry continued to follow him while looking for a policeman. At the corner of Eighth and Houston streets, Cherry found an officer and told him that Sneed had just shot a man. At that point Beal Sneed began to run, but the officer soon overtook him and made the arrest.14 JOHN BEAL SNEED KILLS COLONEL BOYCE. A Fort Worth Star-Telegram artist illustrates how Sneed entered the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel in downtown Fort Worth on January 13, 1912, and then fatally wounded the unarmed Colonel A. G. Boyce who was seated as depicted. Sneed then fled along the path indicated. Sketch from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 15, 1912. 53 Left: COLONEL ALBERT G. BOYCE, SR., general manager of the XIT Ranch, 1887–1905. Photograph courtesy of the XIT Museum, Dalhart, Texas. Below: FORT WORTH METROPOLITAN HOTEL. John Beal Sneed shot and killed the unarmed Colonel Albert Boyce in the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel on the evening of January 13, 1912. Photograph courtesy of the University of Texas at Arlington Library Special Collections. 54 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E After learning of John Beal Sneed’s execution of Colonel Boyce, the Manitoba Free Press dateline January 15, 1912, excoriated the hot-blooded Texas barbarians in one blanket condemnation: [The Texans having an] apparent disregard for human life, and a low estimate of the heinousness of the crime of murder, feuds with accompanying deaths, appeared to have been a common feature of the life of the country, and the shooting of a man as a result of a quarrel seemed to be but little more serious than the shooting of a dumb animal.15 Al was still in Canada when he heard that Beal had killed his father. His Canadian attorney, T. J. Murray, learned about it the night of the shooting. He wired this telegram to the Canadian immigration officials with a copy to Al. It read, “Associated Press dispatch states Sneed shot and killed Albert’s father tonight. Am assured report reliable. On no account allow Albert to return to Texas. This probably means opening feud. Answer. T. J. Murray.”16 Lawyer Murray was exactly on target when he anticipated that the killing of Colonel Boyce would likely trigger a bloodletting family feud. Immediately upon receipt of Murray’s telegram, Al wrote this letter to Lena: I will go to Winnipeg tomorrow . . . I may return at once to Texas. I don’t know. It will be my pleasure and duty to avenge him. Pa was the best of fathers and best and noblest of men and to think of his being killed in his old age by this kind of a brute is awful. I can’t write more . . . I love you with all the strength I possess and will to my death.17 Lena did not learn about the murder until three days later when she was taken from the sanitarium in compliance with Will Atwell’s subpoena to testify before the federal grand jury. Whatever her testimony was, the grand jury did not immediately return an indictment against Al, although, at the U.S. Attorney’s behest, the grand jury continued the investigation of Al Boyce, Jr., on the white slavery accusation. By this time, two armed and hostile groups formed in their respective Fort Worth hotels—the Sneed-Snyder camp in one, the The Gathering Storm 55 Boyce camp in the other—and that vortex of impending violence and drama was garnering international attention. Commenting on this gathering of bristling antagonists in Fort Worth, the Manitoba Free Press, perhaps exaggerating the situation somewhat, informed its readers that each camp was attracting a strong group of supporters of “rich and powerful west Texans. The two hotels resemble political conventions. Almost every minute, messages are brought in assuring support and promising financial aid. Hundreds of western cattlemen , capitalists, and bankers have taken sides.”18 Indeed, the storm it was a-gathering. ...