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

Preface

xiii ALMOST HALF A CENTURY AFTER the Boyce-Sneed feud erupted in bloodshed in 1912, one Texas historian, Lewis Nordyke, decided to write a book about it. But he had to abandon the idea: nobody would talk to him. Another chronicler of Texas feuds, C. L. Sonnichsen, commenting on the reticence of “mindyour -own-business” Westerners—especially Texans—to discuss local feuds, wrote in 1951 that it was “too soon to talk about the Boyce-Sneed affair.” It wasn’t until the taboo of silence was finally breached in 1985 that anyone dared speak its name. The Amarillo High School graduating class of 1935 held its fiftieth class reunion that year, and one graduate, Lillian Blanche Brent, a Sneed family descendant, approached a classmate, Albert Boyce, a Boyce family descendant, extended her hand and said: “Albert, this thing has been going on a long time and neither one of us had a thing to do with it. I think it’s time it ended.”1 They shook on it. Still, the story of the Boyce-Sneed feud would simmer beneath the surface for yet another fourteen years before any public mention of the tragedy appeared. Clara Sneed, great-niece of John Beal Sneed, finally persuaded descendants on both sides to open up family archives and share their stories, photographs, and documents, including letters written almost a century earlier by all three of the principals of this star-crossed love triangle as well as by others caught up in the unfolding tragedy. With this treasure trove of feud history, Ms. Sneed was able to cobble together an insightful article describing this classic saga of passion, violence, and revenge; of retribution but never redemption.2 From my research of court records and from the lengthy newspaper reports filed daily during the sensational murder trials— reports that quoted much of the testimony of witnesses as well as a detailed description of the trial lawyers and their tactics and P R E F A C E xiv Preface strategies—I had already shaped a fascinating tale. Yet, as a result of Clara Sneed’s revelations, I acquired a greater understanding of the players in this drama. This, in turn, helped me to flesh out the principals—for which I am much indebted to Ms. Sneed. When my tale was finally told, no screenwriter could have concocted a more dramatic plot or enlisted such an all-star cast of larger-than-life characters to propel it. What more could a director have asked for: a torrid sex scandal at the core of a love triangle featuring Lena Snyder Sneed, the high-spirited, headstrong wife; Al Boyce, Jr., Lena’s reckless, romantic lover; and John Beal Sneed, Lena’s arrogant, grim, and vindictive husband who responded to Lena’s plea for a divorce by having her locked up in an insane asylum . The chase was on after Al rescued Lena from the asylum and the lovers fled to parts unknown—Canada, as it turned out when John Beal Sneed and his pack of hired bloodhounds eventually ran them to ground. And that’s when the killings began. Yet there was even more stuff to add tang to this tale. This was not some squalid, sordid, low-life, back-street affair; the principals in this drama were the descendents of three prominent and close-knit families—the Snyders, the Sneeds, and the Boyces, all of whom had bonded in antebellum times on the Texas frontier. No one who knew the vengeful John Beal Sneed doubted for a moment that he would go after his wife’s lover with murderous intent. But that was not enough blood to satisfy the enraged husband ’s blood lust. In an unimaginable twist to this tale, for good measure Sneed assassinated Al’s aged and unarmed father, Colonel Albert Boyce, a wealthy Amarillo banker who had been the general manager of the huge XIT Ranch in the Panhandle during the late nineteenth century. Headlines splashed on the front pages of newspapers across the nation and Canada predicted that the upcoming murder trial of John Beal Sneed for killing Colonel Boyce would be the “greatest legal battle ever fought in Texas Courts.”3 It would prove to be an apt description of the drama that was played out in a Fort Worth courtroom—no hyperbole, no exaggeration, no headline-grabbing Preface xv sensationalism in that forecast. The trial judge, noting that...