The Slow Death of Ocey Snead
Starved, overdosed, and drowned by her mother and aunts, Ocey Snead became the center of a scandalous murder in turn of the century New Jersey
At 4:30 PM, November 29, 1909, the police station in East Orange, New Jersey, received a telephone call. The woman on the line asked for a coroner. The officer explained there wasn’t one and advised her to contact a local doctor. A half-hour later, the woman telephoned Dr. Herbert M Simmons, deputy county physician, and asked him to come to her house at 89 West 14th Street. The woman explained that a girl had killed herself in the bathtub.
Upon arrival, Dr. Simmons thought the police erroneously sent to a vacant home. The paint on the house was chipped, the lawn grown over, and the windows had no curtains. He knocked on the door, thinking no one would answer. However, the old, heavy door creaked open to reveal a specter of a woman draped from head to toe in black mourning garb. “Coroner?” she spoke in gruff tones, “This way…”
She turned before a chilly gust of Autumn air extinguished her candle and ascended the stairs, the bewildered doctor at her heels. He noticed the coldness of the place; there was no heat source. The home also lacked furniture or blankets aside from a few old chairs, a single cot, and…
