The First Murderer of the 20th Century

By Evan J. Albright

The murder trial of Edwin Ray Snow was fixing to be the trial of the century. True, the century would be only a few hours old when Snow faced charges of first-degree murder on Jan. 1, 1900. However, if convicted, 17-year-old Snow would become the first man in Massachusetts to die in the electric chair.

Snow stood accused of the cold-blooded murder of a shirtsleeve relative, Jimmy Whittemore. The case is the subject of a book by Yarmouth Port author Theresa Barbo, "Murder Hill: A True Story of 19th Century Crime and Punishment on Cape Cod." The murder and the trial one century ago was one of the most sensational in Cape Cod's long history of crime and scandal.

On Sept. 12, 1899, Snow accompanied Whittemore on the latter's delivery route for a Dennis bakery. The two young men made an odd pair. The 19-year-old Whittemore was mature beyond his years. When his father died a couple years before, he automatically assumed responsibility for putting food on the table for his widowed mother and siblings. Eddie Snow, by comparison, was a na'er-do-well. He had been left as a baby on a doorstop in Holyoke and been adopted by the Snow family when he was five. He spent his teenage years in trouble. A conviction for breaking and entering earned him almost a year in the Concord reformatory, where he spent his time reading literature. Snow was allergic to hard work, and in early September had quit a job in Taunton and returned to the Cape.

The two young men were last seen together atop Whittemore's bread delivery truck at around 5:30 p.m. just before they turned onto a dirt path that cut through the woods between Yarmouth and South Yarmouth.

Whittemore did not return home that night. The next morning, a group of men who were cutting through the Yarmouth woods on their way to work found the young man's body along the side of the dirt road. Whittemore had been shot twice and run over by a wagon.

The police force on Cape Cod was small and relatively unsophisticated, but it didn't take a lot of detective work before there was a suspect. Before the day was out, Cape Cod's state police detective arrested Edwin Ray Snow in Middleboro.

In the age of yellow journalism, the trial of Eddie Ray Snow would be explosive. Reporters from all over New England would be there. The trial opened shortly after noon on Monday, New Year's Day 1900. Snow's defense had spent the morning attempting to negotiate a plea of murder in the second degree with the Attorney General, who was down from Boston to prosecute the case. When court opened that day, it was well known that the negotiations had broken down and that the charge of first-degree murder, with its automatic sentence of death in the electric chair, would be what the prosecution would attempt to prove.

Everyone expected that the defense would seek a one-week delay. To the surprise of almost everyone, Attorney General Knowlton began his opening remarks in the case by announcing to the judge that Snow had changed his plea. When ordered, Snow stood before the court. His baby face betrayed no emotion, and he casually stood with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he were lounging on a street corner. After the clerk read the indictment, Snow was asked if he wished to retract his plea of not guilty. "I do," he said in a loud, clear voice. "I desire to plead guilty to murder in the first degree."

Judge John Aiken then ordered that Snow be sent to the Charlestown State Prison and on March 18 be killed in the electric chair. The entire trial took less than a half hour.

Edwin Ray Snow became the first man in the United States to be sentenced to death in the 20th century. He was in line to become the first man in Massachusetts to be executed with electricity.

The electric chair had been ready for a year. During that period there were several convictions of murder in the first degree, but none for crimes committed after the state Legislature had approved use of the device. The last man executed in the state had been more than two years earlier.

Massachusetts was no pioneer in the use of electricity to enforce the death penalty. New York had been electrocuting murderers for almost a decade and had even executed its first woman only a few months earlier. Massachusetts's penal authorities liked New York's electric chair so much it built one exactly like it.

Massachusetts housed its electric chair in the state prison in Charlestown. A special wing was built, 80 feet long, 30 feet wide and 20 feet high. The walls were 28 inches thick, and the entire building was windowless except for several narrow slits in the ceiling that allowed limited sunlight and ventilation. It contained three large cells - a "Murderer's Row" -- and the death chamber.

Snow arrived at the Charlestown State Prison on Jan. 15. He was there less than a week before he received official word that Governor Murray Crane had commuted his sentence to life in prison. The announcement was no surprise to Snow; it had been part of the deal from the beginning. Snow only agreed to plead guilty to murder in the first degree if there was no chance he would face the automatic penalty of death by electrocution.

Apparently the deal with Snow was one of Crane's first official actions. Crane had been elected but had not been inaugurated when Snow agreed to the plea bargain on Jan. 1.

Although Snow was the first man sentenced to the electric chair, he would not be its first victim in the commonwealth. That honor fell to Luigi Storti, an Italian immigrant in Boston who was convicted of murdering a man who won the hand of a woman in the old country that Storti had been courting. Storti was executed on Dec. 17, 1901. Snow, on the other hand, served 32 years. He was pardoned in 1932 and freed in April. That August, Sylvester Fernandes of Mashpee, a man who had murdered a relative to steal money to buy his wife Christmas presents, became the first and only man from Cape Cod to die in the electric chair.

Murder Hill: A True Story of 19th Century Crime and Punishment on Cape Cod by Theresa Barbo is available from Covered Bridge Press. Ask your local bookstore for a copy .

© 2002 Mystery Lane Press

rev. 3/16/02