All eyes on Texas for the 'Trial of the Century'

An expectant hush fell over the Fort Worth courtroom, as the defendant in the most sensational Texas murder trial in generations took the witness stand on Feb. 14, 1912.

The main characters in the tragic romantic triangle grew up together in the Central Texas community of Georgetown in the late nineteenth century. The fathers of John Beal Sneed, Albert Boyce Jr. and Lena Snyder had done right well for themselves in cattle and as successful businessmen provided worry-free childhoods for their respective offspring.

While students at Southwestern University, their hometown college, the two boys competitively courted the one girl. It was Beal who won Lena’s hand, a victory made official by their 1900 wedding, and Albert Jr. who came in a good-loser second.

The married couple and the bachelor went their separate ways only to wind up in Amarillo ten years later. As the months went by, Albert Jr. was a frequent and welcome caller at the Sneed residence. That his visits often coincided with Beal’s business trips set suspicious tongues to wagging in the small town of ten thousand, but the trusting husband was either deaf to the gossip or genuinely unconcerned.

Then, on a Friday in October 1911, Beal returned home to a bombshell revelation. Lena confessed her “infatuation” with Albert and announced her intention to run away to South America with him accompanied by one or both of the children. When the shaken Beal asked what had “come over” her, the cold reply was that she had never loved him.

Beal decided later that night that a murder-suicide was the solution to his problem. But when Lena screamed at the sight of the pistol in his hand, their older daughter ran into the room and snatched the gun. Beal consulted the family doctor, who advised him “to remove his wife to the coast or a lower climate” before she completely lost her mind. Acting upon the quack’s recommendation, quite common in those days, he had her committed to a Fort Worth sanitarium, where the psychiatrist in charge diagnosed the woman as “morally insane.”

With the apparent aid of a sympathetic member of the staff, Lena smuggled a letter out of the asylum to Albert Jr. He caught the first train to Cow Town, masterminded Lena’s escape from the mental hospital, and the love birds flew north of the border.

Private detectives hired by the hopping-mad husband followed the fugitives to Winnipeg, where the cooperative Canadians jailed them on Beal’s say-so. Lena was released into the custody of her father and held against her will on his New Mexico ranch, while Albert Jr. remained under lock and key on a trumped-up kidnapping charge. Beal was not, however, the only Texan with money and influence. Albert Boyce Sr., former manager of the famed XIT Ranch turned gentleman banker, succeeded in having his son’s slate wiped clean and convinced his namesake to make himself scarce.

The old man paid dearly for looking out for his own. On Jan. 13, 1912 in the lobby of the Metropolitan, Fort Worth’s four-star hotel, Albert Sr. was shot to death in front of dozens of eyewitnesses. And everyone, who got a good look at the triggerman, identified him as John Beal Sneed.

Seats were at a premium three weeks later on the opening day of the murder trial of the new century. The cavernous courtroom was filled to overflowing by newspaper reporters from as far away as New York City and female spectators, who fought with hatpins to hear titillating testimony the judge deemed “unsuitable” for proper ladies’ ears.

Forty witnesses for the prosecution painted a graphic picture of the killing. Several recalled overhearing someone in “Colonel” Boyce’s party, seated in the hotel lobby, remark as Beal Sneed walked past, “There goes the (several expletives deleted) now.”

Seconds later, a 17-yearold boy asked the defendant for a light. Beal reached in his coat pocket, but instead of a match box pulled out a .32-caliber pistol and started shooting at Albert Boyce Sr. from a distance of no more than three feet.

Struck by four bullets, he staggered to his feet and turned toward the elevator. Beal fired a fifth and final shot into the Panhandle pioneer’s back, and he collapsed on the marble floor. Albert Sr. died from his wounds 15 minutes later at a nearby hospital.

During his day and a half on the witness stand, Beal Sneed made no attempt to deny his guilt. He claimed to have fired in self-defense when the victim and a companion rose to their feet “as if to attack.”

He added that the expletive- laced comment caused him to snap. “It all came over me like a flash that this man had taken my wife from me and ruined my home and now, when I had rescued her from a life of shame, he wanted to take her away from me again.”

Aghast at the jurors’ inability to reach a verdict, Judge J.W. Swayne begged them to keep trying. “This case has attracted the widest attention of any case ever tried in Texas…. The world knows what the testimony is, and it has put Texas on trial.”

Nevertheless, the jury deadlocked seven to five in favor of acquittal forcing the hapless judge to declare a mistrial. Beal Sneed was a free man for the time being, but the story of the “Boyce-Sneed Feud” was not over – not by a long shot.

To Be Continued

Bartee welcomes your comments and questions at barteehaile@gmail.com or P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393 and invites you to visit his web sitebarteehaile. com.