Lovie Williams, a 52-year-old Black female, had just returned to her Camden, New Jersey home in the early morning hours of May 19, 1969, after attending a funeral in North Carolina. The trip had been long and tiring. Later that day, at around four in the afternoon, her twelve-year-old son, Keith, came home from school. He lived alone with his mother and wasn't surprised to find her lying in her bed, seemingly resting. However, something about the scene felt wrong.
His mother was fully clothed and positioned face-down on top of the blankets. When Keith entered her room, he made a horrifying discovery: his mother was dead, having been beaten and left on a blood-soaked blanket.
Investigators who arrived at the West Street apartment would later learn that the significant amount of blood was the result of a wide slash wound across her stomach. The initial investigation led to an arrest two hours after Lovie’s body was found. A man named Richard Morton, who worked as a machine operator for a waste removal company just two blocks from the Williams' apartment, was taken into custody. He was caught attempting to dispose of a knife down an elevator shaft at City Hall and was initially charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon. He was held without bail and questioned extensively about the murder of Lovie Williams, but he was eventually cleared of any involvement.
Three weeks later, another man, an AWOL soldier named William McDaniels, was arrested in connection with a separate double murder. Given the violent nature of that crime, detectives also questioned him about Lovie Williams's death. However, after a week of interrogation, he too was cleared of suspicion in her case and was subsequently held for federal authorities regarding his military desertion. The case would find its resolution later when a man named Snyder confessed to the murder. He admitted that he had only met Lovie Williams two months prior to her death and had killed her to prevent her from identifying him after he was caught trying to rob her home.
