Francis Marion Snow: The Butcher of Stephenville
Early Life
Francis Marion Snow was born on June 6, 1881, in Texas, USA. Little is documented about his early years, but his later actions would etch his name into the annals of criminal history.
The Triple Murders of 1925
On November 27, 1925, near Selden, Texas, Snow committed a series of brutal murders that shocked the community:
- Maggie Snow: Snow's wife, bludgeoned to death with a wooden club following an argument over livestock damaging their cotton crop.
- Samantha Ann Olds: Snow's 74-year-old mother-in-law, killed with an axe while she was unaware of the danger due to her blindness and deafness.
- Bernard "Bernie" Connally: Snow's 19-year-old stepson, lured back home under false pretenses and shot twice in the back with a Winchester rifle.
After the murders, Snow attempted to conceal his crimes by dismembering the bodies of Maggie Snow and Samantha Olds, burning them in the family's fireplace. He transported Bernard Connally's body to Cedar Point, decapitated it, and hid the head in a sack within an abandoned farmhouse's cellar.
Discovery and Investigation
On December 9, 1925, fur trapper Jesse Elvis Riggs discovered the sack containing Bernard Connally's severed head in an abandoned farmhouse near Stephenville, Texas. This gruesome find led authorities to investigate Snow's property, where they uncovered evidence of the murders, including bloodstains, bone fragments, and the murder weapons.
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