Actor Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson, was a convicted hitman who was given a life sentence after killing a federal judge in 1979. He also claimed on multiple occasions to have been the actual assassin of John F. Kennedy.
Ruth Snyder was the quintessential party girl. She loved dancing, drinking, and the new music that was sweeping the country in the 1920s: jazz. She liked everything that her stoic, reserved husband, Albert, did not. But in 1925, she found a lover who shared her interests. His name was Henry Judd Gray and they carried on a lengthy affair, often meeting at hotels and leaving Ruth’s daughter Lorraine to play in the lobby. Ruth decided that her husband had to go. She took out an insurance policy with a double indemnity clause (pays double if the insured dies under certain conditions) and, with the help of an agent, forged Albert’s signature. She then tried to kill her husband several times without success. That’s when she enlisted Judd’s help.
On March 20, 1927, the pair attacked Albert in his bed, and, while Judd held him down, Ruth garroted her husband. When that failed, she smashed his skull in with a dumbbell. The conspirators staged a robbery and allowed nine-year-old Lorraine to find her mother trussed up and her father brutally murdered. When the police arrived, Ruth told them the perpetrator was an “Italian-looking man” who had stolen her jewelry. But Lorraine ruined the scheme when she blurted out that “Uncle Judd” had been in the house the night before. The police soon learned who Judd was and brought him in for questioning. Then they found Ruth’s jewelry in the mattress under Albert’s body. Ruth and Judd soon turned on each other, each claiming the other murdered Albert. In the end, both were convicted and sentenced to death.
Among the spectators for Ruth’s 1928 execution was a reporter for the New York Daily News. The reporter had a camera strapped to his leg and snapped a famous photo of Ruth just before her death. Judd was executed a few minutes later. Ruth’s case later became the inspiration for the novel and movie Double Indemnity.