Released from jail for socialite’s murder, killer went on to brutally slay the Good Samaritan who fought for his release...
MARTHA MCKAY’S idyllic childhood was shattered when her mother was murdered at the family’s stately 1,000-acre estate in America’s Deep South.
Now 23 years later, Martha was slain at the same home... by the man who killed her mother.
Growing up in Snowden House on Horseshoe Lake in Arkansas had been “just wonderful,” said Martha. The waterfront mansion with marble-floored entrance and sweeping stairway, antique crystal chandelier and Carrara marble fireplace was one of the great homes of the stately South.
“I felt like royalty, with the big house and servants,” she said. “Everything was fresh from the garden, fresh eggs and all, and we even had a peach orchard.we got to swim every day, it was ideal.”
The Colonial-style home was a location in the movie of John Grisham’s murder mystery The Client, starring Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in 1994.
But it will now for ever be linked to the real-life murders,
‘Martha felt sorry for him’
separated by two decades.
“We are all in disbelief,” says Martha’s sister, Katie Hutton, 65.
Martha, 63, a Buddhist, had befriended her mother’s killer as he rotted in jail, forgiving him for the murder and campaigning for his freedom. She hired him on his release, gave him a home and hoped to turn his life around. Her kindness would prove deadly.
Travis Lewis had served 23 years for the murder of Martha’s mother, Sally Snowden Mckay, 75, and Martha’s cousin Lee Baker, 52, a famed Memphis blues-rock guitarist, in 1996.
Lewis, then 15, lived on the estate with his grandfather and mother, who worked there. He said he was robbing Baker’s cabin with a friend who shot Sally and then Baker. But Lewis’s alleged accomplice had a solid alibi.
Confessing that he was at the scene, Lewis pleaded guilty to murder, “but he denied killing them,” said Crittenden County chief investigator Todd Grooms.
“Martha was devastated, like we all were,” says Hutton.
After three failed marriages, life coach Martha dedicated herself to the estate, converting it to one of the south’s grandest B&BS. The rest of her family remained haunted by Sally’s murder.
“I used to have nightmares,” says Katie. “I must have known it was a bad place, that things were going to happen. Somebody was trying to warn me... stay away.”
Believing Lewis might be innocent, Martha reached out and began an unlikely friendship.
“Martha felt sorry for him because he was so young when this happened,” says Crittenden County Sheriff Mike Allen.
She demanded that police reopen the case to look for new evidence, “because she kept insisting that something was there,” says investigator Grooms. But his verdict on Lewis remained unchanged: “I believe he did it by himself.” Martha wrote Lewis letters, visited him and made repeated pleas for his release on parole, over her family’s objections.
“We were contacted every time he came up for parole,” says Katie. “None of us would OK it except her. We said, ‘Stay away from him’ but she wouldn’t.”
When Lewis, 39, was released on parole in 2018, Martha gave him a job as a handyman. He lived on the estate with his housekeeper mother, Gladys, who tried in vain to warn Martha: “Stay away, he’s going back to his old ways,” says Katie. Martha realised her mistake when $10,000 in cash vanished as Lewis was working. “She fired him” says Katie. “She was so embarrassed.”
But Lewis did not leave – and Martha would not live to regret it. Early on March 25 police investigating an alarm found Martha stabbed and bludgeoned to death. Nearby lay a bag containing valuables and a bloody kitchen knife.
Officers saw a man leap from a window and run to a car but it became stuck in mud. “The suspect jumped out and ran into the lake,” says Sheriff Allen. “He was observed going under water – and he never came back up.”
Rescue teams using sonar recovered the body of the suspect. It was Travis Lewis. An autopsy found methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana.
Police are uncertain whether Lewis killed Martha in revenge, or when disturbed while stealing.
Sheriff Allen sums up the murders of mother and daughter 23 years apart by a man both thought they knew: “It’s bizarre as can be, that’s for sure.”