It’s been 100 years since the ‘Butcher of Stephenville’ committed triple murder. Are you familiar with this true story?
- Sara Vanden Berge
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
It’s a story that lives on in infamy; one so gruesome that books have been written about it and tales of the grizzly homicide have been handed down from generation to generation.
In fact, Francis Marion Snow, the man dubbed the “Butcher of Stephenville,” has his own Wikipedia page that outlines the murder, discovery of the bodies and the trial.
I sat down with Janae Smith with the Erath County Historical Commission, who shared her vast knowledge about the case and some of the strange connections to the murders that still exist in Stephenville.
“When my sister and I would act up when we were kids, my mom and grandpa would try to scare us straight by telling us that old Snow would come and get us,” she laughed.
But the tale of what Snow did to his wife, mother-in-law and stepson is anything but funny.
Snow was convicted and executed for slaughtering his family at his home near Selden on Nov. 27, 1925.
The story goes that Snow, who was 44-years-old at the time, became enraged with his wife Maggie when she accidentally let their livestock loose.
He bludgeoned poor Maggie to death before turning on his 74-year-old mother-in-law with an axe.
One version of the story claims that Snow shot them both.
After hiding the bodies, Snow hopped on his horse and buggy and went searching for his 19-year-old stepson Bernard Connally.
Snow lured Bernard back to the house under the guise that his mother was sick.
When they arrived, Snow shot him in the back and chopped off his head.
Later that night, Snow placed the severed head in a sack and left it in an abandoned farmhouse in Erath County.
The bodies of Maggie and her mother were placed underneath the floorboards of his house.
CRAZY, BUT TRUE FACTS ABOUT THE CASE
• Francis Snow was originally from Palo Pinto/Mineral Wells.
• When he arrived in the area, he rented a place near Hico and made money by cutting firewood and picking cotton.
• He and Maggie had only been married one month before the murders.
• Bernard’s head was discovered by two young hunters.
• When no one immediately recognized the severed head, it was taken to a funeral home where it was embalmed, placed in a velvet box and displayed in a window in hopes that someone would recognize him.
• And finally, someone did. It was a neighbor. (And by the way, the talk of the town was what a handsome guy Bernard was, even in death.)
• Bernie Connally is buried in West End Cemetery in section 8 underneath the third tree on the left.
• His name is spelled wrong on his marker and he is buried next to three native Americans in unmarked graves.
• Snow later dismembered the bodies of his wife and mother-in-law and burned them in a fireplace.
• That fireplace still exists in Stephenville.
• One room from the cabin where the murders took place is located on the grounds of the Stephenville Historical House Museum.
Snow confessed to authorities in Fort Worth; his trial took place in January 1925 at the Erath County Courthouse.
Snow tried to plead insanity, but was convicted, sentenced to death and electrocuted in Huntsville.
In the book Blood Legacy: The True Story of the Snow Axe Murder, author James Plyant writes:
“As F.M. Snow sat, strapped into the electric chair, the executioner applied the current at twelve minutes after midnight.”
There are several claims about his last words noted in Blood Legacy.
Magazine writer Charles Bordoni said Snow winked and said "Well, here goes nothing."
Stewart Stanley who witnessed the execution, said Snow remarked about the chair "By God, a better man never sat in it!"
The Associated Press reported his final statement was "I have nothing to say."
But Snow’s descendants say he uttered, “I had a good breakfast, a great dip of snuff; I’m feeling punked and I’ll see all you sons of bitches in hell.”
Keep scrolling for more photos found in the book, Blood Legacy.
