Compassion Ends in Brutal Death: The Martha McKay Tragedy
In 1996, 16-year-old Travis Lewis killed Sally Snowden McKay, 75, and her nephew, Joseph “Lee” Baker, 52, a prominent Memphis blues guitarist, during a burglary at the Snowden House. Lewis, who lived on the estate and was friends with Baker’s sons, shot the victims and set the house on fire. He was tried as an adult, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 28½ years in prison.
Martha McKay, Sally’s daughter, was a Buddhist known for her compassion and belief in forgiveness. Despite her family’s objections, she forgave Lewis, visited him in prison, and maintained contact over the years. When Lewis was paroled in 2018, Martha, who had purchased and restored the Snowden House into a luxury bed-and-breakfast, offered him a job as a groundskeeper and a place to stay at the property. Her actions stemmed from a spiritual conviction to give him a second chance, though her family, including her sister Katie Hutton, warned against it, citing his dangerous history.
The arrangement initially seemed to work, but tensions arose when Martha suspected Lewis of stealing. According to her diary, she had sold a chandelier for $10,000 and kept the cash at home. When the money disappeared, with Lewis being the only other person present, she fired him and banned him from the property about a month before her death. Lewis’s mother, Gladys, a longtime housekeeper at Snowden House, had also warned Martha that her son was reverting to his “old ways.”
On March 25, 2020, police responded to an alarm at Snowden House and found Martha, 63, dead at the top of the stairs, stabbed and bludgeoned, near a bag with her belongings and a utility knife. As officers searched the property, they saw a man, later identified as Lewis, 39, jump from an upstairs window, attempt to flee in a car, and then run into Horseshoe Lake after the vehicle got stuck. He drowned in the lake, and his body was recovered later. An autopsy revealed cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana in his system.
Martha’s family, particularly her sister Katie and cousin Dottie Jones, expressed profound grief, noting the irony of her death in the same house where her mother was killed.
The Snowden House, described as a stately 1919 mansion, remains a symbol of this double tragedy, having been the setting for both murders 23 years apart. The case has been covered extensively, including in a 2024 TV movie, ‘Living with My Mother’s Killer’, loosely based on these events.
