A Kansas Tragedy: The Murder of Lizzie and Sarah Collins

In 1889 an El Dorado saloon owner shot and killed his wife of three weeks and her mother in a violent, drunken rage. News of the brutal double murder spread from California to Massachusetts, and everywhere in between.

Mrs. Snyder did not recover.
The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Wheeling, WV, Aug 12, 1889

The widespread reports mention that Robert’s wife refused to live with him, somehow putting the blame on her for her own murder. Her husband’s paramour, her pleas to the police prior to the murders, and the cruel and violent behavior he exhibited toward her weren’t in most the stories that soared across the country.

A Brutal Crime

A Drunken Brute Shoots His Wife and Her Mother at El Dorado, Kan.

One of the most brutal crimes which has ever stained the records of this section was perpetrated here early yesterday morning.

Robert Snyder, whose wife had left him because of his maltreatment of her, went to the house of his mother-in-law in a dangerous state of intoxication and demanded admission. This being refused he broke the door open and entered, revolver in hand.

The Goddard Reporter, August 15, 1889

The gravestone of Sarah (Sarrah) Collins and Lizzie Collins

Three Week Marriage

27-year-old Lizzie Collins married 25-year-old Robert “Bob” Snyder on July 25, 1889. Bob didn’t have a good reputation, but he pretended to be “a reputable citizen until he won her affections and made her his wife.”

Source

Just before marrying Lizzie, Bob spent nine months at the Kansas state prison in Lansing for grand larceny. He also may have been arrested in 1897 for fighting and violating liquor laws, and as a teen, he served time for petty larceny in Cloud County. Lizzie also lived in Cloud County at this time, so it’s possible the pair were acquainted with one another long before they married.

This census document from 1880 shows a boy named Robert Snyder serving a 40 day sentence in the Cloud County jail for petty larceny. He didn’t serve the full 40 days, but probably paid off his $10 fine. Source

Bob and Lizzie relocated to El Dorado after the wedding along with Lizzie’s mother, and Bob “began to keep the company of a young girl.” At one point, Lizzie and the girl had an altercation, and Lizzie was arrested “for disturbing the peace of the paramour.”

The Wichita Star, Sep 7, 1889

“Snyder became infatuated with one Lizzie Payton-Rolls … this passion he made no effort to conceal, and frequently he told his wife that he had been to see the Payton woman, warning her that if she “made a fuss about it” that he would kill her. The wife became maddened by her anxiety and shame, and meeting the Payton woman on the street assaulted her and accused her of having taken her husband from her. The Payton woman swore out a warrant for her arrest, asking that she be put under bonds to keep the peace. When the case was brought up on August 10, the charges against Mrs. Snyder were investigated and, there being extenuating circumstances, she was discharged.”

The Wichita Weekly Beacon, October 18, 1889

The “extenuating circumstances” that came out in court included Bob’s maltreatment of Lizzie. Afterwards, Bob allegedly followed Lizzie and her sister Florence and told them that he was going to kill them. He was also accused of removing all the furniture in the home, except the bed their mother lay in. Lizzie and her sister tried to get protection through the El Dorado police department. They were denied.

“[Lizzie and Florence] told [Frank Wilson, El Dorado police] of the husband’s threats and their fear, but the marshal sent them away without protection. These women went back to their sick mother with heavy hearts and full of fear.”

The Kansas Workman, August 20, 1889

This woman is identified as Margaret Elizabeth “Lizzie” Collins-Snyder by descendants, but she appears identical to another photograph identified as her sister Bessie. Source

The Murder of Lizzie Collins-Snyder and Sarah Collins

After following Lizzie and Florence home, Bob broke down the door to gain access to the home and confronted the women. He confronted Lizzie with a gun while she was near her mother Sarah.

The two women were found by the infuriated brute, crouched in a corner of their bedroom. An instant later a sharp report rang out and [Lizzie], giving a piercing scream fell to the floor with a bullet through the right breast, probably fatally wounded. The fiend then turned upon [Sarah] and standing at close quarters fired full upon her. The bullet struck the poor old woman in the abdomen. There is not one chance in a thousand that she can recover.

The Atchison Daily Globe, August 12, 1889

Florence escaped from the house crying “murder!” and called attention to the scene. When police arrived, Lizzie and Sarah were still alive. Lizzie reportedly pointed at Officer Wilson who had previously refused protection and said “If you had come when I wanted you to come all this trouble would have been saved.”

The city authorities had withheld protection when it was asked and murder was the result.

The Kansas Workman, August 20, 1889

Bob’s story was different. He said Lizzie was the one who abandoned him, and that she was the one who took the furniture. He clamed Lizzie’s sisters had threatened him with guns and told him they would kill him if he didn’t turn over all his property to Lizzie. He also said that Lizzie maliciously had him arrested for selling liquor.

The newspapers in Butler County spoke quite cruelly of the deceased women and the surviving victim. Mother Sarah was accused of running a “bawdy house” and Lizzie and her sisters were called a prostitutes. Some of the things printed were especially cruel, like suggesting that the escaped victim Florence should have been killed too.

Latham Signal, Latham, KS, Aug 17, 1889

Bessie Collins-Reinhardt, sister of Lizzie and Florence and daughter of Sarah, came to El Dorado after the murders to deal with the burial of her mother and sister. One report says that Bessie was treated cruelly by citizens of El Dorado in the aftermath of the murders due to the reputation of her mother and sisters.

When it came time to remove the dead, [Bessie and Florence] found themselves without a conveyance to reach the grave. Said the undertaker, “You must get there the best way you can; I am bearing all the expense and I can do no more.” Those words struck like a dagger to the hearts of those penniless girls in a strange city face to face with death. It was then that Mrs. Reinhardt offered to sell the dress she had on for the use of a team.

Could it be that the undertaker had not in his church one single man to whom he could go with assurances that he could get a team to bear these mourners to the grave? If he could, better delay the march an hour than to utter such cold, such cruel words, words so devoid of sympathy and Christian love.

[And] why two trips to the grave? Even if we had no respect for the memory of the dead, or the feelings of the mourning friends, public sentiment — the decency of the thing — would have prompted arrangements to have taken the dead to the grave at the same time. Upon the basis of the golden rule apply the matter to your own homes, then test your feelings.

The Kansas Workman, August 20, 1889

Identified as Bessie Reinhardt, but she shares identical features to the woman identified as Lizzie Collins. The women also wear the same hair adornment in both photos. Source

An Angry Mob

Bob Snyder was arrested immediately after the murders. He never denied committing the crimes, but he claimed it was in self defense. He said the women broke his door down and threw flat irons at him, and that he was forced to fire three shots at them.

The community did not like Bob and did not accept his excuses. “A mob of infuriated vigilantes” formed and were set on lynching and hanging Bob Snyder, who became “a much hunted man.”

A week ago Sunday, while in jail at Eureka, Kansas, a mob of several hundred persons on foot and horseback, some masked and others not, made an attack on the jail, but were repulsed. Fearing a repetition of the assault on the building Snyder was sneaked back to El Dorado and placed in the old jail at that place. Last Monday night this place was attacked, but the mob lacked a leader. Night before last, however, another attack was made, and this time the mob was organized and meant business.

The Wichita Star, August 23, 1889

The mob, about 200 in number, destroyed the El Dorado jail looking for Bob, but he had been snuck out the back. Not finding Bob in the jail, the mob smashed the doors to the treasurer’s office and the county attorney’s room looking for him and expressing their rage. Bob was taken to Leon and later to Wichita for his own safety.

Bob’s mother was also arrested as an accessory before the fact (or perhaps for her own safety), but she was later released.

The trial, which the mob promised Bob would not make it to alive, was delayed for months.

A Guilty Plea

The case did not go trial because Bob plead guilty to the charge of second degree murder in December 1899. He was sentenced to life in the state penitentiary.

The Larned Eagle-Optic, Larned, KS, Dec 20, 1889

A Sentence Commuted

After pleading guilty to the crimes, Bob claimed he was scared into a guilty plea by the angry mob.

His mother enlisted the help of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to help get her son pardoned. Bessie tried to keep him locked up by collecting signatures on a remonstrance (a protest or petition) and encouraging people to oppose Bob’s pardon.

Identified as Bessie Reinhardt. Source

Bob was denied a retrial in 1899, but Kansas governor Willis J. Bailey agreed to commute his life sentence in 1904.

Clyde Herald, Clyde, KS, May 27, 1904

Robert Snyder was released from prison at age 40, serving just fourteen years of his life sentence. After his release, he may have relocated to Illinois and later to Las Vegas. He may have died there in the 1940’s around age 77.

Florence’s Folly

Young Florence was greatly affected by seeing her sister and mother brutally murdered in front of her, narrowly escaping being murdered herself, and dealing with the cruel rumors and words in the aftermath of the traumatic ordeal.

Identified as Florence Collins. Source

17-year-old Florence committed suicide at Alice Brady’s “house of prostitution” a year after the murders, which only seemed to confirm what the Butler County papers had said about the women. Few seemed to take into consideration the hardships and trauma that Florence endured, including the death of her father at age 7.

Source

Florence’s tear-stained suicide note to her sister Bessie was published in The Wichita Star.

Florence’s Folly

Dear Sister: It is a pleasure for me to write to you, though it be for the last time. This leaves me feeling awful bad, but I hope that it will find you feeling well and enjoying yourself.

Bessie, when I get through writing this letter, I am going to take poison. I am tired of living, as I have not got one kind friend in this whole wide world that I can go to. Bessie, dear, if you knew how I cried when I wrote you this letter, and how bad I felt, I know that you would feel sorry for me, if no one else does. Oh, Bessie, if when I die I could only go to where poor old Mother and Lizzie are, I would be so happy. But I have been so bad, and have even broken my last promise to our poor Mother.

Bessie, do you think God can ever forgive me? Even sister Delia does not care for me any more.

Bessie, will you see that poor little Jimmie is taken care of? Kiss him for me, for I never will see him any more. If anything happens to me I want you to bring the rings Mother and Lizzie gave me and put them on, and also put on my necklace that you gave me.”

In her letter, Florence asks Bessie to take care of poor little Jimmie, a boy that the newspaper said was “born in shame.” I didn’t find poor little Jimmie on any census records with Bessie, or any other mention of him anywhere else.

Florence was buried in El Dorado and shares a gravestone with her mother and sister.