The Other McCain

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She Befriended the Man Who Killed Her Mother. Guess How That Turned Out?

Posted on | May 15, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

If you answered “not too good,” you’re a winner:

Big-hearted, gregarious and always up for an adventure, Martha McKay surrounded herself with friends.
“There was something about her that people really loved,” her sister Katie Hutton tells PEOPLE. “She left an impression on people. She had that gift.”
McKay’s family and friends were devastated when she was killed on March 25, 2020, at Snowden House, the historic antebellum-style home on Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas, she bought from her family in 2004, restored and reopened as a luxury bed-and-breakfast.
McKay, 63, was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death at the top of the stairs, near a bag filled with her belongings, as well as a utility knife.
Authorities were shocked when they pulled the body of her killer out of the lake (he’d jumped in and drowned during a police chase): it was Travis Lewis, who’d been convicted at 17 for the horrific 1996 murders of her mother, Sally Snowden McKay, 75, and her cousin, Joseph “Lee” Baker, 52, a prominent Memphis blues guitarist. . . .
Knowing how forgiving McKay was, family and friends were still shocked when she befriended him after he went to prison (Lewis was sentenced to 28 ½ years after pleading guilty). . . .
A longtime Buddhist, McKay wrote Lewis letters in prison and supported his early, paroled release.
“We were contacted every time he came up for parole,” says Hutton. “None of us would OK it except for her.” . . .
When Lewis was finally released on parole in 2018, McKay quietly gave him a job doing work on the property, Hutton says.
But before her death, she fired him. Police had heard about a theft at McKay’s house before her murder, says Crittenden County Chief Investigator Todd Grooms. After she died, Hutton read in her diary that she’d sold a chandelier for $10,000 cash, which she stashed in the house.
Travis happened to be there that day, says Hutton. “Then the money vanished. She fired him after the money disappeared,” she says.
The family is still reeling from the fact that the same man killed her sister, mother, and cousin — 23 years apart.
“We are all just in disbelief,” says Hutton.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)




 

Category: Arkansas, Crime

Comments

One Response to “She Befriended the Man Who Killed Her Mother. Guess How That Turned Out?”

  1. The Stupid. It Can Kill You | 357 Magnum
    May 15th, 2020 @ 3:58 pm

    […] Hat tip to The Other McCain… She Befriended the Man Who Killed Her Mother. Guess How That Turned Out? […]