/niggwretchedness/ - Nigger Community Wretchedness

For some time after the burglary, the Bakers moved into a cabin 100 yards from Sally and on September 10 Joe went to his aunt's house to talk business matters with her, just about one month after the fire. A fire struck again while both were in Sally's house. After putting out the blaze, firefighters found the bodies of Sally and Joe in the rubble, both dead of a gunshot wound to the head. It seemed robbery was the motive and Sally's '94 Camry was found a mile from the house, wrecked and overturned, apparently used by the killer as a getaway vehicle until he crashed it and fled the scene.

The community was disturbed until November 5, when Travis Lewis, a 16 year old African-American boy, was arrested. Lewis knew both Sally and Joe; his grandparents were tenants and his mother Gladys was a housekeeper at Snowden House. He was a student at the high school where Baker taught English classes. As there was evidence tying Lewis to the crime scene, he admitted he'd been there and was held without bail. Lewis, who was born November 2, 1980, had a rap sheet including an assault conviction. Since he was only 15 when the crime was committed, the McKays were not vengeful and asked for mercy. He was offered a plea bargain and accepted, pleading guilty of two counts of first degree murder and received 28 years for the murders and five for burglary, to run concurrently. Lewis did not admit his complicity in the murders and insisted he had an unnamed adult accomplice who actually killed McKay and Baker.

As for Martha McKay, she grew up in San Francisco and stayed behind in California when her mother went back to Tennessee in the 1980s. At age 32 she obtained a degree from University of Washington in the comparative history of ideas and the director there suggested she write a history of each generation of women in her family, which became the subject of her thesis. For some time Martha went to Horseshoe Lake to held her Aunt Edie Dewey manage the family enterprise there. She then went back west, restored a house in Virginia City, Nevada, and refurbed some Seattle homes. Edie died in 2006 at age 82 and Martha decided to buy and renovate the Snowden House, which she took up residence in and often rented for parties and other social events.

Also during this time Martha remained in contact with her mother's killer, who was serving his sentence in the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville. A practicing Buddhist, Martha believed in forgiving Travis Lewis for his crime, regularly writing him and visiting him in prison. In 2018 he walked out of the prison gates at age 37, having served 22 out of a 28 year sentence. The McKay family were notified each time Lewis was up for parole and all of them save for Martha were against it. His mother Gladys had since retired from her job as a housekeeper at Snowden House and Martha offered to hire him in her place. It quickly became apparent that Lewis was not reformed by over two decades behind bars; Gladys soon began telling Martha that he was getting back into trouble and she cut off contact with her own son.

Martha was patient but finally had to give up on Lewis after an incident where she suspected him of stealing $10,000 in cash from her house. The money had come from an antique sale and she figured he must have done it because he'd seen her with the money and knew where she stashed it. Martha told him he was fired and to never come back.

On March 20, 2020, Crittenden County deputies responded to a home alarm at Snowden House. Inside they found the 63 year old McKay dead, wrapped in a blanket and fatally beaten and stabbed. Before expiring, she had enough strength to activate the burglar alarm. The deputies then realized someone else, probably the killer, was in the house as well. They witnessed him jump out a second floor window and land seemingly unhurt on the grass below. He got into a car that was parked on the premises and began driving but after a short distance got stuck in the mud and abandoned the vehicle. He ran into the lake and disappeared, not surfacing again. Police went to dredge the man out of the lake. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Crittenden County Search and Rescue used sonar equipment and retrieved the body. It was Travis Lewis. He had apparently chosen suicide by drowning himself rather than surrender. An autopsy found that he had cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamines in his system.

Near Martha's body police found a bag containing valuables and a bloody kitchen knife. Exactly what happened in the house was unclear. Lewis may have gone there to rob the place, was caught by Martha, and decided to kill her. Or he went there intending to kill her and then decided to steal whatever he could while he was at it. It was possible he might have intended to set the house on fire to conceal evidence but fled when he realized the cops were there. Whatever thoughts were in his drug-addled mind, Travis Santay Lewis killed his benefactor, a woman beloved by many and with nary an enemy, except for the soul she tried to save.