Last Updated on May 17, 2020
A woman who befriended her mother’s and cousin’s killer out of a “spiritual obligation” has been stabbed and bludgeoned to death by the same man.
Martha McKay was brutally murdered at the Arkansas Snowden House, a colonial style home built in the early twentieth century and the same place where her mother and cousin were murdered 23 years ago by the same man, who she befriended.
McKay had bought the antebellum style house near Horseshoe Lake from her family in 2004 and converted the property into a bed and breakfast.
According to People, McKay had been stabbed and beaten to death on the top of the stairs on March 25.
She was found next to a bag full of her belongings.
When authorities were called to the scene, a man was seen fleeing through a window before jumping into a car and driving into the yard, getting stuck in the process.
Police gave chase to the suspect following the brutal murder of 63-year-old McKay, but later pulled the drowned body of the man, after he jumped into the lake, convicted for the violent double-murder of McKay’s mother, Sally Snowden McKay, 75, and her cousin, Joseph “Lee” Baker, 52.
Thirty-nine-year-old Travis Lewis was convicted at the age of 17 for the 1996 murders, but never confessed.
Lewis was sentenced to 28 and a half years behind bars, with McKay’s family fighting against the death penalty.
When Lewis was granted parole in 2018, McKay gave the convicted murderer a job on the property.
However, it was revealed that McKay had fired Lewis before the gruesome murder after accusing him of theft after the sale of an unused chandelier for $10,000.
Lewis, who was present on the day of the sale, was accused of stealing the 5-figure sum as the funds had simply “vanished.”
McKay, a longtime practicing Buddhist, had reportedly visited Lewis several times when he was in prison, despite the disapproval of her family. She had even written to Lewis while he was behind bars and supported his parole.
McKay’s family and friends have expressed their disbelief at the situation.
