In 1996, 16-year-old Travis Lewis broke into a historic lakeside estate in Arkansas and murdered two people: 72-year-old Sally Snowden McKay and her 52-year-old nephew, blues musician Lee Baker.
After setting the house on fire, he vanished.
For Sally’s daughter, Martha, the tragedy could have fueled a lifetime of hatred.
Instead, she chose forgiveness.
A devoted Buddhist who believed in second chances, Martha spent more than two decades writing to Lewis in prison, visiting him, and even campaigning for his release despite strong objections from loved ones.
When Lewis was paroled in 2018, Martha took an extraordinary step.
She welcomed him into her life, giving him both a job and a place to live at the Snowden House—the very property where he had murdered her mother, which she had painstakingly restored into a bed-and-breakfast.
For a time, things appeared to be working out.
But after discovering Lewis had stolen $10,000 from her, Martha terminated his employment.
Just days later, authorities responded to an alarm at the property and found Martha, 63, fatally stabbed at the top of her marble staircase.
During the investigation, a man jumped from an upstairs window and tried to flee.
It was Travis Lewis.
After getting his vehicle stuck on the grounds, he ran into the nearby lake. He was never seen again.
More than two decades after taking her mother’s life, the same man had claimed Martha’s as well—on the very same property where the first tragedy unfolded.
