The following evening the jury announced that it was unable to agree on a verdict. The vote of eight to four for acquittal had stood with no change since the first ballot. Woods released Adams, but once again he had no time for celebration, as Sheriff Bailey arrested him for the murder of Ed Boule.26
Both Darrow and Hawley promptly left Rathdrum—Darrow went to San Francisco to consult specialist doctors, and Hawley to Boise, where the trial of George Pettibone, delayed while Adams’s trial was completed, moved ahead. Darrow tried to force a postponement, as his doctor “thought it might be fatal to me if I went, but Pettibone thought it might be fatal to him if I stayed.”27 His plea was unsuccessful, so he resignedly boarded a train back to Idaho despite his unceasing pain.
On November 27, jury selection began. It proved the same slow plod as in Haywood’s trial, and it was not until December 10 that Hawley made the opening argument, in which he called Pettibone “the most guilty of all those accused of causing the death of former Governor Frank Steunenberg.”28 Giving a brief history of the WFM, he stated that “about eight years ago a conspiracy was formed by what is known as the ‘inner circle,’ the purpose of which was the murder of those who in public life refused to obey the dictates of the ‘inner circle.’” Pettibone, he said, “was the paymaster into whose hands was passed the money given to the actual murderers.”29
When court convened for the first witnesses in its afternoon session, there to question them was Borah, who had just arrived. Orchard was called to the stand the next day, where he remained for four days, carefully guided by Hawley through his maze of murders, bombings, and attempted killings. He then faced Darrow, who approached Orchard differently than Richardson. First he tried to show contradictions between his statements in the Haywood testimony and those he had just made. As in the earlier trial, however, Orchard proved a resolute witness with a remarkable memory, and he held his own; in fact, at one point it was Darrow who “was forced to admit that he was mistaken in regard to the former testimony of the witness.”30
Unsuccessful in this approach, Darrow changed tactics and forced Orchard to elaborate on some of his most heinous crimes. For example, referring to a child that Orchard had intended to kidnap and hold for ransom, Darrow “had him carefully describe Paulson’s little boy and their playing together on the floor.” He also asked for specific details about a bomb Orchard had taken into the Idanha to plant in a suite that Steunenberg used, knowing it would also kill dozens of other people. Darrow later wrote about the confrontation: “As I went along, one could see the jury drawing from him in horror and disgust. . . . I did not try to contradict him. I treated him with what seemed kindness and consideration and pity. . . . [H]e no longer looked at the jury, and they avoided him. I felt quite certain that every one of the jury looked upon him with distrust, hatred, and contempt.”31
Shortly thereafter, Darrow became seriously ill. He missed several days of cross-examination and, after making the defense’s opening argument on December 26, he left for Los Angeles, where he was eventually operated upon and his “freak mastoid” condition resolved, although it took weeks for him to recover. Meanwhile, Orrin Hilton was summoned from Colorado to take over. On December 31, his first full day in Boise, Hilton stunningly announced that the defense was resting its case, as he believed the State had not proved its charges.32
At 8:50 P.M. on the night of January 3, 1908, the jury left to deliberate, and the next afternoon returned a verdict of not guilty. Hawley, on behalf of the State, thereupon dismissed the charges against Moyer.33 Strangely, the case’s primary loser was Pettibone, who contracted consumption while in jail. It contributed mightily to his death the next autumn following an operation for cancer.34
• • •
It was not only the trial results that seemed to turn against McParland at this stage. Even something as simple as fulfilling his charitable duties as a Christian proved problematic for him. For example, in February 1908, Pat Crowe—a former train robber and kidnapper who had once made threats against William Pinkerton—came to see him and spun a tale of how difficult life had been since his release from prison. McParland wrote to Bangs that, “He wanted to know if I could not loan him $5.00, so he could get something to eat and a bed. . . . I told him that I was not allowed to use the Agency’s money in that way . . . [but] no matter what his previous character was, or what it might be now, I did not like to see a man go hungry, or be without a place to sleep, therefore, I would give him $5.00 from my own pocket, and desired that he would pay me at his earliest convenience. . . . I don’t suppose I will ever see the $5.00, nor do I believe that he has reformed.”35
Pinkerton was at times a soft touch himself, but not for Crowe. When he heard what McParland had done, he exploded: “Of all the low down, dirty deadbeats and contemptible no-account thieves I ever knew, Pat Crowe is the worst. He always was a four flusher and a bluffer and got himself a reputation by giving out stories about himself. He is the biggest liar and blowhard in the United States and I am surprised that Mr McParland would even give him an audience, let alone loan him $5.” After all, Pinkerton continued, the man was “nothing more than a dime novel desperado and I would not give him 50¢ to save him from drowning or being hung.”36 McParland’s charitable act kept him in hot water with Pinkerton until Bangs pointed out that the money was McParland’s own, not the agency’s, and eventually Pinkerton calmed down enough to tell him to charge it to Denver expenses as charity. “He need not be afraid of Crowe paying it back again. Crowe never paid anything to anybody in his life.”37
Another bad piece of news for McParland came the next month, when his special colleague, Siringo, finally left the agency. He had resigned after the Haywood trial to get married for the third time and move to his ranch in New Mexico, but McParland talked him into coming back for an assignment in the Badlands of South Dakota. But that was the last time. Despite being offered a position as a superintendent, he again retired—this time for good.38
Around the same time, Harry Orchard, the one man left to stand trial for the murder of Steunenberg, was brought before Judge Fremont Wood. He stated that, against the advice of his attorney, he wished to withdraw the not-guilty plea and enter one of guilty. After being assured that Orchard understood the consequences, Wood allowed the change of plea.39 On March 18, Orchard’s forty-second birthday, Wood, with no legal leeway, sentenced him to death but, indicating that he fully believed Orchard’s testimony in both the Haywood and Pettibone trials, recommended that the Idaho Board of Pardons commute the sentence to life in prison.40
“On the first trial he was subjected to the most critical cross-examination by very able counsel for six days, and I do not now recall that at any time he contradicted himself on any material matter,” Wood stated, continuing:
Upon the second trial referred to, the same testimony was given, and a thorough and critical cross-examination followed. In no particular was there any discrepancy in material matters between the testimony given upon the latter trial, and that given by the same witness on the former trial. . . . A man of mature years may be able to frame his story and testify falsely to a brief statement of facts involving a transaction and maintain himself on cross-examination. But I cannot conceive of a case where even the greatest intellect can conceive a story of crime, covering years of duration with constantly shifting scenes and changing characters, and maintain that story with circumstantial detail as to times, places, persons and particular circumstances, and under as merciless a cross-examination as was ever given a witness in an American court, unless the witness thus testifying was speaking truthfully and without any attempt to misrepresent or conceal.41
McParland was more prosaic when asked his views. “I know nothing about what will be done with Orchard,” he said. “He was never promised immunity, and never asked any. I do not know whether his sentence will be commuted or not. He is guilty and he has confessed his guilt.”42 Orchard subsequently told Chris Thiele t
hat he should not be reprieved, because he was “trying to atone for his past [and] thought this course the proper one” and “does not believe he could render the State of Idaho a greater service than by going on the scaffold and meeting his just fate.”43 McParland was impressed with his conviction but still thought it a deception:
I have seen and read of many penitent sinners who were fully prepared to die, admitting the justice of the court’s sentence of death, but all of such people would have much rather lived if that was possible. Even the saviour of mankind, as holy writ informs us, requested of the Father in heaven that if in his wisdom he could do so that the cup, meaning the crucifixion, should be passed away. From this it will be seen that Orchard’s stand is the first of the kind that has ever come under my notice, and while I think that he is a true penitent, and that I am satisfied he would go to the gallows without flinching, something tells me that inwardly he has an idea that . . . his sentence will be commuted.44
If so, Orchard was correct. On July 1, the Idaho Board of Pardons commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. “I am not at all pleased,” Orchard stated. “I would rather die on Friday than spend the rest of my life in prison.”45 The latter, however, is exactly what he did, in so doing discovering that life still had much to offer. He became a model prisoner, helped convert others to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, lived in his own small cottage on penitentiary grounds, became a woodworker, raised chickens, and grew berries. He died at the age of eighty-eight in 1954, having late in life republished his story as the record of a man transformed by Christ.46
• • •
Adams’s case was now the only one left unresolved. Even before his second trial, the authorities in Colorado had determined that he had not provided enough evidence to tie St. John to the murder of either William Barney or Arthur Collins.47 But Adams had confessed to killing Collins, so the State of Colorado—and more particularly Bulkeley Wells—could still gain satisfaction by putting him on trial. Therefore, on December 27, 1907, Sheriff Charles Fitzpatrick of San Miguel County, Colorado, was on hand in Rathdrum when Adams was discharged for the murder of Boule, and promptly rearrested him for the murder of Collins.48 Within a few days, Fitzpatrick and his deputy C. C. Hicks—who having been cleared of murder charges in Wallace was now serving in Telluride—took Adams to Colorado.49
Not surprisingly, the WFM gave its full financial support to Adams, hiring Orrin Hilton for the case. District Attorney Hugo Selig and former congressman Herschel M. Hogg headed the prosecution. The trial was scheduled for June 22, with a change of venue to Grand Junction in Mesa County. Yet again, jury selection was a major battle, and it was not until July 6 that opening arguments were made before Judge Sprigg Shackleford.50 Early the next afternoon Hilton objected to a reference made to Adams’s confession, on the grounds that “it was extorted from him the defendant by McPharland [sic] by the grossest intimidation and threats of punishment and promises of reward.”51 Most of the afternoon was thereafter consumed with legal bickering.
The next day, with the jury excluded, Shackleford heard testimony to determine whether to admit Adams’s confession. The first witness was McParland, who explained that he had told Adams: “I knew pretty well what he had done, but that it would be better for him to come through with a full confession. I told him we knew who had been hiring the assassins, and that it would be to his interest to make a clean breast of it. I quoted some Scripture to him and advised him in a spiritual way, telling him that there was salvation even for a murderer.” At this point, McParland said, Adams agreed to give his full confession the next day.52 As the confession was made, it was recorded in shorthand, following which it was transcribed, typed up, and taken to Adams for his approval. “Adams made several interlineations in his own handwriting,” the press reported, “and had the chief clerk of the penitentiary . . . correct other typographical errors. After the paper was completed to the satisfaction of Adams, . . . it was signed by him.”53
Most important, McParland noted that the confession was given voluntarily. “Was there any promise of immunity?” asked Hogg.
“None.”
“Were there any threats made?”
“None. . . . I told him I had no authority to make promises, and if I did I couldn’t carry them out. I told him that the state generally acted fairly with those who acted fairly with it.”54
Things were not so comfortable for McParland when Hilton took over the questioning. Armed with a transcript from one of the Idaho trials, he tried to catch the detective in inconsistencies, and also to show that McParland’s Bible stories and references to those of the Molly Maguires who turned state’s evidence were designed to imply—even if not precisely stating—that Adams would receive immunity.
“Did you tell him there was a chance for him to be forgiven?” asked Hilton.
“I did.”
“Did you tell him by whom he would be forgiven?”
“I was speaking from the spiritual end at that time.”
“Did you tell him you had assurance that the Almighty would forgive him?”
“I object,” burst in Hogg. “Some people might call this blasphemy.”55
Remaining calm, Hilton continued to grill McParland: “Did you tell him that [Tom] Horn’s life would have been saved if he had confessed?”
“I did.”
“Did you tell him that you were going to hang the instigators of the crime, but not the tools?”
“I did.”
“Did you advise him to seek a clergyman or a lawyer?”
“I did not.”56
McParland’s testimony was followed by more closed evidence from the two men who had recorded the confession: Wellington B. Hopkins and George Huebener. Hopkins stated that “he heard no threats from McParland and that Adams made his own answers,” and he then produced the notes that he had taken. Huebener stated that the confession was Adams’s “own free and voluntary act,” and that he had made some “corrections in the copy after it had been typewritten, at the insistence of Adams, who claimed that he was not accustomed to writing.” Further, he said that the claim that McParland had stopped the stenographers from recording at points was true, but it had been done to “discuss points with Adams . . . in order that a clear statement of all facts could be made directly by Adams after deliberation.”57
Wells then testified that Adams returned with him to Telluride “for the purpose of exhuming a body, and the men who went with him were for protection against violence at the hands of the Western Federation of Miners.” It “was at [Adams’s] express wish and desire” that he helped in the discovery of Barney’s remains, Wells said, in order “to prove that his confession was true.”58
When the arguments about the confession continued the next morning, Hilton censured McParland as “a pirate, cut throat, a man who should be put behind the bars for criminal method in securing the Adams confession.”59 Despite the rhetoric, however, the prosecution felt confident, as the confession had twice been admitted on the same evidence. Their surprise can therefore only be imagined when that afternoon Judge Shackleford unleashed a bolt from the blue, ruling that: “the method by which Detective James McParland secured a confession from Steve Adams in the penitentiary at Boise, Idaho, rendered the confession inadmissible as evidence.”60
“A smile played about the mouth of Steve Adams when he heard the words of the court,” a far cry from the response of McParland, who was in the witness room when told. “Leaping from the chair he shouted, ‘What! Not admissible?’ When informed such was the case he resumed his seat, wiped the perspiration from his brow, but said nothing further.”61
McParland knew, the prosecution knew, the defense knew, and all the reporters knew that the trial was now, for all intents and purposes, over. What had been a weak case with the confession had no chance without it. Nevertheless, the prosecution proceeded, with Wells, Marshal Willard Runnels of Telluride, and Mills,
the deputy warden of the Idaho penitentiary, testifying.62 When the prosecution rested on Friday, Shackleford, sympathetic to a juror who said that his religion prevented him doing any work on Saturday, adjourned until Monday, July 13.63
Once back in court, Hilton quickly produced eight alibis for Adams on the night of the murder and, resting the case the following day, in his closing argument turned his not inconsiderable skills of denunciation upon Wells, Mills, McParland, Pinkerton’s, Hogg, and even Senator Borah.64 Late the night of July 14, “McParland and six assistants arrived here in company of Warden Whitney . . . It is reported that they are here to re-arrest Adams in case of his acquittal.”65 It was only a façade, however, for the next day, when Adams was acquitted, he was discharged, and no move was made against him. He boarded a train to Oregon, disappearing back to where he had been picked up almost two and a half years before.
• • •
The ramifications of the Steunenberg murder and its investigations and trials had not yet completely played out, however. McParland had long believed there was a traitor who supplied the defense with information, particularly considering that ever since Adams recanted his confession, “every secret operative that we had from time to time had been uncovered.”66 He had routed out two spies, “but there were others.” Further, Haywood had once told operative J. N. Londoner “that he could get any information he wanted from the Denver office; that he got his information from one of the highest officials of that office and one that would never be suspected.”
Pinkerton’s Great Detective Page 47