As Gardiner took his seat, a “painful silence” fell over the courtroom.1 Roland, arms still folded over his chest, betrayed no emotion, though his father, seated at his side, wore a stricken expression.
A few moments later, Coroner Hart delivered a brief charge to the jury. It was precisely 6:15 P.M. when the twelve men filed from the room to begin their deliberations.
Expecting a quick verdict, many of the spectators remained in their places. Roland, his father, and their attorneys, however, gathered up their coats and repaired to a nearby restaurant, Holtz’s, on Franklin Street and Broadway. They were tailed by Detectives Carey and McCafferty, who were under orders to keep Roland in sight and who took a table near the entrance.
The presence of the detectives did not appear to faze Roland. He calmly studied the menu before ordering a hearty meal, then perused the evening papers while his father and the lawyers conferred. Nor did he react when, ten or fifteen minutes later, Harry Cornish and his parents—accompanied by Colonel Gardiner and Assistant DA Osborne—entered the restaurant and seated themselves a short distance away. The two parties studiously ignored each other. Only once did Molineux and Cornish exchange a look. Roland maintained his usual blasé expression, while Cornish’s face, which had seemed fixed in a scowl for the past two weeks, was “wreathed in smiles.”2
By 8:00 P.M., the two Molineuxs and their counsel were back in the courtroom. Roland was just finishing a cigar when the jury returned.
“Gentlemen, have you agreed upon a verdict?” asked Coroner Hart when the twelve men had reseated themselves.
“We have,” replied the foreman, Otto P. Amend.
“What is the verdict?” asked Hart.
Foreman Amend handed the written verdict to the stenographer, but Hart directed him to read it himself. In a voice that resounded in the tense silence of the little courtroom, Amend read, “We find that the said Mrs. Katherine Adams came to her death on the twenty-eighth day of December 1898 by poisoning by mercuric cyanide administered to her by Harry S. Cornish, said poison having been sent in a bottle of bromo-seltzer through the mails by Roland B. Molineux.”
A reporter, keeping his eyes on Molineux’s face as the judgment was delivered, saw his “lips tremble.” Otherwise, Roland remained as stolid as ever.
“The coroner’s jury having found that Katherine J. Adams came to her death by poison sent through the mails by Roland Burnham Molineux, it becomes my duty to order his arrest and direct that he be arraigned before me,” said Hart, looking and sounding far more nervous than Roland. Though the New York State Code of Criminal Procedure allowed the coroner to issue an arrest warrant, it was a power he rarely had to exercise, and Hart seemed slightly overwhelmed by the gravity of the occasion.3
Detectives Carey and McCafferty, who had followed Roland back from the restaurant, sprang from their seats and hurried over to his side. The accused man never winced as the officers placed their hands on his shoulders and ordered him to rise. Spectators at the rear of the courtroom surged forward or stood on their seats, craning their necks for a clearer view.
Coat and derby in hand, Roland was escorted from the courtroom. “They had to settle on someone, so they settled on me,” he said to the reporters who thronged around him. “I am innocent. They have no evidence to hold me.” In the din that had erupted in the cramped little chamber, the newsmen had to strain to make out the words.
Men who have been charged with sensational murders rarely lack for female admirers. This is true even when the accused is significantly less handsome than Roland Burnham Molineux. As the prisoner disappeared into Coroner Hart’s office, a gaggle of young women attempted to push their way inside and had to be forcibly barred by a police officer stationed at the doorway.
Inside the office, while Hart signed the commitment papers, Roland exchanged a few words with his father, who was visibly moved. The prisoner was then taken down one of the elevator cars to the second floor of the building. The General and his lawyers followed in the next car. At the threshold of the doorway leading to the “Bridge of Sighs”—the enclosed walkway that connected the Criminal Court Building to the Tombs—Roland shook his father’s hand and said, “Good-bye, Governor.”
“Good-bye, boy,” said the General, tears welling in his eyes. Then, as his son was led away by the detectives, the old man turned to Bartow Weeks and said, “I wish I was going in there instead.” Weeks gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder, and the two men left the building.
The evening papers had lost no time in rushing out special editions. Outside, on the snow-covered streets, newsboys were shouting the headlines: “Molineux arrested!” “Molineux the Poisoner!”4
By the time the General arrived home, the news had reached Brooklyn. He found his wife in a state of near collapse. As for Blanche, she had shut herself in her upstairs room, where she lay facedown on her bed, sobbing into her pillow. Anyone overhearing those anguished sounds would have naturally (if mistakenly) assumed that she was weeping for her husband.
After bidding farewell to his father, Roland had spent a few minutes consulting with his attorneys in the office of Warden Hagen. He seemed perfectly composed and not the least bit downhearted. Before being led away, he asked for permission to smoke in his cell, a request Hagen readily granted. Escorted by a guard, Roland was then taken up an iron staircase to “Murderers’ Row” on the second tier of the old prison, where he was locked in cell 36.
By the feeble light entering through a narrow barred window set high in one stone wall, Roland inspected his surroundings. This did not require much time. Measuring six feet wide by eight feet long, the cell was just large enough to accommodate a steel-framed bunk bed, a small wooden bench holding a washbasin, and a chamber pot. In the remaining space, a standing man had barely enough room to dress and undress himself.
Extracting a big Havana from the inside pocket of his double-breasted coat, he bit off one end and lit the other with a phosphorous match. But after only a few puffs, he plucked the cigar from his mouth and hurled it onto the cold stone floor.
Then, seating himself on the edge of the bottom cot, he leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.5