On Monday, May 1, Justice Bookstaver handed down his decision. Bartow Weeks’s motion to obtain the immediate release of his client was denied. Roland would have to remain in jail.1
Even as Molineux received this disappointing news, however, powerful backstairs forces were at work to set him free.
Just two days after Bookstaver issued his ruling, Roland’s case was resubmitted to a new grand jury. The justice in charge was a gentleman named MacMahon, a former battlefield comrade of Roland’s father and, like the General, a longtime member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Six of the jurors belonged to the same patriotic organization, including the foreman, Colonel William C. Church, who like Justice MacMahon was an old friend of General Molineux’s.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 10—a week to the day after beginning its deliberations—the grand jury refused to reindict Roland. While the men from the DA’s office—James Osborne and Maurice Blumenthal—looked on grimly, Roland was brought to the bar. He was dressed in a black double-breasted sack coat that made the prison pallor of his face stand out in even sharper relief. Despite his somewhat unwholesome appearance, however, he carried his head erect and wore a look of supreme confidence. He permitted himself only the faintest of smiles when—acting on the jury’s decision—his father’s crony, Justice MacMahon, immediately discharged the prisoner from custody.
Hurrying up to Roland, a beaming Bartow Weeks threw an arm around his shoulder and exclaimed, “I congratulate you!”
Roland seized his lawyer’s hand and shook it vigorously before turning to the seated grand jurors. “I thank you, gentlemen,” he said with a grave little bow. Then, with Weeks at his side and a mob of reporters at his heels, he headed for the exit.
His freedom lasted only as long as it took him to reach the door.
Hardly had he set foot in the corridor when he was confronted by two burly figures with badges pinned to their coats—his longtime nemeses, Detectives Carey and McCafferty. Holding up one beefy hand, McCafferty ordered Molineux to stop. “You are under arrest,” he declared.
Roland, looking startled, halted in his tracks.
“What’s going on here?” cried Weeks. “This man has just been discharged!”
Ignoring the lawyer, McCafferty took Roland by the arm. “Come along with me,” he said.
“Hold on,” demanded Weeks. “Where’s your warrant?”
Reaching into a pocket, McCafferty removed a paper and handed it to Weeks, whose face had gone red with anger. He examined it for a moment before emitting a derisive snort. “It is a charge of assault,” he explained to Roland. “Against Cornish. Well, we’ll see about that.”
By then, the corridor was jammed with “a hundred or so of men, reporters, witnesses, clerks, and hangers-on about the building,” the whole surging mob buzzing with excitement. “Make room here,” bawled McCafferty as he and Carey elbowed their way through the crowd.
With a horde of newsmen “tumbling one over another in pursuit,” Roland was led down one flight of stairs to the chambers of Police Justice William Travers Jerome. After an hour or so of legal wrangling between Weeks and Osborne, Roland—who had enjoyed approximately three minutes of liberty—was returned to his cell in the Tombs, his bail set at $10,000.2
The rearrest of his son did little to dampen the happiness of Roland’s father, who, like Bartow Weeks, was confident that the “charge of assault won’t amount to anything.” His son, he predicted, would soon be a free man. After all, if the grand jurors had refused to indict Roland for murder, they were hardly likely to do so for the lesser charge of assault.3
The yellow papers, in the meantime, fumed at this latest turn of events. ACTION IN THE MOLINEUX CASE A PUZZLE, read the headline of Tuesday’s Journal. WHAT MYSTERIOUS INFLUENCE WORKED TO PREVENT HIS FACING A TRIAL JURY? Hearst himself provided the answer on his editorial page. That the grand jury—stacked with General Molineux’s friends and sympathizers—had dismissed the charges against Roland was a flagrant instance of what Hearst decried as “the Triumph of the Pull”:
The most corroding evil in American life today is the power of pulls. In this republic, by the theory of whose government one man is as good as another and has all the rights of any other, there is a discrimination among citizens that can hardly be matched anywhere in the world outside of Turkey. If the schools are overcrowded and some children must be shut out, the parents with influence secure the places. Pulls obtain positions in every branch of the public service; they gain favor in assessments for taxation; they relieve their possessors from jury duty; they secure contracts; they give desirable assignments to officers of the army and navy; and they enable one firm to sell poisonous beef to the Government when another would not be allowed to dispose of goods of the first quality. The pull is rampant in private business, and it has now invaded the courts…. When the power of pull can accomplish that much, the plain American citizen may be thankful that he is allowed to live.4
The same “mysterious influence” appeared to be at work when, several weeks later, Roland’s bail was cut in half. On the afternoon of Friday, June 9, he was taken from the Tombs and escorted to the chief clerk’s office, where he received an affectionate greeting and a celebratory cigar from his father, who had just posted the $5,000 cash bail with the city chamberlain.
Once again, however, Assistant District Attorney Osborne had planned for this contingency. As Bartow Weeks led Roland and his father from the office, he spotted Detectives Carey and McCafferty conferring in the corridor. Surmising at once that they were waiting for his client, Weeks motioned for Roland and the General to follow him. Slipping back into the office, the three men quickly crossed the room and filed rapidly up the narrow iron staircase at the rear.
It took a moment for the detectives to realize that Molineux was gone. When they did, they made a mad dash for the stairway. By then, Roland and the others had crossed to the opposite side of the building and gotten into the elevator, which was carrying them down to the lobby. Realizing what was happening, the detectives managed to intercept their quarry before he fled the building.
Grinning at the farcical little chase, Roland was served with another arrest warrant for the murder of Mrs. Adams and, after being taken again before Justice Jerome, returned to his cell in the Tombs.5
This time, he had managed to remain free for nearly twice as long as on the previous occasion: just over five minutes.
In mid-July, by the order of Justice Edgar Fursman, the Molineux case was resubmitted to yet another grand jury—the third to take up the case. This time, however, there were no intimates of Roland’s father among the jurors. After a three-day investigation, they handed down their decision.
Roland Molineux was indicted on the charge of murder in the first degree for the killing of Katherine Adams. He was arraigned the following day, Friday, July 21, 1899.
Colonel Gardiner felt certain that, this time, the indictment would stick. “I am satisfied that we have sufficient evidence against Molineux to convict him of murder,” he declared.6
Assistant District Attorney Osborne was positively jubilant. The moment he learned of the indictment, he called for a messenger boy and sent a message to his wife, who was summering upstate in the village of Pawling. The telegram consisted of a single terse but eloquent line: “The people won.”7