So many newspapers covered the Molineux story (not only in New York but around the country), and the case went on for so long (four years from Katherine Adams’s murder to Roland’s acquittal), that, for the sake of completing my research and actually writing the book, I limited myself to five of the city’s principal dailies—the World, the Journal, the Herald, the Sun, and the Times—plus the Brooklyn Eagle, which, because of the Molineux family’s long association with Brooklyn, covered the case in great detail. Even so, I ended up with several thousand Xeroxed pages, most copied from microfilm machines at the main branch of the New York Public Library. (Thankfully, both the Times and the Brooklyn Eagle are available online.)
The Eagle also ran many articles on Edward Molineux’s civic, political, and military activities, extending back to the 1860s. For information about his earlier years I relied entirely on documents—his journals, letters, etc.—in the possession of his great-grandson, Will Molineux.
Throughout the writing of the book I scrupulously avoided the New Journalistic techniques pioneered by Capote et al—inventing dialogue, imagining what people were thinking, fleshing out scenes with atmospheric touches, etc. The most novelistic portions of the book are those dealing with Blanche, but everything in them comes directly from her memoirs, provided to me by Jane Pejsa, whose mother, Irene Hauser, befriended Blanche in the last years of her life.
I have also refrained, in the body of the book, from offering a tidy answer to the question of Roland’s innocence or guilt. Like the Lizzie Borden and O. J. Simpson cases, the Molineux affair will forever be marked by a degree of ambiguity. Crime buffs have been debating the matter for a century. Entries on Roland are routinely found in crime encyclopedias such as The Mammoth Book of Murder (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1989) and The Greatest Criminals of All Time (New York: Stein and Day, 1982), whose authors do not hesitate to rank him with the country’s most notorious homicidal maniacs. On the other hand, there are those like George P. LeBrun—former New York City coroner and author of It’s Time to Tell (New York: William Morrow, 1962)—who unequivocally assert Roland’s innocence.
As for me, I’ve always been struck by the fact that, in the century following the slaughter of Andrew and Abby Borden, there were a number of highly sensational murder trials in the United States involving wealthy and prominent citizens accused of committing spectacularly savage acts of violence that were totally anomalous in their otherwise law-abiding lives (the Hall-Mills case of the 1920s is another instance). In each of these cases—owing partly to the skills of the high-powered legal “dream teams” retained by the defendants and partly, perhaps, to the reluctance of jurors to attribute such barbarity to admired, respectable individuals with no criminal backgrounds—the defendants ultimately went free.
My own opinion, based on my long immersion in the details of the Molineux affair, as well as my beliefs about the dark potentialities of human nature, is that the jury at Roland’s first trial rendered the correct verdict.
PROLOGUE
1. Mark Essig, Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death (New York: Walker & Company, 2003), p. 253.
2. Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New York State, 1639–1963 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1997), pp. 81–92; New York World, March 21, 1899, p. 1.
3. Hearn, p. 94.
4. New York World, February 24, 1900, p. 12.
5. Roland Molineux, The Room with the Little Door (New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1902), pp. 26–32; New York Times, February 27, 1900, p. 14.
CHAPTER ONE
1. Edward Molineux’s scrapbooks are owned by his great-grandson, Will Molineux.
2. From an unsigned note among the Molineux family papers.
3. The source of this legend is Nellie Zada Rice Molyneux, History, genealogical and biographical, of the Molyneux families (Syracuse, NY: C. W. Bardeen, 1904), pp. 17–18.
4. All information regarding Edward Molineux and the Tiemanns comes from the unpublished reminiscences of William Tiemann, a copy of which is owned by Will Molineux.
5. Even before the formation of the 159th Brigade, Edward had already taken part in the war, having been a volunteer member of the storied Seventh Regiment New York State Militia that hurried to the defense of Washington, D.C., immediately after the fall of Fort Sumter.
6. Among them, Port Hudson, Donaldsonville, Martinsville, New Iberia, Pine Mill, Marksville, Halltown, Winchester, Markettown, Cedar Creek, Fisher Hill, Charlestown, and Berryville.
7. “The New Major General,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 25, 1869, p. 2.
8. From a speech made by William F. Tiemann on October 19, 1896, on the thirty-second anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek. A typed transcript is among the ELM papers.
9. As he did in a speech to surviving veterans of the 159th in April, 1902. See “Gathering of Veterans,” Brooklyn Eagle, April 15, 1902, p. 5.
CHAPTER TWO
1. In June 1884—during a controversy over Governor Grover Cleveland’s appointment of ELM as major general of the Second Division of National Guard—the Brooklyn Eagle noted that “General Molineux has been in the West for some time.” The reasons for ELM’s trip—i.e., to bring Roland home after his two-year exile—were, of course, unknown to the public. See Brooklyn Eagle, June 6, 1884, p. 4.
2. Edward Leslie Molineux, Physical and Military Exercise in Public Schools: A National Necessity, p. 9.
3. Quoted in John Rickards Betts, America’s Sporting Heritage: 1850–1950 (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1974), p. 52.
4. J. Willis and R. Wettan. “Social Stratification in New York City Athletic Clubs, 1865–1915,” Journal of Sports History, 24 (Spring 1997), p. 54.
5. Willis and Wettan, p. 54. See also Malcolm W. Ford, “The New York Athletic Club,” Outing (Vol. XXXIII), December 1898, pp. 248 ff., and Bob Considine and Fred G. Jarvis, The First Hundred Years: A Portrait of the NYAC (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1969).
6. Eric Homberger, Mrs. Astor’s New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 212.
7. Theodore Dreiser, The “Rake”, Papers on Language & Literature, 27 (spring 1991), 148–49.
8. There were two very different versions of this scandalous incident, one told by Mr. Edward O. Kindberg, the other by his wife, Eleanor. According to the former, his wife had been involved in an adulterous affair with the rakish, fifteen-year-old Molineux. Mrs. Kindberg, on the other hand, claimed that her husband had set her up. According to an affidavit she filed during their exceptionally ugly divorce, on the evening of February 24, 1883, the teenaged Molineux—“a friend and companion of her husband”—called upon her at her apartment at 292 Henry Street, Brooklyn, and “remained in the house until 10 P.M.,” innocently chatting with her. About fifteen minutes after his departure, “her husband and several men broke into her room while she was in bed, lighted the gas, and her husband said, ‘Now, we’ve got you, you must sign this paper. We will write for you.’” With one man seated on each side of the bed, she was threatened and “compelled to sign a blank piece of paper,” which was later filled in with a fake confession of her own supposed adulterous behavior, to be used as evidence in denying her alimony. See New York World, January 12, 1899, p. 12.
9. See Brooklyn Eagle, April 7, 1889, p. 1, and February 17, 1891, p. 6.
CHAPTER THREE
1. See Jane Pejsa, The Molineux Affair (Minneapolis: Kenwood Publishing, 1983), p. 86. The description of ELM’s parenting style is an extrapolation, based on Will Molineux’s written memories of his own grandfather, Leslie Edward, the General’s oldest son. This seems to me a valid approach, since—as Will Molineux notes—“men are apt to be like their fathers.”
2. The information about Leslie Edward comes from Will Molineux’s written “Remembrances of my grandfather.”
3. Pejsa, p. 29.
4. Samuel Klaus, ed., The Molineux Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929), p. 230.
5. Klaus, p. 223.
6. Pejsa, p. 30.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Joseph E. Cornish, The History and Genealogy of the Cornish Families in America (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., 1907), p. 128.
2. Klaus, The Molineux Case, p. 3.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, February 10, 1899, p. 1.
4. New York Times, December 18, 1895, p. 15.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. Brooklyn Eagle, April 7, 1889, p. 1.
2. Klaus, p. 11.
3. New York Journal, February 15, 1899, p. 2; New York World, February 15, 1899, p. 2.
4. New York Journal, February 15, 1899, p. 2.
5. Ibid.
6. New York World, February 12, 1899, p. 2; Klaus, p. 8.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Lloyd Morris, Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life of the Last Hundred Years (New York: Random House, 1951), p. 208.
2. Pejsa, p. 31; Klaus, p. 19.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. New York World, March 5, 1899, p. 1.
2. This story is impossible to verify. Indeed, it is not at all clear that Blanche really had an artificial eye. Some observers insisted that she did (see, for example, the New York World, February 22, 1899, p. 2). Others, however, claimed that her left eye simply had a peculiar cast which, in certain lights, made it look like glass (see Pejsa, pp. 137–38). It appears to be true, however, that whatever was wrong with her eye, Blanche was self-conscious about it. At the time of the first Molineux trial, despite relentless efforts by reporters, only one photograph of her could be found, a group portrait taken when she was a member of the Rubinstein Musical Society and in which she is hardly visible. In her only other surviving photograph—published in the August 27, 1905, issue of The Chicago Tribune—she sits with her left side turned away from the camera, as though deliberately concealing it from sight.
3. The unpublished memoirs of Blanche Molineux Scott were provided to me by Jane Pejsa, whose used them as the basis for her own book, The Molineux Affair. They will hereafter be referred to as “Scott.”
4. Scott, p. 16.
5. Ibid., p. 17.
6. Ibid., p. 18.
7. Ibid., pp. 21–22.
8. Ibid.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. New York World, March 5, 1899, p. 1; Scott, p. 19.
2. Details in this passage—evoking the sights that Blanche would have seen on her strolls along Broadway—are taken from Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 226–27.
3. New York Journal, February 11, 1900, p. 28; New York Sun, February 4, 1900, p. 2.
4. Lucius Beebe, The Big Spenders (New York: Random House, 1966), pp. 115–16, and M. H. Dunlop, Gilded City (New York: William Morrow, 2000), pp. 20f.
5. Scott, p. 25.
6. Ibid., pp. 24–25.
7. Ibid., pp. 30–32.
8. Ibid., p. 37.
CHAPTER NINE
1. Dunlop, Gilded City, p. 124.
2. New York World, February 22, 1899.
3. There is an extant portrait of Lois, done by one of Boston’s leading painters of society women, William M. Paxton. Titled Portrait of a Woman in Black (Mrs. Howard Oakie). It shows a quite beautiful woman, perhaps thirty years old, with lush deep-brown hair, large dark eyes, a strong nose, full mouth, and elegant throat. She wears no ornamentation beyond a lace scarf draped over the shoulders of her rich, black velvet gown. Despite her subdued garb, there is a physical vibrancy to Mrs. Oakie, a radiant sensuality that, by all accounts, all three Chesebrough sisters shared and that—in addition to their other attributes of intellect and charm—clearly accounted for the attraction they exerted on men.
4. Scott, p. 36.
5. Ibid., p. 37.
6. Ibid., 40–41.
7. Sidney Sutherland, “The Mystery of the Poison Christmas Gift,” Liberty, March 9, 1929, p 45.
8. Scott, p. 62.
9. Ibid., p. 42.
10. Ibid., p. 61.
11. Ibid., p. 62.
CHAPTER TEN
1. John S. Haller and Robin M. Haller, The Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America (New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 108–10; S. Pancoast, Pancoast’s Tokology and Ladies Medical Guide: A Complete Instructor in All the Delicate and Wonderful Matters Pertaining to Women (Chicago: Thomas & Thomas, 1901), p. 35.
2. For a fascinating discussion of the class of single young women to which Blanche was perceived to belong, see Haller, pp. 246–47.
3. Scott, p. 60.
4. New York World, March 3, 1899, p. 1.
5. Scott, p. 44.
6. Ibid., pp. 45–46.
7. Ibid., p. 46.
8. Ibid., p. 47.
9. Ibid.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1. Scott, p. 49.
2. Ibid., p. 48.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., pp. 49–50.
6. Klaus, p. 12.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1. Scott, p. 52.
2. Pejsa, p. 31.
3. Scott, p. 52.
4. In her memoir, Blanche mentions these as places she went to dine with Roland. My description of a typical night at these fashionable eateries derives from Lloyd Morris’s Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life of the Last Hundred Years (New York: Random House, 1951), pp. 260–61.
5. Ibid., p. 60.
6. Klaus, pp. 277–78.
7. Scott, p. 61.
8. Ibid.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1. Klaus, p.11.
2. New York World, February 11, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York Journal, February 22, 1899, p. 2.
4. Scott, p. 58.
5. Ibid., p. 59.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., p. 61.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 64.
10. Ibid.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1. New York Journal, February 10, 1899, p. 3.
2. Klaus, p. 10.
3. Pejsa, p. 57.
4. Ibid.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1. New York Journal, February 10, 1899, p. 2.
2. Subsequent quotations in this chapter are taken from Scott, pp. 65–77.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1. All quotations in this chapter are taken from Scott, pp. 80–86.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1. “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XI, trans. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press, 1957), p. 183. In Freud’s experience, psychical impotence was—next to “the many forms of anxiety”—the disorder that most frequently drove men to seek psychoanalytic help. Unsurprisingly, he traces this disturbance to unconscious incestuous wishes.
2. Pejsa, p. 71.
3. Luc Sante, Low Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 126-28. Also, see George Chauncey, Gay New York (New York: Basic Books, 1994), pp. 33–40.
4. See Stephen Crane, “Opium’s Varied Dreams,” in Stephen Crane: Prose and Poetry, J.C. Levenson, ed. (New York: Library of America, 1984), pp. 853–59.
5. Scott, p. 63.
6. Ibid., p. 67.
7. Ibid., pp. 87–88.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1. Klaus, p. 302.
2. Ibid., pp. 312-13. Also see The People of the State of New York, Respondents, against Roland B. Molineux, Appellant. Case on Appeal from the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, in and for the county of New York. Court of Appeals of the State of New York(New York, 1901), pp. 3222–25.
3. See advertisement in the New York Sun, September 24, 1899, p. 6.
4. People of the State of New York, Respondents, against Roland B. Molineux, Appellant, p. 3265.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1. Klaus, pp. 315–16.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1. All quotes in this chapter are taken from Scott, pp. 92–95.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1. New York Morning Journal, January 9, 1899, pp. 1–2.
2. Klaus, p. 135.
3. One of the many ads for Kutnow’s can be found in the New York Journal, April 30, 1899, p. 3.
4. Klaus, p. 138.
5. Ibid., p. 202.
6. Ibid., p. 206.
7. See Merck’s 1899 Manual of the Materia Medica, Together with a Summary of Therapeutic Indications and a Classification of Medicaments: A Ready-Reference Pocket Book for the Practicing Physician (New York: Merck & Co., 1899).
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1. Scott, p. 98.
2. Ibid.
3. New York World, January 9, 1899, p. 2.
4. Ibid.
5. New York Times, November 12, 1898, p. 7.
6. “Brooklyn Society,” Brooklyn Eagle, November 30, 1898, p. 5. The current Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, located uptown at Fifth Avenue and Ninetieth Street, was not built until the late 1920s. Roland chose to be married in the original church partly because it was close to his club and partly, no doubt, for his usual snobbish reasons, since it was frequented by the city’s elite.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1. Ezra Bowen, ed., This Fabulous Century: 1870–1900 (New York: Time-Life Books, 1970), p. 166.
2. George Juergens, Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 6 and 51.
3. Bowen, p. 168.
4. Ibid.
5. Juergens, pp. 51–52.
6. John D. Stevens, Sensationalism and the New York Press (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 70.
7. Juergens, pp. 67–69.
8. Denis Brian, Pulitzer: A Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), p. 74.
9. Ibid., p. 55.
10. W. W. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst (New York: Scribner’s, 1961), p. 41.
11. Ibid., p. 47.
12. Ben Procter, William Randolph Hearst: The Early Years, 1863–1910 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 41.
13. Swanberg, p. 43.
14. Ibid., p. 193.
15. Ibid., p. 49.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1. Sidney Kobre, The Yellow Press and Gilded Age Journalism (Tallahassee: Florida State University, 1964), p. 62.
2. Among the staffers he stole away was cartoonist R. F. Outcault, creator of the enormously popular comic strip “The Yellow Kid,” starring a bald, jug-eared slum urchin dressed in a yellow nightgown. In retaliation, Pulitzer hired another cartoonist, George Luks, to continue producing “The Yellow Kid” for the World. The competing garishly colored comic strips supplied the name that would forever be associated with Hearst and Pulitzer’s brand of newspaper sensationalism: “yellow journalism.”
3. Swanberg, p. 68.
4. Ibid., p. 66.
5. New York Journal, December 29, 1895. See Kobre, p. 73.
6. Swanberg, pp. 124–25.
7. In this sense, our obsession with knife-(or ax-or chain-saw-) wielding psychos—as well as with scalpel-wielding TV medical examiners—is the flip side of our fantasy that our bodies can be made indestructible through exercise: a grim reminder from the unconscious depths that, no matter how many crunches we do, we are made of all-too-perishable flesh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1. Roger Lane, Murder in America (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997), p. 320.
2. Mark Regan Essig, Science and Sensation: Poison Murder and Forensic Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Cornell University, January 2000, p. 5.)
3. New York Sun, March 3, 1899; New York World, March 11, 1899; New York World, March 16, 1899; New York World, April 2, 1899; New York World, April 7, 1899.
4. Edward H. Smith, Famous Poison Mysteries (New York: The Dial Press, 1927), p. 30.
5. Ibid., p. 31.
6. Ibid., p. 22.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1. Klaus, pp. 151–70; New York World, February 10, 1899, p. 2.
2. Mrs. Adams’s other child, her adult son, Howard, also lived there occasionally, though at this time he was in Connecticut, nursing a broken leg. See Klaus, p. 221.
3. New York Evening Journal, December 12, 1898, p. 2.
4. Klaus, pp. 258-69. There is a slight discrepancy between the testimony of Harry Cornish and Florence Rodgers. According to the latter, she called for Cornish’s help after her mother had collapsed. Cornish testified that he had just reached the bathroom when Mrs. Adams collapsed “like six foot of chain.”
5. New York World, February 10, 1899, p. 3.
6. Klaus, pp. 51–56; New York Herald, February 16, 1899, p. 2; New York Journal, February 16, 1899; New York World, February 18, 1899.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1. Klaus, p. 157.
2. Ibid., p. 183.
3. Ibid., p. 158.
4. Ibid., p. 128.
5. Ibid.
6. New York Sun, February 24, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1. Evening Journal, December 28, 1898, p. 2.
2. New York Journal, “Gave Poison to a Dozen to Kill One,” December 27, 1898, p. 1.
3. New York Journal, December 29, 1899, p. 1.
4. New York World, December 29, 1898, p. 1.
5. New York Journal, December 29, 1899, p. 2; New York World, December 19, 1899, p. 2.
6. Jürgen Thorwald, The Century of the Detective (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), p. 14.
7. Ibid., p. 19.
8. Ibid., pp. 53–54; Jackson Morley, ed., Crimes and Punishment: A Pictorial Encyclopedia of Aberrant Behavior (London: BPC Publishing, 1974), Vol. 9, pp. 128–29.
9. Thorwald, p. 100.
10. Louis Menand, “She Had to Have It,” The New Yorker (April 23 & 30, 2001), pp. 62–70, and Russell R. Bradford and Ralph B. Bradford, Introduction to Handwriting Examination and Identification (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1992), p. 2.
11. New York Evening Journal, December 29, 1899, p. 1.
12. See, for example, the lead story on page 1 of The New York Herald, December 29, 1899, which declared that the poison was most probably sent to Cornish by a “woman inspired by jealousy.” Also The New York Times, December 29, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
1. Klaus, p. 158.
2. Arthur Carey, Memoirs of a Murder Man (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1930), p. 45.
3. New York Journal, December 30, 1898, p. 1.
4. New York World, December 30, 1898, p. 3.
5. New York Evening Journal, December 29, 1897, p. 2.
6. New York World, December 30, 1898, p. 2.
7. New York Herald, December 30, 1898, p. 4.
8. Ibid.
9. New York Times, December 30, 1898, p. 1.
10. Ibid.
11. New York Herald, December 30, 1898, p. 5.
12. Ibid., p. 3.
13. New York Journal, December 30, 1898, pp. 1–2.
14. New York Times, December 30, 1898, p. 2.
15. Klaus, pp. 154 and 159; New York Herald, February 18, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER THIRTY
1. New York Journal, December 31, 1898, pp. 1 and 2.
2. Carey, p. 1.
3. Ibid., pp. 2–9.
4. Ibid., pp. 38 ff.
5. New York Journal, December 31, 1898, pp. 1 and 3; New York Herald, December 31, 1898, p. 1; New York World, December 31, 1898, p. 1; Klaus, pp. 179–80; Carey, pp. 76–77.
6. New York World, December 31, 1898, p. 1.
7. New York Journal, December 31, 1898, p. 1; New York Herald, December 31, 1898, p. 1; New York World, December 31, 1898, p. 2.
8. New York Times, January 1, 1898, p. 2.
9. New York Journal, December 31, 1898, p. 2.
10. New York Herald, December 31, 1898, p. 4.
11. New York Herald, February 24, 1898, p. 4.
12. New York World, January 1, 1898, p. 1.
13. Ibid., p. 2.
14. Brian Burrell, Postcards from the Brain Museum (New York: Broadway Books, 2004), pp. 135–39.
15. New York World, January 2, 1898, p. 2.
16. New York World, January 1, 1898, p. 2.
17. Chauncey, pp. 170–73.
18. New York World, January 1, 1898, p. 1.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
1. Scott, p. 103.
2. Pejsa, p. 100.
3. Scott, p. 104. The material in this chapter, including all dialogue and direct quotes, is from Scott, pp. 104–10.
4. New York World, January 2, 1899, p. 3.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
1. Klaus, p. 312; Brooklyn Eagle, January 3, 1899, p. 16.
2. New York World, January 3, 1899, p. 2.
3. Ibid.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, January 3, 1899, p. 16.
5. Ibid.
6. New York Herald, January 3, 1899, p. 4.
7. Klaus, p. 7.
8. Scott, pp. 111–12.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
1. New York Sun, January 1, 1899, p. 12. Carey, p. 77.
3. New York Journal, January 3, 1899, p. 3.
4. Carey, p. 78.
5. New York Herald, January 3, 1899, p. 4.
6. New York Journal, January 6, 1899, p. 1.
7. Carey, p. 81.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., pp. 81–82; Klaus, pp. 212–14.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
1. New York Journal, January 4, 1899, p. 1.
2. New York World, January 2, 1899, pp. 1 and 3.
3. At the coroner’s inquest into the Adams murder, Roland freely admitted that he was friendly with Connors and his wife. See, for example, New York World, February 15, 1899, p. 2. For more on Connors, see Sante, especially pp. 125–30.
4. New York Journal, January 4, 1899, p. 2; New York World, January 4, 1899, p. 2.
5. Carey, p. 80.
6. Ibid.
7. New York Times, January 5, 1899, p. 1.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.; New York Herald, January 5, 1899, p. 1.
10. For more on the “murder squad,” see Swanberg, pp. 124–25.
11. New York Journal, January 5, 1899, pp. 1 and 2.
12. Ibid., p. 1.
13. New York Herald, January 7, 1899, p. 2.
14. Ibid.; New York World, January 7, 1899, p. 2.
15. New York Herald, January 7, 1899, p. 2.
16. New York World, January 7, 1899, p. 2.
17. New York World, January 6, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
1. New York World, January 1, 1899, p. 2.
2. New York Times, January 24, 1899, p. 7, and January 25, 1899, p. 12.
3. New York Journal, January 5, 1899, p. 2.
4. See Klaus, p. 269.
5. New York World, January 4, 1899, p. 2.
6. Ibid.
7. New York World, January 13, 1899, p. 1.
8. Ibid., p. 12.
9. New York World, January 18, 1899, p. 2.
10. Ibid., p. 1.
11. New York World, January 19, 1899, p. 4.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
1. New York World, January 2, 1899, p. 1, and December 30, 1898, p. 2.
2. New York World, January 4, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York Herald, January 5, 1899, p. 1.
4. Carey, p. 83.
5. New York Journal, January 9, 1899, p. 2; Klaus, p. 215f.
6. New York Journal, January 7, 1899, p. 1, and January 9, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
1. Scott, pp. 52, 58, and 118.
2. Ibid., p. 118.
3. Ibid., p. 121.
4. New York World, January 8, 1899, p. 2, and January 9, 1899, p. 2.
5. Stevens, pp. 83–84.
6. New York World Sunday Supplement, January 8, 1899, p. 21.
7. New York Journal Sunday Supplement, January 15, 1899, p. 10.
8. New York Journal, January 9, 1899, p. 3.
9. New York World, January 8, 1899, p. 3.
10. New York Journal, January 6, 1899, p. 2.
11. New York Journal, January 7, 1899, p. 2.
12. New York World, January 7, 1899, p. 2.
13. Scott, p. 119.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
1. New York Journal Sunday Supplement, January 15, 1899, p. 10.
2. New York Journal, January 13, 1899, p. 5.
3. New York Journal, January 14, 1899, p. 6.
4. New York Journal, January 16, 1899, p. 6.
5. New York Journal, January 11, 1899, p. 2.
6. New York World, January 15, 1899, p. 14; New York Journal, January 10, 1899, p. 2; New York Evening Journal, January 10, 1899, p. 1.
7. New York Journal, January 7, 1899, p. 2, and January 9, 1899, p. 6.
8. New York Sun, January 7, 1899, p. 1.
9. New York Journal, January 7, 1899, p. 2; Pejsa, p. 124.
10. New York Times, January 10, 1899, p. 8.
11. New York Sun, January 7, 1899, p. 8.
12. New York Journal, January 25, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
1. New York Journal, January 22, 1899, p. 2.
2. Ibid.
3. Klaus, pp. 241–42.
4. Ibid.
5. New York World, January 4, 1899, p. 2.
6. Carey, pp. 84–85.
CHAPTER FORTY
1. Klaus, p. 290.
2. New York Journal, January 25, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York Times, January 25, 1899, p. 2.
4. Ibid.
5. New York Times, January 26, 1899, p. 2; New York Herald, January 26, 1899, p. 1; New York Journal, January 26, 1899, p. 1.
6. Early reports described the letter as having been written on “stationery such as a woman might use.” See New York Herald, January 26, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
1. As Albert Borowitz summarizes this case: “During the weeks before Christmas [1898]…Mrs. Margaret E. Cody went on trial for attempted blackmail of the heirs of robber-baron Jay Gould through threats to disclose that Gould had fathered an illegitimate daughter. Despite the testimony of handwriting expert David Carvalho that Gould’s name on the baptismal record of his reputed child had been clumsily forged, the jury could not agree on a verdict.” See Borowitz, “Packaged Death: Forerunners of the Tylenol Poisonings,” American Bar Association Journal, March 1983, p. 282.
2. New York Herald, January 26, 1899, p 1.
3. New York Herald, January 27, 1899, pp. 1–2.
4. Ibid., p. 2.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 1.
7. Carey, p. 87.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
1. Klaus, p. 292.
2. New York Herald, January 27, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York World, January 27, 1899, p. 2.
4. New York Journal, January 27, 1899, p. 2, and New York World, February 1, 1899, p. 2.
5. Klaus, pp. 305–7, and New York World, February 1, 1899, p. 2.
6. New York World, February 1, 1899, p. 2.
7. New York World, January 30, 1899, p. 2.
8. Ibid.
9. New York World, January 27, 28, and 29, 1899, p. 1; New York Journal, January 30, 1899, p. 1; and Klaus, p. 8.
10. New York Journal, January 27, 1899, p. 2; New York Sun, January 4, 1899, p. 2; New York World, January 31, 1899; New York Herald, January 30, 1899, p. 1.
11. New York World, February 2 and 3, 1899, pp. 1–2; New York Journal, February 2, 1899, p. 1.
12. New York Herald, January 29, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
1. New York Journal, February 4, 1899, p. 6.
2. New York Journal, January 11, 1899, p. 4.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, February 3, 1899, p. 1.
4. New York Journal, February 3, 1899, p. 3.
5. New York World, February 7, 1899, p. 14.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
1. New York Journal, February 9, 1899, p. 3; New York Herald, February 9, 1899, p. 3; New York World, February 9, 1899, p. 2.
2. New York Journal, February 10, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York Herald, February 8, 1899, p. 3; New York Journal, February 9, 1899. After a cursory investigation, the district attorney’s office announced that there “was nothing to connect [Baldwin’s death] in any way with the death of Mrs. Adams or to show that poison had been given to Mr. Baldwin during or after the trip on the Viator.” There the matter rested. See New York Journal, February 10, 1899, p. 4.
4. New York Journal, February 10, 1899, p. 2.
5. Ibid., pp. 1 and 2; New York World, February 10, 1899, pp. 1 and 2; New York Herald, February 10, 1899, pp. 1 and 2; New York Sun, February 10, 1899, pp. 1 and 2; Brooklyn Eagle, February 10, 1899, p. 1.
6. Klaus, p. 15.
7. New York Journal, February 10, 1899, p. 2.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.; New York Herald, February 10, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
1. New York World, February 11, 1899, pp. 1–2.
2. New York Journal, February 11, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York Times, February 11, 1899, p. 3.
4. Klaus, p. 15.
5. New York Journal, New York World, New York Sun, February 11, 1899, pp. 1–2.
6. New York World, February 13, 1899, p. 3.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
1. New York Journal, February 13, 1899, p. 1.
2. The great “Blizzard of ’99” was an event of such magnitude that it became known in meteorological lore as “the Storm King.” See New York World, February 14, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York Journal, February 15, 1899, p. 1.
4. New York World, February 12, 1899, p. 2; Klaus, p. 8.
5. New York Journal, New York World, New York Sun, New York Herald, February 15, 1899, pp. 1–2.
6. Carey, p. 91.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
1. New York Journal, February 18, 1899, p. 5; New York World, February 19, 1899, p. 1.
2. New York Herald, February 16, 1899, p. 3.
3. New York Journal, February 16, 1899, p. 5.
4. New York Herald, February 18, 1899, p. 3.
5. New York Journal, February 18, 1899, p. 5; New York World, February 19, 1899, p. 3.
6. Ibid.
7. New York Journal, February 17, 1899, p. 5.
8. New York World, February 19, 1899, p. 3.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
1. Scott, pp. 131–32.
2. New York World, February 22, 1899, pp. 1 and 2.
3. New York Sun, February 22, 1899, p. 2.
4. New York Herald, February 22, 1899, p. 1.
5. All quotes from Blanche’s testimony are taken from the New York Sun, February 22, 1899, p. 2.
6. Scott, p. 132.
7. New York Journal, February 22, 1899, p. 5.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
1. Brooklyn Eagle, February 23, 1899, p. 1.
2. New York Times, February 24, 1899, p. 3.
3. New York Journal, February 25, 1899, p. 3
4. New York Journal, February 24, 1899, p. 4.
5. New York Herald, February 24, 1899, p. 4.
6. Ibid.
7. New York Journal, February 24, 1899, p. 2.
8. Ibid.
9. New York Journal, February 25, 1899, p. 5.
10. Ibid.
11. New York Evening Journal, February 25, 1899, p. 2.
12. New York Journal, February 25, 1899, p. 5.
CHAPTER FIFTY
1. New York Herald, February 26, 1899, p. 1.
2. New York World, February 24, 1899, p. 12.
3. New York Journal, February 28, 1899, p. 1.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. New York World, February 28, 1899, pp. 1–2.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
1. New York World, February 28, 1899, p. 2.
2. New York Herald, February 28, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York Journal, February 2, 1899, p. 2.
4. New York World, New York Journal, New York Herald, New York Sun, February 28, 1899, pp. 1–2.
5. New York Journal, February 28, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
1. New York World, March 1, 1899, p. 2.
2. New York Sun, March 2, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York Evening Journal, March 4, 1899, p. 1.
4. Klaus, p. 18.
5. New York World, March 2, 1899, p. 4.
6. New York Journal, March 7, 1899, p. 7.
7. New York Journal, March 1, 1899, p. 1.
8. New York Sun, March 5, 1899, p. 3; New York Journal, March 1, 1899, p. 2, and March 2, 1899, p. 1; New York World, March 3, 1899, p. 2; Brooklyn Eagle, March 2, 1899, p. 1.
9. New York Journal, March 5, 1899, p. 12.
10. New York World, March 2, 1899, p. 2.
11. New York World, March 1, 1899, p. 2.
12. New York Times, March 3, 1899, p. 2.
13. New York Journal, March 7, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
1. New York World, March 10, 1899, p. 4.
2. New York Journal, March 9, 1899, p. 3.
3. New York World, March 10, 1899, p. 4.
4. Ibid.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
1. Scott, pp. 135–36.
2. Ibid.
3. Scott, p. 134.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. New York Journal, March 24, 1899, p. 4.
7. New York World, March 25, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
1. New York Journal, March 2, 1899, p. 1.
2. New York World, March 2, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York Herald, March 3, 1899, p. 2.
4. New York World, March 17, 1899, p. 5.
5. New York Journal, March 14, 1899, p. 6.
6. New York Journal, March 9, 1899, p. 7.
7. Jay Robert Nash, Murder, America (London: Harrap, 1980), p. 150; New York Journal, March 21, 1899, p. 3.
8. New York Journal, March 21, 1899, p. 3.
9. Ann Jones, Women Who Kill (New York: Fawcett, 1980), p. 279.
10. See, for example, New York Journal, March 20, 1899, p. 4. This image anticipates, by thirty years, the single most infamous picture in the history of tabloid journalism, the front-page Daily News photograph of the murderess Ruth Snyder at the instant of her electrocution on January 12, 1928.
11. New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1899, p. 3.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
1. New York World, April 1, 1899, p. 3.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, April 13, 1899, p. 6.
3. New York World, April 13, 1899, pp. 1 and 3.
4. New York World, April 9, 1899, p. 1; Brooklyn Eagle, April 10, 1899, p. 1.
5. New York World, April 12, 1899, p. 2, and April 13, 1899, p. 2; New York Journal, April 12, 1899, p. 1.
6. New York Evening Journal, April 25, 1899, p. 2; New York Journal, April 26, 1899, p. 5; New York World, April 26, 1889, p. 3.
7. New York Times, April 14, 1899, p. 3.
8. Brooklyn Eagle, April 13, 1899, p. 1; New York Journal, April 14, 1899, pp. 1 and 5; New York Sun, April 14, 1899, p. 1; New York World, April 14, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
1. New York World, May 2, 1899, p. 2.
2. New York World, May 10, 1899, pp. 1 and 2; New York Journal, May 10, 1899, pp. 1 and 2; New York Times, May 10, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York Sun, May 11, 1899, p. 2.
4. New York Journal, May 11, 1899, p. 1, and May 10, 1899, p. 5.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, June 9, 1899, p. 1; New York Journal, June 10, 1899, p. 5; New York Times, June 10, 1899, p. 3.
6. New York World, July 21, 1899, p. 1; New York Times, July 21, 1899, p. 12.
7. New York Journal, July 21, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
1. New York Journal, July 15, 1899, p. 3; New York Sun, July 16, 1899, p. 5; New York Journal, July 1, 1899, p. 1; New York World, July 10, 1899, p. 7.
2. New York World, July 21, 1899, p. 5; New York Sun, July 19, 1899, p. 5.
3. New York Journal, August 16, 1899, p. 3.
4. See all issues of New York World, May 23, 1899, through June 17, 1899, p. 1.
5. New York World, July 30, 1899, fifth section, p. 1; New York Journal, August 13, 1899, p. 1; New York Sun, July 4, 1899, p. 1; New York World, July 7, 1899, p. 1.
6. New York World, July 28, 1899, p. 12, August 27, 1899, p. 7, August 28, 1899, p. 10.
7. New York World, July 28, 1899, p. 5; New York Journal, August 24, 1899, p. 3; Brooklyn Eagle, September 14, 1899, p. 7.
8. Scott, pp. 137–38.
9. New York World, August 2, 1899, p. 3.
10. New York World, November 2, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
1. Klaus, p. 23.
2. New York World, November 15, 1899, p. 2.
3. Ibid.
4. Author’s telephone interview with G. Gordon Liddy, May 19, 2004. See also G. Gordon Liddy, Will (New York: St. Martin’s, 1980), pp. 18–21.
5. New York World, November 15, 1899, p. 2.
6. New York Journal, November 15, 1899, pp. 1–2.
7. Brooklyn Eagle, November 16, 1899, p. 2.
8. New York Times, November 21, 1899, p. 6.
9. New York Sun, November 20, 1899, p. 3.
10. Brooklyn Eagle, November 20, 1899, p. 1.
11. New York Evening Journal, November 22, 1899, p. 1.
12. New York World, November 30, 1899, p. 2.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Pejsa, p. 183. Adding to the charade was the fact that November 29, 1899, was not their wedding anniversary. Roland and Blanche had been married on November 19 of the previous year.
16. New York Evening Journal, November 29, 1899, p. 1.
17. New York World, November 30, 1899, p. 2.
18. New York Evening Journal, December 2, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER SIXTY
1. Judy Crichton, America 1900: The Turning Point (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), p. 3.
2. Life, Vol. 28, No. 1 (January 2, 1950), p. 3.
3. Just as the period we call the sixties did not begin until roughly 1963, with the advent of the Beatles, and ended, arguably, on December 6, 1969, with the debacle of Altamont.
4. Neal Gabler, Life: The Movie (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), pp. 7 and 4.
5. Until then, it was common for critics to wait a few days after the first night before publishing reviews to give the production a chance to iron out any wrinkles—a function subsequently served, in the wake of Scott’s innovation, by out-of-town tryouts and previews.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, December 5, 1899, p. 4.
7. New York Sun, December 5, 1899, p. 4.
8. New York Journal, December 5, 1899, p. 5.
9. Klaus, pp. 24–25.
10. New York Herald, December 5, 1899, p. 1.
11. Klaus, p. 23.
12. This account of Osborne’s speech is drawn from the following sources: New York World, December 5, 1899, pp. 1–2; New York Times, December 5, 1899, p. 14; New York Journal, December 5, 1899, p. 16; Brooklyn Eagle, December 5, 1899, p. 4.
13. New York Herald, December 5, 1899, p. 1.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
1. New York World, December 5, 1899. At the end of the first week of testimony, Osborne’s conduct of the case already seemed so incoherent that, according to the New York Sun, “if the entire testimony…were put together in a book and given to the cleverest man that ever lived to read…he might read it from end to end and never suspect that he was reading the evidence in a murder trial” (December 9, 1899, p. 1).
2. Though often misunderstood as a literal corpse—the actual body of the victim without which, supposedly, no crime can be proved—the term corpus delicti actually means “the body or substance of the offense.” In homicide cases, this means the evidence which shows “that a human being was killed, that the death was the result of a criminal act, and that the killing occurred within the jurisdiction of the court.” These basic facts must be established before the trial can proceed. See Michael Kurland, How to Try a Murder(Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 2002), p. 68.
3. Klaus, pp. 51–58.
4. The letter was actually penned by Heiles, though dictated by Roland. It was sent, under a pseudonym, to Frederick Stearns & Company of Detroit, and—like the earlier letter mailed to the same company—sought confidential information about Harpster, a former salesman for Stearns who had subsequently gone to work for J. Herbert Ballantine. According to Heiles’s testimony, Roland—who hated Harpster because of the latter’s friendship with Cornish—was hoping to obtain compromising information about Harpster’s employment record “with a view to getting him dismissed from his place in Ballantine’s brewery office.” See New York Journal, December 6, 1899, p. 1.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, December 7, 1899, p. 2; New York Journal, December 8, 1899, p. 2; New York Sun, December 8, 1899, p. 2.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, December 5, 1899, p. 2.
7. Carey, p. 92.
8. New York World and New York Sun, December 9, 1899, p. 1.
9. New York Sun, December 11, 1899, p. 1.
10. New York Times, New York Journal, New York World, December 12, 1899, pp. 1–2; Brooklyn Eagle, December 11, 1899, p. 1.
11. New York Journal Sunday Supplement, December 17, 1899, p. 18.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
1. New York World, December 16, 1899, p. 1.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, December 12, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York World, December 27, 1899, p. 2.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, December 12, 1899, p. 1.
5. New York Journal, December 14, 1899.
6. New York World, December 19, 1899, p. 2.
7. New York Journal, December 19, 1899, p. 1.
8. New York World, December 19, 1899, p. 2.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
1. See Bradford and Bradford, p. 8.
2. New York Sun, December 27, 1899, p. 1.
3. New York World and New York Journal, December 28, 1899, pp. 1–2.
4. New York World, December 26, 1899, p. 5; New York Times, December 26, 1899, p. 8; New York Journal, December 26, 1899, p. 14.
5. New York Sun, December 27, 1899, p. 3.
6. New York World, December 31, 1899, p. 16.
7. Brooklyn Eagle, December 28, 1899, p. 1; New York Times, December 29, 1899, p. 1; New York World, December 29, 1899, p. 1; Klaus, pp. 148 ff.
8. New York World, December 29, 1899, p. 1.
9. Ibid., p. 2.
10. New York World, December 30, 1899, p. 1.
11. New York Journal, December 30, 1899, p. 1.
12. Brooklyn Eagle, December 29, 1899, p. 1.
13. Klaus, pp. 159–60.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
1. New York World, January 1, 1900, p. 1.
2. Ibid.
3. New York Sun, January 1, 1900, p. 1.
4. New York Times, January 2, 1900, p. 8.
5. New York Sun, January 3, 1900, p. 3.
6. Koch “positively connected” Molineux to the private letter box by identifying him as the man who had come to his store in the third week of December 1898 and inquired about the price of a rental. According to Koch, however, it was another man who had appeared a few days later and rented the box under Cornish’s name, suggesting that Roland may have had an accomplice. See New York Journal, January 17, 1900, p. 5, and New York World, January 17, 1900, p. 14.
7. See New York World, January 24, 1900, p. 3.
8. All details about the testimony of Rachel Greene and Minnie Betts come from the following sources: Brooklyn Eagle, January 15, 1900; New York Journal, January 16, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York World, January 16, 1900, p. 4; Klaus, pp. 277–82.
9. Even before the joint appearance of Rachel Greene and Minnie Betts, Osborne had been allowed to introduce evidence related to the death of Barnet. On January 4, for instance, both Barnet’s doctor and valet described the sufferings he had endured after taking some of the sample Kutnow’s Powder. Their testimony occupied such a significant chunk of the day that the New York Sun was led to remark that “the title of the case seemed to have changed to the People Against Roland Molineux for the Murder of Henry Crossman Barnet” (January 5, 1900, p. 4).
10. Brooklyn Eagle, January 17, 1900, p. 8.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
1. New York Sun, January 19, 1900, p. 3.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, January 19, 1900, p. 2.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, January 24, 1900, p. 1.
4. New York Journal, January 29, 1900, p. 5.
5. New York Journal, February 6, 1900, p. 16.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
1. New York World, January 28, 1900, p. 5.
2. New York World, February 7, 1900, p. 1.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, February 6, 1900, p. 1; New York Journal, February 7, 1900, p. 1; New York World, February 7, 1900, p. 1; New York Times, February 7, 1900, p. 4.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
1. Klaus, p. 26; Brooklyn Eagle, February 7, 1900, p. 1; New York World, February 8, 1900, p. 1.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, February 6, 1900, p. 1; New York Journal, February 7, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York World, February 7, 1900, pp. 1–2.
3. New York World, February 7, 1900, p. 2.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
1. Brooklyn Eagle, February 7, 1900, p. 1.
2. New York World, February 8, 1900, pp. 1–2.
3. Ibid., p. 2.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
1. New York Times, September 29, 1899, p. 1, September 30, 1899, p. 1, October 1, 1899, p. 6; New York World, September 30, 1899, pp. 1–2, and October 1, 1899, pp. 1–2.
2. New York Times, October 3, 1899, p. 2.
3. New York Times, September 29, 1899, p. 4.
4. New York Journal, February 8, 1900, p. 1.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, February 8, 1900, p. 2; New York Journal, February 9, 1900, p. 16.
6. New York Journal, February 9, 1900, p. 16.
7. Brooklyn Eagle, February 8, 1900, p. 2; New York World, February 9, 1900, p. 1; New York Sun, February 9, 1900, p. 1.
8. New York Journal, February 9, 1900, p. 16.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
1. Brooklyn Eagle, February 9, 1900, p. 2; New York Sun, February 10, 1900, p. 1.
2. New York World, February 10, 1900, p. 1.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, February 9, 1900, p. 2; New York Sun, February 10, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York Journal, February 10, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York World, February 10, 1900, pp. 1–2.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
1. Brooklyn Eagle, February 10, 1900, p. 1.
2. New York World, February 11, 1900, p. 2.
3. Scott, pp. 163–65.
4. New York Sun, February 11, 1900, p. 2.
5. New York World, February 11, 1900, p. 2.
6. New York Sun, February 11, 1900, p. 2.
7. New York World, February 11, 1900, p. 2.
8. New York Times, February 11, 1900, p. 1.
9. New York Sun, February 11, 1900, p. 2.
10. Ibid.
11. Brooklyn Eagle, February 10, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York World, February 11, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York Journal, February 11, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York Sun, February 11, 1900, pp. 1–2; New York Times, February 11, 1900, p. 1.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
1. New York Sun, February 12, 1900, p. 1.
2. New York World, February 12, 1900, p. 2, and February 13, 1900, p. 2.
3. New York World, February 12, 1900, p. 1.
4. New York Sun, February 12, 1900, p. 1.
5. New York Sun, February 12, 1900, p. 2; New York Times, February 12, 1900, p. 6.
6. New York Journal, February 13, 1900, p. 16.
7. New York Herald, February 17, 1900, p. 2.
8. New York Times, February 17, 1900, p. 2.
9. Ibid.
10. New York Sun, February 17, 1900, p. 2.
11. Brooklyn Eagle, February 16, 1900, p. 1; New York Times, February 17, 1900, p. 2; New York Journal, February 17, 1900, pp. 1 and 2; New York Sun, February 17, 1900, pp. 1 and 2; New York Journal, February 17, 1900, pp. 1 and 2; New York World, February 17, 1900, pp. 1 and 2.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
1. New York Times, February 17, 1900, p. 2.
2. New York World, February 17, 1900, p. 2.
3. Ibid.
4. New York Journal, February 17, 1900, p. 2; New York World, February 17, 1900, p. 2; New York Times, February 17, 1900, p. 2; New York Sun, February 17, 1900, p. 2.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
1. New York Journal, February 17, 1900, p. 1; New York Times, February 17, 1900, p. 1; New York Sun, February 17, 1900, p. 1.
2. Ibid.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
1. New York Times, August 27, 1898, p. 11, April 1, 1899, p. 12.
2. Denis Brian, Sing Sing (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005, p. 22).
3. Roland Molineux, The Room with the Little Door (New York: G.W. Dillingham, 1902), p. 21.
4. Ibid., p. 25.
5. Ibid., p. 20.
6. New York Journal, February 20, 1900, p. 4; New York World, February 20, 1900, p. 14.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
1. In 1901, to distinguish it from its notorious prison, the village changed its name to Ossining. At the time of Roland’s arrival, however, it was still known as Sing Sing.
2. Scott, p. 169.
3. Scott, pp. 169–71; Pejsa, pp. 220–21.
4. Scott, pp. 173–78.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
1. Brooklyn Eagle, March 3, 1900, p. 12.
2. New York Sun, March 3, 1900, p. 1.
3. New York Journal, March 5, 1900, p. 3.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, June 11, 1900, p. 5.
5. A vivid description of Milburn can be found in a memorial address delivered by Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo of the Court of Appeals in December 1930 and privately printed by the Carnegie Corporation. See also the profile of Milburn in the Brooklyn Eagle,September 15, 1901, p. 15.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
1. Molineux, The Room with the Little Door, p. 52.
2. Brander Matthews, His Father’s Son (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), pp. 211–12.
3. Lewis Lawes, Life and Death in Sing Sing (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1928), pp. 163–64.
4. Ibid.
5. Molineux, The Room with the Little Door, pp. 26–29.
6. Ibid., p. 209.
7. Ibid., pp. 198–207; Lawes, p. 161.
8. For a list of the men put to death in Sing Sing between February 1900 and August 1901, see Scott Christianson, Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 148.
9. New York Times, November 23, 1900, p. 14. Kennedy would be tried two more times, in February and June 1901. Each trial resulted in a hung jury, and the indictment was finally dismissed with the consent of the district attorney. Kennedy returned to his home in New Dorp, Staten Island, where he practiced dentistry for another fifty-seven years before his death in August 1948 at the age of eighty-one. See New York Times, August 26, 1948, p. 4.
10. New York Times, November 30, 1900, p. 3.
11. New York World, January 5, 1901, p. 3.
12. New York Times, January 7, 1901, p. 6, and June 16, 1901, p. 15.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
1. Margaret Leech, In the Days of McKinley (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), pp. 575–85.
2. New York Times, June 17, 1901, p. 3.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, June 17, 1901, p. 1.
4. New York World, June 18, 1901, p. 2; Brooklyn Eagle, June 18, 1901, p. 3.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, June 19, 1901, p. 1; New York World, June 19, 1901, p. 3, and June 20, 1901, p. 4; New York Times, June 20, 1901, p. 3.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, June 19, 1901, p. 1.
7. New York World, June 20, 1901, p. 4.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
1. Robert J. Donovan, “The Man Who Didn’t Shake Hands,” New Yorker, Vol. 29 (November 28, 1953), p. 122.
2. Leech, pp. 589 ff.; Mark Goldman, High Hopes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), pp. 3–12.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
1. With its ubiquitous red-tiled roofs and wildly eclectic mix of architectural elements—from Islamic minarets to Italian loggias—the Pan-American Exposition was a baroque fantasyland of riotous color and garish design: a “Rainbow City”(as it was immediately dubbed) in striking contrast to the marble-like splendor of Chicago’s great “White City” of 1893.
2. New York World, October 30, 1901, p. 1; New York Times, October 30, 1901, p. 3.
3. Several of the judges dissented from Werner’s strict interpretation of the “uncharged misconduct” rule (as it has come to be known), arguing that there are additional circumstances when evidence of previous crimes is admissible. All seven agreed, however, that the testimony of Dr. Henry Beaman Douglass—who stated that Barnet had told him of having been sickened by the Kutnow’s Powder he received through the mail—was hearsay and should not have been allowed. See The People of the State of New York, Respondents, against Roland B. Molineux, Appellant; Thomas J. Reed, “How the Uncharged Misconduct Rule was Born,” 2003; Joseph O’Shea, “The Molineux Rule,” Joseph O’Shea, 1990; and Marvin Schechter, “Molineux Unleashed,” 1998.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, October 15, 1901, p. 1; New York World, October 16, 1901, p. 1; New York Times, October 16, 1901, p. 1; New York Journal, October 16, 1901, p. 1.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
1. New York Times, October 17, 1901, p. 5; New York World, October 17, 1901, p. 1.
2. New York World, October 18, 1901, p. 1.
3. New York Times, October 18, 1901, p. 5.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, October 16, 1901, p. 1.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, October 20, 1901, p. 3. A signed typescript of General King’s speech exists among Edward Molineux’s personal papers, now in possession of his great-grandson, Will Molineux.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, November 11, 1901, p. 7.
7. Brooklyn Eagle, November 12, 1901, p. 5.
8. See Forest Davis, “12 Trials that Gripped New York: How Gallant Old General Molineux Led a Lost Cause and Won,” New York Telegram Sunday Supplement, January 13, 1931, p. 1.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
1. At the time of his release from Sing Sing, Roland, like the General, told reporters that “nothing but an acquittal will satisfy me now.” See New York Sun, October 17, 1901, p. 1.
2. New York World, December 7, 1901, p. 1.
3. New York Times, March 11, 1902, p. 6.
4. New York World, October 19, 1901, p. 3.
5. New York World, September 14, 1902, p. 17.
6. Scott, p. 180; Pejsa, p. 227; Klaus, p. 40.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
1. New York Sun, September 20, 1902, p. 1; New York Times, September 20, 1902, p. 1, and September 21, 1902, p. 3.
2. New York World, October 21, 1902, p. 1.
3. Ibid.
4. New York World, September 14, 1902, p. 8, and October 2, 1902, p. 6.
5. New York Times, August 10, 1902, p. 11; New York World, September 14, 1902, p. 16.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, October 21, 1902, p. 1.
7. New York World, October 22, 1902, p. 2.
8. Brooklyn Eagle, October 31, 1902, p. 1.
9. New York Sun, November 1, 1902, p. 1.
10. Ibid., p. 2.
11. Klaus, p. 36.
12. Ibid.
13. New York Sun, November 1, 1902, p. 1; Brooklyn Eagle, November 1, 1901, p. 1.
14. New York World, November 2, 1902, p. 1, and November 1, 1902, p. 1.
15. Brooklyn Eagle, October 13, 1902, p. 1.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
1. Brooklyn Eagle, November 3, 1902, pp. 1 and 24.
2. New York Sun, November 7, 1902, pp. 1–2.
3. New York World, November 7, 1902, pp. 1–2.
4. New York Times, November 7, 1902, p. 1.
5. New York Sun, November 7, 1902, p. 2.
6. New York World, November 8, 1902, p. 2.
7. New York World, November 9, 1902, p. 16.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
1. New York Sun, November 11, 1902, p. 1.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, November 10, 1902, p. 1.
3. New York World, November 11, 1902, pp. 1–2.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, November 11, 1902, p. 1; New York Sun, November 11, 1902, p. 1.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
1. New York World, November 12, 1902, p. 1.
2. Ibid., p. 2.
3. New York Times, November 12, 1902, p. 1.
4. New York World, November 12, 1902, p. 1.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Klaus, p. 40.
8. Brooklyn Eagle, November 12, 1902, p. 2.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
1. Brooklyn Eagle, November 12, 1902, p. 1.
2. Scott, pp. 182–83.
3. Pejsa, p. 9.
4. New York World, November 12, 1902, p. 2.
5. New York Times, November 12, 1902, p. 1.
6. New York World, November 12, 1902, p. 2.
7. Scott, pp. 184–86.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
1. New York World, November 20, 1902, p. 1.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, November 18, 1902, p. 1; New York World, November 20, 1902, p. 1.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, November 18, 1902, p. 1; New York Times, November 18, 1902, p. 1.
4. New York World, November 20, 1902, p. 1.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, November 18, 1902, p. 2.
6. New York Times, November 3, 1903, p. 1; Pejsa, p. 236.
7. New York Times, November 15, 1903, p. 21.
8. Klaus, p. 41; Pejsa, p. 236.
9. Randall Irving Tyler, The Blind Goddess (New York: Stuyvesant Publishing Company, 1899), pp. 11, 24, 44, 65, and 73. In coming decades, the Molineux affair would inspire other popular works, most famously Anthony Berkley’s celebrated 1929 mystery novel, The Poisoned Chocolates Case.
10. Brooklyn Eagle, December 9, 1902, p. 7.
11. Victor C. Calvert, The Great Poison Mystery, 1902.
12. Brooklyn Eagle, December 9, 1902, p. 7.
13. New York Times, December 2, 1902, p. 3; Brooklyn Eagle, December 9, 1902, p. 7.
14. Kathryn M. Plank, “Introduction to The ‘Rake,’” Papers on Language & Literature, 27 (Spring 1991), p. 140.
15. According to Plank, Dreiser began to compose his novel in January 1915. As far back as 1901, he had worked on a book with the same title. Plank, however, along with other Dreiser scholars, believes that this first manuscript was an early version of Dreiser’s autobiographical book, The Genius, entirely different from the later, Molineux-based work. See Plank, p. 140, n.1.
16. Plank, pp. 145–73.
17. Ibid., pp. 141 and 143.
18. The most complete account of the Chester Gillette-Grace Brown case (which also includes some interesting material on Dreiser and The “Rake”) is Craig Brown, Murder in the Adirondacks (Utica, NY: North Country Books, 1986).
19. New York World, January 11, 1903, Section E, p. 7.
20. Brooklyn Eagle, October 12, 1903, p. 2.
21. New York Times, February 20, 1904, p. 1.
22. New York World, October 15, 1908, p. 8.
23. New York World, October 14, 1911, p. 7.
24. Brooklyn Eagle, December 31, 1902, p. 1.
25. New York World, January 17, 1903, p. 16.
26. New York Times, February 14, 1903, p. 12.
27. Roland Molineux, Vice Admiral of the Blue (New York: G. W. Dillingham Company, 1903), p. 97.
28. Roland Molineux, “The Court of Rehabilitation,” privately printed, 1907, thirty pages. Also see New York Times, September 29, 1907, p. 5.
29. New York Times, March 10, 1903, p. 9.
30. William Winter, The Life of David Belasco, Vol. 2 (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1918), pp. 389–90.
31. New York Times, November 8, 1913, p. 6; New York World, November 8, 1913, p. 5.
32. New York Times, November 12, 1913, p. 9.
33. Winter, pp. 390–91.
34. New York World, September 7, 1914, p. 14; New York Times, September 7, 1914, p. 12.
35. Ibid.
36. Winter, p. 391.
37. New York World, June 11, 1915, p. 12.
38. The last of these gifts stands in stark contrast to Roland’s reputed anti-Semitic sentiments. See Pejsa, p. 30.
39. ELM’s private papers.
40. Brooklyn Eagle, June 11, 1915, p. 4, and June 13, 1915, p. 1.
41. New York World, June 12, 1915, p. 11.
42. New York Times, September 7, 1914, p. 12.
43. New York World, November 3, 1917, p. 12.
44. New York Journal, April 2, 1899, p. 42; New York Times, January 28, 1899, p. 13.
45. New York Times, May 13, 1905, p. 16, and March 14, 1916, p. 7; Klaus, pp. 27–28.
46. New York Times, March 30, 1904, p. 9.
47. Los Angeles Times, July 7, 1908, p. 1.
48. Death certificate, obtained from the registrar-recorder/county clerk, County of Los Angeles.
49. Under the headline “Former Mrs. Molineux to Go on Stage,” the Chicago Daily Tribune of August 27, 1905, ran a piece about Blanche’s renewed plans to “appear before the footlights in vaudeville.” The article is accompanied by a rare photograph of Blanche, posing as though for a portrait by John Singer Sargent (p. 5). Also, see New York Times, April 15, 1905, p. 1, and September 20, 1905, p. 2.
50. The information in this section comes from various documents, including a copy of Blanche’s divorce complaint against Wallace Scott, provided to me by Jane Pejsa.
51. Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader, October 19, 1930, p. 1.