Chapter XIII: American Poison Mysteries

One of the most carefully planned murders by means of poison in modern times was investigated at the trial of Roland B. Molineux, who was charged with causing the death of Mrs. Catherine J. Adams in New York in 1899.

On November 10, 1898, Mr. Henry C. Barnett, a produce broker, who was a member of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, one of the most prominent social organizations in New York, received by post at the club a sample box of Kutnow’s Powder. He was in the habit of taking this and similar preparations for simple ailments, and soon after receiving the box he took a dose of its contents. He became ill immediately afterwards, and was thought to be suffering from diphtheria. That he had a slight attack of this disease there is little doubt, as the fact was proved from a bacteriological examination made by his medical attendant. He left his bed earlier than the doctor advised, and died presumably of heart failure.

The contents of the box, however, were examined, which led to the discovery that the powder had been tampered with and mixed with cyanide of mercury, and although Mr. Barnett had died from natural causes, it seemed clear that an attempt had been made to poison him by some one who knew he was in the habit of taking this powder. The investigation, however, does not appear to have been carried further.

The next chapter in the story occurred in connection with a Mr. Harry Cornish, who occupied the position of physical director to the Knickerbocker Athletic Club.

A day or two before Christmas in the same year, a packet directed to him was delivered by post at his address. It contained a box in which, on opening, he found at one end a silver article for holding matches and toothpicks; at the other end was a bottle labelled “Emerson’s Bromo-seltzer,” and between the two was packed some soft tissue paper.

Mr. Cornish was at first under the impression that some one had sent him the packet as a present. After removing the articles from the box, he threw it and the wrapper into his wastepaper basket, but on second thoughts he cut the address from the wrapper and kept it.

The bottle, labelled “Bromo-seltzer,” which is a saline preparation well known in America, was sealed over the top and bore the usual revenue stamp. After tearing off the outside wrapper, Mr. Cornish placed the bottle and the silver holder on his desk.

On the following Sunday he remarked to his aunt, Mrs. Catherine Adams, that he had received a present. Mrs. Adams and her daughter, Mrs. Rogers, joked him about it, saying he must have some admirer, and was afraid to bring his present home, as the sender’s name was probably on it. On Tuesday night Mr. Cornish took the bottle and the silver holder home with him, and presented them to Mrs. Rogers, saying they were no use to him and she might have them.

The next morning Mrs. Adams complained of a headache, and her daughter suggested a dose of the Bromo-seltzer. Mr. Cornish was present, and mixed a teaspoonful of the preparation from the bottle with a glass of water, and gave it to his aunt. After drinking it she at once exclaimed, “My, how bitter that is!”

“Why, that’s all right!” said Mr. Cornish, as he took a drink from the glass.

A few moments afterwards Mrs. Adams collapsed, and died within a short time. Mr. Cornish was seized with violent vomiting, which doubtless saved his life, and he recovered.

A post-mortem examination revealed the fact that Mrs. Adams had died from cyanide poisoning, and on the bottle of Bromo-seltzer being analysed the contents were found to have been mixed with cyanide of mercury.

For a long time the affair seemed a complete mystery, and the police investigations appeared likely to be fruitless. Then the particulars of the death of Mr. Barnett, who was Chairman of the House Committee of the Knickerbocker Club, were brought to light; and connecting them with the fact that Mr. Cornish was also a prominent member of the club, and had received the bottle of Bromo-seltzer by post in the same manner, it seemed highly probable that both the poisoned packets which contained cyanide of mercury had been sent by the same person.

Further examination proved that the bottle used was not a genuine Bromo-seltzer one, and that the label had been removed from a genuine bottle and carefully pasted on that sent to Mr. Cornish.

A firm of druggists in Cincinnati then came forward and stated that, as far back as May 31, 1898, they had received a written application signed “H. C. Barnett” for a sample box of pills, and another similar application on December 21, 1898, which was signed “H. Cornish.”

Both these applications were found to be in the same handwriting, which was also strikingly similar to the address on the packet sent to Mr. Cornish, which he had fortunately kept. The address given by the applicant who called himself “H. C. Barnett,” was 257, West Forty-second Street, New York, a place where private letter-boxes are rented for callers. The address given by the applicant signing himself “H. Cornish,” was a similar place at 1,620, Broadway, in the same city. From these facts it seemed evident that an attempt had been made to poison both Barnett and Cornish by some one who knew them, and the poisoner had concealed his identity by employing the names of his intended victims.

The nature of the poison used, cyanide of mercury, was also a slight clue, as it is a substance which is not used in medicine and must in all probability have been specially prepared for the purpose by some one with a knowledge of chemistry.

At the coroner’s inquest, which began on February 9, 1899, certain facts were elicited that tended to bring suspicion on Roland B. Molineux, who was also a member of the Knickerbocker Club and well acquainted with Barnett and Cornish. He was also known to have quarrelled with the latter. At the close of the inquest Molineux was arrested and removed to the Tombs prison.

Owing to legal technicalities in the original indictment, which charged him with the murder of both Mr. Barnett and Mrs. Adams, he was twice liberated, and then for the third time arrested.

The trial of Molineux for the murder of Mrs. Adams was a memorable one, and lasted nearly three months. It began on November 14, 1899, at the Central Criminal Court, New York, and was not concluded till February 11, 1900.

The evidence was entirely circumstantial. Most of the experts in handwriting who were examined declared that the address on the packet sent to Mr. Cornish was in Molineux’s handwriting, and that he had also written both applications to the druggists in Cincinnati. Further, Molineux was engaged as a chemist to a colour factory in which cyanide of mercury was used, which would enable him either to make or procure that special poison, from which only three other fatal cases had been recorded.

No witnesses were called for the defence, and the jury found Roland B. Molineux guilty of “murder in the first degree,” which, according to American law, is murder with premeditation.

In January, 1911, a mysterious case that for some time baffled the united exertions of the police occurred in Cumberland, Maryland, U.S.A. On Christmas Eve of 1910, the night before their wedding, a Mr. Trigg and Miss Grace Loeser, who were well known in Maryland, were found sitting together in an upright position on a sofa in the drawing-room of Miss Loeser’s home, both apparently dead. An hour before they were thus discovered, Mrs. Loeser had seen them sitting exactly in the same position, full of life and animation and talking over the arrangements for their wedding on the following day.

Returning an hour later, she found them still both sitting in the same position but lifeless. Nothing was found in the room to indicate the cause of death.

Before the ghastly discovery Mrs. Loeser had heard them laughing and talking in the drawing-room; then she heard the telephone bell ring, and heard her daughter go to it and speak to a friend at the other end of the wire about the final arrangements for the wedding.

A doctor who was immediately summoned and examined the bodies, noticed that the lips of both the man and the woman were burned, and in the mouth of the man was found a piece of chewing-gum, which he believed might contain poison. According to the doctor, Mr. Trigg had apparently taken poison and then kissed his fiancée and poisoned her in doing so.

A post-mortem examination was held and revealed traces of potassium cyanide in the organs of both young people, but how the poison came to be swallowed there was nothing to indicate, beyond the fact that the tongues of both were burned and there was a larger quantity of the poison found in the stomach of Trigg.

The chewing-gum habit is very common in America and a package of it with one stick missing and the wrapper on the floor, was found in Mr. Loeser’s bedroom. The questions that arose were: was the chewing-gum the cause of death, and had they divided the one stick missing from the packet between them, and if the gum was poisoned why had they thus decided to take their lives?

Mrs. Loeser protested against the theory of suicide as being beyond all reason, as both young people were absolutely devoted to one another and had never even quarrelled.

A younger sister of Miss Loeser’s, to whom Mr. Trigg is said to have first paid attentions before he became engaged to Grace Loeser, in giving evidence said that she also had symptoms of cyanide poisoning. She was upstairs when Trigg came to the house that afternoon, and the first she knew of the tragedy was her mother screaming. She swore that she had no poison in her possession, and had never heard of hydrocyanic acid before her sister’s death.

Mrs. Loeser when brought to the court to give evidence, was practically in a state of collapse, but she swore that no poison of any kind was kept in the house and that both her daughters were on friendly terms.

Dr. Foard, the medical man first called in, described how he found the young couple sitting upright together on the sofa; the woman was breathing stertorously, with her teeth clenched and the pupils of her eyes dilated. A slight froth issued from her lips, all of which, said the doctor, were symptomatic of hydrocyanic acid or cyanide poisoning.

Dr. Broadrup, another medical practitioner, corroborated Dr. Foard’s statements. When he visited the house he was called upstairs to see Miss May Loeser, who was in her room, and when he got there he found the bedroom was full of a strong odour of gas.

The evidence went to prove that Trigg at the last moment did not wish to carry out the marriage with Miss Loeser, and it was suggested that he may have poisoned her with the chewing-gum, only swallowing a small portion himself in the belief that he would easily have survived the effects.

At the coroner’s inquiry, it was stated that cyanide of potassium was found in the chewing-gum, and the jury returned a verdict that both persons had died of cyanide poisoning “administered in an unknown manner.”

Another mysterious case which aroused great interest in America, concerned the death of a millionaire pork-packer, and the arrest of his wife, on the charge of attempting to murder her husband.

This lady is said to have begun life as a country waif; at the age of twenty she became a waitress and married the man whom she was accused of attempting to murder. It appears that the marriage was bitterly opposed by the husband’s family on account of her social position, which placed a stumbling-block between them and the position they aspired to attain, and since the marriage her brother-in-law was said to have been her greatest enemy.

It was alleged, that the wife not only made her husband ill by giving him small doses of poison by placing it in his medicine, but also in the water that she gave him to drink during the night in his sick-room.

The chief witness against the accused was the nurse who attended her husband during his illness. She said that despite the wife’s lowly origin she was greatly beset by social ambitions. She wished to shine in the best Virginia society, and her husband stood in the way. She had always showed considerable animus against her husband’s family, and told the nurse that when he died, she was to search his pockets and get the keys, especially those of his despatch box, as she did not want the family to get them.

The nurse said the accused consulted two fortune-tellers, and informed her, that both of them told her that her husband could not live until Christmas. She showed little attention to him while he was ill, and he had complained to her that the water given to him to drink had an unusual taste; he said it made him sick, and when she drank a glass of the water in the room, to see if it was all right, she too became ill.

Suspicions being aroused, the sick man was removed to a hospital, which his wife declared was a plan of the family to get her husband out of her influence.

According to the prosecution, the wife’s motive for getting rid of her husband was her admiration for a shop-assistant in the town in which they resided, and this man was called as a witness for the prosecution. From his account the lady must have conceived an extraordinary infatuation for him, loading him with presents such as fur-lined coats, silver cigar boxes, embroidered vests, dressing-gowns and other things of considerable value.

It transpired later that, owing to the suspicions of the family, they arranged for a female detective to be employed in the house as a nurse. This person was instructed to win the confidence of the wife and endeavour to find out what was wrong.

At the trial she declared, that while in the house the accused had offered her a thousand pounds to give her husband a poisoned pill. She also stated that the accused frequently cried and made no secret that she wished “that man would die,” and declared again and again, every time she received news from the bedside that he was worse, that she was the happiest of women and prayed night and morning that she should be awakened in the morning by a telephone call announcing that her husband was dead.

She once asked her, “How much would you take to do it?” “I told her,” continued the detective, “that I was a poor woman, but said I would do it for a thousand pounds if she prepared the poison.” She replied, “I haven’t a thousand pounds, but I could get the poison, and if you will give it to him I will give you two hundred pounds in cash, and when he is dead and the estate comes to me I will give you the other eight hundred.”

The detective said she agreed to this but insisted on a promise in writing, so that she could demand the eight hundred pounds afterwards. The accused said she would be afraid to give anything in writing, for it might fall into the hands of her brother-in-law and would certainly delight him, but she afterwards promised to do so and said, “I will get the poison and I will meet you outside the hospital at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning and bring it with me. You are on night watch and you can put it in his medicine when he is half asleep; or if you don’t want to do that, just leave his medicine by the bedside and tell him when the time comes to take it. He will take the poison himself.” She asked her to let her know the instant her husband died, so that she could get possession of her husband’s body.

A doctor who was called, stated that the accused had bought an ounce of sugar of lead from him, and afterwards came to him for a solution of arsenic, which he refused.

For the defence, counsel asserted that the husband had suffered from severe pains for some months and called in his medical man, who said that his condition was consistent with ptomaine poisoning.

After a trial lasting more than a fortnight the jury considered for over twenty-four hours, but were unable to agree; they were then discharged, and the case collapsed.