Killer Colt Page 19
To further refute the prosecution’s theory that Adams was killed by a handgun, the defense had subpoenaed its own medical expert, the distinguished surgeon Dr. Valentine Mott, founder of the Rutgers Medical College and future president of the New York Academy of Medicine. Mott, however, had not been present either at the original autopsy or at the examination conducted earlier in the day by Dr. Gilman. The defense therefore wished “to have Mr. Adams’s skull produced in court” so that Mott could examine it before testifying, said Selden.
District Attorney Whiting raised no objection to this startling request. Coroner Archibald Archer, however, pointed out that the “body had probably been re-interred by this time.” Judge Kent immediately ordered him to repair to the cemetery, dig up the body for a second time if necessary, and return as quickly as possible with Samuel Adams’s decapitated head.
• • •
While awaiting Archer’s return, Selden called a half dozen witnesses to the stand, including several of John Colt’s business associates, who attested to his “mild” and “gentlemanly” character. It was roughly two hours later when—in the oddly matter-of-fact words of an observer—“the head of Mr. Adams was brought into the court.”6
Wrapped in newspaper, it was carried to the front of the chamber by Dr. Archer, while a great commotion arose in the spectator section and Judge Kent pounded his gavel for order. With the ghastly bundle in his lap, Archer seated himself beside the table reserved for the reporters, who were struck by the “thrillingly interesting” scene. “There Colt sat, within a few feet of it. The hand that struck the blow and the head that was still in death came nearly in contact. What must have been his feelings!”7
After a brief discussion among the lawyers, the medical experts, and Judge Kent, a decision was reached that “the head should be taken into an adjoining room and examined” by Dr. Mott and Dr. David L. Rogers, a prominent New York surgeon who had achieved earlier repute as an expert witness in the Helen Jewett affair. When the two physicians emerged less than an hour later, Rogers testified that he “was well satisfied from the examination and from comparing the hatchet with the wound that the hole was made with the sharp side of the hatchet. It fits the wound precisely.”
Whatever sense of vindication the defense team might have felt at this moment was immediately quashed by District Attorney Whiting, who—in a stroke of “prosecutorial brilliance” that would have enormous repercussions on the outcome of the trial—“asked that the head and the hatchet be shown to the jury.”8
Perceiving the potentially devastating effect of such a display, Selden instantly objected.
Judge Kent acknowledged that the proposed demonstration would undoubtedly be “painful.” Nevertheless, he ruled that, in the interests of justice, the court “must yield” to the request.
In an apologetic tone—as if regretting the need for such a drastic measure—Whiting insisted that he and his cocounsel “were only seeking the truth.” By “making desperate efforts to break down the testimony” of the prosecution’s witnesses, the defense had left him no choice. “If it could be avoided,” he said, “we would gladly agree not to have the head exhibited. But it is necessary that the jury see it.”9
Before the demonstration could take place, all the women in attendance were ordered to leave the courtroom. More than a few, indignant at their forced exclusion from the ghoulish spectacle, protested loudly as they were ushered into the hallway.10
Once the doors were closed behind them, Dr. Archer, seated with the head in his lap, removed the paper wrapping and handed the blackened thing to Dr. Rogers, who held it up for the jury. “A thrill of horror passed through the crowded chamber,” wrote one observer. “For the first time during the trial, the prisoner buried his face in his hands and groaned.”11
With the head in one hand and the murder weapon in the other, Rogers demonstrated how the corner of the hatchet “precisely fitted” the small hole over the left ear. He then showed how the hammer part of the implement conformed to the indentation on the right sight of the skull, the two joining together “fairly as a mould.” “It was,” remarked the reporter for the Sun, “an interesting but dreadful sight.”12
Dr. Mott, the last witness of the day, corroborated Rogers’s findings in unequivocal terms. “I have no doubt,” he declared, “that the hole was made with the hatchet.”13
• • •
When the trial adjourned for the night, observers agreed that Selden had succeeded in utterly refuting the prosecution’s theory. As Bennett put it, “all the humbug about the pistol wound was blown to the winds.”14 But Selden’s victory had been purchased at a heavy price. Outmaneuvered by Whiting, he had been forced to expose the jurors to a sight that couldn’t fail to appall them. For the twelve men who held John Colt’s fate in their hands, “the awful impression made by the ghastly head,” wrote one commentator, “would never be obliterated.”15
38
It was lucky for John that the jurors were prevented from seeing the newspapers. On Wednesday, January 26, a story appeared that cast his character in a highly unflattering light.
Headlined “Civil Verdict Against John C. Colt,” the article reported that, on the previous afternoon in the Philadelphia District Court, a judgment was rendered against him in a suit brought by the venerable Cincinnati publisher Ephraim Morgan, who was seeking to recover an unpaid debt of $576.68. Among legal experts, no one could think of a prior instance in which a defendant charged with homicide had been found liable in a separate civil lawsuit while his murder trial was in progress. As the newspapers put it, it was “a singular fact never before known.”1 It also raised serious questions about John’s financial probity at the very moment when his lawyers were struggling to portray him as a victim of circumstance—a man unjustly assailed by a desperate creditor whose own belligerence was to blame for the tragedy.
• • •
Because of the crowds that continued to flock to the trial, many members of the bar found themselves unable to secure seats. On Wednesday morning, before the day’s proceedings began, Judge Kent read aloud an anonymous letter from one of these aggrieved individuals, complaining that he and other “gentlemen of the legal profession were being excluded from the trial to make room for the common rabble.”
Taking the writer to task for such high-handed sentiments, Kent declared that he “knew of no such persons as ‘the common rabble’—the term is alien to our laws.” Because of the large number of witnesses and “others necessary to the trial,” space inside the courtroom was severely limited. Places also had to be reserved for the various reporters who were there to serve the public’s right to “learn about the proceedings.” Whatever seats remained, Kent affirmed, were available to anyone, regardless of profession or position. “The Court would be happy to accommodate the members of the bar,” he said, “but it is not possible that control can be had over the spectators so far as to compel it.”2
Of the nearly two dozen witnesses called to the stand that day, virtually all were there to testify either to Colt’s easygoing nature or Adams’s hot-tempered one. Among many others, John Howard Payne, beloved author of “Home, Sweet Home,” declared that he had “the highest opinion of Mr. Colt in every way.” By contrast, various individuals who had business dealings with Samuel Adams characterized him as “easily vexed” and “of an excitable disposition.”3
The dramatic high point of the day, however, was the testimony of a witness whose appearance had been hotly anticipated since the trial began: John’s mistress, Caroline Henshaw. If Tuesday’s session had served up enough of the macabre to satisfy the morbid tastes of Edgar Allan Poe (who, as events would prove, was closely following the case in the papers), Wednesday’s held out the prurient promise of sexual titillation. The women in attendance seemed particularly excited when Caroline’s name was called, and as she “advanced to the stand,” she “created quite a sensation among the audience.”4
Taking her seat “directly opposite the prisoner,”
she threw back the veil of her bonnet, revealing a “remarkably handsome woman with dark blue eyes and round, fair, rosy cheeks.”5 Considering her highly compromised status as John’s illicit bedmate, her strikingly poised and dignified demeanor won the admiration even of those most inclined to sniff at her morals.
Much of Dudley Selden’s examination focused on John’s actions and appearance in the days following the murder. He paid particular attention to the black-and-blue mark that Caroline had observed on the side of John’s neck: clear proof, so Selden suggested, that Colt had been attacked.
Whiting countered with questions designed to raise a very different possibility: that the bruise had been caused not by an assailant but by the heavy wooden crate as John wrestled it downstairs. Mostly, however, the district attorney sought to stress John’s unsavory character by reminding the jurors of his scandalous living arrangement with Caroline.
Under Whiting’s cross, Caroline testified that she had “first become acquainted with Mr. Colt” eighteen months earlier, in August 1841, when both were residing in Philadelphia. At the time, she was boarding at the house of a widow named Stuart and met John when he came there to visit another lodger. Six months later, John “made arrangements to come to New York City.” Caroline joined him there shortly afterward. It was then, she said, that they began living together, taking a furnished room at the boardinghouse of a couple named Hart, where she “passed by the name of Mrs. Colt.” Later they moved to their present lodgings, a boardinghouse at 42 Monroe Street.
Their life together, as she described it, was one of simple domesticity. They shared a single room, so small that John’s well-worn carpetbag had to be stored beneath the bed because “we had no other place to keep it.” During the days, when John was at work, Caroline remained at home, sewing or reading or conversing in the parlor with other boarders. After supper, when John “went out of an evening,” Caroline “generally went with him.” On those rare occasions when he was out by himself, she “did not sit up for him” but went to bed around 10:00 p.m., though she “generally woke up when he came into the room.”
Beyond her admission that she “was a mother by Mr. Colt,” Caroline made no reference, of course, to their sexual relationship. Even so, her evocation of certain intimate details—of watching him undress when he returned to their room late on the evening of September 17, of seeing him slip into his nightshirt, of turning toward him “as he came into bed”—were startlingly frank in an age when such matters were rarely, if ever, discussed in public. The illicit nature of their relationship added a strong whiff of the forbidden to her account.
For all that, Caroline displayed no embarrassment as she testified. She remained dignified and unruffled, repeatedly casting a warm look at John, who “kept his eye steadily on her.” Indeed, it was Whiting who ended up flustered. At one point, apparently meaning to ask how John was dressed on the morning after the murder, the district attorney mistakenly asked if he was dressed.
“Was he dressed?” exclaimed Caroline. “He was. Do you suppose a gentleman would go into the street without clothes?”
Her spirited answer brought an appreciative laugh from the audience and a flush of chagrin to Whiting’s cheek.6
Immediately after her testimony, Selden called her former landlords, Isaac and Sarah Hart, to affirm her good character. When Whiting objected, Selden took the opportunity to insist that John would have made an honest woman of Caroline had he not suffered financial reversals during his sojourn in that city.
“The only ground why she and Mr. Colt did not form the relationship of man and wife,” said Selden, “was owing to the breaking up of his business and inability to provide an establishment, but they both look forward to the day when they can be wed.” Denying the prevailing perception of her as a fallen woman, Selden declared that “she was no prostitute except as regards him. He did wrong and she did, but adverse circumstances alone caused them to live together in the illegitimate manner they did. Still her character, in every other way, is good.”
Accounts of the trial do not say whether John showed any reaction to Selden’s backhanded defense of Caroline as a prostitute only “as regards him.” As for Caroline herself, she was not around to hear it. By then she had already left the premises—escorted from the courtroom by Samuel Colt.7
39
With each passing day, the crowds clamoring for entrance to the Colt trial seemed to grow bigger and rowdier. Arriving at City Hall at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, January 27, James Gordon Bennett marveled at the droves that had already gathered, and found it “impossible to compliment Deputy Sheriff Westervelt too highly for the excellent arrangements which he has made to preserve order.” When the doors opened two hours later, the “courtroom immediately became crowded to excess.”1
The morning session offered one “very singular scene”—nothing to compare to the thrillingly gruesome display of Samuel Adams’s decomposed head but macabre enough to create a “considerable sensation” among the audience.2 Shortly before noon—following the examination of several more witnesses called to describe Adams’s peevish and short-tempered disposition—Dudley Selden produced a batch of badly stained and soiled items, including various articles of men’s clothing. They been retrieved from the outhouse behind the Granite Building, where—said Selden—they had been dumped by John Colt on the night of the murder.
John P. Brinckerhoff, superintendent of a company in the business of cleaning out privies and converting the contents (“night soil,” as it was euphemistically called) into a dried manure called “poudrette,” was summoned to the stand to describe the recovery of the evidence. In the first week of October, acting on information provided by John Colt, one of Brinckerhoff’s men, armed “with a light and a rake,” had been lowered into the privy by rope. His search through the two-foot layer of stinking muck had turned up nothing. At Selden’s insistence, however, another attempt was made on Tuesday, January 23. This time, instead of raking through the sewage by lamplight, Brinckerhoff’s men had brought it out in tubs and examined it aboveground.
“Go on and state what you discovered there,” said Selden.
Besides “some cloth and some pieces of towel,” answered Brinckerhoff, they “found a bundle.” This consisted of a large linen handkerchief with “diagonal corners” that were “tied in a hard knot.” When the knot was undone and the bundle opened, it was found to contain a hat “cut lengthwise in two pieces”; a “folded-up vest,” the color of which was difficult to determine, though “it might have been yellow”; a torn pair of gambroon pantaloons, also “neatly folded up”; a pair of suspenders that had been “taken off the pantaloons and wrapped up with them”; part of a badly torn shirt, “completely saturated with blood”; and a pair of shoes. A subsequent search through the thick mass of excrement had uncovered several other items, including “two keys, a silver pencil case, and half dollar piece.”
“Is it your belief that the bundle was down there when you first examined that place?” asked Selden.
“From the state the bundle was in and the garments being rotted,” replied Brinckerhoff, “I have no doubt that they have laid there for some months. I think the pencil case had also been there some time. Parts of it were very rusty. They must have been overlooked on the first examination.”
Shown the pencil case and keys—which, like the other items brought into court, had been thoroughly scrubbed—several of Adams’s associates identified them as articles “that he carried in his pocket.” Selden then took the unusual step of calling his own cocounsel Robert Emmett, who testified that “a day or two after his arrest, Mr. Colt told me that he had thrown the bundle into the privy; that in pulling off the pantaloons of Mr. Adams, the keys, the pencil case, and half a dollar fell out; that he, Colt, afterwards put those things into his own hat, went downstairs, and threw them down into the privy.”3
That John had disposed of evidence in the Chambers Street outhouse was the first new detail of the crime to emerge since his arrest four
months earlier. But it was only a prelude to the revelations yet to come. Shortly after Emmett’s testimony, both the district attorney and the defense announced that “they were through.” Intent on wrapping up the trial before the weekend, Judge Kent directed that summations begin immediately after the afternoon recess. When the court reopened at 4:00, Emmett rose at once and delivered what would prove to be the trial’s climactic surprise.
The case now before the twelve jurors, he declared, had no “parallel in the history of jurisprudence.” Certainly, “there has never been a case in which public excitement has been so strongly directed against a prisoner.” Unfortunately, the prosecution had made every effort to exploit those violent passions by casting the crime in the ugliest possible light. Why else, demanded Emmett, did the district attorney summon witnesses to testify “that the body of Mr. Adams had been salted down in the box?” Whiting knew very well that the defendant’s “effort to conceal the body” made his offense seem particularly heinous. Surely the testimony concerning the salt “was only calculated to render Colt’s actions still more disgusting.” “The public officers,” said Emmett in indignant tones, “have done their worst against Mr. Colt, and this was driving the last nail in his reputation.”
To be sure, continued Emmett, the defense was in no way suggesting that the prisoner was an innocent man. “We do not contend anything other than that the death of Mr. Adams was caused by Mr. Colt.” Nevertheless, he insisted, Colt’s actions, “no matter how appalling in appearance,” did not constitute a case of “deliberate murder” but rather of manslaughter. The “particulars of the crime,” once fully known, “render that conclusion irresistible.” Emmett now intended to present those particulars for the first time.