second-story window, the man himself was being escorted from his cell to the office of Police Magistrate Taylor. There, attended by Dudley Selden and two other attorneys, Robert Emmett and John A. Morrill, he was examined by Taylor, who asked him his name, age, place of birth, and occupation. Colt replied firmly to these pro forma questions, hesitating only when asked if he was married. After a brief consultation with his lawyers, he replied, “I decline answering under the advice of my counsel.”
“What have you to say to in relation to the charge against you?” asked Taylor.
“I decline answering any further questions by advice of my counsel,” Colt repeated. “But I am innocent of the charge.”
Newspapers described Colt’s appearance and behavior during this examination in dramatically different, if not completely contradictory, ways. Most agreed that he was an “exceedingly prepossessing” man: about five feet nine inches tall and “very well made,” with curly, dark brown hair and full side whiskers. Some, however, found his good looks marred by his eyes, reported to be of that “brown-colored class that cannot easily be read, and that are generally found in the faces of all scoundrels, schemers, and plotters.” 7
As for his mien, several accounts emphasized Colt’s “remarkable composure,” “singular coolness,” “peculiar nonchalance”—a trait presumably in keeping with the “calculating deliberation” he had exhibited in his attempts to hide the evidence. Indeed, in the view of more than one observer, it was the callous way that Colt had gone about trying to “conceal the deed,” even more than the murder itself, that made his crime an “enormity without parallel.” 8
This picture of Colt as a cold-blooded creature was reinforced by a widely printed story that the only emotion he had displayed at the examination was a flash of self-pity. “I don’t think they treat me well with regard to my meals,” he reportedly complained to Taylor before being led back to his cell. “They don’t bring my dinner on a clean plate but on one that had been used before.” 9
In sharp contrast to this image of Colt as a man of “extraordinary coolness of nerve,” other accounts depicted him as profoundly distraught during his brief appearance before Magistrate Taylor. “His face was of a ghastly paleness,” wrote the reporter for the
Commercial Advertiser
, “his eyes deeply sunk into his head and fearfully wild in their expression. The few hours since the verdict of the inquest had been rendered had evidently been those of intense suffering, of deep mental anguish. The prisoner made a strong effort to maintain his composure, but the effort was clearly visible.” Indeed, according to the same report, Colt was in such an “overwrought frame of mind” that “every means had been taken to prevent his committing self-destruction—a result he evidently contemplates.” 10
Of all the journalists in the city, James Gordon Bennett lavished the most loving attention on the Colt-Adams story, perceiving it from the start as a potential circulation booster on the order of the Helen Jewett and Mary Rogers cases. In Tuesday’s issue of the
Herald
, for example, he ran a full-profile woodcut portrait of Colt—a highly unusual feature at a time when the typical newspaper page consisted of row upon row of eye-straining type, unrelieved by any illustrations. He was also the only journalist to describe Samuel Adams’s burial on Monday, and to run a remarkable (if highly suspect) story about Adams’s wife, Emeline. According to Bennett (who provides no source for his believe-it-or-not anecdote),
some days before Adams was murdered, his wife dreamed that she saw him dead—murdered and stript naked and put into a box, and his clothes thrown into a privy. She awoke and burst into tears; but finding her husband asleep by the side of her, she said nothing about it. The next night, she dreamed the same
“What have you to say to in relation to the charge against you?” asked Taylor.
“I decline answering any further questions by advice of my counsel,” Colt repeated. “But I am innocent of the charge.”
Newspapers described Colt’s appearance and behavior during this examination in dramatically different, if not completely contradictory, ways. Most agreed that he was an “exceedingly prepossessing” man: about five feet nine inches tall and “very well made,” with curly, dark brown hair and full side whiskers. Some, however, found his good looks marred by his eyes, reported to be of that “brown-colored class that cannot easily be read, and that are generally found in the faces of all scoundrels, schemers, and plotters.” 7
As for his mien, several accounts emphasized Colt’s “remarkable composure,” “singular coolness,” “peculiar nonchalance”—a trait presumably in keeping with the “calculating deliberation” he had exhibited in his attempts to hide the evidence. Indeed, in the view of more than one observer, it was the callous way that Colt had gone about trying to “conceal the deed,” even more than the murder itself, that made his crime an “enormity without parallel.” 8
This picture of Colt as a cold-blooded creature was reinforced by a widely printed story that the only emotion he had displayed at the examination was a flash of self-pity. “I don’t think they treat me well with regard to my meals,” he reportedly complained to Taylor before being led back to his cell. “They don’t bring my dinner on a clean plate but on one that had been used before.” 9
In sharp contrast to this image of Colt as a man of “extraordinary coolness of nerve,” other accounts depicted him as profoundly distraught during his brief appearance before Magistrate Taylor. “His face was of a ghastly paleness,” wrote the reporter for the
Commercial Advertiser
, “his eyes deeply sunk into his head and fearfully wild in their expression. The few hours since the verdict of the inquest had been rendered had evidently been those of intense suffering, of deep mental anguish. The prisoner made a strong effort to maintain his composure, but the effort was clearly visible.” Indeed, according to the same report, Colt was in such an “overwrought frame of mind” that “every means had been taken to prevent his committing self-destruction—a result he evidently contemplates.” 10
Of all the journalists in the city, James Gordon Bennett lavished the most loving attention on the Colt-Adams story, perceiving it from the start as a potential circulation booster on the order of the Helen Jewett and Mary Rogers cases. In Tuesday’s issue of the
Herald
, for example, he ran a full-profile woodcut portrait of Colt—a highly unusual feature at a time when the typical newspaper page consisted of row upon row of eye-straining type, unrelieved by any illustrations. He was also the only journalist to describe Samuel Adams’s burial on Monday, and to run a remarkable (if highly suspect) story about Adams’s wife, Emeline. According to Bennett (who provides no source for his believe-it-or-not anecdote),
some days before Adams was murdered, his wife dreamed that she saw him dead—murdered and stript naked and put into a box, and his clothes thrown into a privy. She awoke and burst into tears; but finding her husband asleep by the side of her, she said nothing about it. The next night, she dreamed the same
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