Molly Maguires - Mollies in The United States - History - The Trials

The Trials

When Gowen first hired the Pinkerton agency, he had claimed the Molly Maguires were so powerful they had made capital and labor "their puppets". When the trials of the alleged puppet-masters opened, Gowen had himself appointed as special prosecutor.

The first trials were for the killing of John P. Jones. The three defendants, Michael J. Doyle, Jimmy Kerrigan and Edward Kelly, had elected to receive separate trials. Doyle went first, with his trial beginning January 18, 1876, and a conviction for first-degree murder being returned on February 1. Before the trial completed, Kerrigan had decided to become a state's witness, and he gave details about the Jones and Yost murders. Kelly's trial began on March 27 and also ended in conviction on April 6, 1876.

The first trial of defendants McGeehan, Carroll, Duffy, James Boyle, and James Roarity for the killing of Benjamin Yost commenced in May 1876. Yost had not recognized the men who attacked him. Although Kerrigan has since been described, along with Duffy, as hating the night watchman enough to plot his murder, Kerrigan became a state's witness and testified against the union leaders and other miners. However, Kerrigan's wife testified in the courtroom that her husband had committed the murder. She testified that she refused to provide her husband with clothing while he was in prison, because he had "picked innocent men to suffer for his crime". She stated that her speaking out was voluntary, and that she was interested only in telling the truth about the murder. Gowen cross-examined her, but could not shake her testimony. Others supported her testimony amid speculation that Kerrigan was receiving special treatment due to the fact that McParlan was engaged to his sister-in-law, Mary Ann Higgins. This trial was declared a mistrial due to the death of one of the jurors. A new trial was granted two months later. During that trial Fanny Kerrigan did not testify. The five defendants were sentenced to death. Kerrigan was allowed to go free.

The trial of Tom Munley for the murder of mine foreman Thomas Sanger and his friend, William Uren, relied entirely upon the testimony of McParlan, and the eyewitness account of a witness. The witness stated under oath that he had seen the murderer clearly, and that Munley was not the murderer. Yet the jury accepted McParlan's testimony that Munley had privately confessed to the murder. Munley was sentenced to death. Another four miners were put on trial and were found guilty on a charge of murder. The testimony against them came from only two sources: James McParlan, and "Kelly the Bum". McParlan had no direct evidence, but had recorded that the four admitted their guilt to him. Kelly was being held in a cell for murder, and he had been quoted, "I would squeal on Jesus Christ to get out of here." In return for his testimony, the murder charge against him was dismissed.

In November, McAllister was convicted. McParlan's testimony in the Molly Maguires trials helped to send ten men to the gallows. The defense attorneys repeatedly sought to portray McParlan as an agent-provocateur who was responsible for not warning people of their imminent deaths. (Kenny, pp. 232-33) For his part, McParlan testified that the AOH and the Mollys were one and the same, and that the defendants were guilty of the murders. (Kenny, pp. 234-35) Many years later in preparation for a different trial, McParlan would tell another witness, a confessed mass murderer named Harry Orchard, that "Kelly the Bum" not only had won his freedom for testifying against union leaders, he had been given one thousand dollars to "subsidize a new life abroad". McParlan was attempting to convince Orchard to accuse the leadership of an entirely different union, the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), of conspiracy to commit another murder. Unlike the Molly Maguires, the WFM's union leadership was acquitted. Orchard alone was convicted, and spent the rest of his life in prison.