Biography
Steve Adams was a Western Federation of Miners member who in February 1906 was arrested by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in eastern Oregon and extradited to Idaho as the prosecutions intended corroborating witness in the case against WFM leaders Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone for the December 30, 1905 assassination by mail-bomb of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg.
The principal informant in the case, Harry Orchard (Albert Horsley), had confessed to the bombing under interrogation by Pinkerton detective James McParland and named Adams as a fellow WFM hitman responsible for several earlier western mining-strike killings. McParland obtained a parallel confession from Adams at the Caldwell, Idaho jail by threatening him with hanging. Adams recanted that confession via a note passed in secret by his wife Annie during a jail visit; the note read: This is to certify that the statement that I signed was made up by James McParland, detective, and Harry Orchard, alias Tom Hogan. I signed it because I was threatened by Governor Gooding, saying I would be hanged if I did not corroborate Orchards story against the officers of the federation union of miners.
Without Adamss corroborating testimony, the prosecutions case against Haywood (defended by Clarence Darrow) collapsed; Haywood was acquitted on July 28, 1907. Pettibone was acquitted in early 1908; Moyer was released without trial. Adams himself remained in pretrial custody and was tried three times for murders Orchard had alleged on his behalf:
- November 1907 in Wallace, Idaho for the murder of Fred Tyler — hung jury
- July 1908 in Rathdrum, Idaho on retrial — hung jury, 8-4 for acquittal
- early 1910 in Colorado on the Arthur Collins / Telluride charge — discharged after the prosecution declined to retry
He spent approximately four years in pretrial detention across the Caldwell, Wallace, and Rathdrum, Idaho jails without ever being convicted. He returned to mining-region life after release.
