Daily Kennebec Journal

MacFarland Guilty In First Degree.

Newark, N. J., Jan. 31. - The jury in the case of Allison MacFarland, on trial for the death of his wife by cyanide poisoning, shortly before midnight, tonight, returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. The jury had been out since 10.30 o'clock in the morning and during the 13 and a quarter hours wait for the verdict, MacFarland had shown no anxiety as to the outcome. When the foreman of the jury pronounced the verdict the accused man seemed stunned for a moment, but he did not break down. He turned to Andrew MacFarland, his 77-year-old uncle, who had been keeping him company, awaiting the verdict, grasped his hand and smiled. "You have got to take life as it comes," the uncle said, but MacFarland made no reply. He turned to the officers, who handcuffed him and led him to the jail. The conviction of MacFarland was mainly on circumstantial evidence. His wife met death on the night of Oct. 17 last, when MacFarland was absent from home, by taking cyanide of potassium which the state alleged MacFarland had deliberately substituted for headache medicine which Mrs. MacFarland was in the habit of taking. MacFarland's declarations that he had told his wife about the cyanide and that if she took it by mistake it was by her own carelessness were greatly offset by more than 70 letters which passed between MacFarland and his former stenographer in Philadelphia, Florence Bromley. In order to marry Miss Bromley, the state alleged MacFarland planned to get rid of his wife.