McParland sought to bolster Orchard's testimony by forcing another WFM miner, Steve Adams, to turn state's evidence. McParland used the same method for eliciting a confession from Adams as he had on Orchard: he told Adams he was merely a "tool," and told him he "would be forgiven his sins," if he confessed. With his wife and children also confined in the Idaho prison, allegedly for their own protection, Adams signed a confession, then later recanted. McParland sought leverage over Adams to force him to re-affirm the confession. Charges against Adams for several murders resulted in two hung juries and one acquittal. As a result of Adams' first trial, in which he was defended by attorneys Clarence Darrow and Edmund F. Richardson, details of McParland's coercive treatment of witnesses when seeking a confession were revealed on the witness stand. McParland had contracted to provide Pinkerton services for Bulkeley Wells, the president and manager of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in Telluride, Colorado. Together with Wells and others, McParland planned to have Adams charged with involvement after-the-fact in the murder of mine bricklayer William J. Barney, who had disappeared one week after accepting the position as a guard at the Smuggler-Union mine. There was one difficulty with the accusation: William J. Barney hadn't been murdered; in fact, he was very much alive.