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When she came back she ordered the nurse to get some ice, and placed the bottle on a washstand. (When chemists later analyzed the meat juice, they found that it contained half a grain of arsenic.) Two nights later Maybrick died. Florrie was arrested. In gloomy Walton Gaol, Florrie sank to the stone floor, crying, "Oh, my God, help me," and fainted.
Crowds hissed her as she was driven to her trial in the prison van. Her dressy friends flocked to see the trial, carrying opera glasses and basket lunches. Florrie's counsel was Sir Charles Russell, later Lord Chief Justice. Her defense: that May-brick had long been addicted to drugs of all sorts, including arsenic; that it was at his own insistence that Florrie had put some "white powder" into his meat juice; that the cause of death had not been fixed with any certainty (which was true); that she had soaked the flypapers for arsenic to use as a face lotion, a common cosmetic practice of the day.
Not so easily explained was a curious collection found in Florrie's trunk and in various places in the house: a package labeled "Arsenic—Poison for cats," three bottles with arsenic in them, a rag and a handkerchief impregnated with arsenic, other lethal odds & ends which doctors said were enough in sum to poison 50 people. Florrie was convicted, sentenced to be hanged.
But public opinion did not underwrite the verdict. While the gibbet was being erected outside her cell, medical men and newspapers insisted on her innocence.
Queen Victoria commuted Florrie's sentence to life imprisonment.
For 15 years she suffered the indignities and ordeals of English prison life, while her mother, the Baroness, spent a fortune trying to win her release. Cardinal Gibbons, U.S. Secretary of State James G. Elaine and Ambassador Robert Lincoln added their appeals. At last, in 1904, Florrie was freed.
She returned to the U.S., finally settled in Connecticut. Her two children were dead. The Baroness had died, impoverished. For a while, Florrie was supported by friends of the family, then she became the ward of her kindly neighbors, who knew her only as Mrs. Chandler. Clothes unkempt, face like a withered apple, "Mrs. Chandler" wandered over the Berkshire foothills, visited the village store, chatted amiably with neighbors. Boys at nearby South Kent School, who had never heard of Florrie Maybrick, carried Mrs. Chandler's bundles for her, occasionally chopped her firewood. Her closest friend was the late Miss Clara C. Dulon, housemother at the school. When Miss Dulon died, Mrs. Chandler lost her only confidante.
Among her few pathetic effects, neighbors last week found a scrapbook of yellowed clippings—the strange newspaper story of her life. After a brief service in the South Kent School chapel, Florrie Maybrick was buried on the hill, next to her friend, Miss Dulon. Up to her deserted cottage rolled an A.S.P.C.A. car, to take away the cats.