at least three pieces herself and shared the rest with others on the porch of her father's home. After two days in agony, Elizabeth and her older sister, 44-year-old Ida Harriet Deane, died from arsenic poisoning. Four others who had sampled the chocolates survived. Elizabeth's father remarked upon the familiar handwriting on the note and saw that it matched the taunting letters he had kept in a drawer. Police traced the candy to a shop in San Francisco, and from there, to Botkin. Trial Botkin was tried before Judge Carroll Cook. District Attorney, Lewis Francis Byington prosecuted Cordelia Botkin in the murder trial on April 30, 1904. She was convicted of murder in December 1898, appealed, and was convicted again at a retrial in 1904. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. Death Botkin was initially imprisoned in San Francisco, but after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was transferred to San Quentin State Prison, where she died in 1910. John Dunning, his career destroyed by the revelations during the trial, died two years earlier in Philadelphia. References Other sources Transcript on Appeal: People of the State of California, respondent, versus Cordelia Botkin, defendant. Complaint 12,579. San Francisco Superior Court Criminal Case 632. Filed 29 February 1900, with Supreme Court of State of California. Item W.P.A. No. 29080 and 27069, California State Archives, Sacramento, CA. (Original trial records were destroyed in the earthquake and fire in San Francisco in April 1906.) Offord, Lenore: "The Gifts of Cordelia: The Case of Cordelia Botkin" in "San Francisco Murders," ed. Joseph Henry Jackson.New York: Dual, Sloan, and Pierce, 1947. Tales of Love and Hate in Old San Francisco, Millie Robbins. Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1971 External links The Botkin Case by Jim Fisher 1854 births 1910 deaths 1898 murders in the United States 19th-century American criminals 20th-century American criminals 19th-century American women 20th-century American women American people convicted of murder American female murderers American female criminals Criminals from Missouri People convicted of murder by California American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment American people who died in prison custody Prisoners who died in California detention Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by California Poisoners 20th-century American people