In the case of Rose Tessier the tests yielded a huge amount of arsenic. Rose had died after an illness of only four days. The large amount of arsenic indicated a brutal and violent poisoning, in which the substance could not be excreted in the usual way.
The President then addressed the accused on this evidence. She alone had watched near all three of the victims, and against all three she had motives of hate. Poisoning was established beyond all doubt. Who was the poisoner if not she, Helene Jegado?
Helene: "Frankly, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I gave them only what came from the pharmacies on the orders of the doctors."
After evidence of Helene's physical condition, by a doctor who had seen her in prison (she had a scirrhous tumour on her left breast), the speech for the defence was made.
M. Dorange was very eloquent, but he had a hopeless case. The defence he put up was that Helene was irresponsible, but the major part of the advocate's speech was taken up with a denouncement of capital punishment. It was a barbarous anachronism, a survival which disgraced civilization.
The President summed up and addressed the jury:
"Cast a final scrutiny, gentlemen of the jury," he said, "at the matter brought out by these debates. Consult yourselves in the calm and stillness of your souls. If it is not proved to you that Helene Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that, without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her the benefit of extenuating circumstance.
"But if you consider her culpable, if you cannot see in her either debility of spirit or an absence or feebleness of moral sense, you will do your duty with firmness. You will remember that for justice to be done chastisement will not alone suffice, but that punishment must be in proportion to the offence."
The President then read over his questions for the jury, and that body retired. After deliberations which occupied an hour and a half the jury came back with a verdict of guilty on all points. The Procureur asked for the penalty of death.
THE PRESIDENT. Helene Jegado, have you anything to say upon the application of the penalty?