The Trial
Beulah's story changed over time: first, she confessed to the murder; later, Beulah claimed she had shot Kalstedt in self-defense, fearing rape. According to one of her later versions, he told her he was leaving her, she reacted angrily and then she shot him. Prosecutors surmised that Kalstedt had threatened to leave Beulah and she shot him in a jealous rage. Her final story at the trial was that she had told Kalstedt she was pregnant, they struggled, and they both reached for the gun.
Albert Annan stood by her, pulled his money out of the bank to get her the best lawyers and stood by her throughout the trial. The day after the trial ended in acquittal, on May 25, 1924, his wife announced, "I have left my husband. He is too slow." She divorced him in 1926 on the charge that he deserted her.
Read more about this topic: Beulah Annan
Famous quotes containing the word trial:
“For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 9:32-33.
Job, about God.
“A trial cannot be conducted by announcing the general culpability of a civilization. Only the actual deeds which, at least, stank in the nostrils of the entire world were brought to judgment.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)