Their effects.
And whether a person mailing certain kinds of packages would be required to sign her name.
If accurate, the conversation was devastating.
It did not merely show access to poison.
It suggested curiosity about both poisoning and anonymous mailing shortly before the crime.
But once again, the defense could attack memory.
Was the conversation remembered accurately?
Had later newspaper reports influenced the witness?
Did asking about poison prove intent to kill?
Every piece remained arguable.
Yet each new clue pointed the same direction.
The Post Office
The parcel itself had to enter the mail somewhere.
The postmark placed it in the San Francisco region.
But the postal system was enormous.
Recent changes in local mail sorting reportedly made exact reconstruction difficult.
For a time, this looked like one of the sender's greatest protections.
A package dropped into the mail did not carry the sender's identity.
There was no tracking database investigators could query.
No camera recording who approached the slot.
No electronic transaction.
But people were still watching.
A witness later came forward saying he had seen a woman matching Botkin's description at a ferry postal station on the relevant date, carrying or depositing a parcel resembling the candy package.
Another postal employee noticed the addressed name because "Dunning" resembled his own surname.
These memories were imperfect and contested.
But investigators now had an alleged route.
Candy store.
Preparation.
Ferry post office.
California postmark.
Rail journey east.
Dover.
The package was becoming traceable not because the postal system recorded it electronically, but because people remembered fragments of its movement.
August 4
Investigators focused on August 4 as the likely mailing date.
That timing became important.
Botkin left San Francisco around that period for St. Helena.
This created both suspicion and defense possibilities.
The prosecution could argue she mailed the package before leaving, creating geographical separation between herself and the delivery.
The defense could use travel details to argue she could not have been at specific places when witnesses claimed.
The case increasingly became a battle of clocks.
Where was Cordelia?
At what hour?
Who saw her?
When was the candy purchased?
When was the parcel mailed?
When did she leave San Francisco?
When did it arrive in Dover?
With no camera footage, time itself became a witness.
The Handwriting Men
Then investigators turned to the oldest and perhaps most important clue.
Writing.
They had several categories of documents.
Anonymous letters sent to Mary Elizabeth before the deaths.
The address on the package.
The short note inside.
And examples of Cordelia Botkin's known handwriting, including letters associated with her relationship with Dunning.
Experts compared them.
Daniel T. Ames, a well-known handwriting examiner, became associated with the case.
Other specialists also examined the documents.
They studied letter forms.
Capital letters.
Slants.
Spacing.
Repeated habits.
To the prosecution, the conclusion was powerful.
The same hand had produced the anonymous correspondence and the writing associated with the poisoned package.
And that hand was Botkin's.
The murderer may have crossed an entire continent without appearing at the crime scene.
But handwriting could travel with the weapon.
Why Handwriting Mattered More Than Arsenic
The poison proved murder.
It did not identify the murderer.
The candy shop indicated origin.
It did not identify who altered the chocolates.
The arsenic purchase suggested means.
It did not prove use.
The affair suggested motive.
It did not prove action.
Handwriting connected motive with delivery.
That is why the earlier anonymous letters were so valuable.
If the killer had simply sent the candy without ever writing before, investigators would have had less comparison material.
The earlier harassment created a documentary fingerprint.
In attempting to weaken Mary Elizabeth's marriage, the writer had unknowingly prepared evidence for a future murder trial.
Cordelia Botkin
By late August, Cordelia's name dominated newspapers.
She was located in California.
She did not flee across the country.
She was arrested.
The spectacle began immediately.
Newspapers published photographs.
Reporters described her clothing.
Her expression.
Her personal life.
Her relationship with Dunning.
The case combined nearly every ingredient Victorian-era newspapers wanted.
Adultery.
Jealousy.
Poison.
Chocolate.
Anonymous letters.
A woman accused of planning murder from thousands of miles away.
Two prominent victims.
A war correspondent husband.
A cross-country investigation.
It became national news.
But before any jury could decide guilt, lawyers had to answer a surprisingly difficult question.
Where had the murder happened?
California or Delaware?
Mary Elizabeth ate the poison in Delaware.
She died in Delaware.
If murder occurs where the victim dies, Delaware seemed the obvious jurisdiction.
But Cordelia Botkin was in California.
She had not traveled to Delaware to commit the act.
Could Delaware demand extradition?
Was she legally a fugitive from a state she had never entered?
Her lawyers argued that she could not have "fled" Delaware because she had never been there.
Then came the opposite problem.
If California tried her, could California prosecute a murder whose final fatal effect occurred thousands of miles away?
The poisoned candy had turned criminal jurisdiction into part of the mystery.
The legal theory eventually treated the preparation and mailing of the poisoned candy in California as criminal acts committed there with murderous intent.
The California Supreme Court would later address the jurisdictional issue directly in People v. Botkin.
The court summarized the case plainly: a defendant in San Francisco mailed poisoned candy to Elizabeth Dunning in Delaware intending that she eat it and die.
California had jurisdiction because the acts undertaken in California, including preparing and sending the poison with murderous intent, were sufficient under state law to support prosecution.
That ruling made the case legally important beyond its sensational facts.
A murderer could not escape prosecution merely by designing the fatal result to occur across a state line.
Building a Case Without an Eyewitness
No witness came forward to say:
I saw Cordelia Botkin open chocolates and place arsenic inside.
No one testified:
I watched her seal the exact package sent to Delaware.
No confession existed.
The prosecution had to build a chain.
Motive.
Opportunity.
Poison purchase.
Candy purchase.
Packaging.
Handkerchief.
Postal movement.
Handwriting.
Prior letters.
The question for jurors would not be whether any one clue proved murder.
It would be whether all the clues could reasonably belong to someone else.
That is the essence of circumstantial prosecution.
Each fact is a link.
The defense attacks each link separately.
The prosecution asks the jury to look at the chain.
The Grand Jury
By October 1898, prosecutors believed the evidence was sufficient.
Botkin was indicted.
The first trial would focus on the death of Mary Elizabeth Dunning.