She then moved to Pleasant Hill, Illinois, and then finally to St. Paul, Minnesota in April 1858 at the request of her nephew, John Walker, who was ill with typhoid fever.
[10] As the funeral procession was leaving the Bilansky residence to bury Stanislaus at the cemetery, officials from the Ramsey County coroner's office arrived to conduct an inquest.
The coroner's jury found that Stanislaus died of natural causes, but questioned why Ann had not called a doctor toward the end of his illness.
[11] Stanislaus was then buried on March 12, but that evening Kilpatrick changed her testimony to claim she saw Ann buying arsenic from a drugstore on February 28.
[11] After taking Kilpatrick's new testimony, Stanislaus’ body was exhumed for an examination and on March 13, Ann was arrested for the murder of her husband.
Wolff testified that a single crystal was found under a microscope that “resembled arsenic,” but Goodrich was skeptical that Stanislaus was poisoned.
Bilansky's attorney went before the Minnesota Supreme Court to try and prevent judge from imposing the death penalty, but Justices declined to intervene.
[20] On March 23, 1860, gallows were set up in an enclosure in Court House Square at the corner of Fifth and Cedar streets, and just before her execution Ann spoke her last words: “I die without having had any mercy shown me, or justice.
She was heavily criticized for her “lack of marital virtue,” and at times the press was more focused on Bilansky's adultery than on her decision commit murder.
[24] Ann Bilansky's trial and execution was the basis for Jeffrey Hatcher's stage play, A Piece of Rope, which premiered in St. Paul in March 2000.