Beulah Annan had a fast-talking lawyer, W.W. O’Brien, a man skilled at giving press conferences about his cases. The beautiful accused killer received increasing amounts of support mail as a result of all the publicity O’Brien (called Billy Flynn in the play) generated.
Everybody knew Beulah was guilty, but she wanted to turn her trial into a media circus. Her picture appeared everywhere in America’s newspapers. Flowers, letters and marriage proposals flooded the Cook County Jail.
From the start of her trial, Annan seemed to view her role as that of a performer with matching makeup and costumes. O’Brien carefully picked his jury: all male, all young, and all good looking. Four were bachelors.
When Beulah took the witness stand, she told the jury: "There had been a gun on the bed." Harry and she had reached for it together and - she said - it had just "gone off."
Pleading with the jury not to believe her, the prosecuting attorney also chided jurors not to let her off just because she was pretty. (Watkins, in her Tribune stories, had observed that Beulah Annan was likely the most beautiful accused murderer in custody anywhere.) But the prosecutor’s words went unheeded. Fifty-three days after Kalstedt’s murder - and after only two hours of deliberation - the jury returned its verdict: Not Guilty.
After Beulah Annan was set free, she walked away from the Cook County Courthouse with her husband on her arm. No one ever mentioned a baby again.