Livingston left his $85,000 estate for his widow to use during her lifetime and in trust for his daughter when she died. Mary Alice had a lot of financial needs. This was not unreasonable since she already had 3 children, each with a different father, and was pregnant with her fourth. But family life seems to have been extremely contentious, according to the neighbors. Her stepfamily vehemently disapproved of her lifestyle. Two days after a particularly rowdy fight, on August 30, 1895, Mary Alice sent her 10-year-old daughter, Grace, out for some clam chowder and lemon meringue pie. Somehow, arsenic managed to find its way into the soup. Evelina became violently ill and died a few hours later, claiming that she had been murdered. Indeed, her stomach was full of arsenic. Mary Alice was arrested in her mourning clothes, which she continued to wear throughout her incarceration in the Tombs, where she gave birth to baby Robert Fleming, who turned out to be extremely popular with the women in the women's wing (he was the only male). Her 6-week murder trial was luridly covered in the tabloids and attended by much of New York. Luckily for her, it ended in acquittal, although if she had been convicted, she would have been the first person electrocuted in the electric chair at Sing Sing. The Livingstons, who were extremely well represented among New York's 400, were said to be grateful that Mary Alice chose 'Fleming' as her last name.
