About two months later, Mrs. Thorne got up very early in the morning to get some clothes for her own baby from Sally's bedroom. She saw the light under the door before she opened it, and found Sally lying on the bedroom floor. When her mother asked what was wrong, Sally said, "Oh mother, I have had a baby."

"Oh my God," her mother said. "What have you done with it?" Sally told her the child had died and she had put the body in her trunk. When Helen Thorne looked in the trunk, she found the body. She later said, "I made Sally get up and go to bed. It was near daylight. I did not go back to bed. I went down and put a fire in the kitchen stove and walked the house. I was nearly crazy." Finally, she sent for a neighbour and told her what had happened. Later that day, this neighbour came back and got the child's body ready to be buried.

Sally was sick after her delivery and needed a doctor. After the doctor treated Sally, Helen Thorne showed him the baby's body. Later that day, the doctor returned with the local magistrate and took the child's body away. When the doctor examined the body, he found that Sally had carried her baby for nine months. (Babies who are born before nine months are more likely to die.) The baby had breathed, but not for long. There was a bruise on the back of the head. The doctor felt this was caused by the difficult birth. There were no fractures or other signs of violence, except for four scars on the child's neck. These seemed to have been caused by the mother's fingernails. The doctor could not tell how they happened. Were they there because Sally had to deliver the child herself, or were they a sign that she had harmed her baby?

Sally was tried in court for concealment of birth. Because she was charged with concealment, the court did not need to find out if Sally had killed her baby. She was found guilty of concealment, and sentenced to nine months in prison in St. John's. Near the end of her prison term, her family petitioned the governor to let her out of jail early. But this was not done because her sentence was almost over. We know that Sally's family cared about her because they tried to have her released from jail. We do not know what happened to Sally after she got out of jail.

Many other young women in this situation had some help from their families, just as Sarah and Sally did. Friends or relatives made petitions to try to get these young women out of prison early. One young servant was convicted of concealment of birth in St. John's. She was released from prison soon after her trial because her employer got up a petition. This woman asked her friends to sign the petition. They were all wives of important businessmen in St. John's. But what happened to women who had no one to help them?