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At the judicial inquiry, Terentyeva implicated two of the most prominent Jews of Velizh, the merchant Shmerka Berlin, and Yevzik Zetlin, a member of the local town council.
All these tortures had been perpetrated in her own presence, and with the active participation both of herself and the Christian servant-girls of the two families. It may be added that Terentyeva did not make these statements at one time, but at different intervals, inventing fresh details at each new examination and often getting muddled in her story.
He entrusted the conduct of the new investigation to a subaltern, by the name of Strakhov, a man of the same ilk, conferring upon him the widest possible powers. On his arrival in Velizh, Strakhov first of all arrested Terentyeva, and subjected her to a series of cross-examinations during which he endeavored to put her on what he considered the desirable track.
Terentyeva and the other female witnesses, who were fed well while in prison, and expected not only amnesty but also remuneration for their services, gave more and more vent to their imagination.
The implicated servant-girls at first denied their share in the crime, but, yielding to external pressure like Terentyeva, they, too, were sent for frequent "admonition" to a local priest, called Tarashkevich, a ferocious anti-Semite they were gradually led to endorse the depositions of the principal material witness.
The prisoners were examined "with a vengeance"; they were subjected to the old-fashioned judicial procedure which approached closely the methods of medieval torture. The prisoners denied their guilt with indignation, and, when confronted with Terentyeva, denounced her vehemently as a liar. The excruciating cross-examinations brought some of the prisoners to the verge of madness.
However, in view of the exceptional gravity of the crime, the Court recommended to the gubernatorial administration to continue its investigations. Despite the verdict of the court, the dark forces among the local population, prompted by hatred of the Jews, bent all their efforts on putting the investigation on the wrong track. The low, mercenary Terentyeva became their ready tool.
It read as follows: The Council of State, having carefully considered all the circumstances of this complex and involved case, finds that the depositions of the material female witnesses, Terentyeva, Maximova, and Koslovska, containing as they do numerous contradictions and absurdities and lacking all positive evidence and indubitable conclusions, cannot be admitted as legal proof to convict the Jews of the grave crimes imputed to them, and, therefore, renders the following decision: 1.
The material witnesses, the peasant woman Terentyeva, the soldier woman Maximova, and the Shiakhta woman Kozlovsta, having been convicted of uttering libels, which they have not in the least been able to corroborate, shall be exiled to Siberia for permanent residence.
Protracted investigations failed to substantiate the fabrications of Terentyeva, and in the autumn of 1884 the Supreme Court of the government of Vitebsk rendered the following verdict: To leave the accidental death of the soldier boy to the will of God; to declare all the Jews, against whom the charge of murder has been brought on mere surmises, free from all suspicion; to turn over the soldier woman Terentyeva, for her profligate conduct, to a priest for repentance.
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