At the committal hearing in August 1920, witnesses included the dentist who made the false teeth found with Birkett's remains and Birkett's sister, Lillie Nugent, who also identified the gemstone found with the body as belonging to the deceased. Birkett's son testified that his mother had only married Falleni because he was so persistent and after that 'there were always rows and they were never happy'. He mentioned them leaving for his aunt's, then another location, and how much Falleni 'worried' his mother and an incident when Falleni found them and 'smashed up everything'. He also stated that small cracks to the skull were likely a result of the fire, but a more substantial one could have been evidence of violence. At the end of the hearing, Falleni was committed for trial and refused bail. At Falleni's trial for murder at
Darlinghurst courthouse in October 1920, the ‘Man-Woman case’ created a press sensation, with the accused appearing in the dock first in a man's suit and then in women's clothes. He was rebuked by the presiding Chief Justice,
Sir William Cullen, who responded that 'if women came to a criminal court they must not be considered for a moment'. Evidence from other witnesses did not always support the Crown's case. While on his way to work, David Lowe saw a woman with a suitcase behaving in a 'half-witted' way, who disappeared into the scrub 200 yards from where the burned remains were found. Police-Inspector Mayes was one of those, at the original inquest, who suggested the body may have been of a woman who set herself on fire accidentally. but the jury only took two hours to reach their verdict, and he was convicted and
condemned to death. In mid-October, Falleni lodged an appeal against the conviction, the basis of which was: "...that the jury's verdict was against evidence, that the evidence tendered by the Crown was weak and merely circumstantial; that the case against the accused set up by the Crown was destroyed by the evidence of the Crown's medical witnesses; that the identification of the appellant with some person alleged by the Crown to have been seen in the neighbourhood of the place where a charred body was found was unsatisfactory, and that owing to nervous prostration at the trial, the appellant was physically unable to make a statement of facts, which would have answered the circumstantial evidence..." The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the case finding that if the original jury 'came to the conclusion that the accused was the person who had brought about the death of the woman, no matter by what means, it was justified in finding a verdict of guilty'. Falleni's sentence was
commuted to
imprisonment for life but the matter of his
gender identity and the supposed deception of it was made much of in the popular press, which portrayed him as a monster and a pervert. Upon leaving Long Bay, Falleni was taken by car 'for an unknown destination'. In April 1935, when Inspector Stuart Robson gave a speech upon taking on the role of officer in charge of the
Broken Hill Police District, in which he recalled his involvement with the Falleni case: "I was also responsible for the arrest of Eugenia Falleni, the famous man-woman. She was the child of an Italian skipper and he dressed her in male clothes and she worked as a cabin boy. She kept to male attire, and her exploits are well known. She was convicted for the murder of her 'wife', and was sentenced to life imprisonment. I arrested her when she was working as a man, breaking down rum in a Sydney hotel cellar. That was three years after the murder. I thought I had arrested a man, and it was not until she declined to undress that I thought there was something wrong. A doctor made the discovery. She was subsequently released and has completely disappeared." Falleni had assumed the name "Mrs. Jean Ford" and became the proprietor of a boarding house in Paddington, Sydney. On 9 June 1938, he was struck by a motorcar in nearby Oxford Street, and died of his injuries the following day in
Sydney Hospital. Falleni's funeral notice was announced under his final name and he was buried in the
Church of England section of
Rookwood Cemetery. ==Legacy==