After the second bomb went off, Rysakov was roughed up by one of the soldiers holding him. As soon as the Tsar was rushed by sleigh to the Winter Palace, the police decided that Rysakov should be taken directly to the mayor. As he was being led to a cab, Rysakov was attacked by the mob, but with the intervention of the police, he was turned over to the authorities unharmed. Tsar Alexander II died roughly 45 minutes later. While in custody, in an attempt to save his own life, Rysakov cooperated with the investigators by giving them valuable information about his accomplices. In particular, his post-arrest confession enabled the police to raid the group's safe house on Telezhnaya street, where Gesya Helfman was arrested and Nikolai Sablin committed suicide after firing several shots at the police. Mikhailov, Sophia Perovskaya, and Kibalchich were also subsequently captured. Rysakov established the identity of all prisoners. Although he knew many of them only by their party pseudonyms, he was able to describe the role they each had played. Rysakov was put on trial, together with Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, Kibalchich, Helfman, and Mikhailov. His counsel sought to palliate his crime on account of his extreme youth. On 29 March, all the defendants were found guilty and were sentenced to death by hanging. In a last desperate effort, Rysakov offered his services to the police, and composed a letter addressed to Alexander III alleging sincere repentance; his plea was ignored. Vladimir Solovyov proposed that Alexander III, "as a Christian and ruler of a Christian nation, ought to forgive his father's assassins." In a letter to Alexander III, a similar appeal was made by Leo Tolstoy, but to no avail. In the evening before the execution the Church offered its ministrations. Rysakov eagerly received the priest, talked with him for a long time, confessed and received the Eucharist. On the morning of 15 April [3 April, Old Style], the prisoners were transported to the parade grounds of the Semenovsky Regiment, where the execution was set to take place. They were all dressed in black prison uniforms, and on their chests hung a placard with the inscription: "Regicide". Rysakov and Zhelyabov were placed on the first cart which was drawn through the city by a pair of horses, while Kibalchich, Perovskaya and Mikhailov were placed on a second cart.