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By Jesse McKinley

POTSDAM, N.Y. — In front of the building at 100 Market Street, where a 12-year-old boy, Garrett Phillips, was murdered nearly five years ago, a small sign, one of hundreds that once dotted the area, had called for “Justice for Garrett.”

But with a two-week trial ending with the acquittal of the lone suspect, the sign was gone on Wednesday, even as the glare of scrutiny and suspicion remained.

As dusk began to settle Wednesday evening, police lights once again flashed in front of the building. This time, the drama was fake: a re-enactment was underway for the ABC News program “20/20,” one of several national news outlets following the trial of Oral Nicholas Hillary, a former soccer coach at Clarkson University here.

Mr. Hillary was accused of strangling Garrett, in a fit of rage at the boy over a broken romance with his mother, Tandy Cyrus, in October 2011. The ensuing investigation, arrest and trial were tinged with questions of racial bias and selective prosecution.

In the hours after the not-guilty verdict, a mix of relief and resignation seemed to pervade Potsdam, the small village near the Canadian border where the murder occurred. Residents in this riverfront region have long been divided over Mr. Hillary’s guilt or innocence, and the verdict, rendered by Judge Felix J. Catena in a nonjury trial, which was requested by the defense, did not seem likely to quell the debate.

“I don’t think the judge had another option,” said Danielle Melanson, 43, a nurse at Canton-Potsdam Hospital, where Garrett died after the attack. “And I think all of us will get ours in the end.”

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