Police Searching the Premises.
Let us go back to the Borden house on the afternoon following the time
of the massacre. Medical Examiner Dolan and his associates are found
at work on the partial autopsy. The bodies had been removed to the
sitting room. The physicians found thirteen wounds on the head of Mr.
Borden, which were clean cut and evidently made by some very sharp
instrument. The largest was four and a half inches long and two inches
wide. Many of them penetrated the skull and one severed the eye-ball
and jaw bone. In Dr. Dolan’s own words the “sight was the most ghastly”
he had ever witnessed. Mrs. Borden’s body was even more severely dealt
with. The head was chopped into ribbons of flesh and the skull broken
in several places. A deep wound was discovered between the shoulder
blades, and had the appearance of having been made by a hatchet, the
blade penetrating full three inches deep. The stomachs of the victims
were taken out, sealed up and sent to Prof. E. S. Wood, an eminent
chemist of Harvard University, for analysis. It was desirable to know
if their contents would reveal the fact as to whether or not the milk
which was used, had been poisoned. Then again there was a difference of
opinion as to which of the two persons had been killed first. Only the
condition of the blood at the time of the discovery, and the contents
of the stomachs could determine that question. The pool of blood in
which Mrs. Borden’s head lay was coagulated, while the life-giving
element of Mr. Borden’s body was fresh and oozing from the wounds.
It was evident that the woman had been dead two hours before the
assassin slaughtered the old man. Yet this must be established beyond a
doubt, and in order to do so, Prof. Wood must determine to what stage
digestion had passed. The autopsy was partially finished and the bodies
delivered into the hands of undertaker Winward, who prepared them for
burial.
[Illustration: CHARLES S. SAWYER.]
The police were more than ever active during the afternoon. City
Marshal Hilliard and State Detective George Seaver of Taunton, visited
the house and made personal inquiry of the inmates, and viewed the
bodies and their surroundings. The search for evidence was continued
until night with little or no satisfactory result, so far as the public
knew. Dr. Bowen, who was the first physician to enter the house, told
the writer the following story of the condition of things as he found
them.
[Illustration: DR. S. W. BOWEN.]
“When I reached my home, and before I entered it, my wife said to me,
‘you are wanted at the Borden’s, something terrible has happened.’
Without waiting to learn what the trouble was, I hurried across the
street, and entered the house by the side door, which leads to the
kitchen, there I was confronted by Mrs. Churchill, who lives next door
to the Bordens, and by Miss Alice Russell and Miss Lizzie Borden. Miss
Russell was sitting by Miss Lizzie’s side, rubbing her forehead and
hands and otherwise comforting her. I asked what the trouble was and
they told me that Mr. Borden had been killed. I asked how long since
it had happened, and they replied that it was only a few minutes. By
conservative calculation, I believe that I was present at Mr. Borden’s
side not over twenty minutes after the fatal blows had been inflicted.
Alone I walked into the sitting room and there I saw the body of Mr.
Borden on a lounge. I determined to make a thorough investigation
without delay and proceeded. The sofa upon which the dead man reclined
was of mahogany with hair cloth covering, such as was commonly
manufactured for high class parlor furniture forty years ago. Mr.
Borden lay partly on his right side, with his coat thrown over the arm
of the sofa at its head. He wore a dressing gown and his feet rested
on the carpet. It was his custom to lie in that way. His position was
perfectly natural and he appeared as if he had just lain down to sleep.
I was impressed at this point with the manifest absence of any sign of
a struggle. Mr. Borden’s hands were not clinched; no piece of furniture
was overturned; there was no contraction of the muscles or indications
of pain, such as we expect to find under similar circumstances. I am
satisfied that he was asleep when he received the first blow, which was
necessarily fatal. I approached the body and felt for the pulse. It had
ceased to beat. Then I examined the body to note its condition and the
extent of the wounds. Mr. Borden’s clothing was not disarranged, and
his pockets had apparently not been touched. The blows were delivered
on the left side of the head, which was more exposed than the other, by
reason of the dead man’s position. I do not believe he moved a muscle
after being struck. The cuts extended from the eye and nose around
the ear. In a small space there were at least eleven distinct cuts of
about the same depth and general appearance. In my opinion, any one
of them would have proved fatal almost instantly. Physician that I am
and accustomed to all kinds of horrible sights, it sickened me to look
upon the dead man’s face. I am inclined to think that an axe was the
instrument used. The cuts were about four and a half inches in length
and one of them had severed the eye-ball and socket. There was some
blood on the floor and spatters on the wall, but nothing to indicate
the slaughter that had taken place. I calculated that nearly all the
blows were delivered from behind with great rapidity. At this point
I returned to the kitchen and inquired for Mrs. Borden. Miss Lizzie
replied that she did not know where her mother was. She said that she
(Lizzie) had been out to the barn and that the servant was on the
third floor. Mrs. Churchill suggested that I go up stairs, which I
did, entering the front room. I was informed that Mr. John Morse had
occupied it the night before. As I passed within I was horrified to see
the body of Mrs. Borden on the floor between the bed and dressing-case
in the northeast corner. I walked over and realized that she was dead,
but at that moment I was not sure she had been murdered. I thought she
might have fainted. The sad truth was discovered too soon. Mrs. Borden
had also been murdered. I think she must have been engaged in making
the bed when the murderer appeared with an axe or hatchet and made a
slash at her. After that she turned, and the fiend chopped her head
as if it had been a cake of ice. One blow killed the woman but the
murderer kept on hacking at her until he was well satisfied that she
was dead. It is a mystery to me how he could have done so much savage
work in so short a time and made no noise. The weapon must have been
a sharp one for the cuts were as clean as if made by a razor. There
were, however, no signs of a struggle in the surroundings. There was
a large pool of blood under the dead woman’s head as she lay with her
hands under her. I easily made out eleven distinct gashes of apparently
the same size as those on her husband’s face. Some of these blows had
been delivered from the rear and two or three from the front. One
glance blow cut off nearly two square inches of flesh from the side
of the head. In my judgment, the dead woman did not struggle. She was
rendered unconscious by the first blow. Not a chair was displaced
and not a towel disturbed on the rack near by. I visited the dead in
company with the police officers, but made no further observations
at that time. I afterwards talked with Miss Lizzie, but she was in a
highly nervous state. She said that her father left the house about 9
o’clock and went to the bank and the post-office. He returned about
10:30, as near as she could remember, and took off his coat to put on
his dressing gown. She asked him about the mail, and also if he was
feeling any better, as he had been sick the day before. She said he
replied to her, ‘I feel no better now, no worse,’ and then went into
the sitting room. Shortly afterward the daughter went out to the barn.
She told me that she didn’t think that she was gone more than fifteen
or twenty minutes, and then came back and discovered the murdered
bodies of her father and her step-mother.
“Members of the family had been sick recently. Mrs. Borden came to me
Wednesday morning and said that she was very much frightened, for she
thought she had been poisoned. She and Mr. Borden had vomited all night
and she feared the poison had been from the baker’s bread or the milk.
Miss Lizzie and Bridget had been sick with the same symptoms, and it
was their belief that an enemy had attempted to kill the whole family.”
The police upon investigation found that Dr. Bowen’s story that the
Borden’s had been ill was true in every particular and they naturally
went to work in order to find, if possible, the person who administered
the poison. Special officers Harrington and Doherty were assigned to
this task and before midnight they had made a startling discovery.
So astounding in fact, that they hardly believed their senses. They
started out late in the afternoon, to visit the various drug stores of
the city and to make inquiry as to who bought or offered to buy poison.
They worked without success until they came to D. R. Smith’s pharmacy,
at the corner of South Main and Columbia streets. Eli Bence, the clerk,
informed them that on Wednesday before the murder, a young woman had
come into his store and asked to buy a small bottle of hydrocyanic acid.
[Illustration: THE BORDEN HOMESTEAD, FERRY STREET.]
Suspicions are cruel, and if unfounded, they burn like hot iron;
but in a murder mystery, where every link may strengthen the chain,
they rise up at a thousand points and cannot be ignored. She wanted
poison to kill the moths which were eating her seal skin cloak. If a
person wished to kill and avoid detection, and that person were wise,
hydrocyanic acid would be first choice among all deadly drugs. It is
a diluted form of prussic acid and it does its work surely. It is not
necessary to use it in bulk, homeopathic doses are all sufficient. It
is absorbed by the nervous system and leaves no traces, and it produces
none of the ante-mortem symptoms peculiar to most violent poisons.
There is no vomiting, no spasm or convulsions, no contraction of the
muscles—hydrocyanic acid simply takes hold of the heart and stops its
beating. It may not have been used in this case, and at this time the
detectives did not claim that it was. Mr. Bence told her that he did
not sell so deadly a poison except upon a doctor’s certificate and she
went away empty handed. This woman, Mr. Bence and others positively
identified as Miss Lizzie Borden. When the clerk told his story to the
officers they took him to the Borden house. This was about 10 o’clock
on the night following the murder. He was placed in a position to see
Miss Lizzie and when he came out was more certain than before that she
was the lady who called for the prussic acid. This then was a possible
clue and the first and only one which the police had secured. The _Fall
River Daily Globe_ published the particulars of this incident the next
day. But almost every newspaper in the country failed to accept it as
authentic, and while it served to point the police toward a possible
solution of the great murder mystery, it also brought down upon them
the vituperation of many a bucolic newspaper man who knew not of what
he wrote, or knowing cared little for justice and truth. From the day
after the killing, newspapers throughout the country questioned the
ability of the officers of the Fall River police department and some
of them went so far as to criticise sharply the work done. An act of
injustice unless the author of the criticism knew as much of the case
as the police themselves, which was hardly to be expected. However, the
work went on, yet with this slight clue the mystery seemed dark as ever.
More bewildering in fact, for there arose countless suggestions during
the afternoon which the police were called upon to consider. John V.
Morse developed into a seemingly very important factor before the day
had passed, and special officer Medley was detailed to look up the
facts concerning his whereabouts during that day. Mr. Morse had told
the newspaper reporters of his visit in the morning to the house of
a relative, Mrs. Emery at No. 4 Weybosset street. Thither went the
policeman accompanied by the writer to investigate. The Emery’s were
found at home and Mrs. Emery said that Mr. Morse had visited her house
that morning, arriving there before 10 o’clock and remaining until
11:20. A niece of Mr. Morse was present and she also declared that her
uncle had left the house at the time stated. The testimony of these
two witnesses would set at rest forever the theory that John V. Morse
was within a mile of the Borden house when the old people were done to
death. But these facts were not then generally known and there were
many persons who believed that he knew more concerning the killing than
he cared to relate.
The City Marshal sent a detail of police to guard the Borden house
soon after the murder was reported and instructions were given out
that every member of the household be shadowed. Officer John Devine
was designated to keep Mr. Morse in sight and every movement which he
made was carefully watched. He was allowed to come and go at will,
but whenever he appeared on the street a great crowd gathered. On one
evening in particular when the excitement was at the highest tension
Mr. Morse set out for the post office. Before he had completed his
journey a mob numbering a thousand people was at his heels and fears
were entertained less he would be roughly handled. Officer Devine was
in the shadow of Mr. Morse and saw him safely back to the Borden house.