Beginning of the Superior Court Trial.
According to the arrangements already made, the trial of Miss Lizzie
Borden commenced in New Bedford on the morning of the 5th of June,
1893. It was conducted before three Superior Court Judges. They were
Chief Justice Albert Mason and Associate Justices Caleb Blodgett and
Justin Dewey.
No spectators were allowed in the court room the first day of the
trial, but this rule was not observed later. The only persons
present at the opening were the 150 jurors from which twelve were to
be selected, the court officers, a few of the intimate friends of
the prisoner and thirty-five newspaper correspondents. Miss Borden
was escorted to the court-house by Deputy Sheriff Kirby and to all
appearances had not changed in the least during her ten months of
confinement in Taunton jail. The court was opened by prayer by Rev. M.
C. Julien, who spoke as follows:
“Almighty and all-wise God, our Father, we look to Thee as the only
source of wisdom, as the only source of courage. We pray Thee that Thou
wouldst grant that in entering on the solemn duties of this court,
we shall have not only such help as comes from the experience of the
past, through the history of the world, but such help as Thou, by Thy
providence, wilt and canst give to Thy earthly children. We pray Thee
that so innocence may be revealed and guilt exposed, to the glory of
Thy own great name and the well being of the world. We ask it all for
Thy name’s sake. Amen.”
The first day was devoted entirely to the selection of the Jury which
was made up of the following named gentlemen.
Charles I. Richards, foreman, of North Attleboro; George Potter of
Westport; William F. Deane of Taunton; John Wilbur of Somerset;
Frederick C. Wilbar, of Raynham; Lemuel K. Wilber of Easton; Louis D.
Hodges of Taunton; Augustus Swift of New Bedford; Frank G. Cole of
Attleboro; John C. Finn of Taunton; William Wescott of Seekonk; and
Allen H. Wordell of Dartmouth.
The second day of the trial was devoted to the opening of the case
by the government’s representative, Mr. William H. Moody, District
Attorney of Essex County and assistant to District Attorney Knowlton of
Bristol County.
During the afternoon of that day the Jury visited the scenes of the
murder in Fall River. Mr. Moody spoke as follows:
_May it please Your Honors, Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen of the Jury:_
Upon the fourth day of August of the last year, an old man and woman,
husband and wife, each without a known enemy in the world, in their
own home, upon a frequented street in the most populous city in this
county, under the light of day and in the midst of its activities,
were, first one, then, after an interval of an hour, another, severally
killed by unlawful human agency. To-day, a woman of good social
position, of hitherto unquestioned character, a member of a Christian
church and active in its good works, the own daughter of one of the
victims, is at the bar of this court accused by the Grand Jury of
this county of these crimes. There is no language, gentlemen, at my
command, which can better measure the solemn importance of the inquiry
which you are about to begin than this simple statement of facts.
For the sake of these crimes and for the sake of these accusations,
every man may well pause at the threshold of this trial and carefully
search his understanding and conscience for any vestige of prejudice,
and, finding it, cast it aside as an unclean thing. It is my purpose,
gentlemen, and it is my duty to state to you at this time so much of
the history of the cause and so much of the evidence which is to be
introduced upon this trial as shall best enable you to understand the
claim of the Government and to appreciate the force and application of
the testimony as it comes from the witnesses on the stand. It is my
purpose to do that in the plainest, simplest and most direct manner.
And it is not my purpose to weary you with a recital of all the details
of the evidence which is to come before you. Andrew Jackson Borden,
the person named in the second part of the indictment, was at the time
of his death a man of considerable property—somewhere, I believe,
between $250,000 and $300,000. He had been retired from business for a
number of years. He was a man who had obtained his fortune by earning
and saving, and he retained the habit of saving up to the time of
his death; and it will appear in the course of this trial that the
family establishment was upon what might well be called, for a person
in his circumstances, a narrow scale. He had been twice married. The
first wife died some twenty-seven or twenty-eight years before he
died, leaving two children, now alive—the prisoner at the bar, Lizzie
Andrew Borden, the younger, and then somewhere between two and three
years of age, a sister, Miss Emma Borden, being a woman at the present
time in the neighborhood of ten years older than the prisoner. Not long
after the death of the first wife Andrew Borden married again a woman
whose maiden name, I believe, was Abby Durfee Gray. The marriage, I
believe, was something over twenty-five years before the time of their
deaths, and there was no issue of the second marriage, at least none
living and none that I have been informed of at any time. Abby Durfee
Borden, at the time of her death, was about six years younger than
her husband, and that would make her, of course, sixty-four years of
age. Mr. Borden, I may say here, was a spare, thin man and somewhat
tall. Mrs. Borden was a short, fat woman, weighing, I believe, in
the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. The house in which these
homicides were committed had been occupied by the Borden family for
some twenty years. I shall have occasion to consider its construction
and its relation to other buildings and streets later on in the course
of this opening. There was, or came to be, between the prisoner and
her stepmother, an unkindly feeling. From the nature of the case,
from the fact that those who know the most about that feeling, except
the prisoner at the bar, are dead, it will be impossible for us at
this hearing to get anything more than suggestive glimpses of that
feeling. It will appear that some five years before the death of Mr.
and Mrs. Borden some controversy had arisen about some property, not
important in itself. Mr. Borden had seen fit to do some benefaction
for a relative of Mrs. Borden, and in consequence of that fact the
daughters thought that something should be done for them by way of
pecuniary provision as an offset. The details of what happened at that
time are, as I have said, by no means important. It is significant,
however, that enough of feeling has been created by the discussion
which arose to cause a change in the relations between the prisoner
and Mrs. Borden. Up to that time she had addressed her stepmother as
“mother.” From that time she substantially ceased to do so. We shall
show to you that the spring before these homicides, upon some occasion
where a talk arose between the prisoner and a person who did the cloak
making for the family, the latter spoke of Mrs. Borden as “mother.”
The prisoner at once repudiated that relation and said, “Don’t call
her mother. She is a mean thing, and we hate her. We have as little to
do with her as possible.” “Well, don’t you have your meals with her?”
“Yes, we do sometimes; but we try not to, and a great many times we
wait until they are over with their meals, and we stay in our own
rooms as much as possible.” I know of nothing that will appear in this
case more significant of the feeling that existed between Mrs. Borden
and the prisoner than a little incident which occurred not long after
the discovery of these homicides. When one of the officers of the law,
while the father and the step-mother lay at the very place where they
had fallen under the blows of the assassin, was seeking information
from the prisoner, he said, “When did you last see your mother?” “She
is not my mother. My mother is dead.” You cannot fail, I think, to be
impressed in this respect with what will appear as to the method of
living of this family. It will appear later on in the evidence that,
although they occupied the same household, there was built up between
them by locks and bolts and bars almost an impassable wall. In the
early part of August of last year the older daughter, Miss Emma, was
away, I believe at Fairhaven at the time. When Miss Emma was away the
household that was left consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Borden and a servant,
who had been in the service of the family nearly three years, Bridget
Sullivan, and the prisoner. Upon the day preceding the homicides,
John V. Morse, a brother of Mr. Borden’s first wife, and, therefore,
the uncle of his daughters, came upon a visit, or a passing visit, to
the Bordens. The homicides, I may say now, were upon a Thursday, and
the visit of Mr. Morse was on Wednesday. He came a little after the
completion of the dinner; went away, I think, during the afternoon,
returned in the evening and slept at the house upon the Wednesday
night. Upon Tuesday night, Tuesday, August 2, an illness occurred in
the household. Mr. and Mrs. Borden were taken suddenly ill with a
violent retching and vomiting sickness, and it is said to a less degree
the prisoner herself was affected by this illness. Bridget Sullivan
was not. Upon the Wednesday morning Mr. and Mrs. Borden rose, feeling,
of course, in the condition that people would be in after a night of
that character, and Mrs. Borden consulted a physician with reference
to her condition. Upon the noon of Wednesday, which you will keep in
mind was the very day before these homicides, the prisoner went to a
drug store in Fall River, the situation of which will be pointed out to
you, and there asked the clerk for ten cents worth of prussic acid for
the purpose of cleaning a sealskin cape. She was told that that was a
poison which was not sold except on the prescription of a physician,
and after some little talk went away. I think, gentlemen, you will be
satisfied that there can be no question that the person who made this
application for this deadly poison was the prisoner. There were three
persons in the drug store, two of whom knew her by name and sight; one
of these, too, knew her as the daughter of Andrew J. Borden, and the
third recognized her at once as he saw her.
[Illustration: NEW BEDFORD COURT HOUSE (OUTSIDE).]
[Illustration: NEW BEDFORD COURT HOUSE (INSIDE).]
On the evening of the Wednesday the prisoner made a call, not in itself
unusual or peculiar, upon a friend of hers, Miss Alice Russell, and
we shall commend to your careful attention what occurred during that
interview. It will appear that the prisoner had been intending to
spend a vacation with a party of her friends at Marion, and had made
some arrangements about going to Marion, and the talk between the two
friends started upon that topic. The prisoner said: “I have made up my
mind, Alice, to take your advice and go to Marion, and I have written
there to them that I shall go, but I cannot help feeling depressed; I
cannot help feeling that something is going to happen to me; I cannot
shake it off. Last night,” she said, “we were all sick; Mr. and Mrs.
Borden were quite sick and vomited; I did not vomit, and we are afraid
that we have been poisoned; the girl did not eat the baker’s bread
and we did, and we think it may have been the baker’s bread.” “No.”
said Miss Russell. “If it had been that some other people would have
been sick in the same way.” “Well, it might have been the milk; our
milk is left outside upon the steps.” “What time is your milk left?”
“At 4 o’clock in the morning.” “It is light then, and no one would
dare to come in and touch it at that time.” “Well,” said the prisoner,
“probably that is so. But father has been having so much trouble with
those with whom he has dealings that I am afraid some of them will do
something to him. I expect nothing but that the building will be burned
down over our heads. The barn has been broken into twice.” “That,”
said Miss Russell “was merely boys after pigeons.” “Well, the house
has been broken into in broad daylight when Maggie and Emma and I were
the only ones in the house. I saw a man the other night when I went
home lurking about the buildings, and as I came he jumped and ran away.
Father had trouble with a man the other day about a store. There were
angry words, and he turned him out of the house.” And so the talk went.
That, I beg you to keep in your minds, was with Miss Russell—Alice M.
Russell. There comes now the most difficult duty which I have in this
opening. I am consoled, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, by the fact that
you will be aided beyond any explanation that I give you by a view of
these premises that I am about to explain. I hope I shall be able, even
without the view, to make myself entirely intelligible to you, because
no one can understand this testimony that is to come and rightly reason
upon it without an exact knowledge of the interior and exterior of
that house. In the first place, I may say that the house occupied by
this family was a common type of house in this community and in this
State, a house with the end to the street and the front door upon the
end. It was a rectangular house. It was situated upon Second street
in Fall River, which is one of the most frequented streets outside of
the main thoroughfares in the city, and is within, as all probably
know, a very short distance of the City Hall. It may fairly be called
a thoroughfare as well for foot passengers as for carriages. It is a
street used partly for residences and partly for business purposes.
Second Street runs substantially north and south. It is a street which
ascends toward the south. The higher part is south, the lower part is
north, and upon the east side of Second Street this house is situated.
At the south of the house is the residence of Dr. Kelly, and also very
near the house. To the north of the house, and also near it, is the
residence occupied by Mrs. Churchill, and diagonally in the rear of the
house is the residence occupied by Dr. Chagnon. The house is separated
from the sidewalk by a wooden fence, a picket fence, with two gates and
in the rear of the yard, in which is situated a barn, there is a high
board fence, on the top and the bottom of which there was at the time,
and is, I believe, now, a line of barbed wire. There are three exterior
doors, three entrances to these premises, and only three, excepting of
course, the windows. There is the front door leading directly from the
sidewalk up a pair of steps into the hall. There is a side door upon
the north side, facing Mrs. Churchill’s house, leading into a small
entryway which leads into the kitchen. There is a third door exactly
in the rear of the house, which leads down to the cellar. There is
what might be called a porch, and a door leading into it, as you will
see. As you enter the front door you enter a hall, from which lead two
doors, a door into a parlor, which is the front room in the house,
making the northwest corner of the first story, a door leading into the
sitting room, and a stairway leading upstairs. Let us, in the first
place, go upstairs and see the arrangements there. It will aid us in
considering this arrangement to remember that this house was originally
a double tenement house, and with the slight exception that I shall
refer to later on, the arrangement as it is upstairs is as it is upon
the first story. As you are about to see the premises, gentlemen, I do
not deem it wise to detain you at the present time by explaining this
plan in detail. I will try to make it as clear as I can by stating
it to you. As you turn and go upstairs from the front entry, you come
into a hallway. From that hallway lead three doors: first, a door
which leads into a large closet, used at this time for the keeping
of dresses, and which is almost large enough to be a small bedroom;
another door, which leads into the guest chamber, which is directly
over the parlor below, and corresponds to it in every respect. The
guest chamber is the chamber in which you will subsequently hear that
Mrs. Borden was found dead. It is a matter which is to be carefully
considered, that as you turn upon the journey upstairs, as the stairs
wind about, and to begin to face into the hall toward the north, you
can look directly into the door of the guest chamber. The other door
which leads from the hall is a door which leads into a bedroom, and
leads toward the rear of the house. Following, then, my direction,
gentlemen, as you come up the stairs, turn to your left. As you
approach the entry in front of you is the door leading into the guest
chamber, and to your right is the door leading into a chamber which at
that time was occupied by the prisoner. Between the guest chamber and
the bedroom of the prisoner there was a door. I may as well dispose of
it now for good. It was a door which always, including the day of this
homicide, was kept locked upon both sides, and upon the side toward
the prisoner’s room there was against the door a desk which she used.
In other words it was not a practicable opening. When you have got up
into this part of the house, gentlemen, you can go nowhere except into
this clothes closet, into this guest chamber and into the room occupied
by the prisoner. It is important to remember that. All access to the
other part of the house is cut off not by the natural construction of
the house but by the way in which the house was kept. Follow me, if you
please, then, into the prisoner’s bedroom. As you enter the bedroom a
door leads to the left into a room which has no other entrance than
that door. That is the room that was occupied by Miss Emma when she
was at home. The only access to it was through the prisoner’s room.
There is another door at the rear of the prisoner’s room, and directly
opposite the door of entrance which leads into the room occupied by Mr.
and Mrs. Borden, which is over the kitchen. The prisoner’s room was
exactly over the sitting room. The room in the rear of the prisoner’s
room was exactly over the kitchen, and was occupied as the bedroom
of Mr. and Mrs. Borden. That door leading into that room was kept
always locked upon both sides. It was locked upon the front toward the
prisoner’s room by a hook. It was locked in the rear toward Mr. and
Mrs. Borden’s room by a bolt, and I may as well say here as at any time
that the proof that that door was locked upon both sides upon this
morning, from the morning down to the time of the arrival of those who
came alarmed by this homicide, will be ample and complete. But as we go
further, passing to the rear into Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s room, we find
a door, and only a single door, leading out into the entryway, which
is over the entryway leading into the kitchen. That door, it will be
clearly, amply and satisfactorily proved, was locked all through this
day up to and beyond the time of the homicide. Now then, gentlemen, if
I have made myself clear upon this description, which is wearisome, I
know, but it is one of the wearisome duties that we must undertake in
this cause. I have made it clear to you that as you go up the hallway
you get access to but four rooms, the hallway itself, if you call
that a room, the closet, the guest chamber in which Mrs. Borden was
found, and the room of the prisoner and the room leading out of that,
the blind room, so to speak, that was occupied by Miss Emma when she
was at home, and there is no other access whatever to the rear of the
house. Now, gentlemen, let me, at the expense of being tedious, go
below. As you enter the hallway below, it is, I believe, exactly as
above, except, of course, there is no clothes closet there as there
is above. There are two small closets, very small ones, as you will
see. To your left as you enter is the door which leads into the parlor
under the room where Mrs. Borden was found dead. Going straight ahead
you enter into the sitting room, which is a room in the rear of the
hall at the south of the house, and directly under and corresponding to
the prisoner’s bed room. Now you come to a difference of construction
in the two stories. You turn to the left from the sitting room as you
enter and you enter the dining room, which is upon the north side of
the house and is directly under Miss Emma’s room, and a large room,
which was used as a closet by Mr. Borden and which joined his room,
another blind room. That difference is made either by the taking down
or putting up of a partition. You enter the dining room and there is
a door of exit which goes into the kitchen. Above, that arrangement
is varied by a partition directly down through the room, which would
correspond to the door leading from the sitting room to the dining
room, leads from Miss Emma’s room to the bedroom of the prisoner, and
the door corresponding to the door leading from the dining room to
the kitchen leads from the room which adjoins the blind room, which
adjoin the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Borden, so that the effect of that
partition is that while there is free communication two ways from
the kitchen to the front part of the house downstairs, upstairs this
partition reduces those ways of communication to one, and that one,
you will recall, always and upon the day of the homicide was barred
by two doors, locked. Again, gentlemen, I say that the difficulty of
understanding this is great, but I am confronted by the fact that you
will be aided by a view of these premises. Mr. Morse returned upon a
Wednesday night. It is important to show who occupied the house on
Wednesday night. Let us go first to the front part of the house. The
prisoner came in the last one that night and locked the front door.
Upon that front doer were three fastenings, a spring latch, a bolt
and a lock which operated by key. Those three fastenings were closed,
by the way, when she came in, the last person that night by the front
way of the house. The door leading into the cellar, the other exterior
door, had been closed since Tuesday, the washing day, and by complete
and ample evidence will be proved to you to have been closed all
through Wednesday night and on Thursday morning including up to and
beyond the time of those homicides. Bridget came in through the back
door that night, found the back door locked when she came, unlocked
it, locked it as she went in, went upstairs and went to bed. So, when
Bridget and the prisoner had come in at their respective doors, every
exterior approach to this house was closed.
Now, in the front part of the house that night the prisoner slept in
one room, Mr. Morse slept in the guest chamber. There was no other room
in that part of the house, except Miss Emma’s room, which led out, as
you still remember, of Miss Lizzie’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Borden slept
in the room over the kitchen, and Bridget slept in some room above in
the third story of the house. Now, then, it becomes my duty to relate
in considerable detail all that occurred in that household down to the
time of the discovery of these homicides. In the morning Bridget was
the first person up. We may safely assume that upon the proof the only
human beings who were in that house at the time were Bridget, Mr. and
Mrs. Borden, John V. Morse and the prisoner at the bar. Bridget comes
down stairs first, the back way, goes down cellar and gets her fuel,
builds up a fire in the stove; then she went to the door, took in the
milk, unlocking the door, locked it after she got through. The rear
door, I may explain here, was a double door; it was an ordinary wooden
panel door which was used at night, and a screen door, which was used,
at least, in hot weather, during the day time and was fastened by a
hook on the inside. When the outside door was opened by Bridget at that
time it was opened for good for the day, and the method of security was
keeping the screen door locked from that time on. The next person who
came down was Mrs. Borden. Bridget came down a little after 6; Mrs.
Borden came down a little before 7. Next Mr. Borden comes down, and
after coming down goes out into the yard and empties his slop pail and
unlocks the door to the barn. Bridget saw him do that. Bridget did not
see Mr. Morse until they all met at breakfast, a little after 7. Mr.
and Mrs. Borden and Mr. Morse taking breakfast together. It will appear
what the material of their breakfast was, but it is not important at
all for me to state it at this time. After breakfast the first one to
depart is Mr. Morse. He goes away at a quarter of 8, and Mr. Borden
lets him out and locks the screen door behind him. Soon after Mr. Morse
went away the prisoner came down stairs and began eating her breakfast,
or what took the place of a breakfast, in the kitchen. While she was
there Mr. Borden went upstairs, and while Mr. Borden was upstairs
Bridget went out into the yard, because she was sick and desired to
vomit. She was gone some minutes, just how long I cannot tell. When
she came back, Mr. Borden had apparently gone down town. The prisoner
was in the kitchen and Mrs. Borden was in the dining room dusting.
There was some talk then between Mrs. Borden and Bridget about washing
the windows on the inside and the outside, and Bridget received the
directions from Mrs. Borden to do that service. Mrs. Borden disappeared
at this time, and it will appear that she told the prisoner that,
having made the bed in the spare room, she was going upstairs to put
two pillow cases upon two pillows that were there—a trifling duty,
a duty which would take less than a minute. You will be satisfied,
gentlemen, that that was not far from half-past nine o’clock, and upon
the evidence you will be satisfied that she never left that room alive,
and that she was killed within a very few moments after she left the
room, because no living person saw Mrs. Borden from that time until her
death, except the assailant. In the course of beginning the duty of
washing these windows Bridget had to go to the barn and down cellar to
get some of the implements for doing the work. As she was at the screen
door, about to go out, the prisoner appeared at that back door, and
Bridget said to her. “You needn’t lock that door, because I am coming
in to get my water to wash the windows; but you may,” she said, “if you
wish, and I will get my water from the barn,” as she did. The prisoner
said nothing, and I believe it to be the fact, as the evidence will
disclose it, that the door was not locked at that time. Then Bridget
went into the kitchen and dining room and sitting room to close the
windows in the sitting room and the dining room, and there was nobody
there—neither the prisoner nor Mrs. Borden, who were the only two
human beings in the house at that time except Bridget. In washing these
windows there were two of the sitting room windows upon the south side
of the house which were out of sight of the screen door, because they
were on the other side of the house. Those two windows were washed
first on the outside. Then Bridget came to the front of the house,
washed two windows facing the street; then she came to the south side
of the house, the Mrs. Churchill side, and washed the parlor window
and the two dining room windows. During all the time that Bridget was
washing those windows she saw neither Mrs. Borden nor the prisoner in
any part of the lower part of the house or anywhere else. When she
finished washing the windows on the outside she came in at the screen
door and hooked it behind her, and began to wash the windows upon the
inside of the same windows that she had washed upon the outside. First,
she went into the sitting room, which is upon the Kelly side, the south
side of the house. She had partly washed one of the two sitting room
windows when somebody was heard at the front door.
Now, gentlemen, let us pause a moment and find out, as well as we can,
what time that somebody came to the front door, because it was Mr.
Borden. Mr. Borden, it will appear, left the house some time between
9 and 9:30 o’clock in the morning. He was at two banks, two or three
banks, between 9:30 or at twenty-nine minutes of 11—I am not quite
sure which—he was at the store of a Mr. Clegg, who fixes the exact
time. The next place we find him is at another store, which belonged to
him, upon South Main street, near the corner of Spring and not far from
his own home. He left there, apparently in the direction of his home,
at twenty minutes of 11. That was a moment or two’s walk from there to
his house. The next we see of him is that he is seen by Mrs. Kelly, who
lived upon one side of his house, and who was going down town, coming
around, apparently, from the screen door, where he had attempted to get
in, out upon the sidewalk and toward his own front door, taking out
his key to open it. Mrs. Kelly will fix that time at twenty-seven or
twenty-eight minutes of 11, which cannot be reconciled with the other
time that I have stated here. There will be some explanation of that,
and we think you will be satisfied that the clock by which she obtained
this time was not one that could be depended upon, and that the real
fact is that at twenty minutes of 11 Mr. Borden started to his home,
which was but a moment or two’s walk away. Now, then, we fix that as
well as we can. When Mr. Borden came home, contrary to the usual custom
in that house, Bridget found the front door locked with the key and
bolted, as well as secured by the spring lock. Mr. Borden had not rung
the bell. He had put his key in and made the noise which people usually
do who expect to get in the house by the use of a latch key. But the
door was locked and bolted. He came into the house, and as Bridget
let him in made some talk or explanation about the difficulty of
unloosening the locks. The prisoner from the hall above made some laugh
or exclamation. At that time, gentlemen, Mrs. Borden’s body lay within
plain view of that hall, dead, probably, more than an hour. Mr. Borden
came in, went first into the dining room. There the prisoner came to
him, asked him if there was any mail and said to him, “Mrs. Borden has
gone out; she had a note from somebody who was sick.” That, gentlemen,
we put to you as a lie, intended for no purpose except to stifle
inquiry as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Borden. Mr. Borden then took his
key, went upstairs, came down again, and, as he came down, Bridget had
finished the other window and a half in the sitting room and was just
going into the dining room to finish those windows. As she was washing
the windows in the dining room the prisoner again appeared from the
front part of the house, went to the kitchen, got an ironing board and
began to iron her handkerchiefs. While there she told Bridget this
falsehood about the note. She said, “Are you going out, Bridget, by and
by?” Bridget said: “I don’t know; I am not feeling very well to-day.”
“Well,” she said, “if you do I want you to be careful about the locks;
I may go out myself. Mrs. Borden has gone out.” “Where is she?” said
Bridget. “I don’t know; it must be somewhere in town, because she
received a note to go to a sick friend.” Bridget finished the washing
of the windows in the dining room and her work was done. She went out
into the kitchen, put her cloth away, emptied the water and was about
to go upstairs, when the prisoner said to her: “There is a cheap sale
of goods down town, Bridget, where they are selling some kind of cloth
for eight cents a yard.” Bridget says: “Well, I guess I will have
some.” And Bridget went upstairs. Now, gentlemen, probably all that
occurred after Mr. Borden came in occurred in less time than perhaps
it has taken me to tell it. We can measure time better by seeing what
is done in the time than by the estimate of any witness of the time.
After Bridget went upstairs there is nothing more that happened until
the alarm is given to her. Now, pursuing the same course, let me so
far as possible fix the time of that alarm. I shall have to anticipate
somewhat in doing it. Bridget, upon the alarm, came down stairs, was
immediately sent diagonally across the street for Dr. Bowen; returned
rapidly, and was sent away for Miss Russell. As Bridget went away Mrs.
Churchill by accident came to the house, or got the alarm and came
to the house. There was a moment’s conversation between the prisoner
and Mrs. Churchill. Mrs. Churchill ran out, ran diagonally across the
street to a stable, there gave some sort of alarm, was seen by a man
named Cunningham, who heard what she said and went to a telephone in a
paint shop near by, telephoned to the Marshal of Fall River, who gave
directions to an officer to go to the spot. The officer, having a duty
which called his attention to the time, looked at his watch and found
it was quarter-past eleven. Now, then, gentlemen, stopping a moment,
let us try to find out as well as we can these times. It could not
have been, upon the evidence, far from quarter of 11 o’clock when Mr.
Borden returned. It could not, upon this evidence, have been far from
quarter-past 11 when the alarm reached the station. Therefore the time
between Bridget’s going upstairs and down again must be diminished on
the one side by the time consumed by the washing of a window and a half
in the sitting room and two windows in the dining room and the putting
away of the cloth and water. On the other side, the half hour between
11 o’clock and half-past 11 must be diminished by the acts of Bridget
and the acts of Mrs. Churchill and the acts of Cunningham, which I have
described. I shall not attempt to fix that time; you can fix it better
and measure it better yourself when you come to hear the evidence of
what was done by Bridget between the time Mr. Borden came and the noise
was heard upstairs and what was done between the time when the alarm
took place and the alarm reached the station house and the Marshal of
Fall River.
Now, gentlemen, you will be struck by the fact through the evidence
that is to come, that instinctively there leaped to the lips of every
inquiring person, of the prisoner, where were you before a thought of
the suspicion was over her head. She had been the last person left
with her father alive. When Bridget came down that question arose,
and she says: “Where were you, Miss Lizzie?” It is not clear what the
prisoner told Bridget, whether he was sick, or killed, or dead. That is
not important, but the moment the information was received arose the
question: “Where were you?” She said: “I was out in the back yard; I
heard a groan, came in and found the door open and found my father.”
Bridget was then sent to Dr. Bowen. She came down, found the prisoner
somewhat agitated standing by the screen door and inside. There had
been no screech, no alarm of any kind, and there was an attempt simply
to secure the presence of Dr. Bowen. She came back unsuccessful from
the search for Dr. Bowen. As she came back she was seen by Mrs.
Churchill, who, looking out of her kitchen window, saw the prisoner
standing inside the door, and something in her appearance attracted
her and she called out to her. In the meantime the prisoner had said
to Bridget, “You go down to Miss Russell’s house.” And gentlemen, it
will in this connection occur to you that Miss Russell, though she
lived a long distance away from this house, was the person to whom this
prisoner was predicting disaster the very night before. Mrs. Churchill
came there by accident, and she will testify in detail as to what had
occurred after she came there. She, too, said, “Lizzie, where were
you?” “I was out in the barn. I was going for a piece of iron when I
heard a distressed noise, came in and found the door open, and found my
father dead.” Bridget returns from Miss Russell’s, and, returning says:
“Shall I not go down to Mrs. Whitehead’s for Mrs. Borden?” “No,” said
the prisoner, “I am almost sure I heard her come in.” Up to that time,
by alarm, by screaming or by any attempt had there not been an effort
on the part of the prisoner to communicate with Mrs. Borden. “I wish
you would look,” she said, “and see if you can’t find Mrs. Borden.”
Mrs. Churchill and Bridget together went up this front stairway,
turned, as they do turn, to their left, and as they turned Mrs.
Churchill turned her head above the level of the floor. She looked in
and saw Mrs. Borden’s dead body as she looked under the bed. It is to
be regretted that Dr. Bowen, a witness accustomed to observation, was
the family physician and friend, and, therefore, affected, naturally,
by this dreadful series of murders, for we might expect from him
something of accurate observation, but Dr. Bowen thought Mrs. Borden
had died of fright, and so expressed himself at the time. I do not and
shall not attempt in detail to tell you all that occurred for an hour
or two after the discovery of these homicides. Soon after people came
in. The prisoner, who had never been in the room where her father lay
dead, passed from the dining room diagonally through the corner of the
sitting room, without stopping to look at her dead father, upstairs by
the room where her step-mother lay dead, without an inquiry, without a
thought; went into her own room, lay down; soon, without a suggestion
from any one, changed her dress and put on a loose pink wrapper.
There are one or two things, however, in what she said that I ought
to call your attention to at the present time. She told Dr. Bowen at
that time that she was out in the barn for a piece of iron; she told
Miss Russell that she went into the barn for a piece of iron or tin
to fix a screen; she told Officer Mullaly that she went out into the
barn, and upon being asked whether she heard anything or not, she said
she heard a peculiar noise, something like a scraping noise, and came
in and found the door open. There is, therefore, Bridget Sullivan,
to whom she said she heard a groan, rushed in and found her father;
Mrs. Churchill, to whom she said she heard a distressed noise, came in
and found her father; Officer Mullaly, to whom she said she heard a
peculiar noise like scraping, came in and found her father dead; and
all these, gentlemen, you see in substance are stories which include
the fact that while she was outside she heard some alarming noise which
caused her to rush in and discover the homicide. Well, gentlemen, as
inquiry begins to multiply upon her as to her whereabouts, another
story comes into view, and she repeats it again and again, and finally
repeats it under oath, that at the time Bridget went upstairs she
went out into the barn, and into the loft of the barn to get lead to
make sinkers. Now, gentlemen, having in view the character of her
statements, that she heard the noise, you will find that when she gave
a later and detailed account, she said that she went into the loft of
the barn, opened the window, ate some pears up there, and looked over
some lead for sinkers, came down, looked in the stove to see if the
fire was hot enough that she might go on with her ironing, found it was
not, put her hat down, started to go upstairs to await the fire which
Bridget was to build for the noonday, and discovered her father. It is
not, gentlemen, and I pray your attention to it, a difference of words
here. In the one case the statement is that she was alarmed by the
noise of the homicide. In the other side the statement is that she came
coolly, deliberately about her business, looking after her ironing,
putting down her hat, and accidentally discovered the homicide as she
went upstairs. Gentlemen, upon this point it is my duty to point out
to you a piece of testimony which will be for your consideration. This
day, August 4, 1892, was one of the hottest days of the last summer
in this vicinity. The loft of the barn was stifling in the intensity
of its heat. Officer Medley, who came there quite early after the
alarm, went to the barn and went up the stairs of the barn. He had, at
that time heard of her going up into the loft, and as his head came
up on a level with the floor of the barn he saw that it was thickly
covered with dust. He stopped, put his hands upon the floor and drew
them across, and saw the marks of them. He looked again, stepped up,
counting his footsteps upon a part of the barn floor, came down into
his position again and saw plainly every footstep which he made. I
have said to you, gentlemen, that Mrs. Borden died some time before
her husband, and it is my duty to open to you the proof upon that
question. There will be many here who observed the two bodies as they
lay. I shall not attempt to state their evidence in detail. It will
tend to show that Mr. Borden’s body showed freshly flowing blood; was
warm and was not rigid in death; that Mrs. Borden’s body showed blood
that was coagulated and hardened and dry; that her body was cold, and
that she was stiffened in death. There will be the judgments of some
professional men who observed the two bodies soon after the discovery
of the homicides. There will be other important testimony in this case.
The stomachs of the two victims were taken to Prof. Edward S. Wood,
who examined them and is prepared to state their exact contents. The
stomach of Mrs. Borden contained eleven ounces of food in progress of
digestion. One-fifth of that eleven ounces was water and four-fifths of
it was this partially digested food. Mr. Borden’s stomach—and you will
remember that they ate breakfast at the same time—contained only six
ounces of matter, and nine-tenths of that was water, and only one-tenth
solid food; so you will see there was a very marked difference in the
contents of their stomachs. Upon the autopsy it appeared that the upper
intestines, leading directly from the stomach—the intestine into which
the contents of the stomach first pass—in Mrs. Borden’s case was empty
of food. Now, gentlemen, you will have the opinion of many who are
competent to give an opinion upon all these facts, and they will say
to you that upon those facts alone they are able to give a judgment
that Mrs. Borden must have died at least an hour before her husband.
And that, gentlemen, you will remember and take into view with the fact
that anywhere between nine and half-past nine o’clock she went upstairs
for a mere temporary purpose, and apparently never left the room that
she went to.
Now, gentlemen, it will appear that about the two rooms in which
the homicides were committed there was blood spattered in various
directions, so that it would make it probable that one or more
spatters of blood would be upon the person or upon the clothing of
the assailant. And there has been produced for the inspection of the
Commonwealth—it was produced a good many days after the homicide—the
clothing said to have been worn by the prisoner on the morning of
August 4—the shoes, stockings, dress, skirt. At this point the
articles of clothing mentioned were produced and placed on the table,
after which Mr. Moody continued as follows: The most rigid examination
by the most competent expert in this country fails to disclose any
marks of blood upon the dress which is produced as the one she wore on
the morning of the homicide, and upon the skirt which she is said to
have worn upon that morning is one minute spot of blood, which I do not
think it worth while to call to your attention at the present time. I
must go back a moment in this story. You have in mind, of course, the
interval which elapsed between the two homicides. The prisoner has
said—and it is important to consider, and we shall prove that she
has said—that the reason she left her ironing was because she found
the fire was low; that she took a stick of wood, put it on top of the
embers of the fire and went out to the barn to await its kindling; that
when she went out it was smoking and smoldering, as if it was going
to catch; that when she came back the stick of wood was there and the
fire had all gone out. It will appear—and it was pure accident that
this observation was made—that soon after the alarm an officer of
Fall River was attracted by something that Dr. Bowen was doing to the
stove—I do not mean to suggest anything—but the fact that he was
tearing up a note and was going to put it into the stove, and he looked
in and saw what was there, and found a large roll of what appeared to
be burnt paper. The prisoner had a calico, or cotton dress, perhaps I
ought to say, which she was in the habit of wearing mornings. It was
a light blue dress, with a fixed figure, a geometrical figure of some
sort, and the figure was not white, but navy-blue—a darker blue. Dr.
Bowen has said, and I have no doubt will say here now, that she had on
a cheap calico dress, a sort of drab colored dress. Mrs. Churchill says
she had on, that morning, a light blue ground with white in it—that
is, white in the blue, not a white figure, but white in the blue, to
make it lighter blue, I suppose, and a mixed figure of navy blue,
without a white spot in it at all, a diamond figure of navy blue, as
she will describe it. And upon being shown that dress (showing dress
to the jury), she will say that it is not the dress that the prisoner
at the bar had on when she came in upon the morning of the homicide.
You will recall that soon after the homicide Miss Russell and the
prisoner went to the bed room of the prisoner. While they were there
the prisoner said, “I think I had better have Winwood for undertaker,”
and Miss Russell went away upon the errand of getting Dr. Bowen to
see about the undertaker. And as Miss Russell came back she found the
prisoner coming from Emma’s room with the pink wrapper on that I have
described to you before—the loose wrapper. Upon Saturday night the
chief executive officer of the city of Fall River, Mayor Coughlin,
informed Lizzie Andrew Borden that she was under suspicion for these
murders. Saturday night Bridget Sullivan left the house. Alice Russell
was staying with her friend, and of course Miss Emma was at home at
that time.
On the morning of Sunday Miss Russell came into the kitchen. There
were officers about on the outside of the house, but none in, and
there was the prisoner with the skirt of her dress upon her arm, and
what appeared to be its waist lying upon some shelf, and we will
describe that dress. It was a dress which the prisoner had purchased
in the spring of that year, a cotton dress and not a silk dress like
this (holding a dark blue silk dress up to view). It was a light blue
dress. You will recall Mrs. Churchill’s description of that in this
connection. It was a light blue dress with a fixed navy blue spot
on it. The dress ordinarily worn in the morning corresponds to that
description, and was also bought in the spring. As she saw the prisoner
standing by the stove and as she approached her, Miss Emma turned round
and said, “Lizzie, what are you going to do?” The prisoner replied,
“I am going to burn this dress, it is all covered with paint.” Miss
Russell turned away. She came again into the room and she found the
prisoner standing with the waist of the light blue dress, apparently
tearing it in parts, and said, “Lizzie, I would not do that where
people can see you.” The only response which the prisoner made was to
take a step or two further out of observation. Miss Russell turned
again and went away. Upon the following day, in consequence of some
talk with Mr. Hanscom, a Pinkerton detective not in the employ of the
Government, Miss Russell went into the room where the prisoner and her
sister Emma were sitting and said: “Lizzie, I am afraid the burning of
that dress was the worst thing that you could have done.” She said:
“Oh, why did you let me do it then?” A considerable search had been
made by the officers for clothing and for weapons, and they will say
that no clothing unconcealed covered with paint could have escaped
their observation. You have noticed, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, this
indictment, a more particular description of which is to the jurors
unknown. It is the duty of the Government to bring forward all its
information upon this subject, and I propose to open it all to you at
the present time. Upon the premises that day were found two hatchets
and two axes. Upon one of those hatchets spots were discovered, which,
upon view, were thought to be blood. It is extremely difficult,
impossible, in fact, Dr. Wood, the highest authority on this subject
in this country, if not in the world, will say, to distinguish between
blood and some other substances. Attention upon the view then was
directed to one of these hatchets, it is not important which (holding
both hatchets in hand before the jury.) It is said to be the one I
hold in my right hand. These axes, gentlemen, are so far out of the
question that I need not waste any time on them. They could not have
been the weapons with which these homicides were committed. Upon
careful examination neither of these hatchets is seen to contain
the slightest evidence of blood stain. The appearances which were
thought to be blood turned out to be something else. You will observe,
gentlemen, that there are ragged pieces near and about the entrance
of the handle to the blade of this hatchet, that the same appearances
exist there in that weapon, also on the outside of the handle, and Dr.
Wood will say to you that those weapons could not in all probability
have been used for these homicides, and have been washed so as to
have prevented the traces of blood from being caught on those ragged
surfaces. In that view of the fact we may well lay those weapons aside
as entirely innocent. Upon the day of the homicide another weapon, or
part of a weapon, that was thought to be a bloody hatchet, had been
discovered and attracted little attention. It was seen by one officer,
and left where it was. At that time this fragment of the handle was
in its appropriate place in the helve, if that is the proper name,
of the hatchet, in the place fitted in the head. It was covered with
an adhesion of ashes, not the fine dust which floats about the room
where ashes are emptied, but a coarse dust of ashes adhering more or
less to all sides of the hatchet. Upon the Monday morning this hatchet
was taken away, and its custody from that time to the present will be
traced.
You will observe, gentlemen, that both hatchets are rusty, the hatchet
which is innocent, the handless hatchet now under discussion, but the
rust in the case of the handless hatchet is uniform upon both sides and
upon all parts of its surface, such rust, for instance, as might be the
result of exposure upon wet grass to the night’s dew, such rust as must
result from an exposure uniform in its extent upon all parts of the
hatchet. Prof. Wood will say to you—he saw this hatchet soon after it
was found—that while there were ragged fragments of wood which would
detain absolutely no indications of the blood in these weapons, that
if that weapon had had upon it the remainder of the hatchet, and was as
smooth as he saw, by the application of water soon after the homicide,
blood could be readily, effectually and completely removed. Dr. Wood
will also tell you that that break which had not the color then which
it has now—it has been subjected to some acid process—was a new break
and was a fresh break. By that I do not mean to be understood as a
break which had necessarily occurred within twenty-four hours, within
forty-eight hours, or within a week, but perhaps a break which might
have been a day or might have been a month old. It was a fresh break.
In accordance, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, with the unbroken practice of
the authorities in this Commonwealth, such parts of the mortal remains
of the victims as would tend to throw light either in the protection
of innocence or the detection of guilt, have been preserved and must
be presented here before you for your consideration. I do not think
it is necessary for me to allude to them at this time. There is one
story that is unmistakably told by those skulls and by the chipping
blows that are upon them, and that is that the weapon which produced
them was a sharp weapon. There is another thing that is unmistakably
told by one of the skulls—I think that of Mr. Borden—and that is that
the weapon which brought him to his death was just three and one half
inches on its blade, no more, no less. That is the exact measurement
of the blade of that hatchet. Let there be no mistake, Mr. Foreman and
gentlemen, about my meaning. The Government does not insist that these
homicides were committed by this handleless hatchet. It may have been
the weapon. It may well have been the weapon. The one significant fact
which in this respect is emphasized is that the bloody weapon was not
found by the sides of the victims, upon the premises, or near them.
Doubtless you will consider that fact well when you come to consider
whether these homicides were the acts of an intruder or stranger flying
from his crimes with the bloody weapon in his possession, through
the streets of Fall River at noonday, or the acts of an inmate of
the house, familiar with its resources for destruction, obliteration
and concealment. When these bodies were found it was discovered that
not a thing in the house had been disturbed. No property had been
taken. No drawers had been ransacked. Mr. Borden had upon his person
a considerable sum of money as well as his watch and chain. We almost
might hope that it was not necessary to exclude another motive, but
sad experience tells us that age of a woman is no protection from an
assault from lustful purpose, but I may say, gentlemen, there was
nothing to indicate a motive of that sort. In and about the rooms where
these two homicides were committed there was not the slightest trace
of a struggle. The assailant, whoever he or she may have been, was
able to approach each victim in broad daylight and without a struggle
and without a murmur to lay them low before him. Mrs. Borden was found
prostrated between the bureau and the bed, her face upon the floor and
the right side of her head hacked to pieces by blows, some of great
force, some of uncertain and vacillating weakness. Mr. Borden was found
reclining on a sofa in the sitting room and apparently had passed
from life to death without a struggle or a movement, and his head,
too, bore the same marks as the head of his wife bore. It will appear
that no one, and it is confirmatory evidence, not in itself of the
strongest character, but confirmatory of the conclusive evidence of the
opportunity in the house—it will appear that no one was seen to escape
from any side of that house nor to enter that house on the morning of
August 4.
Gentlemen, let me stop a moment and see where we are. The Commonwealth
will prove that there was an unkindly feeling between the prisoner
and her step-mother; that upon Wednesday, August 3, she was dwelling
upon murder and preparing herself with a weapon which had no innocent
use; that upon the evening of Wednesday, August 3, she was predicting
disaster and cataloguing defences; that from the time when Mrs. Borden
left the dining room to go upstairs for this momentary errand, up to
the time when the prisoner came down stairs an hour later from this
hallway which led only to her chamber and that in which Mrs. Borden
was found, there was no other human being except the prisoner at the
bar present; that these acts were the acts of a human being; that they
were the acts of a person who, to have selected time and place as it
was selected in this case, must have had a familiar knowledge of the
interior of the premises and of the whereabouts and the habits of
those who were in occupation of them at that time. We shall prove that
this prisoner made contradictory statements about her whereabouts,
and, above all, gave a statement virtually different upon the manner
in which she discovered these homicides. We shall prove beyond all
reasonable doubt that this death of Mrs. Borden was a prior death. Then
we shall ask you to say, if say you can, whether any other reasonable
hypothesis except that of the guilt of this prisoner can account for
the said occurrence which happened upon the morning of August 4. Now,
gentlemen, my present duty is drawing to its close. The time for idle
rumor, for partial, insufficient information, for hasty and inexact
reasoning, is past. We are to be guided from this time forth by the
law and the evidence only. I conjure you to keep your minds in that
same open and receptive condition in which you have sworn they were;
I pray you to keep them so to the end. If, when that end comes, after
you have heard the evidence upon both sides, the arguments of counsel,
the instructions of the Court, the evidence fails, God forbid that
you should move one step against the law or beyond the evidence to
the injury of this prisoner. But if your minds, considering all these
circumstances, are led irresistibly to the conclusion of her guilt, we
ask you in your verdict to declare the truth: and by so doing, and only
by so doing, shall you make true deliverance of the great issue which
has been committed to your keeping.