Fourth Day of the Trial.
Dr. S. W. Bowen, the family physician, was the first witness called.
After telling of his arrival at home he said: “I saw Miss Lizzie Borden
and Mrs. Churchill in the side hall, just at the end of it, the kitchen
door; I said, ‘Lizzie, what’s the matter?’ she said, ‘Father has been
killed or stabbed’; I asked, ‘Where is your father?’ she said, ‘In the
sitting room.’ That was all she said in that conversation at that time.
In consequence of what she said I went into the dining room and then
into the sitting room; I saw the form of Mr. Borden lying on the sofa
at the left of the sitting room door; I found upon inspection that his
face was badly cut, apparently with a sharp instrument; felt of his
pulse and was satisfied that he was dead; I glanced about the room and
saw that nothing was disturbed; he was lying on his right side with
his face toward the south; the face was hardly recognizable. I don’t
think the photograph shows the case of a person asleep; in this the
form has sunk down from where I first saw it; by sinking I mean the
general collapse.” During the showing of the picture Lizzie kept her
eyes riveted on the floor, never once glancing up. Witness said, in
explaining the picture to the jury—“The head is lower than it was; the
sofa has been moved; it was, when I saw it, even with the door. With
reference to the back of the sofa the head is substantially as when I
saw it. As I went into the sitting room Lizzie followed me part way,
and as I turned to go out after finding he was dead I asked her if she
had seen anyone and she said no; I asked her where she had been and
she said, ‘In the barn to get some iron,’ then she said she was afraid
her father had had trouble with some of his tenants; then I asked her
to get something to cover Mr. Borden. Bridget brought me a sheet; the
sheet was brought from Mr. Borden’s room and the key was taken from
the mantel, I believe, where it was usually kept. After the sheet was
used, Lizzie asked me if I would telegraph to Emma, and in consequence
of that request I did so; up to that time nothing had been said of Mrs.
Borden, but just before I went to the telegraph office somebody asked
where Mrs. Borden was and Lizzie said she had received a note to visit
a sick friend and had gone out. As I was going out I met Officer Allen.
On my return from the telegraph office I met in the kitchen hallway
Mrs. Churchill, and she said they had found Mrs. Borden up stairs in
the front room; she said I had better go upstairs and see her; I went
through the dining room and sitting room and up the front stairs,
stopping a moment at the door of the guest chamber; at that point I
looked over the bed and saw the prostrate form of Mrs. Borden; then
I was standing in the doorway; I went around at the foot of the bed,
placed my hand on her head, and found a wound in her head; then I felt
her pulse and found she was dead. I never said to any one that she died
of fright or in a faint; but I will say this, my first thought was that
she had fainted; I went down stairs and told the people Mrs. Borden was
dead; that I thought she was killed by the same instrument with which
Mr. Borden was killed and that I considered it fortunate that Lizzie
was out of the way.
[Illustration: C. C. RUSSELL.]
When I went downstairs first Lizzie was in the kitchen; Lizzie, Mrs.
Churchill, Miss Russell and my wife and Bridget were in the kitchen;
they were fanning her and working over her; she afterwards went in the
dining room and I told her then that she had better go to her room,
where I saw her that day; between 1 and 2 Miss Russell came to me
about some medicine for her and I gave her bromo caffeine to allay the
nervous excitement. I left directions and a second dose and carried
a bottle there for her; I ordered morphine for her on Friday, and on
Saturday I doubled the dose, continuing it on Saturday and Sunday; at
the inquest I know Lizzie testified before I did; on Friday I gave her
one-eighth grain, on Saturday I doubled it and continued the treatment
all the time up to her arrest and while she was in the station; there
is no question about the effect of morphine on the mind; by changing
and allaying their views and gives them hallucinations. I saw her take
the medicine on Thursday; that was bromo-caffeine, which will not
create hallucinations.”
Miss Adelaide B. Churchill was called and said: “On the morning of
Aug. 4, I saw Mr. Borden first about nine o’clock; I was then in the
kitchen; he was by his steps but don’t know where he went; he was
standing there; it was on the barn side of the steps; that morning
I went out and purchased something for dinner; returning I walked
southward and upwards towards my house; in going that way I had to pass
the Borden house first; when I reached my house I saw Bridget Sullivan
going across the street from Dr. Bowen’s to her house. She was white
and going rapidly; I went in the side door of my house and into the
kitchen, laying my bundles on a long table, and looking out of the
window saw Lizzie inside of the screen door leaning against the east
side of the door casing. I opened the window and asked Lizzie, what
is the matter? She said: ‘Oh, Mrs. Churchill, come over; some one has
killed father.’ I went right out the front door over to their house;
when I stepped inside the screen door, she was sitting on the second
step; I put my hand in her right arm and said: ‘Oh, Lizzie, how did it
happen?’ She said: ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Where were you?’ ‘I was in the barn
to get a piece of iron, and when I came back I found the screen door
open.’ She said they must have some enemies, and she thought they had
all been poisoned, as they were all sick in the night. I offered to go
for a doctor and returned, after going to where my brother worked and
getting him to telephone. Dr. Bowen was there and wanted me to go in
and see the body of Mr. Borden, but I refused to go in; he asked for
a sheet and someone handed Bridget a key. She and I went up in Mrs.
Borden’s room, where Bridget unlocked the door for us; we got a sheet
and brought it down; Lizzie asked Dr. Bowen to send a telegram to Emma;
then Miss Russell came in and Lizzie said she wished somebody would try
to find Mrs. Borden as she thought she heard her come in; I volunteered
to go with Bridget, and as we went up the stairs and when my head was
on a level with the floor, I saw the body, then I turned about and went
back.
“Miss Russell said ‘Is there another,’ and I said ‘Yes, she is up
there.’ On the day of the tragedy the agitation of Lizzie wasn’t
manifested by tears; I don’t remember whether Lizzie said to me that
the reason she came in from the barn was because she heard a distressed
noise; the dress she had while I was there was a light blue calico or
cambric with a dark navy blue diamond, printed. The whole dress was
alike; I don’t remember how often I saw her wearing this dress, and I
don’t know how long she had owned it.”
Miss Alice M. Russell was the next witness called, and when her name
was mentioned, Lizzie straightened up in her chair and began to watch
the door. When Miss Russell came in, she looked everywhere but where
Lizzie was seated. “About two years ago I lived in Dr. Kelly’s house,”
said Miss Russell; “I knew all of the family well. On Aug. 4, 1892,
I lived on Borden street, between Third and Fourth streets, and near
by a baker shop; occasionally Lizzie and I visited each other; when I
went to her home she received me, generally, in the guests’ room. On
Wednesday night, Aug. 3, Lizzie came to see me; she came alone, and
stayed till about 9 o’clock. We conversed and during the evening we
spoke about going to Marion. I think when she came in she said, ‘I have
taken your advice, and am going to Marion.’ I said ‘I’m glad you’re
going’; I spoke about her having a good time, but she said, ‘I don’t
know; I feel distressed; when I was at Marion the other day the girls
were laughing and they asked me what was the matter with me.’ Then she
spoke of her father and mother and her being sick the night before,
but Maggie wasn’t sick; she (Lizzie) wasn’t sick enough to vomit; she
heard the others vomiting and stepped to the door to help them; she
spoke of the bread and the milk and we talked about that, and I said it
couldn’t possibly be the bread, because others would have been sick.
Lizzie spoke about believing her father had enemies and spoke of the
man who came there and wanted to hire a place, and of the quarrel;
then she spoke of seeing a man about the place at night; about the
barn being broken into, and about the burglary in the houses. I said
that I never heard of the burglary before, and Lizzie said her father
had forbidden them to speak of it; she described the robbery to me and
said it was done in Mrs. Borden’s room; she was afraid somebody would
burn the house down, and that she was afraid to go to sleep at night.
Lizzie also spoke about the manner of her father treating his friends
and how badly he used Dr. Bowen at one time. On the morning of August
4th, while I was at work, Bridget Sullivan came to me; I changed my
dress and went at once to the Borden house and saw Lizzie down stairs;
she was standing up when I went there and I asked her to sit down,
which she did. She told me when I asked her, about going to the barn
and her reason, that she went to the barn to get a piece of iron to fix
her screen; I don’t remember that she spoke about the note, but I heard
it talked over. While I was downstairs she looked faint and I started
to loosen her dress, but she said she wasn’t faint; I only unloosened
it a little at the lower part. When she went upstairs I was with her;
she spoke about getting an undertaker and I went down and spoke to Dr.
Bowen; when I went back, met her coming out of Emma’s room tying the
strings of her wrapper; at one time when I was in the room I saw her
going to the closet door, unlock it and go in; I don’t know whether
Mr. Fleet went in that closet or not. Saturday and Sunday nights
I occupied Miss Emma’s room; on Sunday I got the breakfast; after
breakfast I left the lower part of the house and returned before noon;
when I came back, I went in the kitchen and saw Lizzie standing by the
stove, Emma by the sink; Lizzie had a dress and I asked her what she
was going to do with it and Lizzie said she was going to burn it, it
was all covered with paint. I said nothing and went out. When I came in
the room again, Lizzie was tearing the dress, I said: ‘I wouldn’t let
anybody see me doing that,’ and she stepped one step back; it was the
waist she was tearing; I didn’t remember about the skirt; there were no
officers in the house at that time, though there were some about the
premises; Bridget had left before that. I saw Mr. Hanscom and saw him
at the Borden house on Monday and conversed with him in the parlor; in
consequence of that talk I saw Miss Lizzie and Emma in the dining room
and I said—‘I’m afraid the worst thing you could have done was to burn
that dress; I have been asked about your dresses, and she said, ‘why
did you let me do it?’”
John Cunningham told the story of how he had telephoned news of the
horror to the Central police station; and Deputy Sheriff Francis H.
Wixon related that he was in the station when the message was received.
Officer George W. Allen said he was sent to the Borden house at 11:15
on the morning of the 4th. He described the manner in which he went
and about enlisting Mr. Sawyer for an outside guard. He saw Lizzie at
the table in the kitchen and he also saw the body of Mr. Borden. He
saw that the front door was locked with a night lock and a bolt. When
he went to the station and reported to the Marshall he hadn’t heard
of Mrs. Borden’s death. He detailed his coming again and his searches
through the house and his finding the cellar door locked on the inside,
or bolted. Witness said that when he saw the body of Mrs. Borden, there
was a small stand upon which were two books and a small oil lamp about
three feet away, but there were no marks of blood on the books or the
stand. He noticed a bloody handkerchief on the guest chamber floor,
lying about midway between the body and the wall.
Assistant City Marshal John Fleet, when sworn, testified that he went
to the house arriving at 11:35. Saw several persons and went into the
house and saw the bodies. Came out and found the door at the head of
the stairs locked; it leads into a closet; then went into Lizzie’s
bedroom upstairs; she sat with Mr. Buck; told her that he was an
officer and asked her if she knew anything about the killing; she
said she did not; all that she knew was that she was ironing when her
father came home and saw him sit on the sofa; he was feeble and she
assisted him to lay down; then she went out and up to the barn and
remained about half an hour upstairs in the barn. She came back and
found her father on the sofa in the position she had left him, except
that he was dead; she then called Maggie; asked her who Maggie was,
and she said the servant girl; said she sent her after Dr. Bowen and
Miss Russell; told me there was no one else in the house beside the
family and her uncle, John Morse; said Morse could not have killed the
people because he left the house and did not return till nearly 12;
said Maggie could not have done it, because she had gone upstairs after
her father came in. I then asked her if she knew who could have killed
her father and mother. She answered: “She is not my mother; she is my
stepmother; my own mother died when I was a child.” Witness said that
on the way up he tried the door of Mr. Borden’s bedroom and found it
locked; all the rooms except Bridget’s was locked; the witness went
into the cellar and found a lot of officers; Mr. Mullaly had two axes
and hatchets on the floor; searched the cellar for any instrument, but
found none at the time. A few days before, her father had some angry
talk with a man in the back yard about a storeroom. Mr. Fleet then
went down stairs through the rooms on the lower floor and then up to
Bridget’s room. The weapons which Mullaly had were placed behind some
boxes in the cellar. At this point Mr. Moody brought out his collection
of axes and hatchets which Mr. Fleet identified as the ones he had
seen in the cellar. The red stain which he had seen on the handle of
one hatchet had disappeared. Then Mr. Fleet went to Lizzie’s door and
rapped; Dr. Bowen came, and holding the door eight inches open, asked,
‘what is wanted.’ I told him we came to search. He said, ‘Wait a a
moment,’ shut the door and talked with Lizzie, opened it and asked if
it was absolutely necessary to search it, and I said, ‘Yes;’ I said
again to Lizzie, ‘You said this morning that you were up in the barn
half an hour; what do you say now?’ She replied, ‘I say from twenty
minutes to half an hour.’ Asked her when she saw Mrs. Borden last and
she said, ‘In the guest room, about nine o’clock,’ and that some one
brought a letter or note to Mrs. Borden and that she supposed Mrs.
Borden had gone out. Then went to a door leading into another bedroom
and found it was hooked; opened it and went in; saw a bed standing in
the middle of the room; Lizzie told him that she hoped he would get
through as soon as possible, as she was getting tired of it and he
told her that he would; she also said there was no use in searching
her own room, because she always locked it and no one could get into
it or throw anything into it. He then came down stairs; saw Dr. Dolan
and the officers in the cellar; spoke to them and then found in the
middle cellar, on a shelf near the chimney, the head of a hatchet; the
shelf was about six feet from the ground; at the time he found the
hatchet there was a small piece of wood sticking in the head, it was a
part of the handle. The hatchet was covered with a heavy coat of white
ashes upon both sides of the blade; in fact all over the hatchet; the
substance, as he thought, was fine ashes; there were other tools on the
box at the time, they were covered with a light dust but not ashes; the
dust on the other tools was lighter and finer than the ashes on the
hatchet; he saw that the piece of the handle was a new break; the break
was also covered with ashes; he put it back into the box with the other
tools. He then went outside.