LIZZIE
BORDEN TOOK AN AX?
But
Did She Really?
Lizzie Borden took an
axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
The August afternoon
was unbearably hot, especially for Massachusetts. The temperature had climbed
to well over 100 degrees, even though it was not yet noon. The old man, still
in his heavy morning coat, was not feeling well and he reclined on a
mohair-covered sofa in the parlor, leaning back so that his boots were resting
on the floor and soiling the upholstery of the couch. In a short time, he
drifted off to sleep, never suspecting that he would not awaken.
He also did not
suspect that, above his head, his wife was bleeding on the floor of the
upstairs guestroom. She had been dead for nearly two hours and in moments, the
same hand that took her life would take the life of the old man’s as well.
And even if he knew
those things by way of some macabre premonition, he might never guess that his
murderer would never be brought to justice.
The
case of Lizzie Borden has fascinated those with an interest in American crime
for well over a century. There have been few cases that have attracted as much
attention as the hatchet murders of Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby. This is
partly because of the gruesomeness of the crime but also because of the
unexpected character of the accused. Lizzie Borden was not a slavering maniac
but a demure, respectable, spinster Sunday School teacher. Because of this, the
entire town was shocked when she was charged with the murder of her parents.
The fact that she was found to be not guilty of the murders, leaving the case
to be forever unresolved, only adds to the mystique and fans the flames of our
continuing obsession with the mystery.
From Left to Right: Andrew Jackson Borden /
Abby Durfree Gray Borden/ Emma Borden
Andrew
Jackson Borden was one of the leading citizens of Fall River, Massachusetts, a
prosperous mill town and seaport. The Borden family had strong roots to the
community and had been among the most influential citizens of the region for
decades. At the age of 70, Borden was certainly one of the richest men in the
city. He was a director on the board of several banks and a commercial landlord
with considerable holdings. He was a tall, thin and dour man and while he was
known for this thrift and admired for his business abilities, he was not
well-known for his humor, nor was he particularly likable.
Borden
lived with his second wife, Abby Durfee Gray and his daughters from his first
marriage, Emma and Lizzie, in a two-and-a-half story frame house. It was located
in an unfashionable part of town, but was close to his business interests. Both
daughters felt the house was beneath their station in life and begged their
father to move to a nicer place. Borden’s frugal nature never even allowed him
to consider this. In spite of this, and his conservative daily life, Borden was
said to be moderately generous with both of his daughters.
The
events that would lead to tragedy began on Thursday, August 4, 1892. The Borden
household was up early that morning as usual. Emma was not at home, having gone
to visit friends in the nearby town of Fairhaven, but the girls’ Uncle John had
arrived the day before for an unannounced visit. John Morse, the brother of
Andrew Borden’s first wife, was a regular guest in the Borden home. He traveled
from Dartmouth, Massachusetts several times each year to visit the family and
conduct business in town.
The
Borden House at 92 Second Street & the barn at the rear, where Lizzie
claimed to be during the murders
The
first person awake in the house that morning was Bridget Sullivan, the maid.
Bridget was a respectable Irish girl who Emma and Lizzie both rudely insisted
on calling "Maggie,” which was the name of a previous girl who had worked
for them. At the time of the murders, Bridget was 26 years old and had been in
the Borden household since 1889. There is nothing to say that she was anything
but an exemplary young woman, who had come to America from Ireland in 1886. She
did not stay in the house during the night following the murders, but did come
back on Friday night to her third-floor room. On Saturday, she left the house,
never to return.
Bridget
came downstairs from her attic room around 6:00 a.m. to build a fire in the
kitchen and begin cooking breakfast. An hour later, John Morse and Mr. and Mrs.
Borden came down to eat and they lingered in conversation around the table for
nearly an hour. Lizzie slept late and did not join them for the meal.
The Borden's maid,
Bridget Sullivan
At
a little before 8:00 a.m., Morse left the house to go and visit a niece and
nephew and Borden locked the screen door after him. It was a peculiar custom in
the house to always keep doors locked. Even the doors between certain rooms
upstairs were usually locked. A few minutes after Morse left, Lizzie came
downstairs but said that she wasn’t hungry. She had coffee and a cookie but
nothing else. It’s possible that she had a touch of the stomach disorder that
was going around the household. Bridget later stated that she felt the need to
go outside and throw up some time after breakfast. Two days before, Mr. and
Mrs. Borden had been ill during the night and had both vomited several times.
It has been assumed that this may have been food poisoning as no one else in
the family was affected. It may have been the onset of the flu -- or something
far more sinister.
At
a quarter past nine, Andrew Borden left the house and went downtown. Abby
Borden went upstairs to make the bed in the guestroom that Morse was staying
in. She asked Bridget to wash the windows. At 9:30, she came downstairs for a
few moments and then went back up again, commenting that she needed fresh
pillowcases. Bridget went about her daily chores and started on the window
washing, retrieving pails and water from the barn. She also paused for a few
minutes to chat over the fence with the hired girl next door. She finished the
outside of the windows at about 10:30 a.m. and then started inside.
Fifteen
minutes later, Mr. Borden returned home. Bridget let him in and Lizzie came
downstairs. She told her father that "Mrs. Borden has gone out - she had a
note from someone who was sick." Lizzie and Emma always called their
step-mother "Mrs. Borden" and recently, the relationship between them,
especially with Lizzie, was strained.
Borden
took the key to his bedroom off a shelf and went up the back stairs. The room
could only be reached by these stairs, as there was no hallway, and the front
stairs only gave access to Lizzie’s room (from which Emma’s could be reached)
and the guest room. There were connecting doors between the elder Borden’s
rooms and Lizzie’s room, but they were usually kept locked.
Borden
stayed upstairs for only a few minutes before coming back down and settling
onto the sofa in the sitting room. Lizzie began to heat up an iron to press
some handkerchiefs. "Are you going out this afternoon, Maggie?" she
asked Bridget. "There is a cheap sale of dress goods at Sargent’s this
afternoon, at eight cents a yard."
Bridget
replied that she was not. The heat of the morning, combined with the window
washing and her touch of stomach ailment, had left her feeling poorly and she
went up the back stairs to her attic room for a nap. This was a few minutes
before 11:00 a.m. She was awakened a few minutes later by a cry from
downstairs.
"Maggie,
Come down!" Lizzie shouted from the bottom of the back stairs and
Bridget’s eyes fluttered open. She had drifted off into a restless sleep but
the urgency of Lizzie’s cries startled her awake. Bridget replied in a
flustered voice, asking what was wrong.
"Come
down quick!" Lizzie wailed, "Father's dead! Somebody's come in and
killed him!"
As
Bridget hurried from the staircase, she found Lizzie standing at the back door.
Her face was pale and taut. She stopped the young maid from going into the
sitting room and ordered her to go and fetch a doctor.
Dr.
Bowen, a family friend, lived across the street from the Bordens’ and Bridget
ran directly to the house. The doctor was out, but Bridget told Mrs. Bowen that
Mr. Borden had been killed. She ran directly back to the house. Mrs. Bowen
asked Lizzie where she had been when the murder occurred and she said she was out
in the yard, heard a groan and came inside. This was the first version she
would give of her movements that morning – various others would follow.
Lizzie
sent Bridget to summon a friend of the Borden sisters, Alice Russell, who lived
a few blocks away and by now, neighbors were starting to gather on the lawn and
someone had called for the police. Mrs. Adelaide Churchill, the next door
neighbor, came over to Lizzie, who was at the back entrance to the house and
asked if anything was wrong. Lizzie responded by saying, "Oh, Mrs.
Churchill, someone has killed Father!"
She
explained that her father was in the sitting room and asked where she was when
he was killed, she stated that she had been in the barn, getting a piece of
iron. She didn’t know where Abby Borden was, stating that she had gone out to
visit a sick friend. But she added, “But I don’t know but that she is killed
too, for I thought I heard her come in... Father must have an enemy, for we
have all been sick, and we think the milk has been poisoned."
Andrew Borden's bloody corpse was
discovered on his favorite downstairs sofa.
Abby Borden's body was
found upstairs. She was struck from behind, likely while on her knees making
the bed.
By
this time, Dr. Bowen had returned, along with Bridget, who had hurried back
from informing Miss Russell of the day’s dire events. Dr. Bowen examined the
body and asked for a sheet to cover it. Borden had been attacked with a sharp
object, probably an ax, and so much damage had been done to his head and face
that Bowen, a close friend, couldn’t positively identify him at first. Borden’s
head was turned slightly to the right and eleven blows had gashed his face. One
eye had been cut in half and his nose had been severed. The majority of the
blows had been struck within the area that extended from the eyes and nose to
the ears. Blood was still seeping from the wounds and had been splashed onto
the wall above the sofa, the floor and on a picture hanging on the wall. It
looked as though Borden had been attacked from above and behind as he
slept.
Several
minutes passed before anyone thought of going upstairs to see if Abby Borden
had come home. Lizzie, who previously was sure that Abby was out of the house,
now stated that she thought she heard her come inside. She ordered Bridget to
go upstairs and check, but the maid refused to go alone. Mrs. Churchill offered
to go with her. They went up the staircase together but Mrs. Churchill was the
first to see Abby lying on the floor of the guestroom. She had fallen in a pool
of blood and Mrs. Churchill later said that she had been so savagely attacked
that she only "looked like the form of a person."
Dr.
Bowen found that Mrs. Borden had been struck more than a dozen times, from the
back. The autopsy later revealed that there had been nineteen blows to her
head, probably from the same hatchet that had killed Mr. Borden. The blood on
Mrs. Borden's body was dark and congealed, leading him to believe that she had
been killed before her husband.
Dr.
Bowen was heavily involved in the activities of the Borden house on the day of
the murder. He was the first to examine the bodies, sent a telegram to Emma to
summon her home, assisted Dr. Dolan with the autopsies and even prescribed a
calming tranquilizer for Lizzie. He was a constant presence in the house and
his involvement with them, especially on August 4, has led to him being
considered a major figure in some of the conspiracies developed around the
murders.
A
call reached the Fall River police station at 11:15 a.m., but as things would
happen, that day marked the annual picnic of the Fall River Police Department
and most of them were off enjoying an outing at Rocky Point. The only officer
dispatched to the house was Officer George W. Allen. He ran to the house, saw
that Andrew Borden was dead and ran back to the station house to inform the
city marshal of the events. He left no one in charge of the crime scene. While
he was gone, neighbors overran the house, comforting Lizzie and peering in at
the gruesome state of Andrew Borden’s body. The constant traffic trampled and
destroyed any clues that might have been left behind.
During
the half hour or so that no authorities were on the scene, a county medical
examiner named Dolan passed by the house by chance. He looked in and was
pressed into service by Dr. Bowen. Dolan examined the bodies and after hearing
that the family had been sick and that the milk was suspected, he took samples
of it. Later that afternoon, he had the bodies photographed and then removed
the stomachs and sent them, along with the milk, to the Harvard Medical School
for analysis. No poison was ever found.
The
murder investigation that followed was chaotic. The police were reluctant to
suspect Lizzie of the murder as it was against the perceived social
understanding of the era that a woman such as she was could have possibly
committed such a heinous crime. Other solutions were advanced but were
discarded as even more improbable.
A
profusion of clues were discovered over the next few days, all of which led
nowhere. A boy reported seeing a man jump over the back fence of the Borden
property and while a man was found matching the boy’s description, he had an
unbreakable alibi. A bloody hatchet was found on the Sylvia Farm in South
Somerset but it proved to be covered in chicken blood. While Bridget was
considered a suspect for a short time, the investigation finally began to
center on Lizzie. A circumstantial case began to be developed against her with
no incriminating physical evidence, like bloody clothes, a real motive for the
killings, or even a convincing demonstration of how and when she committed the
murders.
Over
the course of several weeks, though, investigators managed to compile a
sequence of events that certainly cast suspicion on the spinster Sunday School
teacher. The timeline ran from August 3, the day before the murders to August
7, the day that Alice Russell saw her friend burning a dress that may (or many
not) have had blood on it. The timeline is as follows:
August 3
The
timeline began in the early morning hours when Abby Borden sent for Dr. Bowen
and told him that she and her husband had been sick and vomiting during the night.
He did not believe the illness was serious and there would be no evidence of
poisoning found in the Borden autopsies.
Another
incident took place when Lizzie tried to buy ten cents worth of prussic acid
from Eli Bence, a clerk at Smith’s Drug Store. She explained to him that she
wanted the poison to "kill moths in a sealskin cape" but he refused
to sell it to her without a prescription. A customer and another clerk also
identified Lizzie as being in the store that morning, but she denied it. She
testified at the inquest that she had not attempted to purchase the poison and
had not been at the drugstore that day.
The
third incident was the arrival of John Morse in the early afternoon. He came
without luggage but intended to stay the night. Both he and Lizzie testified
that they did not see each other until after the murders the next day, although
Lizzie knew that he was there.
Finally,
that evening Lizzie visited her friend, Miss Alice Russell. According to Miss
Russell, Lizzie was agitated, worried over some threat to her father, and
concerned that something was about to happen. Borden had a number of enemies
made during business dealings and she claimed to be frightened that something
might happen to the family.
August 4
Abby
was killed, according to the autopsy, at around 9:30 a.m. The killer, if it was
anyone but Lizzie or Bridget, would have had to have concealed himself (or
herself) in the house for well over an hour, waiting for Andrew Borden’s
return. Abby could have been discovered at any moment.
Abby’s
time of death also posed another problem for investigators. According to
Lizzie, she had gone out but she obviously hadn’t. The note that Lizzie said
that Abby had received, asking her to visit a sick friend, was never found.
Lizzie later said that she might have inadvertently thrown it away.
When
Andrew Borden returned to the house, Bridget had to let him in as the screen
door was fastened on the inside with three locks. This would have made it
extremely difficult for the killer to get inside. Only a small window of
opportunity would have existed while Bridget was fetching a pail and water from
the barn. In addition, Bridget later testified that while she was unlocking the
door for Mr. Borden, she heard Lizzie laugh from upstairs. However, Lizzie
swore that she had been in the kitchen when her father came home.
Borden
also had to retrieve the key to his bedroom from the shelf in the kitchen to
get into his room. This was done as a precaution because of a burglary the year
before. In June 1891, a police captain inspected the house after Andrew Borden
reported a crime. Borden’s desk had been rummaged through and $100 and a watch
and chain had been taken. There was no clue as to how anyone could have gotten
into the house, although Lizzie offered the fact that the cellar door had been
open. The neighborhood was canvassed but no one reported seeing a stranger in
the vicinity. According to the police captain, Borden said several times to
him, "I’m afraid the police will not be able to find the real thief."
It is unknown what he may have meant by this but various conspiracy theorists
have their own ideas.
On
the afternoon of the murder, four hatchets were discovered in the basement of
the house, including one with dried blood and hair on it (later determined to
be from a cow). Another of the hatchets was rusted and the others were covered
with dust. One of these was without a handle and was covered in ashes. The
broken handle appeared to be recent, so it was taken into evidence.
A
Sergeant Harrington and another officer asked Lizzie where she had been that
morning and she said that she had been in the barn loft looking for iron for
fishing sinkers. The two men examined the barn and found the loft floor to be
thick with dust, with no evidence that anyone had been up there.
Deputy
Marshal John Fleet questioned Lizzie and asked her who might have committed the
murders. Other than an unknown man with whom her father had gotten into an
argument with a few weeks before, she could think of no one. When asked
directly if Uncle John Morse or Bridget could have killed her father and mother,
she said that they couldn't have. Morse had left the house before 9:00 a.m.,
and Bridget had been sleeping when Andrew had been killed. She pointedly
reminded Fleet that Abby was not her mother, but her stepmother.
August 5
The
investigation continued on the day after the murders. By now, the story had
appeared in the newspapers and the entire town was in an uproar. Sergeant
Harrington found Eli Bence at Smith’s Drug Store and interviewed him about the
attempt to buy poison. Emma engaged Mr. Andrew Jennings as their family attorney.
The police continued to investigate, but nothing of significance was
found.
August 6
The
funerals of the Bordens took place on Saturday. The service was conducted by
the Reverends Buck and Judd, from the two Congregational Churches. The bodies
were not buried at that time. The police arrived and removed the bodies for
another autopsy. The heads of the Bordens were removed from the body, the skin
removed and plaster casts were made of the skulls. For some reason, Mr.
Borden’s head was not returned to his coffin.
August 7
On
Sunday morning, Alice Russell observed Lizzie burning a dress in the kitchen
stove. She told Lizzie, "If I were you, I wouldn't let anybody see me do
that." Lizzie said it was a dress stained with paint and was of no
use.
It
was this testimony from Miss Russell at the inquest that prompted Judge
Blaisdell of the Second District Court to charge Lizzie with the murders. The
inquest itself was kept secret but at its conclusion, Lizzie was charged and taken
into custody. The only testimony that Lizzie ever gave during all of the legal
proceedings was at the inquest and we will never know what she said for the
records were sealed. She was arraigned the following day and entered a not
guilty plea. She was then taken to the Taunton Jail, which had facilities for
female prisoners.
After
that, Judge Blaisdell held a preliminary hearing. Lizzie did not testify but
the record of her testimony at the inquest was entered into evidence by her
attorney, Andrew Jennings. The judge declared her probable guilt and bound
Lizzie over for the grand jury, who heard the case during the last week of its
session.
The
Commonwealth, represented by prosecutor Hosea Knowlton, had the disagreeable
task of building the case against Lizzie. When he finished his presentation to
the Grand Jury, he surprisingly invited defense attorney Jennings to present a
case for the defense. This was something that was simply not done in
Massachusetts. In effect, a trial was being conducted before the Grand Jury.
Many saw this is as a chance that the charge against Lizzie might be dismissed.
Then, on December 1, Alice Russell again testified about the burning of the
dress. The next day, Lizzie was charged with three counts of murder. Strangely,
she had been charged with the murder of her father, her step-mother and then
the murders of both of them. The trial was scheduled to begin on June 5,
1893.
The
trial itself lasted fourteen days and news of it filled the front pages of every
major newspaper in the country. Between 30 and 40 reporters from the Boston and
New York papers and the wire services were in the courtroom every day. The
trial began on June 5 and after a day to select the jury, which consisted of
twelve middle-aged farmers and tradesmen, the prosecution spent the next seven
days putting on its case.
Hosea
Knowlton was the reluctant prosecutor in the case. He had been forced into the
role by Arthur Pillsbury, Attorney General of Massachusetts, who should have
been the principal attorney for the prosecution. However, as Lizzie's trial
date approached, Pillsbury felt the pressure building from Lizzie's supporters,
particularly women's groups and religious organizations. Worried about the next
election, he directed Knowlton, who was the District Attorney in Fall River, to
lead the prosecution in his place. He also assigned William Moody, District
Attorney of Essex County, to assist him.
Moody
made the opening statements for the prosecution. He presented three arguments. First,
that Lizzie was predisposed to murder her father and stepmother because of
their animosity toward one another. Second, that she planned the murder and
carried it out and third, that her behavior, and her contradictory testimony,
after the fact was not that of an innocent person. Moody did an excellent job
and many have regarded him as the most competent attorney involved in the case.
At one point, he threw a dress onto the prosecution table that he planned to
admit as evidence. As he did so, the tissue paper that was covering the skull
of Andrew Borden lifted and then fluttered away. Dramatically, Lizzie slid to
the floor in a dead faint.
Crucial
to the prosecution in the case was evidence that supplied a motive for Lizzie
to commit the murders. This was done by using a number of witnesses who
testified to Lizzie’s dislike of her step-mother and her complaints about her
father’s spendthrift ways. The prosecution also tried to establish that Borden
was writing a new will that would leave Emma and Lizzie with a pittance and
Abby with a huge portion of his estate. One of the witnesses called to
establish this was John Morse, who first said that Andrew discussed a new will
with him and then later said that he never told him anything about it.
The
prosecution then turned to Lizzie’s predisposition towards murder and her
strange behavior before and after the events. They again called Alice Russell
to testify about the burning of the dress. The destruction of it seemed a
possible answer as to why Lizzie was not covered with blood after killing her
parents. It was highly probable that she would have been spattered with it if
she did commit the murders. In later years, some have theorized that perhaps
she wore a smock over her dress during the murders or that perhaps she was
naked when she did it. However, the smock would have been bloody and also would
have had to be disposed of. As far as Lizzie being naked, this seems doubtful
too. Ignore the fact that in the Victorian society of Fall River, a young woman
would have never appeared nude in front of her father (even to kill him) and
focus on the fact that Lizzie never had time to bathe after killing Abby or in
the few minutes between the killing of Andrew and her calling for Bridget.
To
the prosecution, though, the burning of the dress suggested that Lizzie had
changed clothing after the murders. But why would she have kept the dress for
three days before burning it and what would she have worn for the hours between
the two deaths? Someone would have surely noticed a dress covered with
blood.
On
Saturday, June 10, the prosecution attempted to enter Lizzie's testimony from
the inquest into the record. The defense objected, since it was testimony from
one who had not been formally charged. The jury was withdrawn so that the
lawyers could argue it out and on Monday, when court resumed, the three-judge
panel excluded Lizzie’s contradictory inquest testimony.
On
Wednesday, June 14, the prosecution called Eli Bence, the drug store clerk, to
the stand. The defense objected to his testimony as irrelevant and prejudicial.
The judges sustained the objection and Lizzie’s attempt to buy poison was
thrown out of the record.
The
prosecution called several medical witnesses, including Dr. Dolan. One of them
even produced the skull of Andrew Borden to show how the blows had been struck.
Unfortunately for the prosecution, these witnesses had an adverse effect on the
case as the defense used their testimonies to strike points in Lizzie’s favor.
They were forced to state that whoever had committed the murders would have
been covered with blood. There was no witness to say that blood was ever found
on Lizzie.
Lizzie
Borden’s defense counsel used only two days to present its case. For the most
part, the defense offered witnesses who could either corroborate Lizzie’s
story, or who could provide alternate possibilities as to who the killer might
be. The testimony of the various witnesses was meant to do little but provide
"reasonable doubt" about Lizzie’s guilt.
For
instance, an ice cream peddler testified to seeing a woman (presumably Lizzie)
coming out the barn. This bolstered her story that she had actually been there.
A passer-by claimed to see a "wild-eyed man" around the time of the
murders. Mr. Joseph Lemay claimed that he was walking in the deep woods, some
miles from the city, about twelve days after the murders when he heard someone
crying "Poor Mrs. Borden! Poor Mrs. Borden! Poor Mrs. Borden!" He
said that he looked over a wall and saw a man sitting on the ground. The man,
who had bloodstains on his shirt, picked up a hatchet, shook it at him and then
disappeared into the woods. The defense also called witnesses who claimed to
see a mysterious young man in the vicinity of the Borden house who was never
properly explained. They also called Emma Borden to dispute the suggestion that
Lizzie had any motive to want to kill their parents.
On
Monday, June 19, Robinson delivered his closing arguments and Knowlton began
his closing arguments for the prosecution. He completed them on the following
day. The judges then asked Lizzie if she had anything to say for herself and
she spoke for the only time during the trial. She said: “I am innocent. I leave
it to my counsel to speak for me.” Instructions were then given to the jury and
they left to deliberate over the verdict.
A
little over an hour later, the jury returned with its verdict. Lizzie Borden
was found "not guilty" on all three charges. Public opinion was, by
this time, of the feeling that the police and the courts had persecuted Lizzie
long enough.
Five
weeks after the trial, Lizzie (who henceforth called herself
"Lizbeth") and Emma purchased and moved into a thirteen-room, stone
house at 306 French Street in Fall River. It was located on "The
Hill", the most fashionable area of the city. Lizzie named the house
"Maplecroft" and had the name carved into the top step leading up to
the front door.
Lizzie's
(or Lizbeth's) home in Fall River, Maplecroft.
In
1904, Lizzie met a young actress, Nance O'Neil, and for the next two years,
Lizzie and Nance were inseparable. About this time, Emma separated from her
sister and moved to Fairhaven. She and Lizzie stopped speaking to one another.
Rumors said that sensational revelations about the murders would follow the
split, but the revelations never came. Emma stayed with the family of Reverend
Buck, and, sometime around 1915, she moved to Newmarket, New Hampshire.
Lizzie
died on June 1, 1927, at age 67, after a long illness from complications
following gall bladder surgery. Emma died nine days later, as a result of a
fall down the back stairs of her house in Newmarket. They were buried together
in the family plot, along with a sister who had died in early childhood, their
mother, their stepmother, and their headless father. Both Lizzie and Emma left
their estates to charitable causes and Lizzie designated $500 for the perpetual
care of her father’s grave.
Bridget
Sullivan never worked for any of the Bordens again. After the terrible events
of the murder and the trial, she left town. She lived in modest circumstances
in Butte, Montana until her death in 1948. Those who suggested that she had
been "paid off" to keep quiet about the murders could find no
evidence of this in what she left behind.
Many
years have passed since the murders in Fall River and they remain unsolved. No
single theory has ever been regarded as the correct one and every writer on the
case seems to have a favorite culprit. Many books and articles have been written
about the case, but each writer puts their own spin on the story. During the
early days of the investigation, and well into the days of the trial, a number
of accusations were made. At times, the killer was said to be John Morse,
Bridget Sullivan, Emma Borden, Dr. Bowen and even one of Lizzie’s Sunday School
students. Since that time, there have been other suggested killers. Some of the
theories are credible and some are not.
One
of the theories remains that Lizzie Borden actually committed the murders of
her parents and managed to get away with it. This theory was especially popular
in books written prior to 1940, but many believe it today. Most of the writers
who stand by this solution see the court rulings and poorly executed
prosecution case as the reason that Lizzie was never found guilty. They simply
refuse to see how an outsider could have committed the crimes. But there is that
problem of all of the blood. If Lizzie did kill her step-mother, where was the
blood that would have been on her dress when she called Bridget a short time
later? If she did change clothing (twice in the same morning), wouldn’t Bridget
have noticed this? It has been suggested that Lizzie may have gone to the barn
between the murders as she claimed to and washed the blood off (there was
running water there), but if she did, how did she wash off the blood after her
father’s murder?
Some
writers believe that Lizzie and Bridget planned the murders together and that
Bridget (when she went to Alice Russell’s house) spirited away the bloody
hatchet and dress so that they were never found. This theory is also used to
explain the testimony that each woman gave about the day of the murder, never
implicating the other. It seems hard to believe that Abby Borden’s fall to the
upstairs floor would not have been heard from below, especially since Abby
weighed nearly 200 pounds. However, there is no proof of this either and it
still places one or both of the women in the role of a depraved killer.
While
it seems hard to believe that Lizzie did commit the murders, it doesn’t mean
that she was not guilty in other ways. In other words, while she may not have
actually handled the hatchet, she may have known who did.
One
person who has been accused in this capacity was Emma Borden. It has been noted
with some suspicion how she may have arranged an alibi for herself, claiming to
be some 15 miles away in Fairhaven, but actually returned to Fall River, hid
upstairs in the Borden house, committed the murders and then returned to
Fairhaven, where she received the telegram from Dr. Bowen. Once Lizzie is
accused, the two sisters worked together to protect each other. Later, the
women had a falling out over their father’s estate. But we will never know.
Neither woman ever spoke of the murder again.
Another
theory accuses William Borden, the illegitimate son of Andrew Borden, who committed
suicide a few years after the trial. According to this theory, Lizzie, Emma,
John Morse, Dr. Bowen and Andrew Jennings all conspired to keep his involvement
a secret because of his illegitimate status and a claim that he might make
against the estate if his relationship with the Borden’s was found out.
Allegedly, William was making demands of his father, who was in the process of
writing a new will. Borden rejected the boy and William became enraged. He
first killed Mrs. Borden and then after hiding in the house -- with Lizzie’s
knowledge -- killed his father. The conspirators then either paid William off
or threatened him, or both, and decided that Lizzie would allow herself to be
suspected and tried for the murders, knowing that she could always identify the
real killer, should that be necessary. There’s a lot of speculation with this
theory, but it’s as possible as so many others.
So
who did kill Andrew and Abby Borden? It’s unlikely that we will ever know. It’s
also unlikely that we will ever discover just what Lizzie, and her defense
counsel, really knew about the events in 1892. The papers from Lizzie’s defense
are still locked up and have never been released. The files remain sealed away
in the offices of the Springfield, Massachusetts law firm that descended from
the firm that defended Lizzie during the trial. There are no plans to ever
release them.
The
history of the Lizzie Borden case lingers in our collection imaginations, much
like the spirits that are still believed to linger at the former Borden house
in Fall River, Massachusetts, which now serves as a bed and breakfast. More
than one overnight guest has claimed an encounter with one of the ghosts that
remain from the brutal murders. The truth behind such stories remains as
elusive as the killer of the Bordens – but the speculation will certainly never
end.
Author Troy Taylor
has a book on the Lizzie Borden case planned for later in 2014. Keep an eye on
the Whitechapel Press website for upcoming information.
