The Trial of Lizzie Borden(13)

Hosea M. Knowlton, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society



Knowlton intended to call Lizzie Borden to testify next. As the only other person besides Bridget Sullivan known to be in the house at the time of the murders, she was a crucial witness. But more than that, she was now the main suspect. Mindful of her legal peril, Borden family lawyer Andrew Jennings sought permission to “look after her interests” at the inquest. Jennings was a Fall River native with an established law practice. Like Knowlton, whom he would succeed as district attorney, Jennings served in the state legislature, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. Knowlton saw no reason to allow Jennings to interfere with his questioning. He insisted that he was merely investigating the crime, as required by Massachusetts law, not conducting an adversarial proceeding. Jennings was a diminutive man, much smaller than Knowlton, but he was “a hard fighter” and retained the vigor that carried him to athletic success as the pitcher on the Varsity Nine at Brown. He was also reckoned to be “a splendid dancer.” “His eyes,” said one reporter, “fairly snap when he is in motion” and he had the remarkable “ability to be everywhere and see everything at once.” He also had an “admirable voice, which he use[d] to great effect” in his argument against being excluded, “but the Court would not yield and he was compelled to withdraw.”

Andrew Jennings, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society



Lizzie Borden took the stand at about 2:00 p.m. It would be a long afternoon for both the witness and the district attorney. Knowlton’s main objectives were to look for motive and opportunity. Knowlton began with the background to the murders. He asked whether Andrew or Abby Borden had any enemies: “Do you know of anybody that your father was on bad terms with?” Lizzie mentioned a man who had threatened her father because of his refusal to rent the man one of his properties. But she did not know the man’s name. The only name she could conjure was her uncle Hiram Harrington, married to her paternal aunt Lurana. That dispensed with Andrew Borden’s enemy list. No one, according to Lizzie, was on bad terms with her stepmother. She admitted, however, that she had herself had “words” with her stepmother about five years before.

Knowlton tried to clarify the extent of the discord. But Lizzie was cagey. When asked if she had been on cordial terms, she said, “It depends upon one’s idea of cordiality perhaps.”

Knowlton tried again: “According to your idea of cordiality?”

Lizzie allowed that they “were friendly.”

In frustration, Knowlton acquiesced to her formulation: “Cordial, according to your idea of cordiality?”

Lizzie agreed: “Quite so . . . I do not mean the dearest of friends in the world, but very kindly feelings and pleasant. I do not know how to answer you any better than that.”

Knowlton tried another tack: “Were your relations toward her that of daughter and mother?”

Lizzie answered: “In some ways it was and in some it was not.” She declined to elaborate, because, she said, “I don’t know how to answer it.” She admitted that she had once called Abby “Mother” but switched her form of address to “Mrs. Borden.” Knowlton established that this change in title occurred at the time of the “difference of opinion” five years previously.

In contrast to the evident intergenerational tension, the Borden marriage appeared harmonious. Nonetheless, Lizzie seemed taken aback when Knowlton asked if the elder Bordens were “happily united.” Marriages are inscrutable, even to those who inhabit the same living space. Perhaps she had not considered the question, simply accepting the existence of the relationship as a central fact in her life. She hedged, assenting with the caveat so far as she knew. Knowlton demanded: “Why do you hesitate?”

“Because,” she said, “I did not know how to answer you any better than what came into my mind. I was trying to think if I was telling it as I should, that’s all.”

Knowlton pounced: “Do you have any difficulty in telling it as you should?”

Lizzie explained: “Some of your questions I have difficulty answering because I don’t know just how you mean them.”

In the simplest way possible, he asked: “Did you ever know of any difficulty between her and your father?” Lizzie admitted she knew of none.

Knowlton then switched tacks again. He asked Lizzie what she was wearing on the day of the murders. Lizzie explained that, in the morning, she had been wearing “a navy blue, sort of a Bengaline silk skirt with a navy blue blouse” but in the afternoon she had changed into a “pink wrapper.” He asked if that was her only change of dress that day. After receiving an affirmative answer, he let the matter drop.

Dispensing with textiles for the time being, Knowlton pulled on the loose thread in the Borden household: John V. Morse. Was his visit a coincidence—mere bad timing and nothing more—or did his presence bear some important relationship to the murders? So Knowlton asked Lizzie about Morse’s prior visits. Lizzie professed to find the question difficult to understand. Morse, she explained, had been in the East for almost a year. The implication seemed to be that she counted the entire year as “a visit.” But Knowlton was after something more particular, specifically whether Morse had visited “before he came east.”

“Yes,” Lizzie said, “if you remember the winter that the river was frozen once . . . he was here that winter, some fourteen years ago, was it not?”