The Trial of Lizzie Borden(18)

Alice Russell proved more astute in her comments on relations in the Borden family. She testified that she had never seen any “wrangling” in the family but admitted that she did not think they were “congenial” because “their tastes differed in every way.” This view was given further support by Abby’s half sister Sarah Whitehead, Borden friend Augusta Tripp, and the seamstress Hannah Gifford. In their telling, however, the daughters’ animus was directed squarely at Abby. Sarah Whitehead described Abby as “a woman who kept everything to herself.” But Lizzie, according to Augusta Tripp, considered Abby “deceitful.” Indeed, Gifford recalled an incident a few months earlier in which she had been shocked by Lizzie’s vehemence. In the course of a fitting, she asked Lizzie what sort of dress she thought would be becoming for Abby, who was a “fleshy” woman. Lizzie responded that Abby was “a mean old thing . . . and we don’t have anything to do with her, only what we are obliged to.” She added: “[W]e stay up stairs most of the time . . . we don’t always eat with . . . them; sometimes we wait until they are through.”

All in all, the inquest presented a damning picture. It revealed a household divided between the elder and younger Bordens, the surface calm a sign of intractable hostility rather than brokered peace. And it seemed impossible that any outsider could have entered the house the morning of August 4. Even if someone had slipped in undetected, it was hard to imagine where an intruder might have secreted himself. Bridget Sullivan had a plausible account of her morning activities, corroborated in part by Lizzie Borden herself. Lizzie Borden, however, had given more than one version of her own movements and none of them was favorable. She said she was downstairs waiting for an iron flat to heat while her stepmother was murdered in the upstairs guest room directly above. Yet, when Andrew returned, Bridget Sullivan had been downstairs washing windows and had seen Lizzie descending the stairs. After her father came home, Lizzie went to the upper story of the barn in search of a sinker for a yet-to-be-obtained fishing tackle. When she found her father’s body, she made no effort to inform or locate Abby. But after Dr. Bowen had left to wire her sister about Andrew’s death, she said she thought she had heard Abby return. A druggist recounted her attempt to buy prussic acid. If she had indeed wanted to use the poison to clean a sealskin cape, why had she not acknowledged the attempt at the inquest? The Bordens had not been poisoned, but an unsuccessful effort to procure prussic acid might explain the use of a readily available household implement like a hatchet. For the investigators, it all pointed inexorably to Lizzie’s guilt.





ARREST




* * *



After consultation with Knowlton, Marshal Hilliard was ready to serve an arrest warrant. Despite his successful effort to keep Jennings out of the inquest proceedings, Knowlton agreed that Hilliard should notify the defense counsel first. Hilliard went to Jennings’s house so that the lawyer could support and advise his client. When Jennings arrived at the courthouse, he “found her reclining upon a lounge in the matron’s room, and Emma and Mrs. Brigham seated near her.” The New York Times reported: “She took the announcement of her arrest with surprising calmness.” The New York Herald, by contrast, relayed a dubious report that “she fell into a fit of abject and pitiable terror.” Whatever her state of mind, she was compos mentis enough to execute a power of attorney granting her sister, Emma, the right to collect any rents and pay any bills arising from their joint real estate holdings. The Fall River police department arrest book recorded her description: “Height: 5’4”; Complexion: Light; Hair: Light; Eyes: Gray.” Her arrest was one of three for murder in Fall River that year and the only woman. One oddity escaped much of the press coverage: the warrant only mentioned Andrew Borden’s murder.

Afterward, she was transported to the county jail in Taunton. According to the Boston Daily Advertiser, her journey “took the form of a public ceremonial.” It seemed as if the whole town had assembled to meet her train. There, she discovered that her keeper was the mother of a childhood friend. Mrs. Wright, the matron, was reduced to tears at the change in circumstances since their last encounter. It was, according to the New York Herald, “an affecting scene.” She was taken to her cell, a room nine and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide, furnished with a bed, chair, and washbowl. Though forced to suffer the indignity of incarceration, Lizzie Borden enjoyed special privileges: Mrs. Wright substituted one of her own soft pillows for the standard prison issue. The Fall River Daily Herald reported that “some bright bits of color and other things calculated to soften the abrupt contrast with the unhappy girl’s own room . . . have found their way into the prison cell.” Lizzie also ordered dinners from the local hotel, supplementing the spartan prison fare. But otherwise, according to the Fall River Daily Herald, little was known of her daily life; “Outside of visits by her sister, her minister and counsel and one friend, Miss Borden has been virtually dead to the world.”

Yet she was not forgotten. As she waited, Lizzie Borden became a popular cause. The local chapter of the Young Person’s Society of Christian Endeavor, based at Lizzie Borden’s own church, adopted a resolution expressing its “sincere sympathy . . . and confident belief that she will soon be restored to her former place of usefulness among us.” Chapters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union sent telegrams of support. The Massachusetts WCTU president, Susan Fessenden, circulated a petition demanding Lizzie’s release on bail, arguing that “thirty years of virtuous living should count for much in such a doubtful case.” At the annual convention of the state WCTU, Fessenden conveyed her outrage: “Should Miss Borden . . . die under the treatment to which she has been subjected, no one would hang for her forfeited life. It would be a legal murder.” The redoubtable Mary Ashton Rice Livermore visited Lizzie in jail. Livermore, a former Fall River resident acquainted with the first Mrs. Borden, told the Boston Post: “She talked to me freely of the whole case, but very calmly and sadly . . . You can see that the girl feels her position keenly.” Anna Katharine Green, whose novel The Leavenworth Case featured an innocent woman ensnared by circumstantial evidence, declared: “I Believe Her Innocent.”