The Trial of Lizzie Borden(22)

Bridget Sullivan was the key witness of the day. Pale and frightened, she reluctantly took the stand. The Boston Globe declared: “Her face was very white and her eyes downcast.” She did not make eye contact with Lizzie Borden; she did not even look up as Lizzie entered. When Knowlton questioned her, she replied in a low tone “inaudible at the distance of ten feet from the witness stand.” Nonetheless, she had the full attention of everyone in the room: “The crowd in the court room began to show a decided interest, which increased in her testimony.” Most notably, “Emma Borden sat with her gloved hand shading her eyes” and Lizzie’s face betrayed a slight “flush . . . which those who have studied her features have learned to know as an indication of emotion, and she carefully listened to every sentence as it was presented.”

What Bridget had to say was of critical importance to Knowlton’s strategy. Dr. Dolan had established, at the very least, that Abby was killed before Andrew. Bridget was the only other person known to be in the house with Lizzie between Andrew’s departure and the discovery of his body. She alone could rule out the possibility of an intruder happening upon an unlocked house and awaiting his opportunity to strike in the day. To that end, Bridget testified she had locked the screen door and the wooden door at the back of the house before she went to bed and found them still locked in the morning. Like the other members of the household, she, too, was ill the next morning and vomited in the backyard shortly after breakfast. She could not be certain that she had locked the screen door after her return to the house. Mrs. Borden had asked her to wash the windows, inside and out. Later in the morning, she heard Mr. Borden attempt to open the locked front door. As she opened the door for him, she heard Lizzie laugh at the top of the stairs. Lizzie asked her father about the mail and told him that Abby had gone out. While Andrew went into the sitting room for a nap, Lizzie ironed handkerchiefs in the dining room. She also told Bridget about a sale of dry goods at Sargent’s, advising her to go out and avail herself of the bargain.

Bridget’s testimony supported the prosecution’s argument that Lizzie was the only person with the opportunity to kill first Abby and then Andrew on August 4. Knowlton also wanted to emphasize that Lizzie had lied about the note Abby had received. Knowlton asked whether it was Abby’s “habit to notify you when she went out.” (It was.) Adams jumped up to object. Knowlton asked a different question to make a similar point: “Then the only thing you know about her going out was what Lizzie told you?” This time Jennings objected. Knowlton decided that was enough for the day. When the hearing resumed, Knowlton elicited two final pieces of information from Bridget. First, she testified that Lizzie had said she had heard a groan before coming back into the house to discover her father’s body. Second, she revealed that she had not seen Lizzie crying at any point on Thursday. The first provided an example of Lizzie’s shifting account of her actions on August 4; the second afforded Knowlton an opportunity to suggest Lizzie’s composure had sinister import.

Adams responded with a vigorous cross-examination, “directing the questions at the young woman with unprecedented rapidity.” Bridget Sullivan, however, “stood the ordeal very well and her stereotyped answers were ‘Yes, Sir.’ and ‘No, Sir.’?” He did not succeed in undermining her testimony, but Lizzie seemed to enjoy the performance, even emitting a “hearty laugh” when Adams compared Abby’s size to Knowlton’s bulk. Emma, however, was not amused: “She was decidedly nervous, shifting about in her seat and keeping her fan going.” From time to time, she whispered questions into Jennings’s ear.

After Bridget Sullivan’s testimony, court was adjourned for the weekend. The prosecution’s decision was strategic. The New York Times quoted police sources who emphasized the significance of Bridget’s testimony: “These officers say that the story of the servant shows how manifestly impossible it was for any one to enter or leave the house while Lizzie was alone with first her mother and then her father.” Adams nonetheless insisted that he was not worried: “He has also given it as his opinion, and he is one of the shrewdest criminal lawyers in the Bay State, that something far stronger than has yet been presented will have to be made public before the presiding Justice will be justified in holding Lizzie Borden for the Grand Jury.” John Milne, the owner of the Fall River Daily Evening News, the organ of the Fall River establishment, concurred: “There has been, up to the present, not a single item of evidence that can have weight against the defendant . . . [T]he only thing proved is what has been admitted by Miss Lizzie’s adherents from the first. She was alone at the time Mr. Borden was murdered and has no one to support her statement that she was not alone . . . the Government stands absolutely without a motive.”

Knowlton had not forgotten about the motive. But first he offered something far more explosive: Lizzie Borden’s attempt to buy poison the day before the murders. First, Eli Bence, the druggist at D. R. Smith’s, identified Lizzie as the woman who had attempted to buy prussic acid on August 3. When asked if he was certain, Eli Bence testified: “It was the first time I was ever asked for prussic acid in that manner.” Adams treated the witness to a full measure of disdain. He ridiculed Bence’s inability to recall what color dress the woman wore, whether she carried “a purse or bag,” and if she wore a veil or hat. Having purported to recognize Lizzie, in part, from her voice, he asked: “Do you make any pretensions to vocal culture?” and “Do you claim to have a particularly sensitive or educated ear for sounds?” Bence demurred. Adams asked, “What was the peculiarity about this voice?”