The Trial of Lizzie Borden(25)

Fearing a scoop by a rival paper, Trickey’s superiors at the Boston Globe also chose not to conduct any investigation and rushed the tale into print. Within ten hours, the editors knew it was a hoax. On October 12, the Boston Globe retracted the story and offered a “heartfelt apology” to Lizzie Borden “for this inhuman reflection upon her honor as a woman, and for any injustice the publication of Monday inflicted upon her.” Trickey left Boston to confront McHenry, declaring that there would be a “funeral in Providence if he ever laid his eyes on him.” But less than two months later, it was he who was dead. Having fled to Canada to escape an indictment for his role in the affair, Trickey fell under the wheels of a westbound train near Hamilton, Ontario. Attorney General Pillsbury did not trust the initial report of his death. He instructed an officer to make sure “that it is actually Trickey who was killed.” He had known the reporter “pretty well” and considered Trickey “to be capable of a number of things.”

Though viewed widely as the “moving spirit” in the affair, McHenry found support from Marshal Hilliard, who “found McHenry a capable, reliable, and trustworthy officer.” McHenry, though, had been responsible for unearthing other sensational tidbits that were perhaps too good to be true. He reported that, according to two milliners on Fourth Street, Lizzie Borden had been “practicing in a gymnasium for a long time and . . . boasted of the strength she possessed.” He did, however, track down the source of an intriguing statement purportedly made by Adelaide Churchill “that there was one thing she saw in the house the day of the murder, that she would never repeat, even if they tore her tongue out.” Unhelpfully, the source was “one George Wiley, a clerk in the Troy Mill,” who was passing along second-or thirdhand gossip. McHenry claimed he was never properly compensated for all of his hard work on the Borden case: “I plodded through in silence, and where is my reward?” he lamented to a fellow journalist.

As to the substance of the Trickey-McHenry Affair, newspapers of all persuasions took a collective vow of silence. As Porter put it, “So delicate in fact has the matter become that no newspaper has attempted to publish anything more than an occasional reference to it; although more than one great daily is in possession of the main facts.” Despite the day of turmoil for the Borden team, the hoax made Lizzie Borden a figure of sympathy, especially in the pages of a chastened Boston Globe.





A TRUE BILL




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The legal machinery ground on: the grand jury of twenty-three men drawn from the county voting rolls commenced its investigation on November 15. The preliminary hearing had determined there was sufficient evidence to try the defendant in superior court; the grand jury’s role was to decide whether or not to indict, or formally charge, the defendant with a particular crime. As one jurist explained, “In Massachusetts the grand jury is, and always was, merely an informing and accusatory body: it does not hear criminal cases on the merits; it does not determine guilt or innocence.” In the normal procedure, the prosecutor presents evidence to support an indictment; the defense plays no role in the proceedings. But Knowlton, in a departure from the standard practice, offered Jennings an opportunity to present evidence for the defense. Perhaps he hoped he would be relieved of the responsibility to prosecute Lizzie Borden. Nonetheless, on December 2, 1892, the Grand Jury indicted Lizzie Borden for the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, one of fourteen indictments for murder in Massachusetts that year. In legal parlance, it returned a “true bill” on three different indictments: one for the murder of Andrew Borden, a second for the murder of Abby Borden, and a third for the murder of both Andrew and Abby Borden. Knowlton reported to Pillsbury that the jury’s vote to indict had been “substantial but not unanimous.” In keeping with the secrecy of the procedure, he did “not even know how any man voted.”

Governor George D. Robinson, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society



Jennings may have failed to influence the grand jury, but he was not idle. He hired another legal luminary, George D. Robinson, a former Republican congressman and former governor of Massachusetts. Robinson’s name, the Boston Sunday Herald would observe, “is almost a household word . . . and he can well be termed one of the most popular men in the state.” Another newspaper described him as “an old fashioned type”: “His build shows that he loves the good things of life, and his face shows that he thinks and works hard.” A large, distinguished-looking man, Robinson, like the dapper Melvin Adams, displayed his figure to advantage in well-tailored suits. But, for all his sartorial finery, he had the common touch, renowned for standing before the jury in a relaxed posture as if he had dropped by to chat. It came naturally to him. Robinson may have been a Harvard man but he had not been born to an easy life. As a boy, he worked on his father’s farm. After college, he spent nine years as a teacher, holding the position of principal of Chicopee High School before he became a lawyer. His habit of unpretentious clarity and “calm cheerfulness” served him well. In addition to his fame and legal skill, he was credited with “an extended knowledge of human nature possessed by but few professional men.” Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Antony, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge declared in tribute: “He was the plain, blunt man who spoke right on; and he was a master of this most difficult and telling kind of oratory. He was no phrase-maker, no rounder of periods, no seeker for metaphors; but he was one of the most effective and convincing speakers, whether to Congress, to a great popular audience, or to a jury, that I ever listened to . . . He used simple language and clear sentences. . . . He had, above all, the rare and most precious faculty of making his hearers feel that he was putting into words just what they had always thought, but had never been able to express quite so well.” He also knew his own worth. His purported $25,000 fee belied his folksy manner. (Jennings and Adams were each rumored to earn $15,000 apiece.)