The Trial of Lizzie Borden(35)

Having settled the floor plan, Moody then gave the jurors a minute accounting of the occupants’ movements on the morning of August 4. During the recitation, Lizzie Borden sat impassively. She might have been listening to a lecture or sermon. Moody’s dry remarks gathered power as he held aloft the possible murder weapon, a small hatchet, broken off at the base of its wooden handle. He dismissed two axes found in the basement as “so far out of the question that I need not waste any time on them.” He ruled out two hatchets originally thought to have human blood spots. Then he described the hatchet head in his right hand, found by an officer during the original search but then left in the basement. This hatchet, which would become known as the handleless hatchet, “was covered with an adhesion of ashes, not the fine dust which floats about the room where ashes are emptied, but a coarse dust of ashes adhering more or less to all sides of the hatchet.” Moreover, the break in the handle “was a new break and was a fresh break.” Calmly, Moody reached for a black bag, announcing “such parts of the mortal remains of the victims as would tend to throw light either in the protection of innocence or the detection of guilt have been preserved and must be presented here.” This was an unexpected moment of legal theater: What in heaven’s name was in the bag? “Moody made his grand coup,” in Howard’s words, “by opening very quietly an ordinary hand bag in which reposed side by side the skulls of the late Mr. and Mrs. Borden.”

Lizzie Borden swoons, Boston Globe



What the jury made of this unexpected exhibition we cannot know. But Lizzie Borden’s reaction generated headlines: she swooned! This, finally, was what everyone seemed to have been waiting for. The Fall River Daily Globe gleefully announced: “Lizzie Borden, the sphinx of coolness, who has so often been accused of never manifesting a feminine feeling, had fainted.” The Globe continued, with a hint of schadenfreude: “[P]erhaps it was preliminary to a collapse.” Others saw it as proof of her femininity, long masked by her extraordinary nerve, and a natural response. “With the same undemonstrativeness that is her peculiarity she had yielded to more than she could endure,” said Julian Ralph. Describing what he called “the singular and awful misery of her position,” Ralph continued: “Whatever she may have done she is a woman, a being who for thirty-two years of her life pursued the quiet and sheltered routine of a maiden of good family.” Howard, for his part, offered physical reasons for the episode: “The heat is terrible, the humidity unendurable and the atmosphere sultriness embodied.” He added, “Superuncomfortable, then, as she would be were she an ordinary woman, a spectator and listener only, what must she not endure as Lizzie Borden, the target for every eye . . . No wonder she fainted. The only wonder is she ever recovered.”

Nonetheless, Lizzie Borden’s incapacity was short-lived. Deputy Sheriff Kirby jostled her arm but “he might as well have shaken a pump handle.” More effective was Reverend Jubb’s timely administration of smelling salts, secreted in Lizzie Borden’s own pocket. After resting her head upon the rail in front of her seat and sipping some water, she regained her composure. Her color, however, remained poor and her face glistened with perspiration. Less than five minutes later the trial resumed.

Next came Thomas Kieran, an engineer responsible for the house plans and other diagrams to be used as exhibits in the prosecution’s case. A tall man, Kieran stood with perfect posture as he took the oath, the only discordant note in his appearance “a little tuft of coal black hair in the middle of his forehead.” Moody questioned him about the distances between the Borden house and the police station—all of 1,300 feet—as well as to other relevant destinations, all measured to help establish timelines. This, however, was a mere appetizer for the twelve men of the jury. They were instructed to go to Fall River and “take the view, not only of the interior and exterior of the Borden house, but of such other points as to which there will be a testimony.” The chief judge intoned: “It will not be proper for you to ask questions, or for the counsel to make any statements. You are to keep all together, and all are to see what any of you see.” Four policemen swore that they would allow no one except Mr. Moody or Mr. Jennings to speak with them on that trip.

Jury touring crime scene, Boston Globe



If they thought it would be a joyful excursion, they underestimated both the weather and the government’s “rage for economy.” From the courthouse, the jurors assumed what had already become their accustomed formation, trooping under supervision to their hotel “through red-hot streets, beneath the rays of a boiling, blistering sun.” After lunch, the jurors and their escorts left New Bedford at 1:15 p.m. on a train that had been held for their arrival. No special transportation awaited them in Fall River. As in New Bedford, jurors again marched from the train station to the Borden house despite the full heat of the midday sun. According to Joe Howard, “The heat was so intense in the city of factories as to make New Bedford’s blisterings seem almost bearable.” He added, “Even the farmers were unable to bear the oppressive humidity, and gladly availed themselves of palm fans.” Robinson was better prepared: he opened an umbrella to shield himself from the full force of the sun. The jurors, said the Fall River Daily Globe, resembled “a convict chain gang under guard.” The slow-moving procession was, however, a boon to spectators: “It was a kind of holiday in Fall River to the population, to which were added many hundreds from adjacent towns.” More than 350 spectators awaited the jury’s arrival at the Borden house on Second Street.