The Trial of Lizzie Borden(44)
FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1893
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By 7:00 a.m., a crowd of regulars and aspirants was on hand to join the rush for extra seats that Sheriff Wright made available to the public after 8:00 a.m. According to Joe Howard, the would-be spectators composed the most “extraordinary collection of women” he had ever seen, ranging from the refined to the positively unkempt. Depending upon the reporter’s vantage point, Lizzie Borden similarly embodied the range of well-being. To Howard, “Lizzie not only looked pale, she felt pale.” But Julian Ralph thought she was “as bright as a new dollar.” Regardless, the break in the heat held, and the day promised to be temperate.
Friday also saw the return of Assistant Marshal Fleet to the stand, followed by a succession of his police colleagues. Ever on the alert for evidence of police conspiracy, Joe Howard found something unsettling in the parade of blue: “Nearly every one who has taken an active part in the endeavor to fasten this awful crime upon Miss Borden has within the year been promoted, until now captains in Fall River must be as thick as flies in a cow pasture.” Knowlton and Moody sought to introduce the possible murder weapon, a hatchet with a handle newly broken close to the eye, and to establish that, despite the police search, no officer had seen the “paint-stained” dress Lizzie had burned. As police witness after police witness described the searches, the New York Times reported, “All the details of the affair were rehearsed with a painful exactness; all the scenes in and about that illfated house were presented in clear and almost startling colors.”
Before the prosecution could call the rest of the officers, it watched Assistant Marshal Fleet unravel on the stand. He explained that he noticed that one hatchet had its handle broken close to the steel blade, that the break was fresh, and that the handle was nowhere to be seen. He also observed that, unlike the other axes and hatchets in the cellar, ash rather than dust covered the blade and it looked as if someone might have been trying to remove bloodstains from it. Robinson pounced on seeming inconsistencies and omissions in Fleet’s testimony. He mocked Fleet for failing to list all the officers and reporters present at the scene so that, as he testified and amended his original list, it seemed as if new people were appearing from thin air. Robinson interrupted to remark: “Oh, he was there, was he? You haven’t told me about that.” Fleet lost his cool and replied, “There’s a good many things I haven’t told you.” Robinson insisted he list everyone else he could recall: Mr. Sawyer (the painter turned sentry) at the back door, Mr. Manning of the Fall River Daily Herald at the front door, Mr. Porter of the Fall River Daily Globe, Mr. Stevens of the Daily News, Mr. Clarkson at some point, and Mr. Donnelly the hack man. Pressed about how many police officers were in the cellar, he said, “There were so many officers there that I cannot think at the different times that I went into that place who the officers were.” Of the now infamous handleless hatchet, Fleet admitted that he had found it on his second trip to the cellar.
Robinson asked, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Fleet replied, “You didn’t ask me.” Asked to describe the condition of the handleless hatchet, Fleet insisted that the dust on the broken-handled hatchet looked like ash from the ash pile, not the fine dust on the other items. He noticed ashes on both sides of the blade head but did not recall seeing any on the break. So far, so good for the prosecution. But, the prior day, he had testified that he thought there had been dust or ash on the broken end.
Captain Phillip Harrington, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society
Robinson mockingly told him to take the pick of his two statements: “Let us have the one you like best this morning.” Then Robinson “dismissed the witness with a wave of his hand, as one might fling away an orange after tasting it and finding it insipid.” During this exchange, Lizzie watched like a spectator at a sporting match, leaning forward in her chair to catch every word.
Next came Phillip Harrington, promoted from patrolman to captain since the murders, who was one of the first officers on the scene. Even though he had known Andrew Borden for more than twenty years, he did not recognize the body on the sofa: Andrew Borden’s face was covered in blood and the blood was so fresh that “a small drop trickled down the side of the face.” Like other witnesses, he had been able to see Abby’s body as he ascended the stairs.
While upstairs, Harrington interviewed Lizzie Borden. Over Robinson’s objections, he described Borden as “cool” and “steady.” And then, most remarkably, he described Lizzie’s attire, a pink wrapper, minutely in a manner “creditable to a first class dressmaker.” According to Howard, “He gave the colors, the stripes, the cut-bias biz, the flutings of the bosom, the fittings to the figure, the trimming about the bottom, and continued in a blaze of glory about the entire circumference of what he called a bell skirt.” As Harrington spoke, Lizzie Borden hid her face in her fan and “her shoulders silently shook.” Then she could restrain herself no longer. She “laughed so that her body trembled with the convulsion. Her face was very rosy all over from the strain of her efforts to control herself.” Even Moody seemed amused, asking, “That finishes it, does it?” On cross-examination, Robinson peered over his half-spectacles and inquired, “Were you ever in the dressmaking business?” Julian Ralph commented that Harrington “could talk about dresses like an American Worth or a female society reporter.” Amazed women in the audience dubbed him “the tailor-made captain.” Joseph Howard sneered, “No one would have been surprised if he had drawn a mouchoir from a dainty satchel and deftly dusted the powder from his nose.” Of course, there was another, more sinister explanation for his facility with fashion: Harrington may have been reciting prepared remarks from memory.