The Trial of Lizzie Borden(47)

Captain Dennis Desmond confirmed Medley’s description of the handleless hatchet. He saw a small amount of wood in the eye of the hatchet where the handle had been broken off. He agreed that the hatchet head was covered with a coarse material, “a loose, rough matter” rather than ordinary dust found elsewhere in the cellar. Then he testified that he had wrapped the hatchet in a large newspaper, paper that was at hand in the water closet, rather than the brown paper Medley had mentioned. Robinson seized on this point—Medley had just testified that he had wrapped up the hatchet head. In Howard’s estimation, Robinson was “tremulous with excitement internally, but sweet as a day in June externally” as he let Desmond describe the wrapping “until the unsuspecting captain had cut off all possibility of retreat from his position.” By the end, even the officers’ descriptions of the package brought to Marshal Hilliard did not match. Not only was the outer covering different, but, as a reporter later explained, one officer described a package the size of a “five cent cut of pie” and the other described a parcel large enough for a “pair of longshoreman’s boots.”

Robinson tried to pin Desmond down about the purpose of his later searches. But Desmond dodged the question: “I cannot tell you what I was looking for. I was looking for anything that would throw any light.” He had already testified that he found no paint-stained dresses. Robinson did win one point: Desmond agreed that everyone in the house cooperated with the searches. In Robinson’s words, it was “an absolute, unrestrained, and complete search of everything in the house.”

George Seaver was the final police witness. Unlike the others, he was a member of the state district police in Taunton. He, too, went to the Borden house on August 4 and was part of the Saturday search of the house. He searched the garret with Captain Desmond. He also joined in the search of the cellar: he testified that the hatchet was covered with a coarse dust or ashes but that the break was a new one, “a very bright break.” He had been a carpenter; he knew about wood. Unfortunately, he could not identify the type of wood of the remaining part of the handle, a fact Robinson repeated with some relish. “Well, look—a carpenter!” remarked Robinson.

According to his testimony, Seaver joined Fleet in examining the dresses in the clothes closet. Seaver took the dresses off the hooks and passed them to Fleet who was positioned near the window so that he could examine them in the light. Fleet had earlier testified that he hardly looked at the dresses, yet it seemed that he had been able to examine them more thoroughly than Seaver. Moody asked if Seaver would have seen a paint-stained dress if it had been there, but Robinson quickly interjected and the question was struck. Seaver opined that he examined twelve to fifteen dresses but could not recall seeing a blue dress—even though Lizzie and Emma together owned ten blue dresses. And he had lost his memorandum about the dresses. Seaver also joined Dr. Dolan in measuring the blood splatter, yet it seemed he had mislaid that memorandum as well.

Unfortunately for the prosecution, its own witnesses contradicted each other about key facts in the discovery of the hatchet and the search of Lizzie’s dresses. Most important, it seemed that either Fleet or Mullaly had lied about finding the hatchet handle. Howard declared: “There has never been a trial so full of surprises, with such marvelous contradictions, given by witnesses called for a common purpose.” There were other serious discrepancies: First, Medley and Desmond gave vastly different descriptions of the wrapping of the hatchet head. Second, Fleet and Desmond appeared to differ on whether the search of the household was thorough. Finally, there was, in the eyes of some, “a conspicuousity” of Bridget Sullivan in the above events. It was Bridget, according to the officers, who led them to the box containing the hatchet in the basement. According to Mullaly, Bridget handed him the hatchet, though she had testified that she had never touched it. Bridget, too, had blue dresses that were not given the same scrutiny as those of Lizzie Borden’s. Howard also wondered about the daytime theft, tantalizingly mentioned but then struck from the record. “What does Bridget Sullivan know about the burglary of the Borden house?” But, for the moment, there would be no answers.

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The court adjourned until Monday, June 12, at 9:00 a.m. Lizzie Borden returned to jail in a black coupe. To catch a glimpse of the famous prisoner on her short trip, spectators in carriages and wagons lined both sides of the street. According to Elizabeth Jordan, even “the sidewalks on both sides of the street were packed with people all the way down to the jail, standing as close together as they comfortably could.” But the curtains of Lizzie Borden’s conveyance were discreetly drawn to frustrate the gawkers. Once back at the jail, Lizzie ate “a New England dinner, with all the trimmings, apparently feeling 100 percent better than she did yesterday.” She would spend her weekend in the soothing company of David Copperfield. Julian Ralph approved: “The genius of Charles Dickens” served her better than “talking with visitors about the murders which she did or did not do.”

Chief Judge Mason and Judge Blodgett left town for the rest of the week, their eyes shining “with the gleam of domestic hope,” leaving their colleague Judge Dewey to prepare for the arguments on Monday. That afternoon, however, Judge Dewey took a break. He was spotted relaxing on a rock in nearby Buzzards Bay. By contrast, “The jurors were bundled into an omnibus . . . driven down to the Point and back again in less than an hour, given their suppers, and securely locked in their superheated heated rooms not only without spirituous refreshments, but without any possible enlivenments.” As Julian Ralph observed, “Queen Victoria might die, New York could burn up or Boston . . . but the jury would know nothing of it.” And in a worrying development, the jurors planned to attend church on Sunday but they disagreed on their preferred minister, “thereby preventing all hands from attending religious service of any kind.”