The Trial of Lizzie Borden(5)

Though the incident was officially forgotten—or suppressed—by the police and by the Bordens, Andrew Borden left the household with a daily reminder of his suspicion. He locked his bedroom every day and then left the key in the sitting room in plain sight. Because the house had no central halls, the upstairs bedrooms opened onto each other. The elder Bordens also securely locked their connecting door, which opened into Lizzie’s room. (Emma’s room was only accessible through Lizzie’s room.) For her part, Lizzie moved furniture to block her side of the connecting doors. As a result, the Borden house may have been the most elaborately secured domicile in town, for the front door was triple-locked and family members elaborately locked and unlocked their bedrooms and bureaus throughout the day.

Abby was acutely aware of her stepdaughters’ feelings, but it was not until August 2, 1892, two days before her death, that she considered them life-threatening. Despite the oppressive heat of summer, the Bordens ate leftover swordfish. That evening, the elder Bordens spent a nauseated, sleepless night and Bridget and Lizzie experienced a milder form of the same malady. Emma was not at home; she had been away for nearly two weeks visiting friends in Fairhaven. Though such incidents were common in Fall River—they were colloquially known as “the summer complaint”—Abby did not view her distress as typical. Instead, on the following morning, she went across the street to her doctor’s house and confided that she thought she had been poisoned. Learning of their fish dinner, Dr. Seabury Bowen was not alarmed, but he did accompany Abby back across the street to examine Andrew, who refused his medical expertise. In fact, the Borden patriarch stood angrily on the threshold, blocking Dr. Bowen’s entrance and shouting that he would not pay the doctor for the visit.

The subject might have remained closed, but the household—with the exception of Lizzie—fell ill again that evening after a meal of mutton stew. The prosecutor would later argue that the happenstance of food poisoning “was an illness suggestive of an opportunity to a person desiring to procure the deaths of one or other of those people.” That same evening, Lizzie paid a call on her friend and former neighbor Alice Russell and confided her fears. She believed the milk had been poisoned and alluded to nebulous threats against her father by unnamed men. Alice Russell was a sensible woman and she pointed out the absurdity of Lizzie’s fears. Despite Miss Russell’s reassurance, Lizzie spoke of her uneasiness and sense of foreboding, remarking: “I feel as if something was hanging over me that I cannot throw off, and it comes over me at times, no matter where I am.” She added: “I don’t know but somebody will do something.”





Chapter 2


AN INCREDIBLE CRIME





Front of Borden house on Second Street, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society



On the morning of August 4, 1892, Adelaide Churchill looked out her kitchen window and saw her next-door neighbor Lizzie Borden standing just inside the Bordens’ screen door. The daughter of a former mayor, now reduced to taking in boarders, she kept a sharp eye trained on the neighborhood. Concerned, she opened her window and called out, “What is the matter?”

Lizzie Borden replied, “Oh, Mrs. Churchill, do come over. Someone has killed father.”

Side steps of Borden house, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society





HORRIBLE BUTCHERY




* * *



It was an inconvenient day for any crime; the bulk of the police force was off at Rocky Point near Providence, Rhode Island, enjoying their annual picnic. Chief Marshal Rufus Hilliard, however, was on duty. A large, handsome man with a commanding presence, Hilliard was just the person for the crisis. But when he received the telephone call alerting him to “trouble at the Borden house,” he had no idea that he was dealing with anything special. Serious violent crime was rare in Fall River. At most, he expected some kind of disturbance. Drawing from his depleted reserve, he sent a single officer to the house. Patrolman George Allen ran part of the way and made the trip in less than four minutes. What he found was both horrible and bizarre: Andrew Borden had been, as a local newspaper would report, “hacked to pieces.” Yet, for all the carnage, there were no signs of disturbance in the house, nor was the murder weapon anywhere in sight. Though the house was on a busy thoroughfare within earshot of the center of town, no one—including the surviving members of the household—had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. Allen pressed a nosy passerby, an ornamental painter named Charles Sawyer, into service as a guard and ran back to the station house for assistance. Sawyer would regret his prying after spending a full seven hours on sentry duty, all the while in fear of the murderer’s return to the scene of the crime.

Plan of Borden house and yard, E. H. Porter, The Fall River Tragedy, 1893, collection of the author



While waiting for the police to arrive, Adelaide Churchill became the first person to ask Lizzie Borden: “Where were you?” Lizzie replied that she had been in the barn looking for a piece of iron—to make a sinker (a weight for a fishing line)—and had come back to the house to investigate after hearing a strange noise. Mrs. Churchill then inquired about Mrs. Borden. Lizzie responded that Abby had received a note from a sick friend and gone out.

Marshal Rufus Hilliard, courtesy of Fall River Historical Society