The Trial of Lizzie Borden(55)

Unlike Dolan, Wood gave his testimony in complete paragraphs “as though lecturing to a class, impressing every hearer with its factualness.” First, he examined the stomachs, detailing their contents and concluding that Andrew’s digestion was more advanced than Abby’s. What he had seen chimed with other estimates of their respective times of death. He calculated that Andrew had lived about an hour and a half longer. He had found no poison in the stomachs, nor had he found any in the milk from August 3 or August 4. To rule out different rates of blood absorption in the upstairs and downstairs carpet samples, he performed a ghoulish experiment: “I opened an artery in the leg of a dog, and let about an ounce or two of blood flow upon both pieces of carpet, and I found they absorbed with equal rapidity.”

Wood then turned to the weaponry. He was sent a claw-hammer hatchet with a handle that fit the wounds imperfectly. He subjected the stains on the claw-hammer hatchet “to chemical tests and microscopic tests for the presence of blood, with absolute negative results.” Knowlton interrupted him to ask whether the hatchet could have been used and then cleaned. Wood averred that the hatchet “could not have been washed quickly” because of “cavities in between the head and handle . . . in front and behind.” With the irritation befitting an eminent professor dealing with a remedial student, he added, “I have already pointed them out.” As for the hair found on the hatchet, he found only one in the envelope, not two, and concluded it was animal hair, likely belonging to a cow. Howard gleefully wrote that the neighboring cow then “broke forth into a long and most emphatic wail, just as the expert on the stand testified.”

Wood had more to say about the other hatchet he examined, the now infamous handleless hatchet the prosecution believed was the likely murder weapon. He discussed “a white film upon both sides . . . adherent tightly . . . in little cavities here in the rusty surface . . . white dirt, like ashes.” As for whether the hatchet could have been cleaned, Wood agreed that it could have been before the handle was broken. These questions prompted repeated objections from Adams. Wood was allowed to answer and further testified that it could not have been broken for long or it would have been “darker and dirtier.” On cross-examination, Adams pointed out the “slot on the inner edge of the head” and suggested that “it would be quite a place to clean.” Wood agreed. Adams also suggested a plausible explanation for the layer of white dust—it could have fallen into damp ashes.

Wood then moved on to the clothing he had been sent. Except for the white under skirt, he had found no blood. He testified that he found a tiny blood spot—even smaller than the one-sixteenth of an inch estimated—measuring exactly one-thirty-two-forty-third of an inch (1/3243) on the under skirt. It was “thicker upon the outside than upon the inside,” leading him to hypothesize that it “probably came on to the skirt from the outside . . . and not from the inside.” However, he could not rule out a natural source for the blood spot. On cross-examination, Adams asked if he could exclude menstrual blood. Wood replied that he could not.

The issue of menstruation was a critical point, yet neither the defense nor the prosecution wished to emphasize it. Joe Howard set the tone, writing with uncharacteristic vagueness of the blood spot, “The defense claim, for reasons not necessary to publish . . . that this blood is natural.” During Assistant Marshal Fleet’s testimony, Robinson introduced the subject of the toilet pail in the cellar and said: “It is agreed that the pail contains the napkins which had been worn within a day or two by the defendant—ordinary monthly sickness—and as to that fact that is all we propose to put in. We do not care to go into the details. It is also agreed that the sickness ended Wednesday night.” Robinson was content to let that fact explain the bloody towels soaking in the cellar toilet pail as well as the spot of blood on Lizzie’s inner skirt and to move quickly on. But the prosecution’s reluctance to explore the issue was surprising. Menstruation, according to medical experts, made women vulnerable to criminal impulses. When Doherty began to describe the pail of bloody towels found during his search of the cellar, Moody curtly interrupted, “Pass from those.” Even Borden’s suspicious nocturnal visit to the cellar the night after the murders, recounted by Officer Hyde earlier that day, was largely assumed to be related to her “monthly illness.” Despite the potential significance of the evidence, the men all let the matter drop; they averted their gaze from the contents of the pail as if it would require staring into the abyss.

Though neither side wished to explore the bloody contents of the pail, they were quite happy to discuss blood spatter. The defense sought to make the crimes as bloody as possible—given the lack of blood found on Lizzie. But Wood was initially unhelpful. He insisted that, given the nature of the blows, blood “might spatter in any direction and might not spatter in every direction.” So perhaps the assailant would not have been covered with blood. On cross-examination, Adams methodically worked through the likely scenarios to demonstrate that the murderer could not have avoided blood spatter. Wood agreed that, if Andrew’s assailant had been standing behind him, then “I don’t see how he could avoid being spattered” above the waist. Also, if one assumed the assailant stood astride Abby, there would have been blood spatter over the lower part of the body. Like Dolan before him, then, Wood finally agreed that the murders were a bloody affair. By the end of the day, Howard expressed his frustration with the medical witnesses: “Witness after witness goes over the same story, describes that with which the jury are nauseatingly familiar, proving again and again facts about which there is no dispute, that the Bordens are dead, that they were brutally murdered, that there was blood all over the place, that they had eaten a mild and moderate breakfast, all of which was found in their several intestinal parts, some digested and some not—and that’s all.”