Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

THE TRIALS of LIZZIE BORDEN

Lizzie Borden was involved in four legal proceedings; in only one did she give direct testimony. That was during the inquest, and it was on the basis of that strange testimony, partly curt and partly digressive, that she was held over for a grand jury hearing, a preliminary hearing and finally, the murder trial itself.

The inquest was held on August 10, 1892, six days after the murder. It was suspended by Judge Blaisell the following day. Presumably, he had heard enough to have Lizzie arrested that night. Lizzie Borden's inquest testimony is important because it is the only legal record of her view of the facts that fateful morning of August 4. However, her view of the facts as an eye witness to the events of the day only added more confusion to the mystery. Her comments started out dryly enough. When Prosecuting Attorney Knowlton asked, "Were you always cordial with your stepmother?" Lizzie countered, "That depends upon one's idea of cordiality (Sullivan, 212-213)." When asked to elaborate, Lizzie embarked on a freeform stream of consciousness, making it difficult to follow her train of thought.

I always went to my sister. She was older than I was. I don't know but that my father and stepmother were happily united. I never knew of any difficulty between them, and they seemed to be affectionate. The day they were killed I had on a blue dress. I changed it in the afternoon and put on a print dress. Mr. Morse came into our house whenever he wanted to. He has been here once since the river was frozen over. I don't know how often he came to spend the nights, because I had been away so much. I have not been away much during the year (Sullivan, 213).

Such apparent contradictions continue in her account of her father's return from his morning rounds:

I was in the kitchen reading when my father returned. I stayed in my room long enough to sew a piece of lace on a garment. That was before he came back. I don't know where Maggie [Lizzie's name for Bridget] was. I think she let my father in, and that he rang the bell. I understood Maggie to say he said he had forgotten his key. I think I was upstairs when my father came in, and I think I was on the stairs when he entered (213).

The district attorney asked Lizzie if she was in the kitchen reading or on the stairs when her father returned. Lizzie's reply was, "You have asked me so many questions, I don't know what I have said (214)." Perhaps the most intriguing piece of Lizzie's testimony was her barn alibi, which accounted for her whereabouts during the 20-minute span in which her father was being murdered:

When I went out to the barn I left him on the sofa. The last thing I said was to ask him if he wanted the window left that way. Then I went to the barn to get some lead for a sinker. I went upstairs in the barn. There was a bench there which contained some lead. I unhooked the screen door when I went out. I don't know when Bridget got through washing the windows inside. I knew she washed the windows outside. I knew she didn't wash the kitchen windows, but I didn't know whether she washed the sitting room windows or not. I thought the flats [flatirons] would be hot by the time I got back. I had no fishing apparatus, but there was some at the farm. It is five years since I used the fish line. I don't think there were any fish lines suitable for use at the farm (Sullivan, 214-215).

Here, District Attorney Knowlton interrupted Lizzie: "What! Did you think you would find sinkers in the barn (215)?" Lizzie replied in the affirmative. Her father had told her that there "was lead and nails in the barn." Knowlton asked, "Did you do nothing besides look for sinkers in the twenty minutes?" Lizzie answered, "Yes, sir, I ate some pears." He asked, "Would it take you all that time to eat a few pears?" Calmly, Lizzie replied, "I do not do things in a hurry (215)."
Unless the Bordens had been killed by two different murderers, coincidentally using similar murder weapons on the same day, the real murderer would not have hurried. There would have been time after Abby Borden was killed around 9 a.m. for the killer to sit down and read a magazine or perhaps eat pears until Andrew Borden came home and was killed at 11:30.

Evidently, Judge Blaisell heard enough to suspend the inquest and immediately begin a preliminary hearing. Lizzie was arrested the evening of the suspended inquest, Thursday, August 11, and arraigned the following morning. The purpose of the preliminary hearing was to determine "probable cause." All Judge Blaisell needed to hear was enough circumstantial evidence to warrant having the accused stand trial. The inquest testimony of Dr. Bowen and Mr . Bence concerning poison, as well as Lizzie's own ominous accounts, had already persuaded the judge that Lizzie was the prime suspect. Therefore, the preliminary hearing was a mere formality. In fact, Judge Blaisell suspended the inquest where he was presiding in order to preside over the arraignment that held Lizzie Borden without bail in Taunton Jail until her trial 10 months later. Although Judge Blaisell was well within his rights to officiate at both legal proceedings, some have questioned the probity of this decision. Lizzie's attorney, Andrew Jennings, asked that the judge recuse himself since he had already heard the inquest testimony and therefore was prejudiced. Judge Blaisell declined to disqualify himself, causing himself to be blasted from the pulpit and pilloried in the press (Sullivan, 49).

Now begins the period of Lizzie Borden's greatest popularity. During the inquest, the preliminary hearing, the grand jury hearing and the trial for murder, Lizzie became the favorite of several ministries, a cause celebre of the burgeoning women's movement and the darling of a variety of big city newsrooms up and down the eastern seaboard. News reporters from all over Massachusetts, as well as Boston, New York and Baltimore, converged on Fall River hoping to get a scoop. Usually, all they got was the tableau of Lizzie supported by her two faithful clergymen, Reverend Jubb and Reverend Buck. These men of the cloth led the parade of supporters including members of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement Suffragettes and the Women's Auxiliary of the YMCA (Pearson, 232-233).

Unfortunately, the lull of information during the week between the murders and the inquest became so maddening to the men of the fourth estate that desperate, unsubstantiated rumors made their way into headlines. The Trickey affair is a case in point. Edwin D. McHenry was a private detective who sold to a trusting young reporter named Trickey the big scoop: the names of the witnesses to be called in the grand jury hearing, along with the revelation that Lizzie Borden was -- pregnant! According to one witness, Andrew Borden had been heard shouting, "I will know the name of the man who got you in trouble (Lincoln, 222)!" The Boston Globe, upon McHenry's urging, published the news without checking the facts. In 24 hours, they were printing retractions. The names on the list that McHenry gave Trickey were fraudulent, and by implication the news of Lizzie's nascent motherhood was, too. Trickey ran across the Canadian border to escape prosecution and was promptly run over by a train. The Boston Globe apologized profusely to Miss Borden in print and remained a friend to her throughout her legal proceedings (Sullivan, 189 191). On the other hand, the Fall River Daily Globe, seeing itself as the defender of the people, blasted the Bordens as elitist oppressors of the poor (Reach, 60). From the publicity engendered by these two views, the Borden case gained great notoriety here and abroad from the inquest six days after the murders to the trial 10 months later.

On November 7, 1892, the grand jury was assembled to determine if sufficient evidence had been gathered to warrant a trial by jury. The hearing lasted until November 21, when the grand jury reconvened to hear the testimony of Miss Alice Russell, Lizzie's friend and confidante on the night before the murders. Upon this new testimony, three indictments were returned against Lizzie Borden: one charged her with the murder of Andrew Borden, the second charged her with the murder of Abby Borden and the third charged her with the murder of both (Sullivan, 55).

What was the additional testimony that Lizzie's friend Alice Russell offered? It was the news of a burned dress. One of the great mysteries of the Borden case is how Lizzie committed the crimes (if, indeed, she did) without spilling blood upon herself and her clothes. From the time Lizzie first called Bridget downstairs and sent her for a doctor to the time the police arrived, Lizzie was clean and tidy. Furthermore, no bloodstained dress of Lizzie's was ever found. However, on December 1, Alice Russell testified that three days after the murders she was fixing breakfast at the Bordens' for Lizzie and Emma, and when she went into the kitchen she saw Lizzie at the stove with the remains of a dress in her hand. Emma Borden, who was at the kitchen sink, turned to Lizzie and asked what she was going to do. Lizzie answered, "I'm going to burn this old thing up. It is covered with paint." Alice Russell told her, "I'm afraid, Lizzie, that the worst thing you could have done was to burn that dress. I have been asked about your dresses." To this, Lizzie exclaimed, "Oh, what made you let me do it (Sullivan, 100-101)?"

Miss Russell's last-minute revelation was only a foretaste of what was to come the following June. The murder trial itself was filled with humor, histrionics and surprising upsets. Of the three presiding justices, Mason, Blodgett and Dewey, Albert Mason was chief justice. Justice Justin Dewey proved the most notorious with his infamously loaded summation to the jury. The attorneys for the defense were the best money could buy: Andrew J. Jennings of local prominence in Fall River, Melvin O. Adams of Boston and the Honorable George D. Robinson, governor emeritus of Massachusetts (1884-1887). While Lizzie Borden enjoyed the services of three distinguished attorneys, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was ably represented with two distinguished prosecuting attorneys: Hosea M. Knowlton and William H. Moody. Knowlton himself was a reluctant litigator, almost apologetic in the prosecution of the state's case against Lizzie. On the other hand, Moody was a dynamic young lawyer who would rise in time to the Supreme Court of the United States. Moody provided the pyrotechnics in the opening statement so forcefully that the defendant fainted. After holding up the dress offered as evidence, Moody tossed it on the table with a flourish, knocking over an open handbag from which two skulls fell out. According to Joseph Howard of the Boston Globe:

The sight of those skulls was pregnant with meaning and Mr. Moody's description of their gashed and hacked mutilations must have intensified the vividness of the scene to the inner consciousness of the prisoner who then without sigh, or gasp, or convulsive movement, dropped her head and slid upon her official companion, her face blue red with congestive symptoms, an inert, consciousless mass of inanimate flesh (Sullivan, 76).

These skulls mysteriously vanished shortly after the trial, never to be seen again. Recently, forensic scientist James E. Starrs claimed to have discovered the whereabouts of the skulls. Using radar, he has located what appears to be the missing skulls "about three feet above the rest of the remains of the Bordens," in Fall River's Oak Grove Cemetery (Stuart, A-8). Whoever stole the skulls remains a mystery.

With the skulls holding everyone's attention, the Prosecution in its opening statement promised the jury that it would show that the accused had a predisposition to commit murder, the exclusive opportunity to commit the murders and the consciousness of guilt afterwards in the lies she told. The first witnesses for the Prosecution were minor ones: an engineer and photographer who testified as to the layout of the house and photographs of the murder victims. Then Uncle John Morse took the stand. Uncle John was not much help to either the Prosecution or the Defense. He was too vague on detail, even in knowing Lizzie's correct age. Morse did cause the courtroom to break out in laughter when the Defense asked him if it had been a good breakfast served to him on that hot August morning. "Plenty of it!" he affirmed (Radin, 113). However, he caused a shudder through the courtroom with his description of Abby Borden's corpse: "I went up far enough so I could look under the bed where I slept the night before, and I saw Mrs. Borden lying there with blood on her face (Radin, 112)."

Following Uncle John Morse were witnesses establishing the time period when Andrew Borden was in town on business. Shortsleeves and Mather testified to his odd behavior in picking up the broken lock. Once these preliminaries were out of the way, key witnesses began to give conflicting testimonies on key evidence concerning the two-piece dress, the hatchet and the heat in the barn.

Bridget Sullivan, Lizzie's maid whom she called "Maggie," was called several times to the witness stand where she gave often confusing and conflicting testimony. At one point, she completely denied testimony she had given in the inquest about the family's eating habits (Radin, 120). Also, she hedged many of her statements to avoid saying anything definite. According to Sullivan, "Bridget then said that she never did say that Lizzie was crying at any time. Notwithstanding a plain inference by Robinson, the cross-examiner, that she had made the statement at the inquest, Bridget insisted that she had not (92)." Many years later in Butte, Montana, Bridget supposedly made a deathbed confession to Minnie Green, her old friend from Ireland. Bridget told her friend that she had received money from Lizzie in exchange for her help at the trial. According to Lincoln:

She had always liked Lizzie, she told Minnie she had always felt herself on the girl's side in the dimly understood troubles in that house. So she helped her out in the trial. And still she had not said one single word that was not true, not a word. Lizzie was thankful to her, and Lizzie's lawyer made her promise to stay in Ireland and never come back (313).

Considering her circumlocutions on the witness stand, one only wonders what Bridget withheld . Testifying that "she never did say that Lizzie was crying" is not the same as saying Lizzie cried, just as "not saying one single word that was not true" is not the same as telling the truth.

There is no better example of Bridget's blarney than her testimony concerning the dress that Lizzie wore the day of the murders. Not only could none of the principals agree upon the dress, even Borden experts cannot agree upon the testimony given. Pearson writes, "All of these witnesses were questioned about the dress which Miss Borden was wearing when they first saw her after the murders. Dr. Bowen's testimony was confused Mrs. Churchill described it as 'a light blue and white ground work, with a dark navy blue diamond on it (Pearson, 248)." Officer Mullaly testified, "I thought she had on a light blue. I thought there was a small figure on the dress, a little spot, like (Sullivan, 113)." These two witnesses described, in essence, the dress Alice Russell saw Lizzie burn. On the other hand, the doctor's wife, Phoebe, identified the dark blue dress Lizzie had given to the police as the one worn the morning of the murders (Radin, 168). Bridget's own answer to the question differs depending on which expert is read. According to Lincoln, Bridget hedged, "It wasn't a calico that the girl was in the habit of wearing mornings (236)." Edward Radin records Bridget's response to be, "No, sir, I couldn't tell what dress the girl had on (117)." But Robert Sullivan reports Bridget saying, "Lizzie was wearing at that time a blue dress with a sprig in it. It was light blue. The sprig was darker blue than the dress (85)." By all accounts the dress Sullivan has Bridget describing was the Bedford cord Alice Russell watched Lizzie burn. Yet, incredibly, this evidence was completely ignored by the Prosecution, the judges, later experts and even Robert Sullivan, who records it without comment.

The confusion over the dress is no doubt understandable considering the witnesses were asked to recall a detail from 10 months previous. Another reason might be that both dresses were worn. Lincoln suggests that, "A woman with a terrible reason to hide the blue 'wrapper' might have been driven by desperation to put on a winter party dress in which to go out that hot day and establish her alibi simply because it also was two-piece (93-94)." Lizzie dressing partly in cheap, light blue cotton and partly in dark, expensive silk had baffled them all, including Bridget.

If Bridget allowed herself to be misled, she was not the only one. Dr. Bowen was another sympathetic bystander, very much involved in impeding the investigation, especially by manning the door to Lizzie's bedroom when the police wished to search the premises. At the trial, Deputy Marshal John Fleet testified:

I went to Lizzie's door, rapped on the door; Dr. Bowen came to it, holding the door, opening the door, I should say about six inches and asked what was wanted. I told him we had come there as police officers to search this room and search the building. He then turned around to Miss Borden and told me to wait a moment. He then opened the door again and said that Lizzie wanted to know if it was absolutely necessary for us to search that room. I told him, murders having been committed, it was our duty so to do, and we wanted to get in there. He closed the door again and said something to Miss Borden and finally opened the door and admitted us (Sullivan, 106).

John Fleet's testimony creates a striking picture. The doctor, cracking the door open only wide enough to stick out his nose, was obviously attempting to keep the police from looking inside. Was Lizzie changing clothes during the three times the doctor delayed the police from entering? What were they hiding that they did not want the police to see? Such stalling would seem comical if Dr. Bowen had not been later caught downstairs destroying evidence.

One of the most baffling pieces of missing evidence is the mysterious note from a sick friend Abby supposedly received. That was what Lizzie told Bridget, her father and Mrs. Adelaide Churchill; however, no note was ever found. Even after the Borden sisters posted a $5,000 reward for information about the note, no one came forward to help or collect the money. Neither the messenger nor the invalid letter writer were heard from again. The most obvious explanation for the disappearing note is that no note was sent; it was just a pretext of Lizzie's to keep others from discovering Abby Borden's body too soon. However, one police officer saw Dr. Bowen burn a rolled-up piece of paper. According to Captain Harrington:

Then I went to the kitchen, and while I was in the kitchen, just as I went to pass by Dr. Bowen, between him and the stove, I saw some scraps of note paper in his hand. I asked him what they were and he said, 'Oh, I guess it is nothing.' I saw the word 'Emma' in the left-hand corner. I asked Dr. Bowen what about the paper, what it contained, and he said, 'I think it is nothing. It is something, I think, about my daughter going through somewhere.' Then he turned slightly to his left, took the lid from the stove, and threw the paper in -- or the pieces in. I looked in the fire, and I saw that there had been paper burned there before. It was rolled up and still held a cylindrical form. The roll of paper was about twelve inches long, I should say, and not over two inches wide (Sullivan, 111-112).'

What Harrington saw might well have been a strip of scrap paper on which the missing note from the mysterious friend was written. Why Dr. Bowen would wish to destroy it is another mystery. Victoria Lincoln believes Bowen found the incriminating papers the Prosecution hoped to find locked in Old Andrew's safe (126-127). Many Borden scholars believe that what Bowen burned, wrapped in paper, was in fact none other than the handle to the infamous hatchet that sent both Andrew and Abby Borden to their deaths (Radin, 138).

The strange-looking object that the Prosecution presented as the murder weapon was a handleless hatchet found the day of the murders in the Borden basement, the head smeared with ash. According to Officer Michael Mullaly:

I went with Bridget down to the cellar, looking for the hatchets and axes. Bridget led the way. Went to the cellar and she took from a box two hatchets. I saw the hatchet which Mr. Fleet took -- or the part of the hatchet; [the witness is shown the hatchet] it looked very much like it, only the break was cleaner. It looked at the time as though it was just broken; it looked like a fresh break. It was covered with dust and ashes or something like that. The handle was broken fresh. Both sides of it were covered with ashes, both sides of the blade, that is (Sullivan, 113-114).

This hatchet blade was later inspected by Suffolk County Medical Examiner Dr. Frank Draper, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at Harvard Medical School. He testified, "It is both the length of the hatchet and the thinness of the edge of the blade at certain places in this individual handleless hatchet that led me to the opinion that this handleless hatchet could inflict these wounds which I have observed (Sullivan, 132)." Dr. Draper testified only normal strength was needed to inflict the violent blows to the head both Bordens suffered. He said, "The inflicting of these blows was within the physical capability of an average woman of average strength (Sullivan, 132)."

So far, so good. The Prosecution had done much to establish the handleless hatchet as the murder weapon and indicated that it could be wielded by a woman like Lizzie to do the damage that was done. That it was handleless and smeared with ashes also seemed incriminating, as if someone had attempted to disguise it. All was going well until Officer Mullaly resumed his testimony. Under Defense Attorney Robinson's cross examination, Mullaly mentioned that there was another piece in the box along with the hatchet.

"Was it the handle to a hatchet?" the defense attorney asked. Mullaly replied, "It was what I call a hatchet handle. It was somewhat shorter than the handles of the other hatchets." At this point Robinson asked District Attorney Knowlton, "The Government does not know where it is?" Shamefaced, Knowlton answered, "I do not know where it is. This is the first time I ever heard of it." Robinson, turning back to his witness, asked Mullaly, "Did you ever tell anyone of this before?" The inexplicable reply was, "No, sir, I never did (Sullivan, 114-115)."

The Prosecution called the capable Deputy Marshal Fleet back to the stand to testify that he had never seen the broken handle in the box with the hatchet blade or anywhere else. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done. Doubt was sown into the minds of the 12 jurors whether the handleless hatchet was indeed the murder weapon or just a broken tool left discarded in the basement.

With disagreement over the dress and confusion over the hatchet, the Prosecution was left with Lizzie's alibi of being in the barn when her father's murder took place. On the face of it, the alibi was so preposterous that it seemed almost a confession of guilt. What an amazing coincidence that a daughter who had not fished in years would choose to go to the barn to hunt for sinkers and subsequently stay to eat pears in the hayloft during a heat wave for the exact 20 minutes in which her father was being bludgeoned to death! Furthermore, the police, who had been less than thorough in checking the house, were very efficient in searching the barn. Once more, the competent Deputy Marshal Fleet took the stand. He testified to having gone to the barn and finding it hot as well as undisturbed. It seemed unlikely that anyone had been eating in the loft and even unlikelier that anyone would want to. According to Sullivan, "Fleet's testimony of the extreme heat in the barn loft was significant as bearing upon the falsity of Lizzie's story of having remained there for about half an hour on the day of the murders (109)."

Patrick H. Doherty of the Fall River Police Force also spoke of the unlikelihood of anyone staying in the barn for recreation:

It was very dusty there, very uninviting; the floor, bench, and hay and old fashioned fireplace which stood in the west-end corner and some windows were covered with dust. The windows were all closed and were covered with cobwebs. It was very disagreeable breathing there because of the dust. It was suffocating hot (Sullivan, 112).

Perhaps the most damning testimony of all was from Inspector William H. Medley, who actually went up into the loft and found only his own footsteps in the dust. He said:

I stooped down low to see if I could discern any marks on the floor of the barn having been made there. I didn't see any, and I reached out my hand to see if I could make an impression on the floor of the barn, and I did by putting my hand down so fashion, and found that I made an impression (Sullivan, 119-120).

Once the Prosecution finished, there seemed little doubt that Lizzie Borden had not been in the hayloft; the hayloft was found to be too hot and too undisturbed for her alibi to be believed. The inference must be drawn that she lied about being in the barn to hide her real whereabouts that morning. However, the Defense introduced three witnesses of their own whose testimony undermined even that of the Fall River Police.

An ice cream vendor named Hyman Lubinsky took the stand. He was an immigrant who spoke English with a thick accent and could barely follow the questions put to him. Nevertheless, he was able to say confidently that he was driving his wagon down Second Street "a few minutes after eleven" and saw "a lady come out the way from the barn right to the stairs at the back of the house. She wore a dark dress, had nothing on her head, and she was walking slowly. I have seen the servant girl there before, and this woman was not the servant (Sullivan, 150)." So Lizzie had indeed gone to the barn, according to Lubinsky, and she was wearing a dark blue dress, not the light blue Bedford cord Alice Russell saw her burn. This testimony was damaging to the Prosecution's case, and District Attorney Knowlton was not at all cordial in cross -examining the simple tradesman. Several times Lubinsky had to protest, "You ask me too fast!" Julian Ralph of the New York Sun wrote, "Never did a lawyer try harder to confuse a witness than did Mr. Knowlton on this occasion (Radin, 154)." With a tone described as "nervous and querulous," Knowlton seemed almost censorious that Lubinsky should see anything at all. "What has a person got eyes for, but to look with?" Lubinsky told him (Pearson, 254). Although Knowlton failed to shake the testimony of the ice cream vendor, the Prosecution fared better with Charles E. Gardner, who had fed Lubinsky's horses and followed him 15 minutes later down Second Street. This would put the time that Gardner passed the Borden house at 11:30, yet Gardner testified that he saw no activity there. Knowlton pointed out to the jury that if, in fact, Gardner's reckoning of the time were correct, he would have seen a lot of activity going on there (Sullivan, 150).

This line of questioning seemed to be effective in destroying both witnesses' sense of time, and perhaps would have dispelled any doubts as to the absurdity of the barn alibi, if it were not for "Me and Brownie." Everett Brown and Thomas Barlow were two young truants from school who stumbled upon the murder scene and were consequently given their day in court. They were known in the newspapers as "Me and Brownie," since that was the way Barlow referred to himself and his friend. Barlow lived three blocks away from the Bordens on Third Street. He and his chum were "fooling along" or pushing each other off the sidewalk until they happened upon the scene of the crime. On a dare, they sneaked back to the barn and went up to the loft where they stayed five minutes. Barlow swore under oath, "Me and Brownie went in the side gate, went to the barn and up to the hayloft. It was cooler in the barn than outside (Sullivan, 151)." Once down from the loft, they were spotted by the authorities and escorted from the premises. District Attorney Knowlton was not pleased. "The barn loft was a nice, comfortable, cool place?" he challenged in cross examination. The prompt answer came, "Yes, sir" (Pearson, 255), and the third leg of Knowlton's prosecution was pulled out from under him.

Though a burr in the prosecuting attorney's side, Me and Brownie were quite the darlings of the press. Even Edmund Pearson, writing in 1924, felt inspired by the boys to pen this rhapsodic apostrophe:

Ah, 'Me and Brownie,' the rest of the folk who were in the New Bedford Court House that day are either dead, or they are old, old people. But you are not too old to recall with delight the day you had a trip over from Fall River, and a free ride on the train, chummed with the police, and for awhile stood with the fierce light of fame beating upon you, the reporters taking down your words, to be printed that evening in the papers. What mattered to you if Truth blushed and turned aside while you spoke (Pearson, 255)?

In defense of Brown and Barlow, who insisted the hayloft was cool when Lizzie admitted it was hot, Lizzie also testified she opened the hayloft window. If the boys had come after the investigators, a breeze might have cooled the loft, making the barn seem relatively inviting. Whether Me and Brownie lied or not, their testimony, coupled with Lubinsky, discredited the Prosecution. The boys made Lizzie's alibi plausible, and the ice cream vendor corroborated it and identified her in the dark dress.

His circumstantial evidence badly shaken, Prosecutor Knowlton in his closing argument had to rely upon the impossibility of another outside attacker:

He came into the house where there was no chance to get in, he hid in closets where no blood was found, he went from room to room where no traces of blood were found in passageways or stairs, he came out when there was no opportunity to come out without being seen by all the world, that unknown assassin who knew all the ins and outs of the family, who knew Bridget Sullivan was going upstairs to sleep when she didn't know it herself, who knew when Lizzie was going to the barn when she didn't know it herself, who knew that Mrs. Borden would be up there dusting the guest room when no person could have foreseen it, who knew that he could get through and escape the eye of Lizzie and would find that screen door open at the exact time when it was possible to run in; that unknown assassin never would have carried the weapon away, never would have carried the blood weapon with him into the streets. It would have been left beside his victims. The fact that no hatchet was found there is itself evidence. Would the unknown assassin have written the note? To have his victim leave the house? That note was never sent. The note was never written (Sullivan, 171)!

While the Prosecution relied upon common sense and reason, the Defense appealed to the sentiment and common decency of the jurors. Sullivan writes:

Robinson, after reminding the jury that 'The eyes that can not weep are the saddest eyes of all,' and that Andrew Borden had gone to his grave wearing on his hand the symbol of 'the pledge of faith and love, the ring which belonged to his little girl [Lizzie],' he pointed to the defendant, then shouted, 'To find her guilty, you must believe her to be a fiend! Does she look it (Sullivan, 168)?'

The Defense rested. Luckily for Lizzie, her attorney, George D. Robinson, had once been governor and brought enormous prestige to her cause. It also helped that the judge, Justice Justin Dewey, was appointed to the Superior Court when Robinson was governor. There has been much speculation on the propriety of the judge hearing the case. After the trial, Judge Charles G. Davis wrote that "Judge Dewey's charge was a better and more effective argument upon the facts in favor of Lizzie Borden than that delivered by Lizzie's own counsel (Sullivan, 172)." In Justice Dewey's charge to the jury, he praised Lizzie's character as "one of positive, of active benevolence in religious and charitable work." He cautioned the jury not to heed hearsay rumors of Lizzie speaking ill of Abby, "remembering it is the language of a young woman and not of a philosopher." And he advised that "the evidence, consisting as it does, in the mere repetition of oral statements, is subject to much imperfection and mistake (Sullivan, 173-174)"

As for Lizzie, throughout the long, hot trial she remained silent, unwilling to testify for -- or possibly against -- herself. Finally, at the trial's end, Lizzie was asked if she had anything to say in her own behalf. With a cold, hard stare at the jury she announced, "I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me (Sullivan, 171)."

That was that! Lizzie was acquitted on the first ballot. The jury needed only an hour and a half to find her not guilty before adjourning to a local saloon for beers (Lincoln, 229). Lizzie promptly held a reception for her gentlemen friends of the press (299), and the police announced they were suspending the investigation of the deaths (Sullivan, 205). That year Edwin Porter published The Fall River Tragedy. All copies were bought and suppressed by Lizzie Borden (Lincoln, 304). It did not take long for the world to wonder: If Lizzie did not do it, who did? To this day, Lizzie remains the most likely suspect, yet the blatant brutality of the crime argues against her guilt. As Lincoln says:

It was so forthright, so downright masculine, that a carefully selected jury of nice old men could barely give serious thought to the possibility that a well-brought-up young lady could have been the murderer -- though they would have thought hard about that acceptable, womanly prussic acid (Lincoln, 45).

Or, to put it another way:

There's no evidence of guilt, Lizzie Borden
That should make your spirit wilt, Lizzie Borden;
Many do not think that you
Chopped your father's head in two,
It's so hard a thing to do, Lizzie Borden.
-- A.L. Bixby

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