Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

THE INVESTIGATION

The Fall River Police were subject to much criticism for their initial handling of the murder case. Though most of the force were off on an unofficial holiday in Rhode Island, there were officers still on duty. Unfortunately, they were shorthanded and unprepared for such an admittedly abnormal crime. The apocryphal story recounted by Edmund Pearson in The Trial of Lizzie Borden underscores the shock and confusion that resulted that day when Officer George Allen was on duty. He writes:

An unofficial but reliable account of Allen's visits, received from two newspaper reporters, says that the sight of Mr. Borden's body nearly scared the officer 'out of his wits.' He ran back to the station, and to his chief gasped out: 'He's dead!' The unperturbed marshal replied: 'Who's dead, you fool?' Allen managed to say: 'Old Mr. Borden!' The marshal could not leave his post, but ordered Allen back to the house of death. In ten minutes, however, Officer Allen came panting back again, this time croaking, 'She's dead (165)!'

In a small town where citizens slept on hot summer nights with their front doors open, and everyone knew everybody, such a crime was unthinkable. The immediate assumption was that the murderer must be an outsider. Therefore, one of the earliest theories supposed that the murderer was concealed about the house when Mr. Borden came in (New York Times, August 5, 1892: 1)." Certainly the neighbors recalled seeing an odd assortment of strangers on Second Street that day. A Dr. Handy reported a "wild-eyed man." Several saw a Portuguese, and several others noticed a buggy with two passengers make a U-turn in the street that morning. Here is the front-page story in the New York Times from August 7, 1892:

A horse and buggy turned into Second Street out of Spring, and stopped in front of the Borden residence. A man who is employed nearby sat in his buggy almost opposite and facing south. He had ample opportunity and time to take a careful look at the vehicle, and the circumstance of the two strange men calling at the Borden house made an impression on his mind, which he remembers distinctly. One of the men got out of the buggy and rang the doorbell. As he stood there the observer saw him plainly, and remembers that his description was that of a man about twenty-five years of age, with sallow complexion, soft hat, dark trousers, with a wide strop of dark material down the leg and russet, or baseball shoes. He was 5 feet 9 inches high. Mr. Borden opened the door and the man was admitted. The man who entered remained about ten minutes and then came out with his hat in his hand. The police assiduously tracked down the whereabouts of all these suspicious characters: the stranger in the buggy turned out to be a lost tourist who missed his train connection, the Portuguese was a Swede, and Dr. Handy's "wild-eyed" man was a tramp called Mike the Soldier who suffered from DTs (Pearson, 219-220).

Edwin Porter, in his suppressed book, The Fall River Tragedy, explains how difficult it would be to hide inside the Borden house:

He had to deal with a family of six persons in an unpretentious two-and-a-half story house, the rooms of which were all connected and in which it would have been a difficult matter to stifle sound. He must catch Mr. Borden alone and either asleep, or off his guard, and kill him with one fell blow. The faintest outcry would have sounded an alarm. He must also encounter Mrs. Borden alone and fell her, a heavy woman, noiselessly. To do this he must either make his way from the sitting room on the ground floor to the spare bedroom above the parlor and avoid five persons in the passage, or he must conceal himself in one of the rooms upstairs and make the descent under the same conditions. The murdered woman must not lisp a syllable at the first attack, and her fall must not attract attention. He must then conceal the dripping implement of death and depart in daylight by a much-frequented street (Pearson, 212).

Nevertheless, the police had it upon very good authority that a burglar was seen around the Borden place and a stranger was even heard threatening Mr. Borden. The person who heard and saw all these nefarious occurrences was Lizzie Borden. According to Michael Mullaly, a policeman on duty, Lizzie told him she saw a man around the house sometime before with dark clothes on. Dr. Bowen also confirmed the story: "She then said that she overheard loud conversation several times recently (Sullivan, 89-90)." Furthermore, Lizzie told Deputy Marshal Fleet that, "About two weeks ago a man came to the house to the front door, and had some talk with Father and talked as though he was angry. He was talking about a store, and father said to him, "I cannot let you the store for that purpose (Sullivan, 105)." She went on to say that, "About nine o'clock that morning a man came to the door and was talking with her father; she thought they were talking about a store, and he spoke like an Englishman (Lincoln, 120)." According to Lincoln, a resident of Fall River, "Englishman" means "Lancashireman," or mill worker (120). Since there were several mills in Fall River and plenty of mill workers, this lead did not take the police very far.

A recent theory by Arnold Brown gives strange legitimacy to the dark stranger scenario. According to Brown in Lizzie Borden: The Final Chapter, "Andrew Borden had not fathered 'only two' children. In addition to a third daughter who was dead, he had, by a woman named Phebe Hathaway, fathered an illegitimate son whose existence was whispered on The Hill and was more than common knowledge within the Borden clan (Brown, 116)." Brown says this William Borden, a demented apple farmer, called upon Andrew Borden one day to claim his birthright and ended up committing the crime for which his half-sister Lizzie was blamed. Brown's admirable research proves the existence of one William Borden and establishes his violent character, as well as arguing persuasively of William's illegitimate birth. But the only evidence linking William Borden to Andrew Borden is the opinion of Arnold Brown's next-door neighbor in Florida whose dead father-in-law knew William as a child and suspected him of the crime. Nevertheless, this new spin to the old yarn gives new significance to Lizzie's testimony: "There was a man that came there that he had trouble with, I don't know who the man was. The man had an interest in a Borden property. 'I would like to have that place,' he said. I heard Father order him out (Brown, 117)." Even if William Borden was the murderer, Brown concedes that Lizzie must have known and was no doubt involved in arranging the visit, if not the hatchet job.

Likewise, the Fall River police, after checking the house and finding the front and screen doors, the basement door and most of the bedroom doors locked, were finally considering the possibility of the murders being an inside job. With this new direction, the suspicion fell upon the most likely suspect: Lizzie's Uncle John. John Vinculum Morse, brother of Lizzie's late mother Sarah Morse Borden, had chosen the wrong time for a surprise visit. The newspapers were quick to point the finger of blame at him (New York Times, Friday, August 5, 1892: 2). A crowd of angry Fall River citizens mobbed him the day after the murders, and much was made of his unexpected arrival the day before the murders without a valise. The police were looking for more than one man, for two had been seen in the strange buggy on Second Street. And it was common knowledge that Uncle John consorted with vagabond horse traders who were camped outside the city limits. The New York Times gives a very colorful description of these suspects:

In West Port, at the head of the river, there is a camp of itinerant horse traders who have been operating in that vicinity for three weeks or more. They go in and out of New Bedford continually and Morse has been seen to have to do with these people. Among them was a man who fills precisely the description of the one seen by the boy on Thursday noon, the young man on Monday morning, and the Frenchman on Thursday afternoon. This man appeared to be the principal of the traders, and was not to be conversed with about trifling matters or on subjects other than those pertaining to horse-trading. He admitted being from the West, but refused to say what part of the West. His tribe has the characteristics of men leading a roving life not unlike that of Gypsies. They dress in coarse, heavy garments, and live in tents in the woods (Sunday, August 7, 1892: 1).

Exciting though the possibility of an outlaw band might be, the police soon had to give up the horse traders and Uncle John as another false lead. Uncle John quickly provided the authorities with a plausible alibi (his niece could testify as to the time of his visit), and so the connection with the Gypsies camped outside of town disappeared. Mr. Morse also courted the press in order to press his case before the court.

The New York Times reports that:

Mr. Morse came from the house and talked freely with a group of reporters. He said it was a terrible thing to be suspected and shadowed as he had been but he courts the fullest investigation and is anxious and willing to do all that he can to trace the perpetrators of the great crime (Sunday, August 7, 1892: 1).

No doubt the most exotic theory about mysterious strangers as murder suspects concerns escaped mutineers. A news report published in nearby Lynn, Massachusetts, on August 13, 1892, claimed the motive of the Borden murders was revenge. According to the article, Andrew and Abby Borden took a cruise several years earlier on the schooner Jefferson Borden. The men on board protested harsh treatment and tried to take over the ship. The mutiny was squelched, and Andrew Borden's testimony convicted the ringleaders -- two Americans, two Englishmen and one Portuguese. Two of the nationalities of the mutineers fit the descriptions given of strangers heard and seen in Fall River that unfortunate morning. Even better, a union agitator named Sullivan had petitioned President Harrison to release these maritime felons from Thomaston Prison, and they were pardoned eight months before the murders. It was a great story that tied up a lot of loose ends -- except Old Andrew had never left Fall River to go on a cruise and Abby never left the house. The story was discredited in the New York Times the day after the Lynn story (August 14, 1892: 8).

Public opinion was also against Bridget. Letters poured into the Fall River Police Station, urging that they arrest her and her confessor. "Beware of Jesuits!" one letter warned (Pearson, 239). Certainly Bridget had as much opportunity to commit the murders as Lizzie. However, there is the question of motive. If Bridget committed the crime, why?

Edward Radin suggests in his book Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story that Bridget did not need a reason. Radin claims domestics may commit crimes of violence without provocation. He writes, "In a murder case I covered as a reporter, a young bride was killed by a window washer because she ordered him to use ammonia in the water and he resented being told what to do (Radin, 230)."

Victoria Lincoln also considers the possibility of Bridget being implicated, hedging her bets: "Lizzie committed the murders, or Bridget committed them with Lizzie's full knowledge and consent (45)." Lincoln offers no motive to entice the maid to mayhem.

Evan Hunter suggests a motive in his fictional Lizzie: "Mrs. Borden caught Lizzie in bed with Bridget and was bludgeoned with a heavy, sharp-edged candlestick. Andrew Borden was killed because he saw the candlestick and guessed the truth (Gates, 12)." There were rumors through Lizzie's life that she was a lesbian, but Bridget wed in Montana and had many children (Hunter, 406).

Emma Borden also came under suspicion. After all, she inherited, too. Emma is blamed for starting the daughters' feud with their stepmother. Even with her perfect alibi of visiting friends out of town, theorists have still implicated Emma at the scene of the crime. Sifakis writes: "She too lived under a cloud and there was even speculation that she was the killer. At the time of the murder Emma had been staying overnight with friends, but some insisted she could have returned home, committed the crimes and returned to her friends unseen (91)." Frank Spierling, who uncovered the Byzantine governmental plot behind the Jack the Ripper murders in England , goes one better by claiming Emma did it to avoid being disinherited (Gates, 12). Furthermore, "Emma did rent a buggy which was reportedly seen outside the Borden house shortly before the murders (Nash, 440)." Though how Emma managed to slip back into town unnoticed, let alone into her own house, must be left to Spierling to explain.

Inevitably, the police began to look more closely at Lizzie Borden, especially after her attempts to buy poison became known.

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