Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

POISON!

Naturally, the Fall River constabulary were reluctant to accuse an heiress of one of the town's leading families, especially since there was no real evidence supporting such a conjecture. The strongest circumstantial evidence was known a week after the murders when Eli Bence, a druggist for King's pharmacy in Fall River, identified Lizzie Borden as a customer wanting prussic acid on Wednesday, the day before the murders.

Prussic acid is one of the most violent corrosives known, and Bence reasonably refused to sell even a dime's worth. The customer Bence identified as Lizzie claimed that she wished the poison to treat her sealskin cape for moths. Prussic acid would be absurd for such a purpose, for sealskin provides "no indus for insect eggs and is naturally immune to moths (Lincoln, 253)." However, this information, corroborated by two disinterested bystanders, was added to Dr. Bowen's reluctant testimony of Abby Borden's fears of being poisoned. Together, both stories established a predisposition on Lizzie's part to kill. All this came out at the inquest, in which Lizzie behaved in such a suspicious way as to suggest to many her guilt. The New York Times on Saturday, August 6, 1892, gives a picture of the proceedings:

The demeanor of Miss Lizzie through the trying ordeal of being confronted with the man who says that she asked about poison was that of contempt and scorn. In fact, her conduct as observed by the police since the affair happened has been strange, inasmuch as she stood the pointed questioning of all who interviewed her with the show of no other feeling than that of a disinterested party (2).

By nightfall, Lizzie was arrested for the murders. Marshal Hilliard told her: "I have here a warrant for your arrest, for the murder of Andrew J. Borden. Do you wish it read?" Lizzie replied, "You need not read it (Sullivan, 45)." The New York Times wrote the following day, "The lady took the announcement of her arrest with surprising calmness (August 12, 1892: 2)."

Despite the obvious multiple blows with a blunt instrument, the deaths of Abby and Andrew Borden were suspected to be caused by poison up until the time of the trial in June of 1893. Theories that both had been drugged before the bludgeoning explained the absence of alarm or struggle from either victim. However, the rumors of poison were put to rest by three medical examiners.

Dr. William Dolan, who was on the scene the day of the murders, described to the court the care that was taken with the medical evidence:

"I left the Borden house and returned at three o'clock that afternoon when I conducted autopsies on both of the bodies on the dining room table. I removed the stomachs from both bodies, tying each at both ends and putting them into separate, clean jars which I sealed (Sullivan, 121)."

Dr. Edward S. Wood, Professor of Chemistry at Harvard Medical School, testified to the contents of the stomachs:

I first examined the stomach of Mrs. Andrew J. Borden. It was a normal stomach and its contents were, upon my examination, found to be of a solid consistency: four-fifths solid food and one-fifth liquid. In the stomach contents I found partially digested starch: wheat found normally in bread or cake, slightly digested muscular fiber, meat, and an undigested skin of an apple. I next examined the stomach of Andrew J. Borden and found it to be a normal organ. The contents, however, differed from those found in the stomach of Mrs. Borden; first, there was much more of contents, they consisted of nine-tenths liquid and one-tenth solid matter, only a few starch granules, a few muscle fibers from meat, and some vegetable tissue, the residue of a digested apple or pear (Sullivan, 125).

The examination of the stomachs revealed no drugs or poisons. Furthermore, Frank W. Draper M .D. examined the Bordens' intestines and found no evidence of drugs or poisons either.

As for Lizzie's own concern about the milk, the New York Times "proved the milk drank by the Borden family was not poisoned when it was taken from the Borden farm and brought to the city. Members of the family in charge of the farm drank it, and they were affected in no noticeable way (August 12, 1892: 2)."

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