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LET ME INTERDUCE YOU TO EVERYONES FAVORITE AXE MURDERUR LIZZY BORDIN!LIZZY BORDIN HAD AN AXE AND GAVE HER FATHER 40 WACKS, WHEN SHE SEEN WHAT SHE DONE SHE TURN AND AROUND AND GAVE HER MOTHER 41 LIZZY'S LINE: I DIDNT DO IT! "MURDER" I WAS OUT SIDE EATING PAIRS! "MURDER" I DIDNT DO IT! "MURDER" HERES THE FULL STORY OF LIZZY The day is stiflingly hot, over one hundred degrees, even though it is not yet noon. The elderly man, still in his heavy morning coat, reclines on a mohair-covered sofa, his boots on the floor so as not to soil the upholstery. As he naps in the August heat, his wife is on the floor of the guestroom upstairs, dead for the past hour and a half, killed by the same hand, with the same weapon, that is about to strike him, as he sleeps."... one of the most dastardly and diabolical crimes that was ever committed in Massachusetts... Who could have done such an act? In the quiet of the home, in the broad daylight of an August day, on the street of a popular city, with houses within a stone's throw, nay, almost touching, who could have done it?At about 11:10 a.m., on Thursday, August 4, 1892, a heavy, hot summer day, at No. 92 Second Street, Fall River, Massachusetts, Bridget Sullivan, the hired girl in the household of Andrew J. Borden, resting in her attic room, was startled to hear Lizzie Borden, Andrew's daughter, cry out, "Maggie, come down!""What's the matter?" Bridget (called "Maggie" by the Borden sisters) asked."Come down quick! Father's dead! Somebody's come in and killed him!"Andrew Borden, 70, was one of the richest men in Fall River, a director on the boards of several banks, a commercial landlord whose holdings were considerable. He was a tall, thin, white-haired dour man, known for his thrift and admired for his business abilities. He chose to live with his second wife and his two grown spinster daughters in a small house in an unfashionable part of town, close to his business interests. He was not particularly likable, but, despite the frugal nature of their daily lives, moderately generous to his wife and daughters.When Bridget hurried downstairs, she found Lizzie standing at the back door. Lizzie stopped her from going into the sitting room, saying, "Don't go in there. Go and get the doctor. Run."Bridget ran across the street to their neighbor and family physician, Dr. Bowen. He was out, but Bridget told Mrs. Bowen that Mr. Borden had been killed. Bridget ran back to the house, and Lizzie sent her to summon the Borden sisters' friend, Miss Alice Russell, who lived a few blocks awayThe portrait of Bridget, taken in her early twenties, shows a sturdy, vaguely pretty Irish maid, which is exactly what she was. At the time of the murders she was 26 years old, and had been working in the Borden household since 1889. There is no evidence that she was other than an exemplary young woman. She had emigrated from Ireland in 1886, and belonged to a socially discriminated class, the Irish of Massachusetts. Her testimony, which has been published in its entirety in the volume edited by Jeans, was straightforward, consistent, and neither helpful nor damaging to Lizzie. She did not spend the night of the murders in the Borden house, but at a neighbor's, although she spent the next night (Friday) in her third-floor room, leaving the house on Saturday, never to return. One legend is that Bridget was paid off by Lizzie, even to the extent of being given funds to buy a large farm back in Ireland. While it is likely that Lizzie or Emma provided the funds for transport back to Ireland, there is no evidence that more than that had come from Lizzie. The story of her being well-off is unlikely, since she returned to the United States a few years later, marrying and moving to Butte, Montana, where she died in 1948 in very modest circumstances.The Second MurderIn the meanwhile, the neighbor to the North, Mrs. Adelaide Churchill, saw that something distressful was happening at the Borden house. She called across to Lizzie, who was at the back entrance to the house and asked if anything was wrong. Lizzie responded by saying, "Oh, Mrs. Churchill, please come over! Someone has killed Father!"Mrs. Churchill asked, "Where is your mother?"Lizzie said that she did not know and that Abby Borden, her stepmother, had received a note asking her to respond to someone who was sick. She told Mrs. Churchill that Bridget was unable to find Dr. Bowen. Mrs. Churchill volunteered to send her handyman to find a doctor and to send him to a telephone to summon help. The police station, about four hundred yards from 92 Second Street, received a message to respond to an incident at No. 92 at 11:15 a.m.After sending her handy man and informing a passer-by of the trouble, Mrs. Churchill returned to the Borden kitchen. Dr. Bowen had arrived, along with Bridget, who had hurried back from informing Miss Russell. Dr. Bowen examined the body and asked for a sheet to cover it. Bridget said, "If I knew where Mrs. Whitehead (Abby Borden's younger sister) was, I would go and see if Mrs. Borden was there and tell her that Mr. Borden was very sick."Lizzie said, "Maggie, I am almost positive I heard her coming in. Go upstairs and see." Guest bedroom as seen from the landingBridget refused. Mrs. Churchill volunteered to go up and see if Abby had returned. Bridget reluctantly went with her. The two went up the front staircase together, and before they reached the landing they were able to see that Mrs. Borden was lying on the floor of the guestroom.Bridget saw Mrs. Borden's body. Mrs. Churchill rushed by her, viewed the obviously dead body, and rushed downstairs, saying, "There's another one!" Portrait of Abby BordenAbby Borden was a short, shy, obese woman of 64, who had been a spinster until the age of 36, when she married the widowed Andrew Borden. She was devoted to her younger half-sister, Sarah Whitehead, to whom she had been a mother. Other than Sarah and Sarah's daughter, Abby, who had been named for her aunt, she appeared to have no other intimate relationships. She apparently provided, within the limits of Andrew's penuriousness, a comfortable home for her husband, who clearly appreciated her. Her stepdaughters were not particularly close to her. Lizzie, in fact, had been calling her "Mrs. Borden" for the past several years, rather than "Mother."In the meantime, Alice Russell had arrived, and Dr. Bowen, having left for a brief time to telegraph Lizzie's older sister Emma, who was visiting friends in the neighboring town of Fairhaven, had returned, and resumed examining Andrew Borden's body. It was on its right side on the sofa, feet still resting on the floor. His head was bent slightly to the right and his face had been cut by eleven blows. One eye had been cut in half and was protruding from his face, his nose had been severed. Most of the cuts were within a small area extending from the eye and nose to the ear. Blood was still seeping from the wounds. There were spots of blood on the floor, on the wall above the sofa and on a picture hanging on the wall. It appeared that he had been attacked from above and behind him as he slept. Portrait of Dr. BowenDr. Bowen found that Mrs. Borden had been struck more than a dozen times, from the back. The autopsy later revealed that there had been nineteen blows. Her head had been crushed by the same hatchet or axe that had presumably killed Mr. Borden, with one misdirected blow striking the back of her scalp, almost at the neck. The blood on Mrs. Borden's body was dark and congealed.Dr. Bowen was heavily involved in the activities on the day of the murder, diagnosing Abby' early morning distress and fears as food poisoning, checking on Andrew and the rest of the household shortly thereafter, being the first to examine the bodies, sending a telegram to Emma, assisting Dr. Dolan with the initial autopsies, prescribing sulphate of morphine as a tranquilizer for Lizzie — in short, from about 11:30 a.m. on, he was a constant presence. His involvement with the family, particularly on August 4, has led to his being a major figure in some of the conspiracies developed around the murders. Diagram of the second floor of the Borden house, indicating the position of Mrs. Borden's body (left corner room).Within minutes of receiving the call at 11:15, the City Marshall, Rufus B. Hilliard, dispatched Officer George W. Allen to the Borden house. He ran the four hundred yards to the house, saw that Andrew Borden was dead, and deputized a passer-by, Charles Sawyer, to stand guard while he went back to the stationhouse for assistance. Within minutes of his return, seven additional officers went to the murder scene. By 11:45 a.m., the Medical Examiner, William Dolan, passing by the Borden house and noting the flurry of activity, was on the scene.Thus, the discovery of at least one murder happened at 11:10 a.m., and within the next thirty-five minutes, the authorities were on the scene.Mrs. Abby Durfee Gray Borden (1828-1892), Lizzie's stepmother Mr. Andrew Jackson Borden (1822-1892), Lizzie's fatherThe Accused:Miss Lizzie Andrew Borden (1860-1927)The Household:Miss Emma Borden (1849-1927), Lizzie's sister John Vinnicum Morse (1833-1912), Lizzie's maternal uncle, visiting Bridget ("Maggie") Sullivan (1866-1948), the Borden maidThe Judges:Josiah C. Blaisdell, presiding judge, Second District Court Chief Justice Albert Mason (1836-1905), Superior Court of Massachusetts Associate Justice Caleb Blodgett (1832-1901) Associate Justice Justin Dewey (1836-1900)The Prosecution:Hosea M. Knowlton (1847-1902), later Attorney General of Massachusetts William H. Moody (1853-1917), later Attorney General of the United States, and Supreme Court JusticeThe Defense:Andrew J. Jennings (1849-1923), Borden family lawyer George D. Robinson (1834-1896), former Governor of Massachusetts Melvin O. Adams (1850-1920), Boston attorneyThe Investigators:Rufus B. Hilliard, City Marshal John Fleet, Deputy Marshal Michael Mullaly, Officer Philip Harrington, Sergeant Dr. William A. Dolan, Medical Examiner Dr. Edward S. Wood, Professor of Chemistry, HarvardRELATIVES, MINISTERS, FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS, WITNESSES:Sarah Gray Whitehead, Abby Borden's younger half-sister Abby Borden Whitehead Potter, Sarah's daughter Hiram Harrington, Andrew Borden's brother-in-law Luana Borden Harrington, Andrew Borden's sister W. Walker Jubb, minister, First Congregational Church, Fall River Edwin A. Buck, minister, Central Congregational Church, Fall River Miss Alice Russell, friend of the Borden sisters Mrs. Adelaide Churchill, next door neighbor Eli Bence, drugstore clerk Dr. Seabury W. Bowen, Borden family physician and neighbor The InvestigationThe murder investigation, chaotic and stumbling as it was, can be reconstructed from the four official judicial events in the Lizzie Borden case: The inquest, the preliminary hearing, the Grand Jury hearing, and the trial. Basically, a circumstantial case against Lizzie was developed without the precise identification of a murder weapon, with no incriminating physical evidence — for example, bloodstained clothes — and no clear and convincing motive. Also, the case against Lizzie was hampered by the inability of the investigators to produce a corroborated demonstration of time and opportunity for the murders.Over the course of several weeks, investigators were able to construct a time-table of events covering the period of Wednesday, August 3, the day before the murders, through Sunday, August 7, the day that Miss Russell saw Lizzie burning a dress, an act that proved crucial at the inquest.August 3The investigation found that four events of significance occurred on August 3. The first was that Abby Borden had gone across the street to Dr. Bowen at seven in the morning, claiming that she and Andrew were being poisoned. Both of them had been violently ill during the night. Dr. Bowen told her that he did not think that her nausea and vomiting was serious, and sent her home. Later, he went across the street to check on Andrew, who ungraciously told him that he was not ill, and that he would not pay for an unsolicited house call. Bridget had also been ill that morning. No evidence of poisoning was found during the autopsies of Andrew and Abby.The second was that Lizzie had attempted to buy ten cents worth of prussic acid from Eli Bence, a clerk at Smith's Drug Store. She told Bence that she wanted the poison to kill insects in her sealskin cape. Bence refused to sell it to her without a prescription. Two others, a customer and another clerk, identified Lizzie as having been in the drugstore somewhere between ten and eleven-thirty in the morning. Lizzie denied that she had tried to buy prussic acid, testifying at the inquest that she had been out that morning, but not to Smith's Drug Store, then changing her story by saying that she had not left the house at all until the evening of August 3.Third, early in the afternoon, Uncle John Morse arrived. He was without luggage, but intended to stay overnight, so that he could visit relatives across town the next day. Both he and Lizzie testified that they did not see each other until after the murders the next day, although Lizzie knew that he was there.Finally, that evening Lizzie visited her friend, Miss Alice Russell. According to Miss Russell, Lizzie was agitated, worried over some threat to her father, and concerned that something was about to happen. Lizzie returned home about nine o'clock, heard Uncle John and her parents talking loudly in the sitting room, and went upstairs to bed without seeing them.August 4The morning of the murder began with Bridget beginning her duties about 6:15. Uncle John was also up. Abby came down about seven, Andrew a few minutes later. They had breakfast. Lizzie remained upstairs until a few minutes after Uncle John left, at about 8:45. Andrew left for his business rounds around nine o'clock, according to Mrs. Churchill, the neighbor to the north. He visited the various banks where he was a stockholder, and a store he owned that was being remodeled. He left for home around 10:40, according to the carpenters working at the store.Just before nine o'clock, Abby instructed Bridget to wash the windows while she went upstairs to straighten up the guestroom where Uncle John had spent the night.Some time between nine and ten (probably 9:30) Abby was killed in the guestroom. She had not gone out. The note that Lizzie said Abby had received from a sick friend, asking her to visit, was never found, despite an intensive search. Lizzie said that she might have inadvertently burned it.Andrew returned shortly after 10:40. Bridget was washing the inside of the windows. Because the door was locked from the inside with three locks, Bridget had to let Mr. Borden in. As she fumbled with the lock, she testified that she heard Lizzie laugh from the upstairs landing. However, Lizzie told the police that she had been in the kitchen when her father came home.Mr. Borden, who had kept his and Mrs. Borden's bedroom locked since a burglary the year before, took the key to his bedroom off the mantle and went up the back stairs. Lizzie set up the ironing board and began to iron handkerchiefs. For a few minutes more, Bridget resumed washing windows.Bridget went up to her room to lie down about 10:55. Andrew went to the couch in the sitting room for a nap. Lizzie went out into the yard, or to the barn, or to the barn loft, for twenty to thirty minutes. Where she had precisely gone was vague. She said that her purpose for going to the barn was to find some metal for fishing sinkers, since she intended to join Emma at Fairhaven and to do some fishing. When she returned at 11:10, she found her father dead.August 3The investigation found that four events of significance occurred on August 3. The first was that Abby Borden had gone across the street to Dr. Bowen at seven in the morning, claiming that she and Andrew were being poisoned. Both of them had been violently ill during the night. Dr. Bowen told her that he did not think that her nausea and vomiting was serious, and sent her home. Later, he went across the street to check on Andrew, who ungraciously told him that he was not ill, and that he would not pay for an unsolicited house call. Bridget had also been ill that morning. No evidence of poisoning was found during the autopsies of Andrew and Abby.The second was that Lizzie had attempted to buy ten cents worth of prussic acid from Eli Bence, a clerk at Smith's Drug Store. She told Bence that she wanted the poison to kill insects in her sealskin cape. Bence refused to sell it to her without a prescription. Two others, a customer and another clerk, identified Lizzie as having been in the drugstore somewhere between ten and eleven-thirty in the morning. Lizzie denied that she had tried to buy prussic acid, testifying at the inquest that she had been out that morning, but not to Smith's Drug Store, then changing her story by saying that she had not left the house at all until the evening of August 3.Third, early in the afternoon, Uncle John Morse arrived. He was without luggage, but intended to stay overnight, so that he could visit relatives across town the next day. Both he and Lizzie testified that they did not see each other until after the murders the next day, although Lizzie knew that he was there.Finally, that evening Lizzie visited her friend, Miss Alice Russell. According to Miss Russell, Lizzie was agitated, worried over some threat to her father, and concerned that something was about to happen. Lizzie returned home about nine o'clock, heard Uncle John and her parents talking loudly in the sitting room, and went upstairs to bed without seeing them.August 4The morning of the murder began with Bridget beginning her duties about 6:15. Uncle John was also up. Abby came down about seven, Andrew a few minutes later. They had breakfast. Lizzie remained upstairs until a few minutes after Uncle John left, at about 8:45. Andrew left for his business rounds around nine o'clock, according to Mrs. Churchill, the neighbor to the north. He visited the various banks where he was a stockholder, and a store he owned that was being remodeled. He left for home around 10:40, according to the carpenters working at the store.Just before nine o'clock, Abby instructed Bridget to wash the windows while she went upstairs to straighten up the guestroom where Uncle John had spent the night.Some time between nine and ten (probably 9:30) Abby was killed in the guestroom. She had not gone out. The note that Lizzie said Abby had received from a sick friend, asking her to visit, was never found, despite an intensive search. Lizzie said that she might have inadvertently burned it.Andrew returned shortly after 10:40. Bridget was washing the inside of the windows. Because the door was locked from the inside with three locks, Bridget had to let Mr. Borden in. As she fumbled with the lock, she testified that she heard Lizzie laugh from the upstairs landing. However, Lizzie told the police that she had been in the kitchen when her father came home.Mr. Borden, who had kept his and Mrs. Borden's bedroom locked since a burglary the year before, took the key to his bedroom off the mantle and went up the back stairs. Lizzie set up the ironing board and began to iron handkerchiefs. For a few minutes more, Bridget resumed washing windows.Bridget went up to her room to lie down about 10:55. Andrew went to the couch in the sitting room for a nap. Lizzie went out into the yard, or to the barn, or to the barn loft, for twenty to thirty minutes. Where she had precisely gone was vague. She said that her purpose for going to the barn was to find some metal for fishing sinkers, since she intended to join Emma at Fairhaven and to do some fishing. When she returned at 11:10, she found her father dead. August 3The investigation found that four events of significance occurred on August 3. The first was that Abby Borden had gone across the street to Dr. Bowen at seven in the morning, claiming that she and Andrew were being poisoned. Both of them had been violently ill during the night. Dr. Bowen told her that he did not think that her nausea and vomiting was serious, and sent her home. Later, he went across the street to check on Andrew, who ungraciously told him that he was not ill, and that he would not pay for an unsolicited house call. Bridget had also been ill that morning. No evidence of poisoning was found during the autopsies of Andrew and Abby.The second was that Lizzie had attempted to buy ten cents worth of prussic acid from Eli Bence, a clerk at Smith's Drug Store. She told Bence that she wanted the poison to kill insects in her sealskin cape. Bence refused to sell it to her without a prescription. Two others, a customer and another clerk, identified Lizzie as having been in the drugstore somewhere between ten and eleven-thirty in the morning. Lizzie denied that she had tried to buy prussic acid, testifying at the inquest that she had been out that morning, but not to Smith's Drug Store, then changing her story by saying that she had not left the house at all until the evening of August 3.Third, early in the afternoon, Uncle John Morse arrived. He was without luggage, but intended to stay overnight, so that he could visit relatives across town the next day. Both he and Lizzie testified that they did not see each other until after the murders the next day, although Lizzie knew that he was there.Finally, that evening Lizzie visited her friend, Miss Alice Russell. According to Miss Russell, Lizzie was agitated, worried over some threat to her father, and concerned that something was about to happen. Lizzie returned home about nine o'clock, heard Uncle John and her parents talking loudly in the sitting room, and went upstairs to bed without seeing them.August 4The morning of the murder began with Bridget beginning her duties about 6:15. Uncle John was also up. Abby came down about seven, Andrew a few minutes later. They had breakfast. Lizzie remained upstairs until a few minutes after Uncle John left, at about 8:45. Andrew left for his business rounds around nine o'clock, according to Mrs. Churchill, the neighbor to the north. He visited the various banks where he was a stockholder, and a store he owned that was being remodeled. He left for home around 10:40, according to the carpenters working at the store.Just before nine o'clock, Abby instructed Bridget to wash the windows while she went upstairs to straighten up the guestroom where Uncle John had spent the night.Some time between nine and ten (probably 9:30) Abby was killed in the guestroom. She had not gone out. The note that Lizzie said Abby had received from a sick friend, asking her to visit, was never found, despite an intensive search. Lizzie said that she might have inadvertently burned it.Andrew returned shortly after 10:40. Bridget was washing the inside of the windows. Because the door was locked from the inside with three locks, Bridget had to let Mr. Borden in. As she fumbled with the lock, she testified that she heard Lizzie laugh from the upstairs landing. However, Lizzie told the police that she had been in the kitchen when her father came home.Mr. Borden, who had kept his and Mrs. Borden's bedroom locked since a burglary the year before, took the key to his bedroom off the mantle and went up the back stairs. Lizzie set up the ironing board and began to iron handkerchiefs. For a few minutes more, Bridget resumed washing windows.Bridget went up to her room to lie down about 10:55. Andrew went to the couch in the sitting room for a nap. Lizzie went out into the yard, or to the barn, or to the barn loft, for twenty to thirty minutes. Where she had precisely gone was vague. She said that her purpose for going to the barn was to find some metal for fishing sinkers, since she intended to join Emma at Fairhaven and to do some fishing. When she returned at 11:10, she found her father dead.11:30: Dr. Bowen arrived11:45: Charles Sawyer, seven police officers and Medical Examiner William Dolan were on the sceneThe police investigation began in earnest. Officer Mullaly asked Lizzie if there were any hatchets in the house. "Yes, she said. "They are everywhere." She then told Bridget to show him where they were. Mullaly and Bridget went down to the basement and found four hatchets, one with dried blood and hair on it — cow's blood and hair, as it was later determined — a second rusty claw-headed hatchet, and two that were dusty. One of these was without a handle and covered in ashes. The break appeared to be recent. This is the hatchet submitted in evidence. Handleless hatchetAbout this time, Uncle John returned, strolling into the backyard, picking some pears and eating them. He had been asked by Andrew that morning to return for the noon meal. He later testified that he did not notice if the cellar door was open or closed.Sergeant Harrington and another officer, having questioned Lizzie as to her whereabouts during the morning, examined the barn loft where Lizzie said she had been looking for metal for fishing sinkers. They found that the loft floor was thick with dust, with no evidence that anyone had been up there.At 3:00, the bodies of Andrew and Abby were carried into the dining room, where Dr. Dolan performed autopsies on them as they lay on the dining room table. Their stomachs removed and tied, and sent by special messenger to Dr. Wood at Harvard.Upstairs, Deputy Marshal John Fleet questioned Lizzie, asking her if she had any idea of who could have committed the murders. Other than a man with whom her father had had an argument a few weeks before — a man unknown to her — she knew of no one. When asked directly if Uncle John Morse or Bridget could have killed her father and mother, she said that they couldn't have. Uncle John had left the house at 8:45, and Bridget was upstairs when Mr. Borden was killed. She pointedly reminded Mr. Fleet that Abby was not her mother, but her stepmother.Emma returned from Fairhaven just before seven that evening. The bodies of the Bordens were still on the dining room table, awaiting the arrival of the undertaker. Sergeant Harrington continued the questioning of Lizzie. Finally, the police left, leaving a cordon around the house to keep away the large number of curious Fall River citizens who had been gathered around the front of the house since noon. Bridget was taken to stay with a neighbor, Alice Russell stayed in the Bordens' bedroom, Emma and Lizzie in their respective bedrooms, and Uncle John in the guest room where Abby had been killed.August 5 through DecemberAugust 5The next day Lizzie's uncle, Hiram Harrington, married to Andrew Borden's only sister, Luana Borden Harrington, had given an interview the day before to the Fall River Globe, which now appeared. He falsely stated that he had had an interview with his niece the evening before — the evening of the day of the murders — and that his niece had not shown any emotion or grief, "as she is not naturally emotional Sergeant Harrington — no relation to Hiram — found Eli Bence and interviewed him about the attempt to buy poison. Emma engaged Mr. Andrew Jennings as their attorney. The police continued to investigate, but nothing of significance was found. Fall River was in an uproar, and the newspapers, both in Fall River and the metropolitan areas, were obsessed with the killings.August 6Saturday was the day of the funerals for Andrew and Abby Borden. The service was conducted by the Reverends Buck and Judd, of the two competing Congregational churches. The burial, however, did not take place. At the gravesite, the police were informed that Dr. Wood wanted to conduct another autopsy. At this second autopsy, the heads of Andrew and Abby were removed from their bodies and defleshed. Plaster casts were made of the skulls. Andrew's skull, for some reason, was not returned to his coffin.August 7On Sunday morning, Miss Russell observed Lizzie burning a dress in the kitchen stove. She said, "If I were you, I wouldn't let anybody see me do that, Lizzie." Lizzie said it was a dress stained with paint, and was of no use. It was this testimony at the inquest that prompted Judge Blaisdell of the Second District Court to charge Lizzie with the murders.August 9 through August 11 Lizzie Borden's police photoJudge Blaisdell conducted the inquest, the proceedings of which were kept secret. At its conclusion, Lizzie was charged with the murder of her father, and remanded to custody. Lizzie's only testimony during all of the legal proceedings was at the inquest. The next day, August 12, she was arraigned, and pleaded not guilty. She was held in Taunton Jail, which had facilities for female prisoners.August 22 through August 28The preliminary hearing was held before Judge Blaisdell. Lizzie did not testify, but the record of Lizzie's testimony at the secret inquest were entered by Jennings. Tearfully, Judge Blaisdell declared Lizzie's probable guilt and bound her over for the Grand Jury.November 7 through December 2The Grand Jury heard the case of Lizzie Borden during the last week of its session. Prosecutor Hosea Knowlton finished his presentation and surprisingly invited defense attorney Jennings to present a case for the defense. This was unheard of in Massachusetts. In effect, a trial was being conducted before the Grand Jury. It appeared for a time that the charge against Lizzie would be dismissed. Then, on December 1, Miss Russell testified about the burning of the dress. The next day, Lizzie was charged with three counts of murder. (Oddly, she had been charged with the murder of her father, the murder of her stepmother, and the murders of both of them.) The trial was set for June 5, 1893.The TrialIn addition to the actual trial record itself, two works (discussed in detail below) chronicle the trial. The first is the book by Edmund Pearson, The Trial of Lizzie Borden, and the second is Robert Sullivan's Goodbye Lizzie Borden. Both are detailed, Pearson's being a day-by-day account, while Sullivan's is mostly a legal analysis of the trial.A brief synopsis of the events of trial is helpful in understanding how the jury came to its conclusion. The trial lasted fourteen days, from June 5, 1893, to June 20, 1893. After a day to select the jury — twelve middle-aged farmers and tradesmen — the prosecution took about seven days to present its case.Hosea Knowlton was a reluctant prosecutor, forced into the role by the politically timid Arthur Pillsbury, Attorney General of Massachusetts, who should have been the principal attorney for the prosecution. As Lizzie's trial date approached, Pillsbury felt the pressure building from Lizzie's supporters, particularly women's groups and religious organizations. Pillsbury directed Knowlton, District Attorney of Fall River, to lead the prosecution, and assigned William Moody, District Attorney of Essex County, to assist him. One author, Pearson, calls Knowlton "a courageous public official," while a second, Sullivan, considers his performance at the trial to be "a clear pattern of reluctance and lethargy." Shortly after the trial, Knowlton replaced Pillsbury as Attorney General. William H. MoodyMoody, according to Sullivan, was the most competent attorney involved in the Borden trial. He was the most thorough in the questioning of witnesses — Knowlton, in contrast, would sometimes open a line of questioning and then walk away from it — and Moody's arguments to the court about the admissibility of evidence were impressive, even if they failed to sway the three judges. His opening statement delineating the issues that the prosecution would bring to the demonstration of Lizzie's guilt were clear, firm, and logical. Moody was elected to Congress three times, served as Secretary of the Navy, then as Attorney General, both during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard classmate. In 1906, Roosevelt appointed Moody a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.William Moody made the opening statements for the prosecution. He presented three arguments. First, Lizzie was predisposed to murder her father and stepmother and that she had planned it. Second, that she did in fact murder them, and, third, that her behavior and contradictory testimony was not consistent with innocence. At one point, Moody threw a dress onto the prosecution table that he was to offer later in evidence. As the dress fell on the table, the tissue paper covering the fleshless skulls of the victims was wafted away. Lizzie slid to the floor in a dead faint.Crucial to the prosecution case was the presentation of evidence that supplied a motive for the murders. Prosecutors Knowlton and Moody called witnesses to establish that Mr. Borden was intending to write a new will. An old will was never found, or did not exist, although Uncle John testified at first that Mr. Borden had told him that he had a will, and then testified that Mr. Borden had not told him of a will. The new will, according to Uncle John, would leave Emma and Lizzie each $25,000, with the remainder of Mr. Borden's half million dollar estate — well over ten million in present-day dollars — going to Abby. Further, Knowlton developed the additional motive of Mr. Borden's intent to dispose of his farm to Abby, just as he had done the year before with the duplex occupied by Abby's sister, Sarah Whitehead. Knowlton then turned to Lizzie's "predisposition" towards murder. However, two rulings by the court were crucial to Lizzie's eventual verdict of innocent.On Saturday, June 10, the prosecution attempted to enter Lizzie's testimony from the inquest into the record. Robinson objected, since it was testimony from one who had not been formally charged. On Monday, when court resumed, the justices disallowed the introduction of Lizzie's contradictory inquest testimony.On Wednesday, June 14, the prosecution called Eli Bence, the drug store clerk, to the stand, and the defense objected. After hearing arguments from both the prosecution and the defense as to the relevance of Lizzie's attempt to purchase prussic acid, the justices ruled the following day that Mr. Bence's testimony — and the entire issue of her alleged attempt to buy poison — was irrelevant and inadmissible.The defense used only two days to present its case.Jennings was one of Fall River's most prominent citizens. He had been Andrew Borden's lawyer, and from the day of the murders on, he became Lizzie's adviser and attorney. He was a taciturn man who never spoke of the Borden case in the thirty years he lived after its conclusion. Without a doubt, it is Jennings, along with his younger colleague, Melvin Adams, who worked successfully to exclude testimony that would have been damaging to LizzieHowever, even with his lack of legal experience, the third lawyer for the defense, George Robinson, brought a prominent and respected personality to the proceedings. The fact that he had appointed Justice Dewey to the Superior Court certainly did not hurt their cause. Melvin O. AdamsFor the most part, the defense called witnesses to verify the presence of a mysterious young man in the vicinity of the Borden home, and Emma Borden to verify the absence of a motive for Lizzie as the murderer.Emma Borden is something of an enigma. She is variously described as shy, retiring, small, plain looking, thin-faced and bony — an unremarkable forty-three-year-old spinster. The most well-known depiction of her is an unsatisfactory drawing made of her in court. She was supportive of Lizzie during the trial, although there is one witness, a prison matron, who testified that Lizzie and Emma had an argument when Emma was visiting her in jail.After the trial, she and Lizzie lived together at Maplecroft. While Lizzie found it impossible to attend church because of her ostracism, Emma, unlike her previous existence, became a devoted churchgoer.On Monday, June 19, defense attorney Robinson delivered his closing arguments and Knowlton began his closing arguments for the prosecution, completing them on the next day. Lizzie was then asked if she had anything to say. For the only time during the trial, she spoke. She said, "I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me." Justice Dewey, who had been appointed to the Superior Court bench by then Governor Robinson, then delivered his charge to the jury, which was, in effect, a second summation of the case for the defense, remarkable in its bias.At 3:24, the jury was sworn, given the case, and retired to carry out their deliberations. At 4:32, a little over an hour later, the jury returned with its verdict. Lizzie was found not guilty on all three charges. The jury was earnestly thanked by the court, and dismissedAftermathFive weeks after the trial, Lizzie and Emma purchased and moved into a thirteen-room, gray stone Victorian house at 306 French Street, located on "The Hill," the fashionable residential area of Fall River. Shortly thereafter, Lizzie named the house "Maplecroft," and had the name carved into the top stone step leading up to the front door. It was at this time that Lizzie began to refer to herself as "Lizbeth."In 1897, Lizzie was charged with the theft of two paintings, valued at less than one hundred dollars, from the Tilden-Thurber store in Fall River. The controversy was privately resolvedIn 1904, Lizzie met a young actress, Nance O'Neil, and for the next two years, Lizzie and Nance were inseparable. About this time, Emma moved out of Maplecroft, presumably offended by her sister's relationship with the actress, which included at least one lavish catered party for Nance and her theatrical company. Emma stayed with the family of Reverend Buck, and, sometime around 1915, moved to Newmarket, New Hampshire, living quietly and virtually anonymously in a house she had presumably purchased for two sisters, Mary and Annie Conner. Unidentified woman lays flowers at the Borden GravesiteLizzie died on June 1, 1927, at age 67, after a long illness from complications following gall bladder surgery. Emma died nine days later, as a result of a fall down the back stairs of her house in Newmarket. They were buried together in the family plot, along with a sister who had died in early childhood, their mother, their stepmother, and their headless father.Both Lizzie and Emma left their estates to charitable causes; Lizzie's being left predominately to animal care organizations, Emma's to various humanitarian organizations in Fall River.Bridget Sullivan, as it has been noted, died in 1948, more than twenty years after the death of the Borden sisters, in Butte, Montana.The Persistence of the Lizzie Borden Case in American CultureIn addition to the singsong rhyme, Lizzie Borden is fixed in the American imagination for a number of reasons. Hers was the first nationally prominent murder case in the United States. Despite all of the circumstantial evidence that Lizzie did indeed commit these murders, it remains — at least technically — an unsolved crime. Few cases since — perhaps the Sacco-Vanzetti case, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Dr. Sam Sheppard case, and, of course, the recent O.J. Simpson case — have the fascination of Lizzie Borden.A number of "solved" cases, such as the Loeb-Leopold case, are equally fascinating, but it is that small group of unresolved murders that continue to persist in our memory.Support for the contention that these murders will remain as part of our culture for a very long time can be seen in the "industries" that have grown up around each of them. Not only have a great number of books been written about each case, each with its own slant or theory, but these murders have inspired dramas, novels, poems, and, in the case of Lizzie Borden, even a ballet and an opera. The distinguished actress, Lillian Gish, portrayed Lizzie in a 1934 play, Nine Pine Street, although her character had been renamed Effie Holden and "Effie" had used a flat iron and a heavy walking stick as her weapons. In 1995, Lizzie was the subject of an A & E Biography, and recently she was "tried" (and found innocent) in a mock trial on C-SPAN.But among these handful of fascinating cases, Lizzie Borden, in my opinion, remains preeminent. Each book — some of which I describe below — presents a different theory. Why? It is not only the unresolved nature of her case, but the inscrutability of her appearance, her light blue eyes staring back at us from her photographs, broad-shouldered, thin-waisted, broad-hipped, an unfathomable smile — a very slight smile — defying us, over a century later, to make sense of her. So potent is her appeal that an entire mythology has grown up about her. As she became more and more reclusive as she got older — mostly as a result of Fall River's social ostracism of her — legends grew. At one time, Lizzie had decapitated Abby's cat when it was annoying Lizzie's guests during a tea. A frightened deliveryman, bringing a wooden crate to Maplecroft, ran off in terror when Lizzie offered to get an axe for him. As she became the eccentric who was preoccupied with birds and squirrels and the welfare of animals in general, she became the seldom-seen legend who refused to leave Fall River, except for occasional and mysterious trips to Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., glimpsed riding in her chauffeured limousine. What is true, partly true, and entirely fictional? What is her secret?Added to the attractiveness, the mystery of Lizzie herself, is the surrounding cast of characters and circumstances: A mouse of an older sister who was, in Lizzie's childhood, a surrogate mother and from whom she was estranged the last twenty years of her life; a strange and mysterious uncle; a set of judges and a jury predisposed to her innocence; a town in frenzy in its partisanship and support for this Christian maiden lady; and, for the first time in American journalism, coverage of a murder case that became — in more than one sense — her advocate.Theories: Lizzie Committed the MurdersThe literature that exists on the Borden case is extensive. Without exerting one's self, it is still possible to find in a modest public library three or four books about Lizzie. A visit to a second library, equally modest, will reveal another two or three titles that the first library did not have. Soon, there will be a stack of more than a dozen volumes — to say nothing of the dozens of magazine articles — staring at anyone who attempts to be even a bit responsible in producing a study of Lizzie Borden.These books and articles each have their own special spin to the case, usually using the same sets of facts, evidence, interviews, etc., to argue who really hacked Andrew and Abby Borden to death. Some of these theories range from the carefully argued, judicial analysis of the trial, to rather startling assertions naming some other person than Lizzie. Some combine theories, constructing elaborate conspiracies that defy belief. A number of them place great importance on interviews with second and third generation descendants of witnessesDuring the early days of the investigation, and well into the time of the trial itself ten months later, a number of accusations were made. The murderer, at various times, was declared to be Uncle Morse, Bridget, a madman in a straw hat, Dr. Bowen, and — fantastically — one of Lizzie's Chinese Sunday School students.I have tried to summarize these theories and their variants. They are from books that are either still in print, or books that can be found in most libraries or second-hand bookstores. The bibliographical information for each is given. A more extensive bibliography is also provided, but it is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather "accessible."I claim the privilege of authorial wisdom, and I have assigned, on a scale of one to ten, my judgment as to the credibility of each theory.Variation One: Lizzie committed the murdersUnder this category, one runs into most of the books published before 1940, with a few exceptions.1) Porter, Edwin H. 1893. The Fall River Tragedy. J.D. Munroe, Fall River. (reprinted by Robert Flynn, 1985, King Philip Publications, 466 Ocean Ave., Portland, Me.)Porter's account is the first thorough work on Lizzie Borden. He was the police reporter for the Fall River Daily Globe, and was an observer of both the investigation and the trial. While he did not explicitly state that Lizzie had committed the crime, his analysis makes it unlikely (in his mind) that the murder could have been done by an outsider. Of the several hundred copies of his book that J.D. Munroe printed, only a few — until the recent reprint by Flynn — were known to exist. One of those, the copy in the Library of Congress, has disappeared. On the day of its publication, Lizzie, on the advice of Mr. Jennings, bought all the available copies and burned them, although this is an assumption, since there is no direct evidence that she was the purchaser of all but four or five of the volumes. Until the reprint, four of the copies were in the possession of the Fall River Historical Society, and one other was said to be in private hands.Arnold R. Brown, an author discussed below who is very much intrigued by conspiracy theories, states in his book that Porter "...was an outstanding reporter, and yet after 1893 there are no reported by-lines of his from anywhere in the country. He simply was never heard from again." Brown's implication is that Porter was paid off to both disappear and never publish his book again.Credibility Score: 82) Pearson, Edmund. 1937. The Trial Book of Lizzie Borden. Doubleday.Pearson was the preeminent writer of "true-crime" for a number of years. He died in 1937. His book is an abridgment of the trial record, with accompanying information to fill in the material that he deleted. Two of his essays on Lizzie Borden are reprinted in the book of his writings edited by Gerald Gross, one of which discusses the myths surrounding the case. He had earlier analyzed the Borden case in a long essay in his Studies in Murder in 1924. His conclusion was unequivocal. Lizzie did it. He was willing to report legends, myths, and odd beliefs. It is he that reports (and rejects) the fanciful suggestion that Lizzie stripped herself naked before killing her victims, thereafter washing off the blood at the water tap in the cellar, and replacing her unblemished clothes. An interesting television movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Lizzie used this premise, adding some titillating views of an almost nude Lizzie to the account. To quote the acerbic Pearson, "... the maidens of Massachusetts are not accustomed to undress before committing homicide. In fact, so rigid are their notions of propriety that a good many of them do not slaughter their parents at all, even when fully clothed."Pearson has gathered a considerable number of legends, recounts them, and enjoys them as the absurdities that they are. He particularly enjoyed two stanzas of a poem written by A.L. Bixby, published during the trial: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. You have borne up under all, Lizzie Borden. With a mighty show of gall, Lizzie Borden; But because your nerve is stout Does not prove beyond a doubt That you knocked the old folks out, Lizzie Borden.Pearson was selective in his analysis of the evidence that confirmed, for him, Lizzie's guilt, dismissing information that was favorable to her. Still, he is convincing in his discussion of motive and opportunity.Without a doubt, Pearson is the most gifted stylist of any of the writers whom I have read in my research on Lizzie Borden.Credibility Score: 83) Sullivan, Robert. 1974. Goodbye Lizzie Borden. Penguin Books.Like Pearson, Sullivan concludes that Lizzie was guilty, and emphasizes even more strongly how poorly structured and presented was the prosecution's case. One difference between the two accounts of the case is that Sullivan, a former justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, examined the official trial record exhaustively, without the subjective selectivity of Pearson. A second difference is that Sullivan credits an extraordinary set of lucky events that helped Lizzie avoid a guilty verdict.The trial record, some two thousand pages, as well as the information contained in the earlier judicial proceedings, is carefully dissected by Sullivan. He notes every critical piece of testimony, either within the context of the law or with reference to specific procedures. It is a very professional account, as one would expect from a lawyer and jurist.Sullivan makes much of the court's actions and rulings, and discusses Justice Dewey's instruction to the jury, a strange, virtual summation for the defense. He was not impressed with either the prosecution's case, nor was he in agreement with "the recurring fiction(s)" that Robinson was an accomplished defense lawyer. "Either the able Jennings or the experienced and able Adams could have tried the case as successfully as did Robinson, and even more credibly; and probably for a much smaller fee," the staggering sum of $25,000, five times the annual salary of each of the judges presiding at the trial.Lizzie's deliverance was due mostly to two judicial rulings: the exclusion of her inconsistent statements made under oath at the inquest, and the exclusion of the prussic acid evidence. A second piece of luck for Lizzie was the sensational axe murder of Bertha Manchester in her Fall River home, five days before jury selection began. Almost immediately, a Portuguese immigrant was arrested and charged. The implication, of course, is that Jose Corriera had also murdered the Bordens, even though he had not arrived in the United States until eight months after the Borden murders.Credibility Score: 94) Lincoln, Victoria. 1967. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. G.P. Putnam's Sons.Victoria Lincoln was a novelist who grew up in Fall River, and, as a child, occasionally talked to Lizzie Borden as Lizzie was out feeding the birds and squirrels in her backyard at Maplecroft. Her family knew the Borden family, and Ms. Lincoln spent her childhood little more than a block away from Lizzie's house on the Hill.This book asserts that Lizzie planned the murder of her stepmother and then, in order to prevent the father she loved very much from testifying against her, killed him as well.There are three interesting twists to Lincoln's understanding of the case. The first is that Lizzie suffered from epilepsy of the temporal lobe, and that she committed the first murder while "suffering one of her spells." These epileptic seizures occurred during her menstrual periods, it is reported, and, on August 4, 1892, she was having her period.The second twist is that Lizzie was indeed in the barn in the time interval she claimed to be — say, ten thirty to eleven — because there was running water in the barn, where she could remove some of Abby's blood from her skirts and the hatchet. Also, the barn had a large vise, where she could break off the handle of the hatchet, burn the handle in the kitchen stove, and dip the cleaned, wet hatchet head in wood ashes.Finally, Lincoln proposes that the bloodstained dress was not found because the investigators were men. If Lizzie had been wearing a dress of a fabric other than cotton, then the police would have ignored it, since they were confining their search to "a cotton wrapper." Therefore, all Lizzie had to do was to hang a silk dress worn during the murder of her father under another silk dress, and the bloodstained dress would be overlooked.Lincoln uses her novelist's skills well, and her analyses seem not only plausible, but entirely possible. Even if what she has produced is fiction, it is pretty good.Theories 2: Lizzie did not Commit the MurdersI have included in this category books that have a certain plausibility, and I have avoided those theories that strain even heated imaginations. In order to be included, I have considered only those books where the author has done reasonably thorough research, so that the interpretations come out of fact, rather than fancy. Some of these authors often take evidence already circumstantial and expand it into — for want of a better word — megacircumstantiality.1) Radin, Edward D. 1961. Lizzie Borden, The Untold Story. Simon and Schuster.Radin's book is fundamentally an attack on Pearson, whose book on Lizzie he considers "a literary hoax." In the long run, Pearson was biased against Lizzie, simply because his wide experience in the study of crime and his common sense told him so. Thus, his selection and interpretation of the evidence reflected his belief in her guilt.In the process of debunking Pearson, Radin builds a case that Bridget, the maid, was the murderess. According to Radin, Bridget, ordered to wash windows on the hottest day of the year, went mad and hacked Mrs. Borden to death. She then murdered Mr. Borden in order to prevent him from reporting the hypothesized argument that Bridget had had with Mrs. Borden earlier in the morning, for such a report would incriminate her. This again is a theory that suggests that Mrs. Borden is the target victim, and that Mr. Borden is killed to keep him from identifying her murderer.Unfortunately, assigning the motive of rage to Bridget is difficult, since there is no evidence that suggests that she harbored great hostility toward her employer. Was Bridget Lizzie's lover, and so her rage against Mrs. Borden was fueled by Lizzie's unjust treatment at the hands of her stepmother and father? There is no evidence to support this idea. Radin, I think, is seduced by the story that Bridget, in her old age, "almost" confessed during an illness that she supposed was her last.Credibility Score: 22) Spiering, Frank. 1984. Lizzie. Random House. Paperback reprint, 1985.Pinnacle Books.This book attempts to prove that Emma was the murderess, with Lizzie as a frightened accomplice. The motive for Emma is the same as Lizzie's, that is, the desire to inherit all of Mr. Borden's estate, and resentment over financial arrangements that Mr. Borden was making for his second wife.Spiering uses the testimony, newspaper accounts, other documents to develop a case in which Emma, the "Little Mother" to Lizzie, hatches the elaborate plot. First, she establishes her alibi away from the crime scene — some fifteen miles away at Fairhaven — while surreptitiously driving her buggy to Fall River, hiding in the upstairs, committing the murders, and driving her buggy back to Fairhaven, where she awaits the telegram from Dr. Bowen. Once Lizzie is accused, the sisters work together to protect each other.However, there is a point where it seems to Spiering that Emma is trying to double-cross Lizzie and Lizzie forces Emma to share the rewards of the murder with her. It includes legal documents that establish the division of Andrew Borden's wealth.The lingering suspicion of one another is evidenced from time to time by Emma's estrangement from Lizzie, beginning with her disapproval of Nance O'Neil, with whom, Spiering asserts, Lizzie had an affair. Later, the two sisters went to court over Emma's intent to sell the A.J. Borden building, resolved only by Lizzie buying Emma's share of the building.Interviews, or records of interviews, with people who knew Lizzie and Emma in their later years are important to Spiering, and he basically creates a scenario of Emma's guilty behavior as his argument that it was Emma who was the actual murderess.Credibility Score: 63) Brown, Arnold R. 1992. Lizzie Borden. Dell.This recent book concocts an elaborate conspiracy to explain the murders. Brown, a native of Fall River, was a friend of the son-in-law of a man who purportedly knew the identity of the murderer. Further, that man's mother-in-law had actually been a witness to the murderer's leaving the scene of the crime.Taking this as a point of departure, Brown examines the case and reconstructs it to propose the following, astonishing solution: The murderer was William Borden, the retarded, supposedly illegitimate son of Andrew Borden. Because of his illegitimate status, and a possible claim he might have to his natural father's estate, Lizzie, Emma, Uncle John, Dr. Bowen, and Mr. Jennings conspired to keep his crime hidden. Browns peculates that William was making demands of his father, who was in the process of making his will, and that these demands were rejected by Andrew. William, full of rage, killed Mrs. Borden first, hid in the house with Lizzie's knowledge, and then killed his father. The conspirators then either paid William off or threatened him, or both, and decided that Lizzie would allow herself to be suspected and tried for the murders, knowing that she could always identify the real killer, should that be necessary.Brown works very hard on his hypothesis, discovering such bits of information as William Borden's fascination with hatchets, his possible connection to the Bertha Manchester murder — could that have been a "contract" murder to divert guilt away from Lizzie? — and his unique combination of repulsive body odors remembered by the witness who saw him in the Borden's side yard, wild-eyed and fragrant, just after the murders.As in the case of Spiering's book, a great deal of massaging of the facts of the case takes place. Lizzie's testimony at the inquest, for example, is completely recast in the form of clever red herrings, intended to keep William Borden from being discovered.Credibility Score: 44) Gross, Gerald. 1963. "The Pearson-Radin Controversy over the Guilt of Lizzie Borden" in Masterpieces of Murder: An Edmund Pearson True Crime Reader, Gerald Gross, editor. Little, Brown and Company.An odd compromise between Pearson and Radin is offered by Gerald Gross. The final selection in his collection of famous crime pieces written by Pearson is a brief essay written by Gross himself. He presents Radin's attack on Pearson, a summary of Radin's contention that Bridget is the murderer, and his own hypothesis.Gross proposes that Lizzie did indeed murder her parents, but that she could not have brought off the crime successfully without Bridget's assistance. It was Bridget who spirited away — virtually under the very noses of the police — the murder weapon and the bloodstained dress. Gross suggests the possibility that Lizzie plotted the murders with Bridget. This connivance explains the mutually non-accusatory testimony of Lizzie and Bridget with respect to each other. Gross points out that only the two of them were in the house when the two-hundred-pound Abby Borden fell heavily and noisily to the floor after being struck. He finds significance in Bridget's passage being paid so that she could return to Ireland — was it Lizzie's part of the bargain? He also attaches importance to Bridget's "almost-death-bed confession" over half a century later, when Bridget was living in Butte, Montana.Most of the writers on the case have described Bridget as open and guileless, but it is possible that she might have had some guilty knowledge of the crimes. Gross's brief account, relying heavily on Radin's arguments, at least serves as a counter argument for the absence of a reasonable motive for Bridget as the murdererLizzie Didnt Do It! A Review of William L. Mastertons book, by Marilyn Bardsley"There is not one particle of direct evidence in this case, from beginning to end, against Lizzie Borden. There is not a spot of blood, there is not a weapon they have connected to her in any way, shape, or fashion. They have not had her hand touch it or her eyne see it or her ear hear of it. There is not, I say, a particle of direct testimony in the case connecting her with the crime."—Andrew Jennings, Lizzie's lawyerAnd you thought that there was no way that anyone could add anything new to the 1892 Lizzie Borden case. Well, like Jack the Ripper, Lizzie has become a cottage industry. Every few years will produce new books and, sometimes, new insight. Book cover: Lizzie Didn't Do ItI have selected William L. Masterton's Lizzie Didn't Do It. as a comparatively recent (2000) book that is, from my viewpoint, worthy of reading. After reading Robert Sullivan's Goodbye Lizzie Borden, I had decided that Lizzie had to be guilty, so when I saw Masterton's book, which uses some modern forensics and extensive research to come to his conclusion about Lizzie's innocence, I felt that I needed to open up my mind.Masterton's book is refreshingly easy to understand and he addresses evidence and testimony by topic, such as the prussic acid issue, the note that Lizzie said Abby Borden received the morning of her murder, and every other controversial area that caused Lizzie to be arrested, handed over to trial and eventually found "not guilty."Let me address one of the many controversial issues from this classic murder case that Masterton handles so well: Abby Borden's time of death. Why is this important? Because, police and forensic experts at that time believed that Abby Borden was murdered well over an hour, maybe even 2 hours, before her husband Andrew Borden was killed.Were that really the case, it is very difficult to conjure up a vision of Lizzie, or anyone else for that matter, brutally rampaging against the mild-mannered Abby Borden, then cooling his or her heels for a couple of hours, after which another similar rampage of brutality is generated toward Andrew Borden.Lizzie was out in the barn around 11 A.M. when her father, Andrew, was murdered, but was in the house between 9 and 10 A.M when contemporary experts testified that Abby died. Furthermore, Abby weighed some 200 pounds and it is hard to imagine that Lizzie would not have heard the stricken Abby crash to the floor.A number of contemporary experts based their belief that Abby had died between an hour and two hours earlier than Andrew on several factors: 1) Abby's blood seemed to be coagulated and Andrew's was not, 2) Abby's body felt cooler to the touch than Andrew's, and 3) there was a g