CHAPTER XXII.

Beginning of the Superior Court Trial.

According to the arrangements already made, the trial of Miss Lizzie Borden commenced in New Bedford on the morning of the 5th of June, 1893. It was conducted before three Superior Court Judges. They were Chief Justice Albert Mason and Associate Justices Caleb Blodgett and Justin Dewey.

No spectators were allowed in the court room the first day of the trial, but this rule was not observed later. The only persons present at the opening were the 150 jurors from which twelve were to be selected, the court officers, a few of the intimate friends of the prisoner and thirty-five newspaper correspondents. Miss Borden was escorted to the court-house by Deputy Sheriff Kirby and to all appearances had not changed in the least during her ten months of confinement in Taunton jail. The court was opened by prayer by Rev. M. C. Julien, who spoke as follows:

“Almighty and all-wise God, our Father, we look to Thee as the only source of wisdom, as the only source of courage. We pray Thee that Thou wouldst grant that in entering on the solemn duties of this court, we shall have not only such help as comes from the experience of the past, through the history of the world, but such help as Thou, by Thy providence, wilt and canst give to Thy earthly children. We pray Thee that so innocence may be revealed and guilt exposed, to the glory of Thy own great name and the well being of the world. We ask it all for Thy name’s sake. Amen.”

The first day was devoted entirely to the selection of the Jury which was made up of the following named gentlemen.

Charles I. Richards, foreman, of North Attleboro; George Potter of Westport; William F. Deane of Taunton; John Wilbur of Somerset; Frederick C. Wilbar, of Raynham; Lemuel K. Wilber of Easton; Louis D. Hodges of Taunton; Augustus Swift of New Bedford; Frank G. Cole of Attleboro; John C. Finn of Taunton; William Wescott of Seekonk; and Allen H. Wordell of Dartmouth.

The second day of the trial was devoted to the opening of the case by the government’s representative, Mr. William H. Moody, District Attorney of Essex County and assistant to District Attorney Knowlton of Bristol County.

During the afternoon of that day the Jury visited the scenes of the murder in Fall River. Mr. Moody spoke as follows:

_May it please Your Honors, Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen of the Jury:_

Upon the fourth day of August of the last year, an old man and woman, husband and wife, each without a known enemy in the world, in their own home, upon a frequented street in the most populous city in this county, under the light of day and in the midst of its activities, were, first one, then, after an interval of an hour, another, severally killed by unlawful human agency. To-day, a woman of good social position, of hitherto unquestioned character, a member of a Christian church and active in its good works, the own daughter of one of the victims, is at the bar of this court accused by the Grand Jury of this county of these crimes. There is no language, gentlemen, at my command, which can better measure the solemn importance of the inquiry which you are about to begin than this simple statement of facts. For the sake of these crimes and for the sake of these accusations, every man may well pause at the threshold of this trial and carefully search his understanding and conscience for any vestige of prejudice, and, finding it, cast it aside as an unclean thing. It is my purpose, gentlemen, and it is my duty to state to you at this time so much of the history of the cause and so much of the evidence which is to be introduced upon this trial as shall best enable you to understand the claim of the Government and to appreciate the force and application of the testimony as it comes from the witnesses on the stand. It is my purpose to do that in the plainest, simplest and most direct manner. And it is not my purpose to weary you with a recital of all the details of the evidence which is to come before you. Andrew Jackson Borden, the person named in the second part of the indictment, was at the time of his death a man of considerable property—somewhere, I believe, between $250,000 and $300,000. He had been retired from business for a number of years. He was a man who had obtained his fortune by earning and saving, and he retained the habit of saving up to the time of his death; and it will appear in the course of this trial that the family establishment was upon what might well be called, for a person in his circumstances, a narrow scale. He had been twice married. The first wife died some twenty-seven or twenty-eight years before he died, leaving two children, now alive—the prisoner at the bar, Lizzie Andrew Borden, the younger, and then somewhere between two and three years of age, a sister, Miss Emma Borden, being a woman at the present time in the neighborhood of ten years older than the prisoner. Not long after the death of the first wife Andrew Borden married again a woman whose maiden name, I believe, was Abby Durfee Gray. The marriage, I believe, was something over twenty-five years before the time of their deaths, and there was no issue of the second marriage, at least none living and none that I have been informed of at any time. Abby Durfee Borden, at the time of her death, was about six years younger than her husband, and that would make her, of course, sixty-four years of age. Mr. Borden, I may say here, was a spare, thin man and somewhat tall. Mrs. Borden was a short, fat woman, weighing, I believe, in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. The house in which these homicides were committed had been occupied by the Borden family for some twenty years. I shall have occasion to consider its construction and its relation to other buildings and streets later on in the course of this opening. There was, or came to be, between the prisoner and her stepmother, an unkindly feeling. From the nature of the case, from the fact that those who know the most about that feeling, except the prisoner at the bar, are dead, it will be impossible for us at this hearing to get anything more than suggestive glimpses of that feeling. It will appear that some five years before the death of Mr. and Mrs. Borden some controversy had arisen about some property, not important in itself. Mr. Borden had seen fit to do some benefaction for a relative of Mrs. Borden, and in consequence of that fact the daughters thought that something should be done for them by way of pecuniary provision as an offset. The details of what happened at that time are, as I have said, by no means important. It is significant, however, that enough of feeling has been created by the discussion which arose to cause a change in the relations between the prisoner and Mrs. Borden. Up to that time she had addressed her stepmother as “mother.” From that time she substantially ceased to do so. We shall show to you that the spring before these homicides, upon some occasion where a talk arose between the prisoner and a person who did the cloak making for the family, the latter spoke of Mrs. Borden as “mother.” The prisoner at once repudiated that relation and said, “Don’t call her mother. She is a mean thing, and we hate her. We have as little to do with her as possible.” “Well, don’t you have your meals with her?” “Yes, we do sometimes; but we try not to, and a great many times we wait until they are over with their meals, and we stay in our own rooms as much as possible.” I know of nothing that will appear in this case more significant of the feeling that existed between Mrs. Borden and the prisoner than a little incident which occurred not long after the discovery of these homicides. When one of the officers of the law, while the father and the step-mother lay at the very place where they had fallen under the blows of the assassin, was seeking information from the prisoner, he said, “When did you last see your mother?” “She is not my mother. My mother is dead.” You cannot fail, I think, to be impressed in this respect with what will appear as to the method of living of this family. It will appear later on in the evidence that, although they occupied the same household, there was built up between them by locks and bolts and bars almost an impassable wall. In the early part of August of last year the older daughter, Miss Emma, was away, I believe at Fairhaven at the time. When Miss Emma was away the household that was left consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Borden and a servant, who had been in the service of the family nearly three years, Bridget Sullivan, and the prisoner. Upon the day preceding the homicides, John V. Morse, a brother of Mr. Borden’s first wife, and, therefore, the uncle of his daughters, came upon a visit, or a passing visit, to the Bordens. The homicides, I may say now, were upon a Thursday, and the visit of Mr. Morse was on Wednesday. He came a little after the completion of the dinner; went away, I think, during the afternoon, returned in the evening and slept at the house upon the Wednesday night. Upon Tuesday night, Tuesday, August 2, an illness occurred in the household. Mr. and Mrs. Borden were taken suddenly ill with a violent retching and vomiting sickness, and it is said to a less degree the prisoner herself was affected by this illness. Bridget Sullivan was not. Upon the Wednesday morning Mr. and Mrs. Borden rose, feeling, of course, in the condition that people would be in after a night of that character, and Mrs. Borden consulted a physician with reference to her condition. Upon the noon of Wednesday, which you will keep in mind was the very day before these homicides, the prisoner went to a drug store in Fall River, the situation of which will be pointed out to you, and there asked the clerk for ten cents worth of prussic acid for the purpose of cleaning a sealskin cape. She was told that that was a poison which was not sold except on the prescription of a physician, and after some little talk went away. I think, gentlemen, you will be satisfied that there can be no question that the person who made this application for this deadly poison was the prisoner. There were three persons in the drug store, two of whom knew her by name and sight; one of these, too, knew her as the daughter of Andrew J. Borden, and the third recognized her at once as he saw her.

On the evening of the Wednesday the prisoner made a call, not in itself unusual or peculiar, upon a friend of hers, Miss Alice Russell, and we shall commend to your careful attention what occurred during that interview. It will appear that the prisoner had been intending to spend a vacation with a party of her friends at Marion, and had made some arrangements about going to Marion, and the talk between the two friends started upon that topic. The prisoner said: “I have made up my mind, Alice, to take your advice and go to Marion, and I have written there to them that I shall go, but I cannot help feeling depressed; I cannot help feeling that something is going to happen to me; I cannot shake it off. Last night,” she said, “we were all sick; Mr. and Mrs. Borden were quite sick and vomited; I did not vomit, and we are afraid that we have been poisoned; the girl did not eat the baker’s bread and we did, and we think it may have been the baker’s bread.” “No.” said Miss Russell. “If it had been that some other people would have been sick in the same way.” “Well, it might have been the milk; our milk is left outside upon the steps.” “What time is your milk left?” “At 4 o’clock in the morning.” “It is light then, and no one would dare to come in and touch it at that time.” “Well,” said the prisoner, “probably that is so. But father has been having so much trouble with those with whom he has dealings that I am afraid some of them will do something to him. I expect nothing but that the building will be burned down over our heads. The barn has been broken into twice.” “That,” said Miss Russell “was merely boys after pigeons.” “Well, the house has been broken into in broad daylight when Maggie and Emma and I were the only ones in the house. I saw a man the other night when I went home lurking about the buildings, and as I came he jumped and ran away. Father had trouble with a man the other day about a store. There were angry words, and he turned him out of the house.” And so the talk went. That, I beg you to keep in your minds, was with Miss Russell—Alice M. Russell. There comes now the most difficult duty which I have in this opening. I am consoled, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, by the fact that you will be aided beyond any explanation that I give you by a view of these premises that I am about to explain. I hope I shall be able, even without the view, to make myself entirely intelligible to you, because no one can understand this testimony that is to come and rightly reason upon it without an exact knowledge of the interior and exterior of that house. In the first place, I may say that the house occupied by this family was a common type of house in this community and in this State, a house with the end to the street and the front door upon the end. It was a rectangular house. It was situated upon Second street in Fall River, which is one of the most frequented streets outside of the main thoroughfares in the city, and is within, as all probably know, a very short distance of the City Hall. It may fairly be called a thoroughfare as well for foot passengers as for carriages. It is a street used partly for residences and partly for business purposes. Second Street runs substantially north and south. It is a street which ascends toward the south. The higher part is south, the lower part is north, and upon the east side of Second Street this house is situated. At the south of the house is the residence of Dr. Kelly, and also very near the house. To the north of the house, and also near it, is the residence occupied by Mrs. Churchill, and diagonally in the rear of the house is the residence occupied by Dr. Chagnon. The house is separated from the sidewalk by a wooden fence, a picket fence, with two gates and in the rear of the yard, in which is situated a barn, there is a high board fence, on the top and the bottom of which there was at the time, and is, I believe, now, a line of barbed wire. There are three exterior doors, three entrances to these premises, and only three, excepting of course, the windows. There is the front door leading directly from the sidewalk up a pair of steps into the hall. There is a side door upon the north side, facing Mrs. Churchill’s house, leading into a small entryway which leads into the kitchen. There is a third door exactly in the rear of the house, which leads down to the cellar. There is what might be called a porch, and a door leading into it, as you will see. As you enter the front door you enter a hall, from which lead two doors, a door into a parlor, which is the front room in the house, making the northwest corner of the first story, a door leading into the sitting room, and a stairway leading upstairs. Let us, in the first place, go upstairs and see the arrangements there. It will aid us in considering this arrangement to remember that this house was originally a double tenement house, and with the slight exception that I shall refer to later on, the arrangement as it is upstairs is as it is upon the first story. As you are about to see the premises, gentlemen, I do not deem it wise to detain you at the present time by explaining this plan in detail. I will try to make it as clear as I can by stating it to you. As you turn and go upstairs from the front entry, you come into a hallway. From that hallway lead three doors: first, a door which leads into a large closet, used at this time for the keeping of dresses, and which is almost large enough to be a small bedroom; another door, which leads into the guest chamber, which is directly over the parlor below, and corresponds to it in every respect. The guest chamber is the chamber in which you will subsequently hear that Mrs. Borden was found dead. It is a matter which is to be carefully considered, that as you turn upon the journey upstairs, as the stairs wind about, and to begin to face into the hall toward the north, you can look directly into the door of the guest chamber. The other door which leads from the hall is a door which leads into a bedroom, and leads toward the rear of the house. Following, then, my direction, gentlemen, as you come up the stairs, turn to your left. As you approach the entry in front of you is the door leading into the guest chamber, and to your right is the door leading into a chamber which at that time was occupied by the prisoner. Between the guest chamber and the bedroom of the prisoner there was a door. I may as well dispose of it now for good. It was a door which always, including the day of this homicide, was kept locked upon both sides, and upon the side toward the prisoner’s room there was against the door a desk which she used. In other words it was not a practicable opening. When you have got up into this part of the house, gentlemen, you can go nowhere except into this clothes closet, into this guest chamber and into the room occupied by the prisoner. It is important to remember that. All access to the other part of the house is cut off not by the natural construction of the house but by the way in which the house was kept. Follow me, if you please, then, into the prisoner’s bedroom. As you enter the bedroom a door leads to the left into a room which has no other entrance than that door. That is the room that was occupied by Miss Emma when she was at home. The only access to it was through the prisoner’s room. There is another door at the rear of the prisoner’s room, and directly opposite the door of entrance which leads into the room occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Borden, which is over the kitchen. The prisoner’s room was exactly over the sitting room. The room in the rear of the prisoner’s room was exactly over the kitchen, and was occupied as the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Borden. That door leading into that room was kept always locked upon both sides. It was locked upon the front toward the prisoner’s room by a hook. It was locked in the rear toward Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s room by a bolt, and I may as well say here as at any time that the proof that that door was locked upon both sides upon this morning, from the morning down to the time of the arrival of those who came alarmed by this homicide, will be ample and complete. But as we go further, passing to the rear into Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s room, we find a door, and only a single door, leading out into the entryway, which is over the entryway leading into the kitchen. That door, it will be clearly, amply and satisfactorily proved, was locked all through this day up to and beyond the time of the homicide. Now then, gentlemen, if I have made myself clear upon this description, which is wearisome, I know, but it is one of the wearisome duties that we must undertake in this cause. I have made it clear to you that as you go up the hallway you get access to but four rooms, the hallway itself, if you call that a room, the closet, the guest chamber in which Mrs. Borden was found, and the room of the prisoner and the room leading out of that, the blind room, so to speak, that was occupied by Miss Emma when she was at home, and there is no other access whatever to the rear of the house. Now, gentlemen, let me, at the expense of being tedious, go below. As you enter the hallway below, it is, I believe, exactly as above, except, of course, there is no clothes closet there as there is above. There are two small closets, very small ones, as you will see. To your left as you enter is the door which leads into the parlor under the room where Mrs. Borden was found dead. Going straight ahead you enter into the sitting room, which is a room in the rear of the hall at the south of the house, and directly under and corresponding to the prisoner’s bed room. Now you come to a difference of construction in the two stories. You turn to the left from the sitting room as you enter and you enter the dining room, which is upon the north side of the house and is directly under Miss Emma’s room, and a large room, which was used as a closet by Mr. Borden and which joined his room, another blind room. That difference is made either by the taking down or putting up of a partition. You enter the dining room and there is a door of exit which goes into the kitchen. Above, that arrangement is varied by a partition directly down through the room, which would correspond to the door leading from the sitting room to the dining room, leads from Miss Emma’s room to the bedroom of the prisoner, and the door corresponding to the door leading from the dining room to the kitchen leads from the room which adjoins the blind room, which adjoin the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Borden, so that the effect of that partition is that while there is free communication two ways from the kitchen to the front part of the house downstairs, upstairs this partition reduces those ways of communication to one, and that one, you will recall, always and upon the day of the homicide was barred by two doors, locked. Again, gentlemen, I say that the difficulty of understanding this is great, but I am confronted by the fact that you will be aided by a view of these premises. Mr. Morse returned upon a Wednesday night. It is important to show who occupied the house on Wednesday night. Let us go first to the front part of the house. The prisoner came in the last one that night and locked the front door. Upon that front doer were three fastenings, a spring latch, a bolt and a lock which operated by key. Those three fastenings were closed, by the way, when she came in, the last person that night by the front way of the house. The door leading into the cellar, the other exterior door, had been closed since Tuesday, the washing day, and by complete and ample evidence will be proved to you to have been closed all through Wednesday night and on Thursday morning including up to and beyond the time of those homicides. Bridget came in through the back door that night, found the back door locked when she came, unlocked it, locked it as she went in, went upstairs and went to bed. So, when Bridget and the prisoner had come in at their respective doors, every exterior approach to this house was closed.

Now, in the front part of the house that night the prisoner slept in one room, Mr. Morse slept in the guest chamber. There was no other room in that part of the house, except Miss Emma’s room, which led out, as you still remember, of Miss Lizzie’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Borden slept in the room over the kitchen, and Bridget slept in some room above in the third story of the house. Now, then, it becomes my duty to relate in considerable detail all that occurred in that household down to the time of the discovery of these homicides. In the morning Bridget was the first person up. We may safely assume that upon the proof the only human beings who were in that house at the time were Bridget, Mr. and Mrs. Borden, John V. Morse and the prisoner at the bar. Bridget comes down stairs first, the back way, goes down cellar and gets her fuel, builds up a fire in the stove; then she went to the door, took in the milk, unlocking the door, locked it after she got through. The rear door, I may explain here, was a double door; it was an ordinary wooden panel door which was used at night, and a screen door, which was used, at least, in hot weather, during the day time and was fastened by a hook on the inside. When the outside door was opened by Bridget at that time it was opened for good for the day, and the method of security was keeping the screen door locked from that time on. The next person who came down was Mrs. Borden. Bridget came down a little after 6; Mrs. Borden came down a little before 7. Next Mr. Borden comes down, and after coming down goes out into the yard and empties his slop pail and unlocks the door to the barn. Bridget saw him do that. Bridget did not see Mr. Morse until they all met at breakfast, a little after 7. Mr. and Mrs. Borden and Mr. Morse taking breakfast together. It will appear what the material of their breakfast was, but it is not important at all for me to state it at this time. After breakfast the first one to depart is Mr. Morse. He goes away at a quarter of 8, and Mr. Borden lets him out and locks the screen door behind him. Soon after Mr. Morse went away the prisoner came down stairs and began eating her breakfast, or what took the place of a breakfast, in the kitchen. While she was there Mr. Borden went upstairs, and while Mr. Borden was upstairs Bridget went out into the yard, because she was sick and desired to vomit. She was gone some minutes, just how long I cannot tell. When she came back, Mr. Borden had apparently gone down town. The prisoner was in the kitchen and Mrs. Borden was in the dining room dusting. There was some talk then between Mrs. Borden and Bridget about washing the windows on the inside and the outside, and Bridget received the directions from Mrs. Borden to do that service. Mrs. Borden disappeared at this time, and it will appear that she told the prisoner that, having made the bed in the spare room, she was going upstairs to put two pillow cases upon two pillows that were there—a trifling duty, a duty which would take less than a minute. You will be satisfied, gentlemen, that that was not far from half-past nine o’clock, and upon the evidence you will be satisfied that she never left that room alive, and that she was killed within a very few moments after she left the room, because no living person saw Mrs. Borden from that time until her death, except the assailant. In the course of beginning the duty of washing these windows Bridget had to go to the barn and down cellar to get some of the implements for doing the work. As she was at the screen door, about to go out, the prisoner appeared at that back door, and Bridget said to her. “You needn’t lock that door, because I am coming in to get my water to wash the windows; but you may,” she said, “if you wish, and I will get my water from the barn,” as she did. The prisoner said nothing, and I believe it to be the fact, as the evidence will disclose it, that the door was not locked at that time. Then Bridget went into the kitchen and dining room and sitting room to close the windows in the sitting room and the dining room, and there was nobody there—neither the prisoner nor Mrs. Borden, who were the only two human beings in the house at that time except Bridget. In washing these windows there were two of the sitting room windows upon the south side of the house which were out of sight of the screen door, because they were on the other side of the house. Those two windows were washed first on the outside. Then Bridget came to the front of the house, washed two windows facing the street; then she came to the south side of the house, the Mrs. Churchill side, and washed the parlor window and the two dining room windows. During all the time that Bridget was washing those windows she saw neither Mrs. Borden nor the prisoner in any part of the lower part of the house or anywhere else. When she finished washing the windows on the outside she came in at the screen door and hooked it behind her, and began to wash the windows upon the inside of the same windows that she had washed upon the outside. First, she went into the sitting room, which is upon the Kelly side, the south side of the house. She had partly washed one of the two sitting room windows when somebody was heard at the front door.

Now, gentlemen, let us pause a moment and find out, as well as we can, what time that somebody came to the front door, because it was Mr. Borden. Mr. Borden, it will appear, left the house some time between 9 and 9:30 o’clock in the morning. He was at two banks, two or three banks, between 9:30 or at twenty-nine minutes of 11—I am not quite sure which—he was at the store of a Mr. Clegg, who fixes the exact time. The next place we find him is at another store, which belonged to him, upon South Main street, near the corner of Spring and not far from his own home. He left there, apparently in the direction of his home, at twenty minutes of 11. That was a moment or two’s walk from there to his house. The next we see of him is that he is seen by Mrs. Kelly, who lived upon one side of his house, and who was going down town, coming around, apparently, from the screen door, where he had attempted to get in, out upon the sidewalk and toward his own front door, taking out his key to open it. Mrs. Kelly will fix that time at twenty-seven or twenty-eight minutes of 11, which cannot be reconciled with the other time that I have stated here. There will be some explanation of that, and we think you will be satisfied that the clock by which she obtained this time was not one that could be depended upon, and that the real fact is that at twenty minutes of 11 Mr. Borden started to his home, which was but a moment or two’s walk away. Now, then, we fix that as well as we can. When Mr. Borden came home, contrary to the usual custom in that house, Bridget found the front door locked with the key and bolted, as well as secured by the spring lock. Mr. Borden had not rung the bell. He had put his key in and made the noise which people usually do who expect to get in the house by the use of a latch key. But the door was locked and bolted. He came into the house, and as Bridget let him in made some talk or explanation about the difficulty of unloosening the locks. The prisoner from the hall above made some laugh or exclamation. At that time, gentlemen, Mrs. Borden’s body lay within plain view of that hall, dead, probably, more than an hour. Mr. Borden came in, went first into the dining room. There the prisoner came to him, asked him if there was any mail and said to him, “Mrs. Borden has gone out; she had a note from somebody who was sick.” That, gentlemen, we put to you as a lie, intended for no purpose except to stifle inquiry as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Borden. Mr. Borden then took his key, went upstairs, came down again, and, as he came down, Bridget had finished the other window and a half in the sitting room and was just going into the dining room to finish those windows. As she was washing the windows in the dining room the prisoner again appeared from the front part of the house, went to the kitchen, got an ironing board and began to iron her handkerchiefs. While there she told Bridget this falsehood about the note. She said, “Are you going out, Bridget, by and by?” Bridget said: “I don’t know; I am not feeling very well to-day.” “Well,” she said, “if you do I want you to be careful about the locks; I may go out myself. Mrs. Borden has gone out.” “Where is she?” said Bridget. “I don’t know; it must be somewhere in town, because she received a note to go to a sick friend.” Bridget finished the washing of the windows in the dining room and her work was done. She went out into the kitchen, put her cloth away, emptied the water and was about to go upstairs, when the prisoner said to her: “There is a cheap sale of goods down town, Bridget, where they are selling some kind of cloth for eight cents a yard.” Bridget says: “Well, I guess I will have some.” And Bridget went upstairs. Now, gentlemen, probably all that occurred after Mr. Borden came in occurred in less time than perhaps it has taken me to tell it. We can measure time better by seeing what is done in the time than by the estimate of any witness of the time. After Bridget went upstairs there is nothing more that happened until the alarm is given to her. Now, pursuing the same course, let me so far as possible fix the time of that alarm. I shall have to anticipate somewhat in doing it. Bridget, upon the alarm, came down stairs, was immediately sent diagonally across the street for Dr. Bowen; returned rapidly, and was sent away for Miss Russell. As Bridget went away Mrs. Churchill by accident came to the house, or got the alarm and came to the house. There was a moment’s conversation between the prisoner and Mrs. Churchill. Mrs. Churchill ran out, ran diagonally across the street to a stable, there gave some sort of alarm, was seen by a man named Cunningham, who heard what she said and went to a telephone in a paint shop near by, telephoned to the Marshal of Fall River, who gave directions to an officer to go to the spot. The officer, having a duty which called his attention to the time, looked at his watch and found it was quarter-past eleven. Now, then, gentlemen, stopping a moment, let us try to find out as well as we can these times. It could not have been, upon the evidence, far from quarter of 11 o’clock when Mr. Borden returned. It could not, upon this evidence, have been far from quarter-past 11 when the alarm reached the station. Therefore the time between Bridget’s going upstairs and down again must be diminished on the one side by the time consumed by the washing of a window and a half in the sitting room and two windows in the dining room and the putting away of the cloth and water. On the other side, the half hour between 11 o’clock and half-past 11 must be diminished by the acts of Bridget and the acts of Mrs. Churchill and the acts of Cunningham, which I have described. I shall not attempt to fix that time; you can fix it better and measure it better yourself when you come to hear the evidence of what was done by Bridget between the time Mr. Borden came and the noise was heard upstairs and what was done between the time when the alarm took place and the alarm reached the station house and the Marshal of Fall River.

Now, gentlemen, you will be struck by the fact through the evidence that is to come, that instinctively there leaped to the lips of every inquiring person, of the prisoner, where were you before a thought of the suspicion was over her head. She had been the last person left with her father alive. When Bridget came down that question arose, and she says: “Where were you, Miss Lizzie?” It is not clear what the prisoner told Bridget, whether he was sick, or killed, or dead. That is not important, but the moment the information was received arose the question: “Where were you?” She said: “I was out in the back yard; I heard a groan, came in and found the door open and found my father.” Bridget was then sent to Dr. Bowen. She came down, found the prisoner somewhat agitated standing by the screen door and inside. There had been no screech, no alarm of any kind, and there was an attempt simply to secure the presence of Dr. Bowen. She came back unsuccessful from the search for Dr. Bowen. As she came back she was seen by Mrs. Churchill, who, looking out of her kitchen window, saw the prisoner standing inside the door, and something in her appearance attracted her and she called out to her. In the meantime the prisoner had said to Bridget, “You go down to Miss Russell’s house.” And gentlemen, it will in this connection occur to you that Miss Russell, though she lived a long distance away from this house, was the person to whom this prisoner was predicting disaster the very night before. Mrs. Churchill came there by accident, and she will testify in detail as to what had occurred after she came there. She, too, said, “Lizzie, where were you?” “I was out in the barn. I was going for a piece of iron when I heard a distressed noise, came in and found the door open, and found my father dead.” Bridget returns from Miss Russell’s, and, returning says: “Shall I not go down to Mrs. Whitehead’s for Mrs. Borden?” “No,” said the prisoner, “I am almost sure I heard her come in.” Up to that time, by alarm, by screaming or by any attempt had there not been an effort on the part of the prisoner to communicate with Mrs. Borden. “I wish you would look,” she said, “and see if you can’t find Mrs. Borden.” Mrs. Churchill and Bridget together went up this front stairway, turned, as they do turn, to their left, and as they turned Mrs. Churchill turned her head above the level of the floor. She looked in and saw Mrs. Borden’s dead body as she looked under the bed. It is to be regretted that Dr. Bowen, a witness accustomed to observation, was the family physician and friend, and, therefore, affected, naturally, by this dreadful series of murders, for we might expect from him something of accurate observation, but Dr. Bowen thought Mrs. Borden had died of fright, and so expressed himself at the time. I do not and shall not attempt in detail to tell you all that occurred for an hour or two after the discovery of these homicides. Soon after people came in. The prisoner, who had never been in the room where her father lay dead, passed from the dining room diagonally through the corner of the sitting room, without stopping to look at her dead father, upstairs by the room where her step-mother lay dead, without an inquiry, without a thought; went into her own room, lay down; soon, without a suggestion from any one, changed her dress and put on a loose pink wrapper. There are one or two things, however, in what she said that I ought to call your attention to at the present time. She told Dr. Bowen at that time that she was out in the barn for a piece of iron; she told Miss Russell that she went into the barn for a piece of iron or tin to fix a screen; she told Officer Mullaly that she went out into the barn, and upon being asked whether she heard anything or not, she said she heard a peculiar noise, something like a scraping noise, and came in and found the door open. There is, therefore, Bridget Sullivan, to whom she said she heard a groan, rushed in and found her father; Mrs. Churchill, to whom she said she heard a distressed noise, came in and found her father; Officer Mullaly, to whom she said she heard a peculiar noise like scraping, came in and found her father dead; and all these, gentlemen, you see in substance are stories which include the fact that while she was outside she heard some alarming noise which caused her to rush in and discover the homicide. Well, gentlemen, as inquiry begins to multiply upon her as to her whereabouts, another story comes into view, and she repeats it again and again, and finally repeats it under oath, that at the time Bridget went upstairs she went out into the barn, and into the loft of the barn to get lead to make sinkers. Now, gentlemen, having in view the character of her statements, that she heard the noise, you will find that when she gave a later and detailed account, she said that she went into the loft of the barn, opened the window, ate some pears up there, and looked over some lead for sinkers, came down, looked in the stove to see if the fire was hot enough that she might go on with her ironing, found it was not, put her hat down, started to go upstairs to await the fire which Bridget was to build for the noonday, and discovered her father. It is not, gentlemen, and I pray your attention to it, a difference of words here. In the one case the statement is that she was alarmed by the noise of the homicide. In the other side the statement is that she came coolly, deliberately about her business, looking after her ironing, putting down her hat, and accidentally discovered the homicide as she went upstairs. Gentlemen, upon this point it is my duty to point out to you a piece of testimony which will be for your consideration. This day, August 4, 1892, was one of the hottest days of the last summer in this vicinity. The loft of the barn was stifling in the intensity of its heat. Officer Medley, who came there quite early after the alarm, went to the barn and went up the stairs of the barn. He had, at that time heard of her going up into the loft, and as his head came up on a level with the floor of the barn he saw that it was thickly covered with dust. He stopped, put his hands upon the floor and drew them across, and saw the marks of them. He looked again, stepped up, counting his footsteps upon a part of the barn floor, came down into his position again and saw plainly every footstep which he made. I have said to you, gentlemen, that Mrs. Borden died some time before her husband, and it is my duty to open to you the proof upon that question. There will be many here who observed the two bodies as they lay. I shall not attempt to state their evidence in detail. It will tend to show that Mr. Borden’s body showed freshly flowing blood; was warm and was not rigid in death; that Mrs. Borden’s body showed blood that was coagulated and hardened and dry; that her body was cold, and that she was stiffened in death. There will be the judgments of some professional men who observed the two bodies soon after the discovery of the homicides. There will be other important testimony in this case. The stomachs of the two victims were taken to Prof. Edward S. Wood, who examined them and is prepared to state their exact contents. The stomach of Mrs. Borden contained eleven ounces of food in progress of digestion. One-fifth of that eleven ounces was water and four-fifths of it was this partially digested food. Mr. Borden’s stomach—and you will remember that they ate breakfast at the same time—contained only six ounces of matter, and nine-tenths of that was water, and only one-tenth solid food; so you will see there was a very marked difference in the contents of their stomachs. Upon the autopsy it appeared that the upper intestines, leading directly from the stomach—the intestine into which the contents of the stomach first pass—in Mrs. Borden’s case was empty of food. Now, gentlemen, you will have the opinion of many who are competent to give an opinion upon all these facts, and they will say to you that upon those facts alone they are able to give a judgment that Mrs. Borden must have died at least an hour before her husband. And that, gentlemen, you will remember and take into view with the fact that anywhere between nine and half-past nine o’clock she went upstairs for a mere temporary purpose, and apparently never left the room that she went to.

Now, gentlemen, it will appear that about the two rooms in which the homicides were committed there was blood spattered in various directions, so that it would make it probable that one or more spatters of blood would be upon the person or upon the clothing of the assailant. And there has been produced for the inspection of the Commonwealth—it was produced a good many days after the homicide—the clothing said to have been worn by the prisoner on the morning of August 4—the shoes, stockings, dress, skirt. At this point the articles of clothing mentioned were produced and placed on the table, after which Mr. Moody continued as follows: The most rigid examination by the most competent expert in this country fails to disclose any marks of blood upon the dress which is produced as the one she wore on the morning of the homicide, and upon the skirt which she is said to have worn upon that morning is one minute spot of blood, which I do not think it worth while to call to your attention at the present time. I must go back a moment in this story. You have in mind, of course, the interval which elapsed between the two homicides. The prisoner has said—and it is important to consider, and we shall prove that she has said—that the reason she left her ironing was because she found the fire was low; that she took a stick of wood, put it on top of the embers of the fire and went out to the barn to await its kindling; that when she went out it was smoking and smoldering, as if it was going to catch; that when she came back the stick of wood was there and the fire had all gone out. It will appear—and it was pure accident that this observation was made—that soon after the alarm an officer of Fall River was attracted by something that Dr. Bowen was doing to the stove—I do not mean to suggest anything—but the fact that he was tearing up a note and was going to put it into the stove, and he looked in and saw what was there, and found a large roll of what appeared to be burnt paper. The prisoner had a calico, or cotton dress, perhaps I ought to say, which she was in the habit of wearing mornings. It was a light blue dress, with a fixed figure, a geometrical figure of some sort, and the figure was not white, but navy-blue—a darker blue. Dr. Bowen has said, and I have no doubt will say here now, that she had on a cheap calico dress, a sort of drab colored dress. Mrs. Churchill says she had on, that morning, a light blue ground with white in it—that is, white in the blue, not a white figure, but white in the blue, to make it lighter blue, I suppose, and a mixed figure of navy blue, without a white spot in it at all, a diamond figure of navy blue, as she will describe it. And upon being shown that dress (showing dress to the jury), she will say that it is not the dress that the prisoner at the bar had on when she came in upon the morning of the homicide. You will recall that soon after the homicide Miss Russell and the prisoner went to the bed room of the prisoner. While they were there the prisoner said, “I think I had better have Winwood for undertaker,” and Miss Russell went away upon the errand of getting Dr. Bowen to see about the undertaker. And as Miss Russell came back she found the prisoner coming from Emma’s room with the pink wrapper on that I have described to you before—the loose wrapper. Upon Saturday night the chief executive officer of the city of Fall River, Mayor Coughlin, informed Lizzie Andrew Borden that she was under suspicion for these murders. Saturday night Bridget Sullivan left the house. Alice Russell was staying with her friend, and of course Miss Emma was at home at that time.

On the morning of Sunday Miss Russell came into the kitchen. There were officers about on the outside of the house, but none in, and there was the prisoner with the skirt of her dress upon her arm, and what appeared to be its waist lying upon some shelf, and we will describe that dress. It was a dress which the prisoner had purchased in the spring of that year, a cotton dress and not a silk dress like this (holding a dark blue silk dress up to view). It was a light blue dress. You will recall Mrs. Churchill’s description of that in this connection. It was a light blue dress with a fixed navy blue spot on it. The dress ordinarily worn in the morning corresponds to that description, and was also bought in the spring. As she saw the prisoner standing by the stove and as she approached her, Miss Emma turned round and said, “Lizzie, what are you going to do?” The prisoner replied, “I am going to burn this dress, it is all covered with paint.” Miss Russell turned away. She came again into the room and she found the prisoner standing with the waist of the light blue dress, apparently tearing it in parts, and said, “Lizzie, I would not do that where people can see you.” The only response which the prisoner made was to take a step or two further out of observation. Miss Russell turned again and went away. Upon the following day, in consequence of some talk with Mr. Hanscom, a Pinkerton detective not in the employ of the Government, Miss Russell went into the room where the prisoner and her sister Emma were sitting and said: “Lizzie, I am afraid the burning of that dress was the worst thing that you could have done.” She said: “Oh, why did you let me do it then?” A considerable search had been made by the officers for clothing and for weapons, and they will say that no clothing unconcealed covered with paint could have escaped their observation. You have noticed, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, this indictment, a more particular description of which is to the jurors unknown. It is the duty of the Government to bring forward all its information upon this subject, and I propose to open it all to you at the present time. Upon the premises that day were found two hatchets and two axes. Upon one of those hatchets spots were discovered, which, upon view, were thought to be blood. It is extremely difficult, impossible, in fact, Dr. Wood, the highest authority on this subject in this country, if not in the world, will say, to distinguish between blood and some other substances. Attention upon the view then was directed to one of these hatchets, it is not important which (holding both hatchets in hand before the jury.) It is said to be the one I hold in my right hand. These axes, gentlemen, are so far out of the question that I need not waste any time on them. They could not have been the weapons with which these homicides were committed. Upon careful examination neither of these hatchets is seen to contain the slightest evidence of blood stain. The appearances which were thought to be blood turned out to be something else. You will observe, gentlemen, that there are ragged pieces near and about the entrance of the handle to the blade of this hatchet, that the same appearances exist there in that weapon, also on the outside of the handle, and Dr. Wood will say to you that those weapons could not in all probability have been used for these homicides, and have been washed so as to have prevented the traces of blood from being caught on those ragged surfaces. In that view of the fact we may well lay those weapons aside as entirely innocent. Upon the day of the homicide another weapon, or part of a weapon, that was thought to be a bloody hatchet, had been discovered and attracted little attention. It was seen by one officer, and left where it was. At that time this fragment of the handle was in its appropriate place in the helve, if that is the proper name, of the hatchet, in the place fitted in the head. It was covered with an adhesion of ashes, not the fine dust which floats about the room where ashes are emptied, but a coarse dust of ashes adhering more or less to all sides of the hatchet. Upon the Monday morning this hatchet was taken away, and its custody from that time to the present will be traced.

You will observe, gentlemen, that both hatchets are rusty, the hatchet which is innocent, the handless hatchet now under discussion, but the rust in the case of the handless hatchet is uniform upon both sides and upon all parts of its surface, such rust, for instance, as might be the result of exposure upon wet grass to the night’s dew, such rust as must result from an exposure uniform in its extent upon all parts of the hatchet. Prof. Wood will say to you—he saw this hatchet soon after it was found—that while there were ragged fragments of wood which would detain absolutely no indications of the blood in these weapons, that if that weapon had had upon it the remainder of the hatchet, and was as smooth as he saw, by the application of water soon after the homicide, blood could be readily, effectually and completely removed. Dr. Wood will also tell you that that break which had not the color then which it has now—it has been subjected to some acid process—was a new break and was a fresh break. By that I do not mean to be understood as a break which had necessarily occurred within twenty-four hours, within forty-eight hours, or within a week, but perhaps a break which might have been a day or might have been a month old. It was a fresh break. In accordance, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, with the unbroken practice of the authorities in this Commonwealth, such parts of the mortal remains of the victims as would tend to throw light either in the protection of innocence or the detection of guilt, have been preserved and must be presented here before you for your consideration. I do not think it is necessary for me to allude to them at this time. There is one story that is unmistakably told by those skulls and by the chipping blows that are upon them, and that is that the weapon which produced them was a sharp weapon. There is another thing that is unmistakably told by one of the skulls—I think that of Mr. Borden—and that is that the weapon which brought him to his death was just three and one half inches on its blade, no more, no less. That is the exact measurement of the blade of that hatchet. Let there be no mistake, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, about my meaning. The Government does not insist that these homicides were committed by this handleless hatchet. It may have been the weapon. It may well have been the weapon. The one significant fact which in this respect is emphasized is that the bloody weapon was not found by the sides of the victims, upon the premises, or near them. Doubtless you will consider that fact well when you come to consider whether these homicides were the acts of an intruder or stranger flying from his crimes with the bloody weapon in his possession, through the streets of Fall River at noonday, or the acts of an inmate of the house, familiar with its resources for destruction, obliteration and concealment. When these bodies were found it was discovered that not a thing in the house had been disturbed. No property had been taken. No drawers had been ransacked. Mr. Borden had upon his person a considerable sum of money as well as his watch and chain. We almost might hope that it was not necessary to exclude another motive, but sad experience tells us that age of a woman is no protection from an assault from lustful purpose, but I may say, gentlemen, there was nothing to indicate a motive of that sort. In and about the rooms where these two homicides were committed there was not the slightest trace of a struggle. The assailant, whoever he or she may have been, was able to approach each victim in broad daylight and without a struggle and without a murmur to lay them low before him. Mrs. Borden was found prostrated between the bureau and the bed, her face upon the floor and the right side of her head hacked to pieces by blows, some of great force, some of uncertain and vacillating weakness. Mr. Borden was found reclining on a sofa in the sitting room and apparently had passed from life to death without a struggle or a movement, and his head, too, bore the same marks as the head of his wife bore. It will appear that no one, and it is confirmatory evidence, not in itself of the strongest character, but confirmatory of the conclusive evidence of the opportunity in the house—it will appear that no one was seen to escape from any side of that house nor to enter that house on the morning of August 4.

Gentlemen, let me stop a moment and see where we are. The Commonwealth will prove that there was an unkindly feeling between the prisoner and her step-mother; that upon Wednesday, August 3, she was dwelling upon murder and preparing herself with a weapon which had no innocent use; that upon the evening of Wednesday, August 3, she was predicting disaster and cataloguing defences; that from the time when Mrs. Borden left the dining room to go upstairs for this momentary errand, up to the time when the prisoner came down stairs an hour later from this hallway which led only to her chamber and that in which Mrs. Borden was found, there was no other human being except the prisoner at the bar present; that these acts were the acts of a human being; that they were the acts of a person who, to have selected time and place as it was selected in this case, must have had a familiar knowledge of the interior of the premises and of the whereabouts and the habits of those who were in occupation of them at that time. We shall prove that this prisoner made contradictory statements about her whereabouts, and, above all, gave a statement virtually different upon the manner in which she discovered these homicides. We shall prove beyond all reasonable doubt that this death of Mrs. Borden was a prior death. Then we shall ask you to say, if say you can, whether any other reasonable hypothesis except that of the guilt of this prisoner can account for the said occurrence which happened upon the morning of August 4. Now, gentlemen, my present duty is drawing to its close. The time for idle rumor, for partial, insufficient information, for hasty and inexact reasoning, is past. We are to be guided from this time forth by the law and the evidence only. I conjure you to keep your minds in that same open and receptive condition in which you have sworn they were; I pray you to keep them so to the end. If, when that end comes, after you have heard the evidence upon both sides, the arguments of counsel, the instructions of the Court, the evidence fails, God forbid that you should move one step against the law or beyond the evidence to the injury of this prisoner. But if your minds, considering all these circumstances, are led irresistibly to the conclusion of her guilt, we ask you in your verdict to declare the truth: and by so doing, and only by so doing, shall you make true deliverance of the great issue which has been committed to your keeping.