woman's head as she lay face downward [on the floor] with her hands under her. Her head had been literally hacked to pieces and I easily made out 11 distinct gashes apparently the same size as those on her husband's face. [Bowen seemed to have a fixation on the number eleven; Mrs. Borden had received 19 whacks in all, 18 to the head.] One glancing blow cut off nearly two square inches of flesh from the side of her head."
Dr. Bowen went on to say that, with both Andrew and Abby Borden, he saw no sign of a struggle. No furniture was overturned, the victims' clothes were not disarranged, and Andrew's fists were not clenched. Bowen interpreted this to mean that Andrew was asleep when he was attacked and that Abby was taken by surprise. In both cases, death was virtually instantaneous.
Five people slept in the Borden house on the night before the murders. We've now accounted for four of them: Andrew Borden, Abby Borden, Lizzie Borden and Bridget Sullivan. The fifth was John Morse, brother-in-law and close friend of Andrew Borden. He had arrived from out of town on the afternoon of August 3 with no luggage, not even a toothbrush. As it turned out, his stay at 92 Second Street was considerably longer than he had anticipated. Morse spent most of the morning of August 4 visiting a niece in Fall River, a little more than a mile from the murder scene. At about 11:45 A.M. he returned, apparently to accept a dinner invitation offered earlier by Andrew.
For a man about to eat dinner, John Morse behaved a bit strangely. He took time out to eat a couple of pears before entering the house, where Bridget told him what had happened. Later Morse said he didn't notice the crowd of a hundred or more curious people milling around outside the Borden house.
FIGURE 1.1 Crowd surrounding the Borden house
Lizzie Borden, newly orphaned, quickly became the center of attention. Alice Russell, Adelaide Churchill and later Phoebe Bowen took turns fanning her and rubbing her hands. Lizzie protested that she wasn't about to faint or go into hysterics, but these well-meaning people continued their ministrations. They didn't know what else to do.
While this was going on, Lizzie also had to deal with a more hostile audience. At least four policemen interrogated her at some length. Not one of the people who came in contact with Lizzie that day saw even a single spot of blood on her person or her clothing. Several of her neighbors (and one policeman) so testified; the other police officers did so by implication.
In all of her interviews with the police, Lizzie told essentially the same story. She said that at about 9 A.M. that morning her stepmother received a note about a sick person. Shortly afterwards, her father went downtown; he returned at about 10:45 A.M. Lizzie said she helped Andrew assume a comfortable position on the sitting room sofa so he could take a nap. Shortly before 11 A.M., she went out to the barn; when she returned perhaps twenty minutes later, she found her father murdered.
THE CROWD GATHERED AT 92 SECOND STREET
From Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, p.2
Lizzie also told the police that she was sure neither Bridget Sullivan nor John Morse committed the murders. Responding to a rumor that a "Portuguese" at Andrew's farm in Swansea was involved, Lizzie denied it. She said that neither of the men who worked there would hurt her father.
Despite all this, Lizzie made a bad impression upon just about all of the policemen who talked with her. It was not what she said but how she said it that bothered them. When Assistant Marshal Fleet asked her if she knew who killed her father and mother, Lizzie replied sharply, "Mrs. Borden was not my mother; she was my stepmother. My mother died when I was a little girl." This might seem like a simple statement of fact, but Fleet interpreted it to mean that Lizzie disliked, perhaps even hated, Abby Borden.
Lizzie had even more trouble with Officer Philip Harrington. After interrogating her, he said, "[Lizzie] talked in the most calm and collected manner . . . There was not the slightest indication of agitation, no sign of sorrow or grief, no lamentation of the heart, no comment on the horrors of the crime and no expression of a wish that the criminal be caught." Later, Harrington told Marshal Hilliard, "I do not like that girl. She does not act in a manner to suit me; it is strange to say the least."
Besides interrogating Lizzie, the police spent considerable time Thursday morning and afternoon (August 4) searching the Borden house, barn and yard. They were looking, first and foremost, for the murderer. Needless to say, they didn't find him. They were also looking for bloody clothes; here again they drew a blank. Finally, the police searched for the murder weapon. Bridget Sullivan showed them two axes and two hatchets in the cellar. The axes and one of the hatchets, which had a peculiar claw hammer design, had suspicious looking stains on them. They were delivered to Dr. Edward Wood, professor of chemistry at Harvard Medical School, to be tested for the presence of blood.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot! Assistant Marshal Fleet came across a hatchet blade in a box on a high shelf in the cellar. Since one can't commit murder with a hatchet minus a handle, Fleet put the blade back in the box and forgot about it.
There were about as many doctors at the Borden house on Thursday, August 4, as there were policemen. A partial list includes:
John Abbott William Dolan William Learned
Seabury Bowen Emanuel Dutra John Leary
John Coughlin Thomas Gunning Anson Peckham
Albert Dedrick ? Hardy J. Q. A. Tourtelott
Dr. Bowen, the Bordens' personal physician, was the first to examine their bodies. Dr. Coughlin was the mayor of Fall River, Dr. Dolan the medical examiner for the Fall River area of Bristol County. It is not at all obvious what the other gentlemen were doing. Perhaps they came for a lesson in human anatomy; it's not every day that you see head injuries of the type suffered by Andrew and Abby Borden. Reportedly Dr. Bowen, after viewing Andrew's body, suggested to Mrs. Churchill that she might like to look at what was left of her nextdoor neighbor. The good lady politely but firmly declined.
Dr. Dolan found out about the murders by accident; he happened to be passing 92 Second Street at about 11:45 A.M. His examination of the bodies was much more thorough than that of Dr. Bowen; it was Dolan who established that Andrew Borden had been struck 10 times, Abby 19. Later, at about 3:30 P.M., Dr. Dolan carried out what he called a "partial" autopsy. He removed the stomachs of the victims and sent them for analysis to the expert, Dr. Wood. This time you might say that Dr. Wood had his work cut out for him.
Legend has it that the calendar on the grandfather clock in the Borden house stopped on the day of the murders. A week later it still pointed to August 4, although the hours and minutes passed in the usual way. For the inhabitants of the house, August 4, 1892, must have seemed endless. It wasn't of course. The sun set at 7:00 P.M., exactly as predicted by the Old Farmer's Almanac. An hour or two later, Lizzie and Emma retired to their bedrooms on the second floor. John Morse, who must have been a remarkably unimaginative person, slept, as he had the night before, in the guest room where Abby Borden was murdered. Bridget Sullivan, with a much more active imagination, spent the night with a friend across the street. Alice Russell, a true friend in time of trouble, volunteered to stay with the Borden girls. On Thursday night, she used the room occupied by the elder Bordens the night before. Their bodies now lay on the dining room table, awaiting the arrival of the undertaker.
Officer Hyde, who was on guard at the Borden house, reported that sometime around 9 P.M., Alice Russell and Lizzie Borden made a trip to the cellar. Alice carried a kerosene lamp, Lizzie a chamber pot. Lizzie emptied the pot in either a sink (according to Hyde) or the water closet (according to Miss Russell). After that the two women went upstairs; fifteen minutes later Lizzie returned to the cellar alone. Hyde couldn't make out what she
