Lizzie Borden
took an axe, gave her father 40 whacks
When she saw
what she had done, gave her mother 41.
--Popular jump
rope rhyme
‘Dammit, sir’
Judge Stevens said, ‘Will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?’
--Town fathers
declining to investigate the stench of decaying flesh coming from Miss Emily
Grierson’s house, William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”
I became
interested in the story of accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden when I was a
child. We girls sang the above rhyme while jumping rope, and the story came to
life for us as we watched the 1975 ABC television movie “The Legend of Lizzie
Borden.” I recently re-watched a portion of the movie and was surprised at its
overall quality and faithful adherence to the facts—rare attributes for a 1970s-era
made-for-TV movie. (My sister and I were attracted to it for a different
reason: It starred our favorite actress, Elizabeth Montgomery, who was
better-known as Samantha from “Bewitched.”)
There was a
small flurry of media articles about the case recently when Lifetime premiered
its TV docudrama, “Lizzie Borden Took an Ax.” This renewed interest also
renewed my own interest in the case, and so I’ve been re-reading David Kent’s
excellent The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook
(Branden Books, Boston, 1992). Mr. Kent has reproduced newspaper clippings, the
transcript of the inquest, and other key documents from the Borden case, and
it’s one of the best resources I’ve read on any trial. It’s quite powerful to
have all of this key information compiled into one volume with no commentary.
One can absorb all of the information and make up one’s own mind. I wish I had
such a book for every notorious legal action in history, because it frustrates
me that one or two talking heads will advance a theory of the case—and then that
theory will become the prevailing one even though it is wholly unsupported by
the facts. For example, I had bought into the theory that Lizzie Borden was
acquitted largely due to her sex, but in reading the case materials, I have
discovered that I was wrong.
Facts of the case and procedural history
Lizzie Borden’s
father and stepmother, Andrew and Abby Borden, were murdered in their home in
Fall River, Mass., on the morning of August 4, 1892, by repeated crushing blows
to the head from an axe, hatchet, or similar tool.
Also living in
the home were Mr. Borden’s adult daughters Lizzie, who was home at the time,
and Emma, who was visiting friends in a nearby town, and the family’s maid,
Bridget Sullivan, who was also home at the time. John Morse, the brother of
Abby’s and Emma’s dead mother, was an overnight guest and had gone into town
all morning on business. John, Emma, and Bridget were not suspected. John and
Emma had solid alibis, and Bridget had no motive.
Lizzie Borden
was arrested on August 11, 1892. After a sensational trial, a jury found her
“not guilty” on June 20, 1893. Even though Lizzie was acquitted of murder,
public opinion has not been kind to her. Many people assume that she was guilty
and got away with it. Indeed, when I mentioned that I was writing about the
case, many people were surprised when I reminded them that she was found not
guilty and in fact lived as a free woman until her death at age 67.
Motive for murder
By many
accounts, relations were tense at the Borden home in the months leading up to
the murder. Andrew was a frugal patriarch, which frustrated Lizzie and Emma,
who wished to keep up with the other young ladies in town with new dresses, a
more fashionable address, and vacations. Further, Lizzie and Emma did not have
a warm relationship with their stepmother, taking their meals separately and
referring to her as “Mrs. Borden” and not “mother” or “Abby.”
Further, Andrew
recently had grown impatient with Lizzie’s pet pigeons that she kept in the
barn and had hacked them to death with a hatchet, and there was ongoing tension
over whether Andrew would leave his daughters a large share of his estate in
his will, or whether the bulk of it would go to stepmother Abby. Andrew’s
former brother-in-law John was there to talk business with Andrew, too, which
may have added to the family tensions.
Outside the home,
Mr. Borden was a shrewd and unyielding businessman. While he appears to have
been respected in town, he is reported to have been frustratingly tight-fisted
as a landlord and loan officer.
In other words,
while Lizzie had some motive for killing her father, it’s equally likely that
other people did, as well.
Opportunity
To me, this is
where the case gets tricky.
Both Lizzie and
Bridget were cleaning windows and doing other chores both inside and outside
the three-story house that morning. Andrew Borden was napping on the couch in a
parlor on the first floor of the house, while Mrs. Borden was upstairs tidying
a guest bedroom. Bridget the maid went upstairs to lie down in her bedroom on
the third floor of the house. (The entire family had fallen ill to apparent
food poisoning, because cheapskate Andrew had insisted that the family gamely
continue to eat a mutton stew that had languished in the kitchen for days.)
At some point
during the morning, the killer attacked Mrs. Borden in the upstairs guest
bedroom, disabling her with a blow above the ear and then finishing the job
with 19 hacks to the back of the head as she lay on the floor. Later, the
killer stood over Mr. Borden as he slept on the sofa and delivered 11 blows.
(Everyone who comments on this case wryly notes at this point that it wasn’t 40
and 41 whacks, so I will, too.)
Because the
family religiously kept the doors locked and because the house sat on a busy
street where a man fleeing the scene and covered in blood would be noticed,
most of the suspicion focused on Lizzie, who was the only person in that part
of the house and who had a motive, however tenuous. Nothing was missing from
the home, although cash and other valuables were at hand. Further, Lizzie gave
several contradictory statements to the police and generally acted suspicious,
for example burning a dress that she said was ruined because she had
accidentally brushed up against wet paint while wearing it.
Did Lizzie do it?
I think it’s
impossible to say. While her disdain of the elder Bordens, unique access to the
murder scene, and suspicious behavior make her the likely culprit, it seems
equally unlikely that a relatively sane woman who wasn’t violent before or
since hacked to death her parents in cold blood for no good reason. Further, it’s
not easy to use an axe. If you’ve ever tried to chop wood for the first time,
you know how much practice and upper body strength it requires. It’s hard to
imagine that a woman who had never or rarely used hand tools and who wasn’t
very large or strong could carry out these murders. Also, Lizzie wouldn’t have
had time to leave the house or change clothes, so why wasn’t she covered in
blood, and where did she stash the murder weapon?
While it seems
hard to believe that an outside party could have committed these crimes, it’s
equally hard to make the facts of the case fit Lizzie, too. This ambiguity,
coupled with the lack of forensic technology of the day, means that we’ll never
know.
Just because I’m a woman
Without fail,
whenever I bring up this case, someone will remark: “She was clearly guilty,
but I think she was acquitted simply because the jury couldn’t fathom that an
upper class lady of the day could commit such a crime.” I used to agree, but
now I’m not so sure.
First, Lizzie
was arrested and tried for the crime—and was judged guilty in the court of
public opinion—so it was apparently easy for Lizzie’s community to imagine that
a lady could hack her parents to death in cold blood. Also, while it was
somewhat rare, women were of course convicted of crimes in the 19th century.
Notably, in 1865 Mary Surratt was convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes
Booth and others to assassinate President Lincoln, and she became the first
woman to be executed by the federal government.
While it’s
likely that the jury were uncomfortable with the idea that one of the town’s
daughters was guilty of these gruesome crimes, I think the real problem here
was one of evidence.
Body of evidence
First, police
were unable to find a murder weapon. They found two hatchets in the home’s
basement, but neither tool could be definitively shown to be connected to the
murder. (With today’s forensic science, the crime lab would test for traces of
blood and tissue and would determine whether the cutting edge of either hatchet
matched the victims’ wounds, but this level of analysis wasn’t available at the
time.) Secondly, while police tested stomach contents and attempted to
determine the time of death based on the date at which the victims’ blood
congealed, they were unable to pinpoint the time of death with any certainty as
they might be today. This perhaps would have been helpful in establishing
Lizzie’s degree of opportunity to commit the crimes. Further crime scene
analysis might have inquired into whether Lizzie possessed the necessary height
and weight to deliver the blows at that angle.
The most damning
evidentiary deficiency, however, was one of admissible testimony, and it’s
fascinating to me that the misstep here can and does happen today.
Under arrest
Thanks to TV cop
shows, we’re all familiar with “you have the right to remain silent… anything
you say can and will be used against you in a court of law… you have the right
to talk to a lawyer.” This is a restatement of your Fifth Amendment right to
not testify against yourself when you’re a criminal defendant and Sixth
Amendment right to be represented by a lawyer. The 1966 case Miranda v.
Arizona prescribed the familiar words that we know today, but the
underlying requirement has always been the same: When a person is under arrest,
he or she cannot be compelled to answer questions and must be given the
opportunity to have the assistance of counsel.
Between the date
of the murders (Aug. 4) and Lizzie’s being locked up (Aug. 11), police
questioned Lizzie at length, and the state held a three-day inquest at which
Lizzie was called to testify. She made plenty of damning and contradictory
statements during this period. Even though she wasn’t in jail, she was not
“free to leave” and was therefore technically under arrest. The State of
Massachusetts, in the form of the police questioning and the inquest, violated
Lizzie Borden’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights by compelling her to answer
questions against her own self-interest even though she was to become a
criminal defendant, and they did it while denying her the right to an attorney.
When the
prosecution tried to admit this testimony at her trial, the defense objected,
and the judge sustained. The prosecution was left with its case of flimsy
circumstantial evidence and no murder weapon, and I argue that this is the
primary reason that the jury (correctly) acquitted Lizzie Borden.
Crime, no punishment
Lizzie Borden
inherited her portion of her father’s estate and bought a better house in the
nicer section of town. She lived a quiet life and died at age 67. After her
acquittal, the State didn’t seriously pursue another suspect. Lizzie left a
large portion of her estate to the local animal rescue league—to prevent
cruelty to living creatures.
