Lizzie Borden Errors of Fact

Every so often I read an article or news story that makes me shake my head and grumble. I kvetch when an author makes inaccurate statements regarding the Borden murders of 1892. Not the small details, which most are prone to do, because unless you really study this case you might miss those tiny facts. I am not that nitpicking about things. No, I mean the big facts. Like the number of whacks, or who did what and when, or the names of the main characters in the family. Stuff that one should know if one is going to, let’s say, assemble “the facts and a jury of her peers on a chilly January night at the Belleville Area Museum to hear the evidence.” That sort of thing.

Here is a the report in question. It appeared yesterday, January 24, in the online version of The View from Belleville, MI.

One can theorize that some of the problem with the retelling of the case here stems from an inaccurate reporter. I never met one who could be 100% exactly right yet—but then as you read on, you see that the subject of the piece is described as an “Historian, author and former Van Buren Police Dept. detective.” You’d sorta think they would know how to get their facts in order.

Anyway, I present to you the defective dispatch. I have underlined the erratum for your reading pleasure.

Cold Case

Sleuths re-try Lizzie Borden case in unique program at Museum
By William Zilke

It was a hot spell that centered itself over Falls River, Mass. in the August of 1892.

It was the kind of merciless, sweltering heat that could make a good woman a widow, or brand an innocent daughter a killer for life.

The last thing the Borden home in Falls River, Mass. needed was the extra tension of an extended heat wave with 10 days over 90 degrees.

To say things were slightly askew in the Borden home was a major understatement.

To say they would end in a gruesome, bloody case of patricide and murder – that would stun homicide investigators today – was unthinkable in Victorian society.

So what happened at 92 Second Street on the blistering morning of Aug. 4, 1892?

Historian, author and former Van Buren Police Dept. detective Cathy Horste may have hung up her shield and side arm but the detective inside her mind doesn’t retire, can’t retire and won’t rest until one of the best known cold cases in American history is brought to light.

Last Thursday, Horste assembled the facts and a jury of her peers on a chilly January night at the Belleville Area Museum to hear the evidence.

“I firmly believe there is nothing like a good mystery to warm you on a cold night,” she said.

“And the murders of Andrew and Lizzie Borden certainly make for a good mystery.

Though the Borden family was one of the richest in Falls River, they lived on the wrong side of the hill, or as we would now say, the wrong side of the tracks.

Father Andrew Borden owned several successful businesses in town and by today’s standards was a multi-millionaire.

The residents of the Borden home consisted of father Andrew, stepmother Abby, and Andrew’s daughters, Emma, 41, and Lizzie, 32 and their maid, Maggie “Bridget” Sullivan.

For whatever reasons, the Bordens liked referring to all of their maids as Bridget, and Sullivan was no exception to this puzzling – if not dismissive and insulting – habit.

Even more puzzling, was the fact that the Borden household had experienced “gastric distress” for two days prior to the murder.

Abby and Lizzie Borden, as well as Sullivan, had mentioned to numerous friends and neighbors that they were experiencing symptoms of poisoning.

“The neighbors assumed they meant food poisoning,” Horste said.

The Bordens had eaten cold mutton for three days in a row. In the days before refrigeration, the “summer ailment” was not only common but expected.

Perhaps that’s why Mr. Borden refused to let a doctor be summoned to the home.

The Borden sisters were typical of well to do, single women of the day.

Branded as spinsters, though both were still vital young women, the two each attended separate churches and did various charity and club work, hardly the profile of vicious murderers.

“Lizzie, was active in her Sunday school at church, which she taught for many years,” Horste said.

“She was a founding member of both the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the local animal rescue league.”

Both sisters and their step-mother Abby all volunteered time at the local hospital.

But, on Aug. 4, 1892, that serene illusion of upright, Victorian dedication and proper appearance would be shattered by a voice screaming bloody murder.

Sullivan was resting in bed after having washed the outside windows on the orders of Emma Borden, who was out of town that day.

Why she would assign her maid the exhausting chore of climbing ladders and scrubbing windows on an oppressively hot morning is unclear.

Was she posted as a lookout?

Sullivan could hear the bell at City Hall toll sharp as a razor and glanced at her clock on the nightstand.

It was 11 a.m., the time of day for brunch, a stroll before the August sun parched everything under it’s gaze, a time to set babies down for a feeding or a time when all hell could break loose.

It was a split second in time that would reverberate for 116 years.

Soon after 11 a.m. Lizzie screamed for Sullivan to come downstairs, her father had been murdered.

After 11:30 a.m., after police had searched for evidence of an intruder and covered Andrew’s still warm body, neighbor Adelaide Churchill made a horrific discovery on the second floor of 92 Second Street.

The lifeless, hacked body of Abby Borden lay cold and mutilated, leading police to believe she had been killed 90 minutes before Andrew – 90 minutes? That would be a long time for a killer to stalk a home with four people in it.

Lizzie was arrested and a week later, she entered a plea of not guilty after being arrested and held in the jail in nearby Taunton, Mass.

Though it doesn’t seem possible, the story gets stranger.

“Abby died from 18 blows to the head and Andrew died of 10 blows to the head and one to the face,” Horste said.

“The scenes of both murders were described as “bathed in blood” by many witnesses.”

Oddly enough, the police moved both bodies to the family’s dining room table for autopsy in the oppressive August heat and remained there for three days.

“They were taken to the cemetery but not buried,” Horste said, “Five days after that the caskets were opened and Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s heads were removed.”

The heads were actually presented as evidence at Lizzie’s trial.

After presenting the basic facts as a talented author and historian would, Horste then went into detective mode.

“Criminal investigation has come a long way since the Borden murders, but police officers, then as now, look at three basic criteria,” she said.

“Motive, means and opportunity.”

But there are a great many of gaps in the Borden story, and not surprisingly, prosecution and defense saw things very differently.

But here are the facts they did agree on.

“Five people were alive and well in the Borden home in the early morning hours of Aug. 4, 1892, two were savagely murdered by noon,” she said.

“And the other three lived under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of their lives.”

Now a shadowy figure most of us had never heard of arises.

Lizzie’s uncle, John Morse, the brother of Andrew’s first wife and Lizzie’s mother also was present at the house.

Morse, couldn’t seem to hold a regular job though he was trained as a butcher and was refused a loan from Andrew and left the house.

Lizzie’s older sister Emma claimed to be out of town the entire week of the murders, visiting a friend in Fairhaven, Mass., about three hours from Falls River.

Though over one half of Falls River’s police department was out of town for a picnic the day of the murders, their offical version of the events that day were that at 9:30 a.m., Lizzie and Abby were alone in the house while Bridget was washing windows, Andrew picked pears in the yard then left to attend to his daily business rounds and Uncle John, at an unspecified time was denied a loan.

Andrew returned home at around 11 a.m. and must have met his death soon afterwards.

At 11:30 a.m. a rookie police officer named George Allen was dispatched to the scene of “an injured man.”

“According to reports he was so overwhelmed by the sight of Mr. Borden’s mangled head that he ran screaming from the house,” she said.

Officer Allen literally ran into a housepainter named Charles Sawyer and deputized him to stand guard at the Borden’s front door.”

Neighbors, the police and Lizzie and Sullivan were allowed to contaminate the crime scene and move freely through the house.

The prosecution’s view was that Emma and Morse had alibis and that Lizzie hated her stepmother and her family.

As it came out, the Borden house rented out rooms, and Lizzie could keep the rent as income.

However, Abby’s family moved in rent free, with Andrew’s blessing.

However, the government claimed Lizzie savagely attacked and killed Abby, and when Andrew came home, “Laughed a wicked laugh,” and proceeded to kill him, too.

Despite the lack of bloody clothes – and these were gory, gruesome and sickening acts – the prosecution insisted Lizzie met the three criteria of motive, means and opportunity.

The motive? Greed. Andrew’s estate was worth $423,650 or $59.3 million in today’s money.

But Lizzie’s chief defender was none other than George D. Robinson, a former governor of Massachusetts.

The prosecution also stated Lizzie hated Abby. But her mother died before Lizzie would have been old enough to remember much of anything of her.

Her older sister Emma did remember her and truly hated Abby.

Though police claim she showed no sign of surprise or remorse over the deaths, Lizzie’s doctor stated on record he had given her a “sizeable” dose of morphine when he arrived on scene and then gave her double doses everyday, including the day of testimony.

“Neighbors testified she was hysterical,” Horste said, “and there was no blood anywhere on her.”

The police testimony became increasingly bizarre.

One Sgt. Herrington testified Andrew was wearing shoes that laced up the front and were tied.

When shown a photograph taken by Herrington himself revealed Borden was wearing a slip-on type shoe, Herrington bafflingly claimed the photo was “wrong,” not his memory.

He also claimed to have discovered a tube of paper that Lizzie had wrapped an axe handle in and bunned in the stove.

Yet, the alleged, unseen axe handle burned, not the paper surrounding it.

Other officers claimed they were – or weren’t – given axe blades or boxes containing a broken axe or were even eating pears in the loft before the murder investigation.

“As far as motive, the Bordens died without a will and under Massachusetts law, sister Emma inherited the full estate,” Horste said.

“Lizzie did not inherit one thin dime.”

Emma, with an out of town alibi, had far more to gain than Lizzie by the murder of her father.

Morse also had motive, means and opportunity and a case could be made against Sullivan too.

As Horste sent the jury into chambers for a verdict, she gave them the same 10 minutes it took the Falls River jury on June 1, 1892 to acquit Lizzie.

The Belleville jury’s verdict?

Not guilty.

So what happened to the cast of characters- and suspects in the original murder trial?

Emma gave Lizzie half interest in all of the very sizeable Borden properties in town and a monthly allowance to live on. She also released the property jointly owned by her father and the mysterious Uncle John to Morse.

Emma and Lizzie moved to the Maplecroft Estate and Emma returned to Falls River society.

Sullivan was given a considerable severance package and lived until 1948.

Lizzie took up with New York theater people, who were held a little higher than axe murderers by polite society and Emma severed all ties with Lizzie.

Lizzie died in her Maplecroft home on June 1, 1927 with an estate worth $8.5 million today.

Horste also is the co- author of “Water Under The Bridge: The History of Van Buren Township,” with Diane Wilson.