Lizzie Borden Society Forum

After the murder did Andrew or John ever visit the house in Fall river again? Did he still stay in contact with Lizzie & Emma?

After the murders, John Morse did stay with Emma at Second Street until about Dec. 5th or so. Then he asked his bail allow him to go back to Iowa on his business. He was gone the winter as far as I can tell. Emma would have been alone (from family) over Christmas.
Of course, he was at the trial. He had to show up for that. After the trial is a good question as to where he went and when.

It's possible Jennings remained lawyer to the Borden sisters until 1907 or so. One of his decendants claimed Jennings helped Lizzie with her Tilden Thurber shoplifting incident (1907), and then refused to have anything more to do with her (this is rumor).

the Tilden-Thurber incident was earlier I thought, in 1897?

I also have been wondering if Uncle John visited his nieces after the trial.
We don't hear anything more of Uncle John after that except of a photo
of him as an old man.

I do believe the rumor that Mr Jennings didn't want anything to do w/ Lizzie after Tilden-Thurber.

Could he possibly believe that Lizzie was ,indeed, guilty?? We'll never know

doug65oh @ Wed Oct 03, 2007 9:04 am wrote:the Tilden-Thurber incident was earlier I thought, in 1897?

You're right, of course, Doug! I was 10 years off.

My memory is worse than I thought!

Bless your heart, TK. No harm, no foul. I have days like that too!

When Jennings first took Lizzie's case after the murders, I would imagine he probably thought her innocent. I would not be surprised if he had a change of heart during the trial, but of course he was her attorney and had to defend her to the best of his ability, regardless of his personal feelings.

Defending her may have tarnished his reputation among the Fall River folk, who were his bread and butter, and I can see him settling the Tilden-Thurber incident and then washing his hands of her. Unlike some attorneys, he may have had a conscience, and regretted helping a guilty person escape justice.

Defending Lizzie could not have hurt Jennings too much politically---he went on to be a DA.

He also had a private practice with Morton. I think Jennings replaced the Brayton (?) who left the firm to manage his sister's (Mrs. Durfee, later Young) massive fortune.

Jennings lived at 421 June Street.

Is there a way to find out where Uncle John went after the trial, and if he kept in contact with Emma and Lizzie. I read somewhere, and I forget where, that Lizzie wasn't all that fond of Uncle John. Does any one know about this?

Not very much is known.

John Morse went back to Hastings, Iowa after the trial. He lived almost 20 years following the murders, dying in 1912. In his will, he made a clause that he specifically was not leaving anything to his Borden nieces as he supposed they had enough (paraphrase).

You could read into that, I suppose.

No correspondence is known to exist between Morse & "the girls" following the Trial. He travelled quite a bit & I believe there are records of him coming back east, but whether or not his visited with them or corresponded, we just don't have any documentation.

I don't think we have anything about Lizzie's feelings toward him either. Emma testified he was a "dear uncle". The fact Lizzie did not greet him when she knew he was there on Wed Aug 3rd---I suppose you could read into that too...