Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Spencer tells the case as if the boys did investigate the barn loft before detectives examined it, This is troubling because the boys surely would have disturbed the dust.
Unless this is one of the time frames in question, it’s another oddity.

Here is Officer Medley's testimony. He knew Lizzie could hang if he lied about this. We have to weigh that against the testimony of the boys.

Q. After you went into the barn what did you do? Describe in detail.
A. I went up stairs until I reached about three or four steps from the top, and while there
part of my body was above the floor, above the level of the floor, and I looked around the
barn to see if there was any evidence of anything having been disturbed, and I didn't
notice that anything had or seemed to have been disturbed, and I stooped down low to see
if I could discern any marks on the floor of the barn having been made there. I did that by
stooping down and looking across the bottom of the barn floor. I didn't see any, and I
reached out my hand to see if I could make an impression on the floor of the barn, and I
did by putting my hand down so fashion (illustrating), and found that I made an
impression on the barn floor.

Q. Describe what there was on or about the floor by which you made an impression?
A. Seemed to be accumulated hay dust and other dust.

Q. How distinctly could you see the marks which you made with your hand?
A. I could see them quite distinctly when I looked for them.

Q. Go on and describe anything else which you did?
A. Then I stepped up on the top and took four or five steps on the outer edge of the barn
floor, the edge nearest the stairs, they came up to see if I could discern those, and I did.

Q. How did you look to see if [you] could discern those footsteps which you had made?
A. I did it in the first place by stooping down and casting my eye on a level with the barn
floor, and could see them plainly.

Q. Did you see any other footsteps in that dust than those which you made yourself?
A. No, sir.

1. Legal Consequences: Perjury Charges
Under Massachusetts law in 1893, lying about a material fact while under oath in a capital murder case was a severe criminal offense.

The Charge: He would have been charged with perjury.

The Penalty: Because the Borden trial was a capital case (meaning the defendant faced the death penalty by hanging), perjury carried an incredibly harsh sentence. Medley wouldn't have just received a slap on the wrist; he would have faced a lengthy sentence in a state penitentiary, potentially up to life imprisonment, depending on the judge's discretion regarding the intent to send an innocent person to the gallows.

2. Professional and Social Ruin
Even if the local prosecutor hesitated to charge a fellow law enforcement officer with a crime, a proven lie would have completely destroyed Medley's career and standing.

Termination and Blacklisting: He would have been immediately fired from the Fall River Police Department in disgrace. No other law enforcement agency would hire a man known to have committed perjury in a capital case.

Ostracization: Fall River was highly divided during the trial. Many citizens fiercely supported Lizzie. If a police officer were caught lying to frame a prominent local woman, the public backlash would have been immense, leading to social isolation for Medley and his family.

The Reality Check
You mentioned weighing Medley's word against "the testimony of the boys." This was a major point of contention. Several neighborhood boys claimed they went up into the loft shortly after the murders and before Medley got there.

Historically, Medley was considered a reliable, young, and ambitious officer. For him to lie, he would have had to risk his freedom, his career, and his soul (in a deeply religious era) just to secure a conviction against Lizzie Borden. Most historians believe Medley truly thought he was telling the truth, but the defense successfully blurred the timeline of who went into the barn first, allowing the jury to favor the idea that the dust may have been disturbed before Medley ever looked at it.

The defense's counter to Medley's testimony went well beyond just 'Brownie & Me', there were a number of additional witnesses who contradicted Medley. Yet the court found no wrong with Medley's testimony and certainly didn't charge him with anything.

I know you both have Spencer's book, he has a couple pages that do pretty good job of covering this specific topic.

Perhaps these 'historians' you mention thought Medley did not intend to lie, but perhaps they think he might have mis-interpreted what he saw? Or maybe, jazzed it up a bit? Curious who some of these historians are.

I think that historians line is meant to convey that most of the books and historical sources do not accuse Medley of lying - but Lizzie's defense team put forth witnesses to put doubt in the jury's minds regarding Medley's testimony describing the dust in the barn loft. The legal consequences section is from me quizzing AI about the law at the time and likely penalties for perjury.

My personal opinion is he really did do the experiment as described. Camgarsky, I believe, pointed out that if Lizzie remembered the contents of the box in the loft from a previous visit (perhaps getting a nail to use in the lock during the daylight robbery) that would be consistent with the way she testified about the box's dimensions and contents.

"Case Against Lizzie Borden" pages 710-712. Spencer does an excellent job reviewing and blending all the testimonies related to going into the barn and shares his opinion on the matter. He thinks Medley lied. Its a good read.

Something else to keep in mind...Preliminary Hearing witnesses Charles C. Cook, adamantly, and Augusta Tripp, more skittishly, denied they told Medley what he reported in the witness statements.

I read pages 710 - 712 and Spencer does do a great job with the overall summary. Once I get the testimony into a database, I'll create an "Inquiry" object named "Medley's Experiment" and link each piece of testimony about people inside the barn after the murders and get their exact quotes.

The reason I need to do this is I need to see which of them said they went into the loft (the 2nd floor) of the barn, and when. If they don't specify they searched the entire barn, then we are left with ambiguity as to whether or not they went upstairs during the visit in question.

My data model will have both evidence for and evidence against for every claim, even if one of those is empty, so if Medley starts having a lot of evidence against his claims across different Inquiries, that will really stand out in the data. Everything will be tied the the unique row ID number for a line of sworn testimony, so we will end up with a fully-connected knowledge graph eventually.

Looking forward to seeing what new insights this system comes up with!

Spencer seems to believe Brownie & Me did mess around in the loft before Medley, and I suppose he has good reason, after all the boys mentioned removing the pin on the door latch.

I always thought Medley found the pail in the cellar, since he questioned Lizzie, Bridget , and was suspicious, but W Spencer says he was informed by Doherty and Mullaly.
Is Spencer basing this on testimony or a perceived timeline?

I have never much been a fan of Medley, first, for those reasons you stated Camgarsky, that other people didn't feel he quoted them right in his reports. (Although I have fun reading his reports in the witness statements because he is so honest about how exasperated he is by the wild-goose-chase aspect of following up on tips.) But second, Medley, just like Harrington, seems to me to have been on a personal mission from the get-go to prove Lizzie guilty. That dust experiment is an example.

I don't necessarily think he lied about his experiment-- he was just seeing what he hoped/expected to see, and was giddy about it -- who doesn't want to be the guy to catch the criminal with clever detective work? I don't think he ever doubted his conclusions, and the way Knowlton defended it, I don't think they expected it to be impeached at trial the way it was. Knowlton pretty much said all those defense witnesses were simply wrong about the time they went up into the barn, insisted that Medley was first. But as I understand it, Fleet had the yard cleared of people soon after he got to the house at 11:45 or 11:50, way before Medley got up to the barn, so it doesn't seem possible that the people who testified they went up into the barn could have been up there after Medley.

I know one who went in early was Alfred Clarkson (Sawyer agreed he was one of the first into the yard.) He said it was about seven or eight minutes after his arrival that he went into the open door of the barn along with Deputy Sherrif Wixon (I wonder if Wixon was asked about this? Don't remember) While Wixon stayed downstairs, Clarkson climbed up into the hay loft and found three other men already up there, said they were in their early 20s. He didn’t recognize them, but he knew they were not police officers. He said it was only after he left the barn that he saw Fleet arrive. Then there was Walter Stevens, testified that he arrived at the Borden House along with Officer Mullaly, who’d said he got to the house at 11:37. After walking around the yard a few minutes, Stevens was allowed into the house. He was standing near the back entry when Officer Medley entered the house for the first time and headed upstairs to talk to Lizzie. Stevens exited the house only a minute or two afterward and decided to head out to the barn. He himself did not go up into the loft but while he was downstairs in the barn, he said he could hear several people going up the stairs into the loft. That must have been just before they started clearing the yard.

Anyway, whether one believes Brownie and Me or not -- and I do -- it's clear that others were up in the barn before Medley. And I think the last of them who came down before the yard was cleared probably closed the door just like Brown and Barlow did, which led Medley to think he was first. I think it was an old thread on this forum that I recall something like all the people who went up first probably kicked up a bunch of hay dust up in the loft and once the barn was empty for ten or fifteen minutes, the dust settled in a layer and made it seem untouched again, and that's what Medley discovered. I don't know if that's how dust behaves, but the idea stuck with me, I would prefer not consider Medley a liar.

Did Spencer really say he himself believed Medley to be lying? I remember reading he thought the jury might have believed Medley was lying or biased, and also that Spencer thought the prosecution made a mistake by introducting Medley's experiment, but I didn't realize Spencer had concluded for himself that Medley was lying...?

Teenabee...good call out. I represented Spencer wrong. He thought it likely that Medley's interpretation of his 'experiment' was flawed.

I tend to dismiss both Medley's loft 'findings' and Brownie & Me's testimony. If even a couple of the contradictory testimonies are correct, then it is hard to conclude that Medley did the experiment or that he mis-interpreted what he saw.

The cynic in me has a hard time swallowing that Brownie & Me decided just a couple days before the trial to share this highly important information. I have no way to prove it, so I guess call it a gut check, but I believe they were encouraged and helped to come up with and share their 'recollections'.

Since I don't think Medley saw what he testified that he saw (either w/ good intentions or not) or that Brownie & Me's testimony is legit, these two issues scratch each other. out...for me.

I have a whole bevy of favorite players in the Borden drama. On the law enforcement side, Medley is right towards the top as a fascinating character. I've studied his life from immigration to death. He was never boring and certainly 'raised eyebrows' on more than one occasion.
But of one thing there is no doubt....his actions (throughout his life) were of someone who possessed a very strong and proactive interest to grow his career in the Fall River police department.

I suspect (and sense) there was a lot of both prosecution and defense gamesmanship (at times crossing the line) throughout the entire legal proceedings....inquest to acquittal. The defense checkmated the prosecution and won the game.

Welcome back Teenabee, excellent info. That's just the kind of linked testimony I'll be putting in the Evidence Against links in the Inquiry object. All the sworn testimony for the Inquest and Preliminary Hearing has been formatted and I'm on witness file 15 of the trial with 73 more to go. I'm keeping the testimony in chronological order for the unique ID numbering and some witnesses are called back multiple times, so that's why there are so many individual files I'm cleaning up.

I'll figure out a safe way to get the file published to share for our Virtual Museum on this website and for everyone's personal detective fun. It will be plaintext so you can put it into your favorite word processor or spreadsheet - the knowledge graph and investigative workbench will be published on Microsoft's GitHub, but that's going to take me quite a while to learn and develop, but there will be a public version available eventually.

Over 20,000 rows so far. Here's a mini screenshot.

My gosh Lorcan, you are the most splendidly organized, sytematic Borden information person I have seen yet, and that's saying something on this forum. Maybe that's how the case will be cracked, through mathematical spreadsheet precision ha. It's almost like you're developing an app. Yes, good detective fun indeed!

Did anyone catch my question?

Teenabee, if it's your questions here: "Did Spencer really say he himself believed Medley to be lying? I remember reading he thought the jury might have believed Medley was lying or biased, and also that Spencer thought the prosecution made a mistake by introducting Medley's experiment, but I didn't realize Spencer had concluded for himself that Medley was lying...?"

I'll defer to Camgarsky - I just briefly read the couple of pages, I'm way earlier in his book right now.

I don't remember a direct accusation. That's a very high bar to cross in a capital murder case. If I were the judge and I caught anyone on the prosecution side things planting evidence or provably, beyond a reasonable doubt, knowingly lying under oath about a matter that could sway the jury into a guilty verdict, I would punish them with whatever the length of sentence is appropriate for attempted murder.

Inspector -- I can't imagine Spencer just guessed based on timelines. That would not be his style unless he clearly stated that is how he got to a deduction. Do you have a page # to help us get to this statement quickly?

Teenabee/Lorcan -- you might not have seen buried in my post above, Spencer did not say Medley lied. Just that his experiment interpretation must have been flawed. My bad saying he thought Medley lied.

Thanks Cam, page 91 Doherty is the first to find the pail.
Page 94 Medley “sees” the pail and starts questioning.
I’ll keep looking for the specific reference, I’ll PM you with the page.

I’m not trying to find fault in Spencer, just learning his writing style and methods to better understand his views and validations.
There are times he jumps back and forwards in time out of necessity due to all the characters involved, but he admits this is sometimes a grey area.
I won’t derail the Brownie thread, it’s just that the pail is critical to my personal theory in the case, and I want to learn all I can about it.

Inspector -- I looked in the book for a bit, but didn't find what you are referencing.

I think you'll find his analysis of Medley's testimony vs his witness statements quite compelling. pages 510-512