looked across to the Borden house twenty feet away. There she saw Lizzie standing alone at the screen door. Mrs. Churchill called out, "Lizzie, what's the matter?" Lizzie replied, "Oh, Addie, do come over; somebody has killed father."
Adelaide Churchill hurried over to the Borden house. There she asked Lizzie where she was when "it" happened. Lizzie said, "I went to the barn to get a piece of iron, came in and found the screen door open." In response to another question about her stepmother's whereabouts, Lizzie said, "She had a note to go see someone who is sick."
At Lizzie's request, Mrs. Churchill went out onto Second Street to find a doctor. She talked to several people, relating what had happened, and asking someone to locate a doctor or notify the police. A newsdealer named John Cunningham overheard the conversation but got it garbled. Cunningham phoned the police station to report that, "There's a row at the Borden house." It was a lot worse than that!
Marshal Hilliard, the head of the Fall River police force, received the call at 11:15 A.M. As it happened, about half of the policemen were attending a picnic at Rocky Point, a nearby amusement park. Nevertheless Hilliard was able to send a large contingent to 92 Second Street, which was only 400 yards from the police station.
The first officer to arrive at the Borden house, George Allen, had the presence of mind to station Charles Sawyer, a local painter, at the kitchen door with orders to admit no one except police officers. Sawyer carried out his duties faithfully. He remained on duty for seven hours, after which he asked to be relieved so he could go home to eat supper. His request was granted.
Dr. Bowen arrived home sometime between 11:15 and 11:30 and immediately crossed the street to the Borden house. There he examined Andrew's body. Later he described the gruesome scene.
"The blows extended from the eye and nose around the ear. In that small span there were 11 distinct cuts of about the same depth and general appearance. [A subsequent, more accurate count showed that Andrew had received 10 "whacks".] The cuts were about 42 inches in length and one of them had severed the eyeball and socket . . . I could not inflict upon a dead dog the additional blows that were driven into Andrew Borden's head."
Partial List of Policemen Sent to the Borden House, August 4, 1892:
Who They Were When They Came What They Did
George Allen 11:20 AM Reported back to Hilliard
Patrick Doherty 11:30 Searched house, talked to Lizzie
Francis Wixon 11:30 Searched premises
Michael Mullaly 11:40 Searched house, interrogated Lizzie
John Devine 11:40 Guarded house
John Fleet 11:50 Searched house, interrogated Lizzie
William Medley 11:50 Searched barn, interrogated Lizzie
Patrick Gillon 12:00 Guarded house
Philip Harrington 12:20 PM Searched barn, interrogated Lizzie
Charles Wilson 1:00 Talked to Lizzie
John Minnehan 1:00 Searched house
John Riley 1:00 Not much, apparently
Rufus Hilliard 2:30 Searched premises
George Seaver 5:00 Searched house
Albert Chase 6:00 Guarded house
Joseph Hyde ? Guarded house
Bowen, like Mrs. Churchill before him, asked Lizzie where she was when her father was murdered. She gave the same answer, that she had been out in the barn looking for some iron. (Bowen thought she said "irons" but that makes no sense.) Shortly afterward, Dr. Bowen went off to send a telegram to Lizzie's older sister, Emma Borden, who was visiting friends in a nearby resort town. Emma was unable to catch the noon train for Fall River; she got home at about 5 P.M.
From the telegraph office, Dr. Bowen went to a drugstore, perhaps to pick up a supply of sedatives. That afternoon he gave Lizzie two doses of bromocaffeine. Throughout the following week he prescribed a stronger sedative, morphine, to calm Lizzie's nerves.
By the time Bowen got back to 92 Second Street, a second body had been discovered. Adelaide Churchill and Bridget Sullivan found Lizzie's stepmother, Abby Borden, in the upstairs guest room. According to Bridget, they acted in response to Lizzie's suggestion; she told them, "I'm almost certain I heard her come in. Won't you go upstairs and see?" Bridget refused to go alone, so Mrs. Churchill accompanied her.
Abby, like her husband Andrew, had been slaughtered with a hatchet. Dr. Bowen examined this victim as well. He later gave a detailed description of the body.
"There was a large pool of blood under the dead 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