Infamous America - LIZZIE BORDEN Ep. 2 | “Prime Suspect”

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

The Borden murders shock the city of Fall River. The police begin their investigation and they quickly discover a potential murder weapon. They believe poison might have been involved. They question Lizzie extensively and soon arrest her for the murder of her father and stepmother. Her upcoming trial will be a media sensation.  Lizzie Borden rhyme performed by Anita Mansfield anitamansfield.com Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials : blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in 1892, forensic science was in its infancy, but it wasn't as new as you might think. In fact, Massachusetts, the state where the Bordons were killed, established the first medical examiner system in 1877. By the 19th century, scientists had developed the earliest forms of toxicology. While fingerprints had been studied for a couple hundred years, fingerprint analysis as part of crime solving was still fairly new. Sir Francis Galton would publish his seminal textbook entitled Fingerprints the same year the Bordons were killed.

For the first time, he made the case that a human fingerprint was unique. The first time a suspect was charged using fingerprint evidence was in 1892 as well. Bullet comparisons and hair analysis had been established. And while DNA analysis was still a hundred years away, its existence had been discovered in 1868. Bloodstained pattern analysis was less than a year away. Criminal forensic science was about to take great leaps forward, but when the Bordons were killed, it hadn't happened yet.

There was no such thing as protecting a crime scene from contamination. Generally accepted concepts concerning criminal behavior were still rooted in assumptions based on classist and racist beliefs. Murder was considered the realm, of foreigners and lower class. Jack the Ripper had terrorized and terrified London four years earlier, and in spite of his apparent knowledge of human anatomy, it was initially considered unthinkable that he could be an educated man. People with money, especially women, were not thought capable of committing violent murder. The case against Lizzie Borden changed that narrative.

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with our promo code, Infamous. Go to Mood.com and use the code infamous to get 20% off your first order. And they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. From BlackBarril Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. And this is a three-part miniseries about one of the most infamous crimes in American history, the Lizzie Borden Axe murders.

This is Chapter 2, Prime Suspect. Assistant City Marshal John Fleet arrived at the Borden residence around 1145 a.m. on August 4, 1892. It was about 30 minutes after Andrew Borden's body was discovered. Fleet was tall with a receding hairline and a large mustache. He was good looking and intelligent. By the time he reached 92 Second Street, news of the murders had spread quickly. A couple police officers were searching the house for clues, and several reporters roamed the property. At least one had already viewed the bodies of Andrew and Abby Borden.

Fleet's first order of business was to take a look at the bodies himself. Then he went to Lizzie Borden's bedroom. She was there with her friend Alice Russell and a reverend from her church. Lizzie told Fleet about finding her father's body. He asked if she had any idea who might have murdered her mother and father, to which she replied that her mother had died when she was a child. The dead woman in the guest bedroom was her stepmother. Lizzie dismissed both Bridget Sullivan, the family's servant,

and John Morse, her uncle and a close friend of her father's. Morse had stayed at the house the night before the murders, but he'd left well before the tragedy. Lizzie did inform fleet that a man had been by the house two weeks earlier to discuss renting a shop from her father. When Andrew Borden would not rent to the man because of how he intended to use the store, the man responded angrily. But she said she didn't know what the man said or who he was. In addition, she said a man came by the house around 9 o'clock that very morning to discuss renting a store from Mr. Borden.

But again, she didn't know who the man was and she hadn't seen him. Fleet took notes on their conversation. Then he went down to the cellar where two police officers were searching for the murder weapon. Fleet went back upstairs and talked to officers in the dining room and the yard, and then went back up to Lizzie's bedroom. This time the door was shut. After some discussion, she reluctantly allowed him to search the room. Lizzie said a search was pointless.

She claimed no one could have accessed her room. While Fleet conducted his search, he and Lizzie discussed her activities that morning. Once again, she said she was in the barn for some time, then she came back to the house and found her father's body. Assistant Marshal Fleet found nothing of importance in Lizzie's bedroom, so he returned to the cellar. This time, he discovered a box of tools and metal. Inside was the head of a hatchet. Its wooden handle appeared to have been recently broken off.

While the rest of the tools were coated in dust, the hatchet head appeared to have ash on both sides of it, almost as if someone had tried to make it look like it belonged in a box where it did not. The handleless hatchet, as it was referred to, was collected. Fleet checked the cellar door, which led to the backyard, and found it bolted shut. Then he went out to the barn. Lizzie told him she'd been in the barn for 20 to 30 minutes that morning. Fleet noted that the barn seemed oppressively hot. Would someone really choose to spend that long out there in the heat? The question would soon

be one of many that cast doubt on Lizzie Borden's version of events. In 1892, as well as the years directly preceding it, two-thirds of arrests made by the Fall River Police Department were of people who had been born abroad. The initial suspicion in the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden focused on immigrants. European criminology of the time held that criminals were genetically predisposed to crime and violence. Many in America claimed that immigrant workers had left their own countries as convicts, illiterates, or degenerates. The Fall River Police suspected just such a person in this case. The public submitted an overwhelming number of tips. Some suggested that, quote, a Swede or a Portuguese who had worked for Andrew Borden

murdered him in a dispute over money. But the police cleared the Borden's immigrant laborers who fit such a description. Dr. Benjamin Handy, a friend of the Bordons, reported that he'd seen a pale man walking near the scene of the crime shortly before the murders. The elusive suspect would be known as Dr. Handy's wild-eyed man. His name was Michael Snow. He was a cotton spinner better known as Mike the soldier, and he was apparently missing. The police ruled him out as a suspect, but they kept looking for him anyway. It took five months to find him, and by that time, they had made an arrest in the case. He was interviewed and cleared all the same.

Some people urged the police to examine the eyes of the victims. There was a superstition that the last image people ever saw was burned into the eyes of the dead. The theory was a fun part of fictional stories, but it had no basis in fact. As always, members of the public put forward people they generally found suspicious. And there were false confessions. One man claimed to have killed the Bordons because he was Andrew's illegitimate son with a woman who had been committed to an insane asylum. The police were contacted by a medium who claimed Andrew Borden had reached out to him from beyond the grave.

Unfortunately, the medium said the spirit world could not agree on the identity of the culprit. The police looked into as many leads as they could, no matter how absurd, so it could never be said they didn't do everything to solve the case. John Morse, the brother of Andrew Borden's first wife, had an airtight alibi. But many in Fall River still suspected he was the killer. First, he wasn't a local. Second, his visit to town coincided with the murders. Third, people thought he was peculiar and seemed untrustworthy.

The day after the murders, an angry mob of suspicious locals followed him around until the police finally rescued him. That same day, Emma and Lizzie Borden offered a $5,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers. And about that time, the police started to suspect that the killer might be one of the Borden sisters. On Saturday, August 6th, approximately 75 people crowded into the Borden's sitting room for Andrew and Abbey's funeral service. The coffins were made of cedar and draped with black cloth. Somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 people waited outside to catch a glimpse of the coffins as they exited. Lizzie and Emma, joined by John Morse and Andrew's friends and business associates, climbed into carriages and followed the hearse to Oak Grove Cemetery.

When everyone left the house, Chief Marshal Rufus Hilliard and his deputies searched the home without interference from the Borden sisters. Later, the New York Herald declared that the police had ransacked the home from attic to cellar. At the cemetery, the pallbearer, placed the coffins at the gravesite. Soon, the mourners drifted away. After waiting for a few minutes,

so as not to seem uncivilized, the police returned the caskets to the hearse. There would be no burial that day. They were placed in a receiving fault at the cemetery to await full autopsies that would be performed later in the week. That evening, Marshall Hillier returned to the Borden home

with the mayor of Fall River. There was a large crowd outside. and the mayor advised Emma and Lizzie to stay indoors for a few days. Lizzie asked if anyone in the house was currently suspected of committing the murders. Emma had heard the rumors and wanted to keep them from Lizzie. The mayor ended up being the one who reluctantly informed Lizzie that she herself was a suspect. On Tuesday, August 9th, it was announced that there would be an inquest at the police station. It was closed to the public and the press.

At some point between the murders and the beginning of the inquest, the police received some information that cast suspicion on Lizzie. A druggist said that on the morning of August 3rd, the day before the murders, Lizzie Borden had come to his store and tried to buy 10 cents worth of Prussic acid. Prussic acid is another name for hydrogen cyanide. It's colorless, fast-acting, and extremely poisonous. The police knew that Lizzie's stepmother, Abby Bollison, Borden, suspected she and her husband of being poisoned in the days before their murders.

So this revelation by the druggist was very interesting. The man said he had recognized Lizzie when she came into the drugstore. She said she needed the acid to put on the edge of a seal-skin cape. Andrew Borden had gifted his daughter just such a cape upon her return from Europe. The druggist refused to sell her the acid. It could only be purchased with orders from a doctor. Lizzie told him she'd bought it before, but he still refused. She left, and she was not happy.

As an interesting aside, if she'd wanted to buy a more common poison, arsenic, it was available over-the-counter. The inquest at the police station, which was basically a formality to state legally that the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Borden were homicides, now appeared to have a more specific purpose, to secure evidence implicating Lizzie Borden in the murders. District Attorney Jose and Nolton conducted the interviews during the inquest. He started with Bridget Sullivan.

Her testimony was straightforward and didn't cast suspicion on anyone in particular. Next up, Nolton interviewed Lizzie Borden. The Borden family lawyer knew the precarious position Lizzie was in. He wanted to accompany her to look after her interests, as he put it. The district attorney had no intention of letting the family lawyer participate in the inquest. The DA insisted he was simply investigating the crime, not accusing Lizzie Borden of anything. As such, he saw no reason the lawyer should be involved. In spite of the lawyer's fervent argument, the judge agreed.

The lawyer was asked to leave. Lizzie Borden was on her own. The questioning was extensive. When asked if her father was on bad terms with anyone, Lizzie talked about the unnamed man and the disagreement about the rental person. property. When asked if her stepmother had any enemies, Lizzie said no one was on bad terms with Abby. Lizzie did acknowledge she and Abby were not dear friends, but Lizzie said they were pleasant with one another. District Attorney Knowlton asked if the marriage between Lizzie's father and

stepmother was a happy one. Lizzie said it was as far as she knew. Nolton asked her what she'd been wearing on the day of the murders. She'd been in a blue dress in the morning and changed into a pink dress in the afternoon. Nolton asked how often her uncle John Morse stayed overnight. She said she wasn't sure. He asked her if she knew what everyone did the morning of the murders. This part of the questioning actually continued into the next day. Nolton was unhappy with the lack of definitive answers. In frustration, he asked, do you desire to give me any information or not? Lizzy, equally distressed, replied that she could not provide information she did not possess. Norton asked how she could possibly have spent

20 to 30 minutes in a barn when the heat in there was so intense. Surely her search for iron to make a wait for a fishing line couldn't have taken more than a few minutes. Why was she in the one place that would keep her from seeing anyone entering or exiting the house? Lizzie replied that on her way to the barn, she picked some pears. She decided to sit in the barn and eat them. Nolton found it hard to believe that she stopped her search to sit and eat pears. He also questioned how she was feeling well enough to eat pears when she apparently told Abby earlier that she was not well enough to eat dinner that night. Nolton got Lizzie to talk about the discord in the household that resulted from Andrew's purchase

of a house for Abby's half-sister. And Lizzie admitted that when her father had given a house to her and her sister to balance the scales, it hadn't actually made things better. With that, Knowlton finally moved on to other witnesses. Dr. Bowen, who lived across the street, and Mrs. Churchill, who lived next door, testified to some of Lizzie's version of events.

They confirmed she had changed her clothes. They also agreed that Lizzie mentioned a note that had arrived for her stepmother on the morning of the murders. The note supposedly informed Abby Borden that a friend was sick. According to Lizzie, Abby left to go check on the friend. But the note still hadn't been found. And Mrs. Churchill said that after she rushed to the house when Andrew Borden's body was discovered,

Lizzie asked her to help look for Abby Borden. Lizzie didn't seem to know if her stepmother had returned. To finish the second day of the inquest, John Morse testified that Andrew Borden had spoken of making a will in the last year. District Attorney Nolton suspected if the will was unfavorable to Lizzie, it could provide a motive for murder. In spite of Nolton's questioning, Morse refused to provide details, and the police couldn't find the will. The next day, Nolton brought Lizzie back in for more questioning. He asked her if she had tried to buy Prussic acid at any drugstore.

She said she had not. He asked her if she had ever used Prusick acid on her seal skin cape. She said she didn't put anything on it. Nolton was delighted. He had three witnesses who placed Lizzie at the drugstore. He later told the Attorney General he felt her testimony was as good as a confession. On August 11th, the last day of the inquest, and eight days after the murders, Andrew and Abby Borden's bodies were finally autopsied.

Bristol County Medical Examiner Dr. William Dolan performed the procedures in the ladies' lounge of the Oak Grove Cemetery. It was his first year on the job. In an odd coincidence, he happened to pass by the Borden House shortly before noon on the day of the murders. Since he was literally in the neighborhood, he had done a cursory examination of the bodies at that time. He'd also made sure to have the bodies and the crime scenes photographed. Dr. Dolan was aware of the victim's previous illness due to possible food poisoning. So he collected samples of the milk from that day and the day before. He also removed the victim's stomachs.

He sent the organs and the milk to a professor at Harvard for examination. No evidence of poison was found. Dr. Dolan went to extreme and somewhat gruesome lengths to examine the head wounds on Andrew and Abby Borden. Around the same time, City Marshal Hilliard was discussing the results of the inquest with District Attorney Nolton. It was clear there was animosity in the Borden household, specifically between Abbey and Lerner. Lizzie. The two men felt that Lizzie Borden's description of events on the morning of the murders was less than convincing. She'd given multiple versions of the events, and the two men were confident that Abby Borden had not left the house that morning on a mysterious errand to visit a friend

who was sick. They now knew that Abby Borden was dead in the guest bedroom upstairs when Andrew Borden had returned home from his work in town. Lizzie had stood at the top of the stairs, right outside the guest bedroom and spoken to her father when he walked in the front door. It seemed impossible that she could have stood in that spot and not noticed the brutally murdered body of her stepmother in the room. Adding to it, she made no effort to locate Abby after finding Andrew's body. It would have made sense if she believed as she told the others that Abby had gone out. But shortly thereafter, Lizzie insisted out of the blue that she believed Abby had already returned

home. Plus, Lizzie denied trying to buy poison, despite the reports of three witnesses. The Marshal and the DA believed that if women were going to commit murder, they'd use poison. So Lizzie's inability to buy poison could explain the use of a hatchet, a weapon they associated more with the violence of men. They were starting to put the pieces together. They thought they had motive, the murder weapon, the sequence of events, and the lies to cover the them up. The Marsha was prepared to serve a warrant for the arrest of Lizzie Borden. Even though the Borden family lawyer had not been permitted to take part in the inquest, Hilliard went to his house to inform him of their intent to arrest Lizzie. The lawyer met Lizzie

at the courthouse. She took the news in stride and was in enough possession of her faculties to grant her sister Emma power of attorney for the real estate properties they shared. Lizzie Borden was arrested for the murder of her father, Andrew. Oddly, the warrant made no mention of the murder of Abby Borden. In the preliminary hearing that followed, the judge heard arguments from the district attorney and the Borden family lawyer. At the end of it, he declared that Lizzie was, quote, probably guilty, and ordered her to go before a grand jury.

On September 20, 1892, an article appeared in the New York Record. in which the reporter claimed to have interviewed Lizzie in jail. In the article, Lizzie asserted her innocence. She also disputed other stories that said she was not grieving over the murders. She insisted she cried often in private over the loss of her father and stepmother. She was quoted as saying, I have tried hard to be brave and womanly through it all. I know I'm innocent. No matter what happens, I will try to bear it bravely. The authenticity of the interview is unclear. Edwin H. Porter, the police reporter for the Fall River Daily Globe,

an author of The Fall River Tragedy about the case, dismissed the interview as a magnificent fake. That kind of thing was not unusual. Another article, this one printed in the Boston Globe in October, declared that Lizzie was pregnant, and Andrew had threatened to throw her out if she didn't reveal the identity of the father. The story was purchased by the Globe from a private detective who meant to embarrass the paper's star crime reporter. The detective claimed he had obtained the government's case by assisting the Fall River Police during the investigation.

It was printed without being verified because the Globe feared being scooped by a rival newspaper. Two days later, the Boston Globe issued a retraction alongside an apology to Lizzie Borden. On November 15th, a grand jury convened to decide if there was sufficient evidence to charge Lizzie Borden with murder. District Attorney Jose and Nolton once again presented the case. Traditionally, the defense has no role in grand jury proceedings. In a departure from usual procedure, the DA offered the Borden family lawyer the chance to present evidence in Lizzie's defense. Despite the lawyer's arguments, the grand jury. indicted Lizzie for the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden.

Fall River asked for the trial to be held in town. Not only were the witnesses located there, but the attention of the trial was sure to bring economic rewards to the community. The defense wanted the trial to take place in Taunton, where Lizzie was being held in jail. Ultimately, they settled on New Bedford, 15 miles east of Fall River. Lizzie Borden now had to wait six months for her time. trial. Just before the case went to court, the town of Fall River received another shock. On May 30, 1893, a resident was murdered with an axe. The victim suffered 23 wounds to the head

and neck. The Providence Journal declared that the man with the axe had returned to Fall River. It was not the only paper to try to link the newest crime with the Borden murders. Marshall Hilliard dismissed any parallels between the cases. The latest murder was impulsive, he said. The murder of the Bordons had been premeditated. The day before Lizzie's trial began, a disgruntled farmer was arrested for the latest axe murder. He confessed to the crime.

And since he'd only arrived in town recently, he could not have committed the Borden murders. Lizzie was still the primary suspect. Across the country, people awaited the start of the trial with great excitement. Devotees of the case had split into two factions, pro-lizzie and anti-Lizzie. One paper said, She has borne herself with a calmness so heroic as to create the impression that she has either been foully wronged in the accusation or that she is a fiend in woman's form.

The papers mostly cited with Lizzie. On the day her trial began, the Philadelphia Inquirer recalled the evidence against her wholly circumstantial and as flimsy as her alleged motives. Her trial was predicted to be an event almost as newsworthy as the recent trial of Carlisle W. Harris for the murder of his wife. Harris was put to death in the electric chair less than a month before Lizzie Borden's trial began. That case was fresh in the reader's minds, but it's almost completely full. forgotten today. The newspapers, never at a loss for hyperbole, predicted Lizzie Borden's trial would be one of the greatest murder trials in the world's history. It was certainly going to be memorable. Next time on Infamous America, Lizzie Borden is tried for the murder of her father and

stepmother. A blue dress may provide a clue into Lizzie's guilt or innocence, and her friend, Alice Russell, takes the stand against her. The people ask, Could a woman of means really commit such a violent and heinous crime? The answer is next week on Infamous America. And if you're a member of our Black Barrel Plus program, you already have access to the full season. If you're not a member, you can sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Members receive access to each new season in its entirety one week before the season begins for the general public. And members receive exclusive.

bonus episodes. Sign up today for just $5 per month. This season was researched and written by Sean Paglisi. The Lizzie Borden Rhyme was performed by Anita Mansfield. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels.

We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media. on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for infamous America podcast. Thanks for listening.