Infamous America - LIZZIE BORDEN Ep. 3 | “The Verdict”

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

Lizzie Borden goes to trial for the murder of her father and stepmother. The stakes are as high as they can get: she could face the death penalty if convicted. The prosecution presents damaging evidence, but the defense counters with a compelling case of its own. The final decision doesn’t seem easy, but the jury reaches a swift verdict in the case of the “Lizzie Borden Axe Murders.” 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

The sun beat down on the jurors as they filed onto the waiting train. They were accompanied by four police officers, as well as lawyers from both sides. The train left New Bedford at 1.15 p.m. just after lunch. When it reached Fall River, the jurors were forced to walk clumped together in scorching heat to the house at 92 Second Street. In spite of the oppressive sun, over 350 spectators waited outside. the scene of the crime. This was the only time local residents could see part of the trial without traveling,

and it was treated as an event. Lizzie Borden's defense attorney carried an umbrella for shade. The members of the jury, by contrast, looked like a prison chain gang shuffling down the road. The jurors had been instructed by the chief judge to ask no questions, and the lawyers were told to make no statements. The jury was shown the inside of the judge. the house and the yard. They made sure to study the locations carefully. They were taken around the neighborhood to see some key places, like D.R. Smith's drugstore. They also retraced

Andrew Borden's movements on the morning of the murders. The jurors finally headed back to New Bedford on the 635 train. They were overheated and exhausted. A Boston Globe reporter declared that the jury surely suffered in the afternoon. By contrast, the judges spent a relaxing morning in court. My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night with my mind racing from one thing to another, and then, of course, I have a brainstorm about something new. That lights the fire, and then I'm in real trouble.

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At Mood.com, get 20% off your first order 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 BlackBarrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. And this is a three-part mini-series about one of the most infamous crimes in American history. The Lizzie Borden Axe murders.

This is Chapter 3, The Verdict. Lizzie Borden's trial for the crime of murder was ready to begin. District Attorney Joseon led the prosecution. He'd been in charge of the previous legal proceedings, and now he would run the trial for the state. A younger district attorney acted as his second in command. For the defense, the Borden family lawyer, Andrew Jennings, led a three-man team. A Boston lawyer and a former governor of Massachusetts filled out the roster. And in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when the death penalty was on the table, a panel of three judges presided over the case.

They were all elder statesmen. Lizzie Borden was almost 33 years old when she went on trial. All the judges had been practicing law longer than she'd been alive. The first day of the trial consisted solely of jury selection. The chosen men were mostly farmers, all at least middle-aged, and they were all willing to. consider the death penalty. On day two, the prosecution began its case. The younger of the two district attorneys gave the opening statement. He described the heinous crimes, the discord between Lizzie and her stepmother, including the disagreement over Andrew's purchase of a house

for Abby's half-sister, the food poisoning, Lizzie's attempt to buy acid, and her conversation with Alice Russell the night before the murders, in which she predicted something. bad would happen. The DA walked the jury through the layout of the house at 92 Second Street. He described everyone's movements on the morning of the murders. Then, he produced the handleless hatchet. It was found in the basement on the day of the murders and collected by police at a later time. He described how it had been covered in ash, not a thin layer of dust like the other items around it. It was as if someone was deliberately trying to make it blend in. The wooden handle had been broken off of the head of the hatchet, and the break appeared fresh.

Then the DA reached for a black handbag. He opened it quietly and held it out so the jury could look inside. In the bag, side by side, were the cleaned skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden. What happened next was best described by the Fall River Daily. globe. Lizzie Borden, the sphinx of coolness, who has so often been accused of never manifesting a feminine feeling, had fainted. That afternoon, the jurors took a field trip to Fall River.

Under a sweltering sun, they visited the crime scene. After a full day of hearing about gruesome murders and seeing the places where they happened, the jurors were exhausted. They were sequestered in a hotel in New Bedford. and they returned to their rooms to rest. The next day, the trial started in earnest. The prosecution scored big points on some aspects of its case and lost big points on others.

Its first witness seemed to do a little of both. The prosecution called Bridget Sullivan, the Borden's former servant, to the stand. Most of her testimony simply laid out the events of the day as she had witnessed them. She seemed to help the prosecution on two main points, one of which would only be understood in the future. First, she described how the house's doors were always locked,

which meant it would have been virtually impossible for a stranger to get in and commit the murders. Second, she said Lizzie changed her clothes from a blue dress before the murders to a pink dress after the murders. That point would be a cornerstone of the prosecution's case. But on cross-examination, the defense scored its first point. Bridget said the doors were always locked, but she also said she wasn't sure if she had hooked the screen door on the side of the house. If she had left it unlatched, an unknown killer could have gained access to the house through the side door. Bridgett acknowledged that she was hard at work and would not necessarily have seen a stranger sneak into the house.

She also admitted there was no blood at all on Lizzie Borden. Lizzie's hair wasn't even out of place. The defense was suggesting it was hard to believe that Lizzie had just committed two gruesome murders and yet showed no trace of them at all. Bridget's testimony felt like a tie between the prosecution and the defense. The next witness inadvertently tipped the balance toward the defense. Dr. Seaberry Bowen lived across the street from the Bordons. He was the first doctor to examine the bodies of Andrew and Abby Borden.

When he took the stand after Bridget, he described his actions that morning in the conditions of the corpses. The prosecution tried to get the doctor to talk about Lizzie's blue dress, but the doctor just said it was an ordinary dress. He barely noticed it. Obviously, he had bigger things to deal with. When the defense began its cross-examination, it scored more points. The defense asked the doctor what he had prescribed to Lizzie for nerves in the wake of the murders. Dr. Bowen said he'd given her bromo caffeine for headaches and then added morphine at the end of the week. That was the big one for the defense.

Lizzie's lawyers were about to try to get her damning testimony at the initial inquest thrown out. At the time of the inquest, the top prosecutor considered Lizzie's inconsistent statements to be as good as a confession. But the defense pounced on Dr. Bowen's prescription of morphine. Dr. Bowen reluctantly admitted that morphine could cause hallucinations and affect memory. Afterward, a reporter asked a question in a story that was the exact question the defense wanted everyone to ask. What must have been Lizzie's mental condition after days of dosing with the stuff? The doctor was the second witness in a row who had not gone as smoothly as the prosecutors would have liked, but they were about to rally.

They called their next witness. Lizzie Borden's friend and confidant Alice Russell. Alice had lived next door to the Bordons for more than a decade. She'd only recently moved a short distance away. Alice was the same age as Lizzie's older sister Emma, which made her nearly 10 years older than Lizzie, but Alice was still close with both sisters. On the day of the murders, Lizzie told Bridget to go get Alice.

Lizzie wanted her friend nearby for comfort. In the days that followed, Alice stayed at the house with Emma and Lizzie. When Lizzie had been arrested, Alice frequently visited her in jail, in the early days. Something caused the visits to stop. Now Alice took the stand and told her story, and Lizzie's blue dress was the centerpiece. On Sunday, August 7th, three days after the murders, Alice was staying at the Borden house. Andrew and Abby's funeral had been the previous day. The mayor had recently revealed to Lizzie that she was a prime suspect in the murders.

Alice said that on the morning of the seventh, she saw Lizzie standing by the kitchen stove. Emma Borden asked Lizzie what she was going to do. Lizzie replied that she was going to, quote, burn this old thing up. It's covered in paint. The old thing, as Lizzie described it, was the blue dress she'd been wearing on the the morning of the murders, which had allegedly been purchased just two months earlier. It certainly sounded like Lizzie was trying to destroy evidence. Another witness that day made the case stronger.

Assistant Marshal John Fleet described arriving at the Borden House shortly after the murders. He mentioned that when he referred to Abby Borden as Lizzie's mother, she had emphatically corrected him. Abby was Lizzie's stepmother. Fleet also described his disgust. of the handleless hatchet in the cellar. Then he talked about searching the house again on the day of the funeral, while the Bordons were at the cemetery. He had personally searched Lizzie's closet.

He found no dresses with blood spots or paint stains. Alice had just testified that the blue dress had been burned the day after the funeral. So if it hadn't been burned yet, where was it when the police searched the house during the funeral? And that question raised two more. If the blue dress only had paint stains on it, why was it hidden so skillfully that the police couldn't find it? And more to the point, why did it have to be hidden at all? When the day ended, at least one reporter stated that it had been a rough day for Lizzie Borden. But in the next

couple days, the defense made up some ground during cross-examination. Two police officers had testified about searching the house on the day of the murders. One had talked about climbing over the fence in the backyard to talk to a neighbor. The defense used the officer's actions to help its theory of a random killer. If Bridget had left the side door unlatched, an unknown killer could have slipped into the house, committed the murders, and then hopped over the fence to escape. It was a little thin, but it was possible. And the defense scored bigger points about the possible murder weapon.

A patrolman testified about searching the house, including the cellar when assistant Marshal John Fleet had discovered the head of the hatchet. On cross-examination by the defense, the patrolman divulged some unexpected information. He said he'd seen the broken handle of the hatchet in a different toolbox. The patrolman said Fleet had taken it out and looked at it before returning it to the box. The patrolman seemed oblivious to the significance of the new information, but the defense recognized it immediately. Lizzie's attorney demanded the prosecution produced the handle. He said they surely had to have it in their possession.

Prosecutors disputed the claim, saying they had no knowledge of the handle being found. The defense called Fleet back to the stand. Lizzie's lawyers got Fleet to confirm that the patrolman had been present when the head of the hatchet had been found. But Fleet insisted he never saw the handle. And the handle was important. maybe as important as the blue dress.

The newspapers explained why. One said, The theory of the Commonwealth is that she took the hatchet after murdering her father, broke off the handle, burned it, and then cleansed the blade, rubbed it in ashes, and put it in the box in the cellar.

It seemed like a sound theory. If the handle was covered in blood, it would need to be destroyed. It couldn't just be washed. That scenario made the, the hatchet seemed like the murder weapon. But if the handle had not been destroyed, if Fleet found it, looked at it,

judged it to be irrelevant, and then put it back, maybe the hatchet wasn't the murder weapon. The prosecution maintained that it was, but now the defense had planted the seat of doubt. Maybe the hatchet had no significance at all. Then Lizzie's lawyers won their biggest argument to date. her lawyers did not want her testimony from the inquest admitted in court.

The prosecution saw the testimony as establishing everything they needed to convict Lizzie. She had agreed to testify voluntarily. She was not under arrest or in custody. And her words established motive and opportunity. The prosecution argued that if she had wanted to protect herself, she could have simply invoked the Massachusetts equivalent of the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. The defense countered that she had been unaware of her privilege

not to testify during the inquest. And that was because the district attorney, the man who was prosecuting the case right now, had asked the judge to keep the Borden family lawyer out of the interview room during Lizzie's questioning. Now one of Lizzie's lawyers painted a sympathetic picture. Here was a young woman who'd been told by the mayor that she was the prime suspect in her father's murder.

She'd been denied her lawyer. She was grieving, and she'd been prescribed a healthy dose of morphine. And, as it was learned, the marshal had her arrest warrant on him during the inquest. Just because he hadn't served it, didn't mean law enforcement wasn't treating the inquest like a criminal interrogation. Ultimately, the three judges agreed with a defense. They implied the police intentionally delayed serving the arrest warrant so that Lizzie would not have officially be in custody during her testimony. Therefore, her answers during the intense questioning were not voluntary, and they could not be used in court. The denial of the inquest testimony was

definitely a setback for the prosecution. But again, they rallied. They called a series of doctors who provided damaging testimony against Lizzie. The first had performed the autopsies on Andrew and Abbey Borden. He used plaster casts of their heads to illustrate their extensive injuries. There were ten wounds on Andrew and 19 on Abbey. There had been some disagreement as to whether or not an ordinary woman possessed the strength to inflict such wounds. The doctor said yes, she did. Finally, he estimated that Abby had been killed roughly an hour and a half to two hours before Andrew, based on the rate of digestion of their breakfasts. Another doctor testified no poison was present in the Borden's stomachs or the milk that had been sent from the house.

The next doctor presented the most morbid and frightening evidence. He brought out Andrew Borden's skull to show to the jury. He placed the hatchet into various wounds and showed that it fit very well. He occasionally left the hatchet in place, sticking out of the skull, and and paraded it in front of the jurors. After the series of doctors, the prosecution moved to its final point. For a dramatic wrap-up to its case, District Attorney Nolton had intended to present evidence

about Lizzie's attempt to buy a type of poison the day before the murders. Lizzie's lawyer put up a formidable defense. He objected to every attempt made by the prosecutors, and he managed to keep the prosecution's witnesses from serving their purpose. and with a whimper, the prosecution rested. When the defense presented its case, the star witness was Lizzie's sister Emma.

Emma meticulously dismantled the prosecution's case. First, she disputed a story by a woman who worked at the Fall River Police Station. The woman had claimed she'd overheard the Borden sisters arguing while Lizzie was being held at the station. The woman claimed Lizzie said, Emma, you have given me away. The Borden family lawyer walked Emma through the woman's statement line by line, and Emma refuted it line by line. Next, Emma took on Lizzie's alleged motive.

She disputed all the possible financial reasons for killing their father. Then she turned her attention to the blue dress. She said the dress had been dirty, soiled, and faded. The front and one side had been stained with paint. Emma said that she had been the one who told Lizzie to burn it. Emma couldn't find a hook to hang her own dress on. That blue dress was in such poor condition she told Lizzie to burn it to free up a hook.

In addition, Emma described Alice Russell as more of an acquaintance than a close friend. And either way, Alice had made no objections to burning the dress. After Emma's extensive testimony, the defense arrested its case. Court adjourned for the weekend. On Monday, the lawyers started their closing arguments. The defense said Lizzie Borden was innocent, and her parents had been murdered by an unknown intruder. The prosecution claimed the opposite.

It said Lizzie Borden despised her parents and cruelly murdered them for money. When the lawyers finished, one of the judges offered Lizzie the chance to speak on her own behalf. She said simply, I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me. One of the other judges gave the jury its instructions.

That judge, for what it's worth, was the one who was appointed by the former governor of Massachusetts, a man who was now one of Lizzie's lawyers, and who had handled much of the cross-examination. The jury left the courtroom to debate the case. It returned with a verdict in less than 90 minutes. The jury filed into the courtroom. Their faces were somber and deterred. determined. Lizzie Borden stood and waited expectantly. The judges asked for the verdict. The question was not even complete before the foreman blurted out his answer. Not guilty.

The courtroom exploded with sound. Spectators waved hats and handkerchiefs. They yelled and cried. People who were gathered outside cheered. Lizzie Borden had remained stoic through the 15 days of the trial. Now she fell back into her chair and wept openly. The jury had taken an informal vote when it began deliberating. The vote was unanimous in favor of acquittal. The jurors then briefly discussed the evidence and took an official vote. It was still unanimous. The decision was made fairly quickly, but the jurors waited to announce the decision for a length of time that they thought would be respectful. Their announcement on June 20th, 1893, ended one of the many trials that was labeled, The Trial of the Century. Eight months later, around February 4, 1894,

the Lizzie Borden rhyme appeared in print for the first time. It was in the New York Evening Post. In the original version, Lizzie gave her mother and father 20 and 21 wax, respectively. Not the 40 and 41 they're afforded today. It appeared in a short blurb that described a mother in Boston who wouldn't let her children read the newspaper. Nevertheless, she discovered them singing the famous rhyme. Even then, it seemed that children learned it through some form of cultural osmosis. Its original origins are unknown,

although it's thought to have begun as a gimmick to sell newspapers during the trial. Afterward, it continued to spread. Lizzie Borden is credited with the murders, but there are numerous theories about the true nature of the crime. Some people claim Lizzie murdered her father because he had molested her. She killed her stepmother because Abby Borden hadn't stopped it. Others claim Lizzie killed her father because Andrew killed some pigeons that Lizzie kept in the barn. There's a theory that Emma was the real killer, and Lizzie was willing to take the blame for her older sister. That one made it into an episode of Alfred Hitchcock,

It's also been claimed that Lizzie and Bridget Sullivan were lovers. Together they killed her parents for disapproving. A film in 2018 took that point of view. After the trial, Lizzie Borden became a pariah in Fall River's upper class. But she did have a considerable amount of money. Since Abby Borden died before Andrew, it was decided that he inherited her estate during the last couple hours of his life. When he died, their combined estate passed to the Borden sisters.

Even so, Abby's relatives were given a substantial sum to settle their claims to her estate. Lizzie quickly bought a large house in the fancy neighborhood called the Hill. She named the house Maplecroft. She stopped going to church, and she started buying the expensive things she'd been denied before the murders. She also started going by the name Lisbeth Borden. And later that year, Lisbeth became the subject of a book about the murders. It was called The Fall River Tragedy, and it was written by a local reporter named Edwin Porter. It contained excerpts of her inquest testimony that had been thrown out at trial.

Lizzie bought every copy she could find and destroyed them. Lizzie's older sister Emma lived with her until 1905. At that time, Lizzie threw a big party at Maplecroft for an actress friend from Boston. The party scandalized the neighbors. Lizzie and Emma argued about it, and Emma moved out the same night. The Borden sisters never saw each other again. Even so, Emma came to Lizzie's defense almost a decade later when she gave a rare interview about the murders. It was part of a retrospective 20 years after the crime. Emma had promised her mother that she would take care of Lizzie. She said, and although we must live as strangers, I will defend baby Lizzie

against merciless tongues. It's unclear what happened to the Borden's maid, Bridget Sullivan, right after the trial. According to Sullivan family legend, she returned to Ireland. But if so, she was back in America a short time later. She got married in 1905, and she and her husband spent the rest of their lives in southwestern Montana. They had no children. She outlived the Borden sisters, passing away in 1948, 55 years after the murders. Neither of the Borden sisters married. Emma died June 10, 1927, at the age of 76.

Lizzie passed away nine days earlier, June 1st, from pneumonia. The sisters were buried side by side. The street number on the old Borden house. house was changed the year after the trial. But the house is still there in the original location. It's now a museum and a bed and breakfast, styled as closely as possible to how it was on August 4, 1892. You can sleep in the room where Abbey was murdered and dine in the room where the bodies were examined. The infamous handeless hatchet and other evidence from the case can be found at the Fall River Historical Society, less than a moment.

mile down the road. Next time on infamous America, we're going to try something a little different for Halloween. It's a combo story, the tale of serial killer Ed Gein and the making of the classic and infamous horror movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Listen to that one in the dark. We dare you. That series begins October 21st, 2020. But as always, members of our Black Barrel Plus program will receive the entire series to binge one week. week earlier, October 14th. Sign up now through the link in the show notes are on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. And finally, here's a book recommendation about this story.

The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Kara Robertson. This season was researched and written by Sean Paglisi. The Lizzie Borden Rime 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 BlackBarrel 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.