The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders

by Edwin H. Porter

CHAPTER I.
Discovery of the Murders.

At high noon on Thursday the fourth day of August, 1892, the cry of murder swept through the city of Fall River like a typhoon on the smooth surface of an eastern sea. It was caught up by a thousand tongues and repeated at every street corner until it reached the utmost confines of the municipality. A double murder, the most atrocious of crimes, committed under the very glare of the mid-day sun within three minutes walk of the City Hall was the way the story went and it was true in every particular. Andrew J. Borden and his wife Abbie D. Borden had been assassinated in their home at 92 Second street. The manner in which the deed was done seemed so brutal, so mysterious, and the tragedy itself so unprecedented that people stared with open-mouthed amazement as they listened to the story passing from tongue to tongue. In the excitement of the

moment the murderer had slipped away unobserved, and bloody as his crime had been he left no trace behind, nor clue to his identity. He had wielded an axe or some similar instrument with the skill of a headsman and had butchered in the most horrible manner the bodies of his defenseless victims.

THE BORDEN RESIDENCE.

When discovered, the remains of Mr. Borden lay stretched at full length upon the sofa in the sitting room of his home; the head literally hacked into fragments and the fresh blood trickling from every wound. Up stairs in the guest chamber lay the body of Mrs. Borden similarly mangled and butchered with the head reeking in a crimson pool. She had been murdered while in the act of making the bed and her husband had died as he lay taking his morning nap.

In the house was Miss Lizzie A. Borden, youngest daughter of the slain couple, and Bridget Sullivan, the only servant. They and they alone had been within calling distance of the victims as the fiend or fiends struck the fatal blows. The servant was in the attic, and the daughter was in the barn not more than thirty feet from the back door of the house. This was the condition of things on the premises when the cry went forth which shocked the city and startled the entire country. Neighbors, friends, physicians, police officers and newspaper reporters gathered at the scene in an incredibly short space of time. It was soon learned that the daughter Lizzie had been the first to make the horrible discovery. She said that not many minutes before, she had spoken to her father upon his return from the city; and that after seeing him comfortably seated on the sofa she had gone out to the barn to remain a very short time. Upon returning she saw his dead body and gave the alarm which brought the servant from the attic. Without thinking of Mrs. Borden the daughter sent Bridget for help. Mrs. Adelaide B. Churchill the nearest neighbor, Dr. S. W. Bowen and Miss Alice Russell were among the first to respond. Shortly afterward the dead body of Mrs. Borden was discovered and the unparalleled monstrosity of the crime became apparent. There had been murder most foul, and so far as the developments of the moment indicated, without a motive or a cause. The street in front of the house soon became blocked with a surging mass of humanity, and the excitement grew more and more intense as the meager details of the assassination were learned. Men with blanched faces hurried back and forth through the yard; police officers stood in groups for a moment and talked mysteriously; physicians consulted among themselves and kind friends ministered to the bereaved daughter and offered her consolation.

Inside the house where the bodies lay the rooms were in perfect order. Mrs. Borden had smoothed out the last fold in the snow white counterpane, and placed the pillows on the bed with the utmost care of a tidy housewife. Every piece of furniture stood in its accustomed place and every book and paper was laid away with rigid exactness. Only the blood as it had dashed in isolated spots against the walls and door jams, and the reeking bodies themselves showed that death in its most violent form had stalked through the unpretentious home and left nothing but its bloody work to tell the tale. No one dared go so far as to suggest a motive for the crime. The house had not been robbed and the friends of the dead had never heard of such a thing as an enemy possessed of hatred enough to commit so monstrous a deed. As the hours passed a veil of deepest mystery closed around the scene and the most strenuous efforts of the authorities to clear the mystery away seemed more and more futile as their work progressed. Men with cool heads, and with cunning and experience sought in vain to unearth some facts to indicate who the criminal might be, but their skill was unavailing, they were baffled at every turn. The author of that hideous slaughter had come and gone as gently as the south wind, but had fulfilled his mission as terrifically as a cyclone. No more cunning plan had ever been hatched in a madman’s brain, and no more thorough work was ever done by the guillotine. Mystery sombre and absolute hung in impenetrable folds over the Borden house, and not one ray of light existed to penetrate its blackness.

Mr. Borden and his wife were spending their declining years, highly respected residents, with wealth enough to enjoy all the comforts and luxuries of modern life. Mr. Borden by years of genuine New England thrift and energy had gathered a fortune, and his exemplary life had served to add credit to a family name which had been identified with the development and prosperity of his native state for two hundred years, and which has been known to public and private life since the time of William the Conqueror. His family had the open sesame to the best society. The contentment which wealth, influence and high social standing could bring was possible to his family, if its members chose to have it. But he and his wife had been murdered and there was no one who cared to come forward and explain why death had so ruthlessly overtaken them. One thing was manifest; an iron will and a heart of flint had directed the arm which struck those unoffending people down in a manner exceeding the savage cruelty of the most blood-thirsty creature—man or beast.

The police officers invaded the house and searched in vain for some evidence to assist them in hunting down the murderer. They learned nothing tangible, but they laid the foundation for their future work by carefully scrutinizing the home and its surroundings as well as the bodies. A hint was sent out that a mysterious man had been seen on the doorsteps arguing with Mr. Borden only a few days before. Had he done the deed? To those who stopped to contemplate the circumstances surrounding the double murder, it was marvelous to reflect how fortune had favored the assassin. Not once in a million times would fate have paved such a way for him. He had to deal with a family of six persons in an unpretentious two-and-a-half story house, the rooms of which were all connected and in which it would have been a difficult matter to stifle sound. He must catch Mr. Borden alone and either asleep, or off his guard, and kill him with one fell blow. The faintest outcry would have sounded an alarm. He must also encounter Mrs. Borden alone and fell her, a heavy woman, noiselessly. To do this he must either make his way from the sitting room on the ground floor to the spare bed room above the parlor and avoid five persons in the passage, or he must conceal himself in one of the rooms up stairs and make the descent under the same conditions. The murdered woman must not lisp a syllable at the first attack, and her fall must not attract attention. He must then conceal the dripping implement of death and depart in broad daylight by a much frequented street. In order to accomplish this he must take a time when Miss Emma L. Borden, the elder daughter of the murdered man, was on a visit to relatives out of the city; Miss Lizzie A. Borden, the other daughter, must be in the barn and remain there twenty minutes. A less time than that would not suffice. Bridget Sullivan, the servant, must be in the attic asleep on her own bed. Her presence in the pantry or kitchen or any room on the first or second floors would have frustrated the fiend’s designs, unless he also killed her so that she would die without a murmur. In making his escape there must be no blood stains upon his clothing; for such tell-tale marks might have betrayed him. And so, if the assailant of the aged couple was not familiar with the premises, his luck favored him exactly as described. He made no false move. He could not have proceeded more swiftly nor surely had he lived in the modest edifice for years. At the most he had just twenty minutes in which to complete his work. He must go into the house after Miss Lizzie entered the barn and he must disappear before she returned. More than that, the sixth member of the family, John V. Morse, must vanish from the house while the work was being