The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders

by Edwin H. Porter

Now you see there is no inference to be drawn from the fact that Miss Lizzie did not hear it when she was in the barn or in the yard for that matter. And you recollect how the side door stands with reference to the yard. That when a person is out around the corner, under the pear tree, or even under the first pear tree that stood from the south door to the barn, he cannot see up to that door because of that jog. So that if she was even out under that pear tree anybody could have passed in or out that side door without her hearing him, much more if she were in the barn, either upstairs or down stairs. Wilson has told us that she said, “twenty minutes to half an hour.” He was there with Fleet. Medley says, “She says she was upstairs in

the barn—I am not positive as to the stairs part, she was up in the barn.” Now take that, is there anything unnatural or improbable in her going to the barn for anything she wanted? She was, you will say, a person who was free to go about, and did go about, and went in the natural call of things that she was going to do. You have heard talk of the party at Marion, and you know where it is better than I do, but I suspect from what has been said about it that it is somewhere near the water and where the fish swim, and it would not be strange if a party of women were going there, they would try to catch something—I mean fish; and when they got there they would want something to catch fish with. Perhaps they do; that is the way we bob around for fish up in the country. We don’t have much to do with seafish, but isn’t that common? She said she wanted some lead for sinkers. She also said she wanted something to fix the screen. Perhaps she had both things in her mind. It is perfectly natural. She wanted a piece of tin or iron to fix the screen. If she had set out to be this arch criminal that they claim, she would have had it all set down in her mind so that she would tell it every time just the same, line for line and dot for dot. He had to stay in the court room until the other fellow was heard to hold him. We had twins here; they didn’t look alike. We kept them here; that is Mr. Mullaly.

Now you are going to say, gentlemen, whether you believe Mr. Lobinsky, who stands uncontradicted and undisputed, or believe another man who is fully contradicted by a man with him who was his own associate in the police court. Now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, the government knew where Mr. Lobinsky was, and that was at the tinshop of Mr. Wilkinson. They knew where he was. And they knew, too, that Lobinsky’s horse was kept at Mr. Gardner’s stable on Second street, corner of Rodman, and they could have found whether Lobinsky had left the stable at 11 o’clock or 10:30. But we have not troubled them to do that. Mr. Gardner, who owns the stable has told his own story, and has he not told you that Lobinsky’s statement is correct, that he did not leave the stable until after 11 o’clock? He testified that that was because other teams were to be hitched up to go ahead of Lobinsky, and he was late, so that he did not get away until 11 or five minutes past 11 o’clock. My friend Knowlton in cross-examining him wanted to know whether he told the time on his watch by the long hand or the short hand. But that is all right. Its good practice, but it is no test. Gardner remembers it, and gives it, even, but Lobinsky did

not have the watch. He told us what time he left and the time he was passing by the yard on Second street. And then we have Mr. Newhall, a man from Worcester, who happened to be there; he comes here and tells you he went along the street, and he fixes the time by the hour that he went to the bank, and the places where he was that morning, and you have these three men that hold it down to the time I refer to, that is 10:30 o’clock. Is it not fair to say Mr. Mullaly is mistaken, to say the least? Then if they want to find anything more about it, we land Mr. Douglass in this case, who was there at the time, in Fall River. They knew about it and they could have proved about it and they know it was as we say, and yet they did not try to prove it. They say a story is true because told all times alike, but those of us that have dealings with witnesses in court know that witnesses that tell the truth often have slight variations in their stories and we have learned to suspect the ones that get off their testimony like parrots, as if they had learned it by heart. Honest people are not particular about punctuation and prepositions all the time. Now did she go to the barn? She says she did and her statement is entitled to credit as she gave it on the spot the moment when Bridget was upstairs and might know about it. Did she go to the barn? Well, we find she did, find it by independent, outside witnesses, thanks to somebody who saw her. Possibly this life of hers is saved by the observation of a passenger on the street. There comes along a pedler, an ice cream man, known to everybody in Fall River. He is not a distinguished lawyer or a great minister or a successful doctor. He is only an ice cream pedler, but he knows what an oath is, and he tells the truth about it, and he says he passed down that street that morning, and as he passed right along it was at a time when, he says, he saw a woman, not Bridget Sullivan whom he knew, coming along, walking slowly round the corner just before she would ascend those side steps. Now there was no other woman alive in the house except Bridget and Lizzie at that time. He knew it was not Bridget by the best instinct, because he had sold her ice cream and he knew her. He says “it was the other woman whom I had never sold ice cream.” Recollect, that was Lizzie or some stranger in the yard. You will say undoubtedly it was Lizzie as she comes back from the barn. It may be asked why did he look in. I say because anyone might do so. They say Lizzie must have looked under the bed. I say Lubinsky must have looked into the yard. He was an enterprising young man, he was looking for business because he has sold ice cream there before, and therefore,

he noticed the yard. Now is that something he remembers today and comes up here to tell about or anybody has brought him to tell about? Nobody will make that insinuation in regard to the defendant. Was he got to tell it? Let us see. He told it on the 8th of August to the police, and they had it all in their possession. Now, that is not a yarn made up for the occasion at all, and the only sort of conflict about it is attempted in this way, not to dispute it but to admit or say that Mr. Lubinsky is mistaken about a half-hour of time.

Mr. Mullaly is one of the knights of the handle, you know. You know who he is—Mr. Mullaly. Mr. Mullaly comes with a book, and it is thrown down here on the table with a great display to us, for us to pick it up, and with something written in it. It is not competent evidence and has no business on the table, because it might be lost and carried away, and it should be, but Mr. Mullaly says that on the 8th of August he had a talk with Mr. Lubinsky and Mr. Lubinsky told him it was half-past ten o’clock. Now, if Mr. Lubinsky went by that yard at half-past ten he did not see Miss Lizzie go to the barn. Is Mr. Mullaly mistaken? Gentlemen, as you take cases in court, carefully weighing the evidence, would not you say that Lubinsky went there at the time he states and that the two others passed along that street and that he saw Miss Lizzie going into the house? If that is true, then the commonwealth must take back the charge that she lied about going to the barn. She was out of the house at the very time when the slayer murdered Mr. Borden. I will stop at this time for a moment.

Chief Justice Mason: “The jury may withdraw with the officers for a recess of five minutes.”

One other thought, as you remember, that Lubinsky saw Manning as he was going down and I think Gardner and Newhall also and you know when Manning got there to the house all about it, so that you see it is confirmed again in another way. Then they have an opportunity to find out by Mr. Wilkinson whether this man was really late that day or not, and as they have not told anything to the contrary, we will assume that that is proved. Now the district attorney brought out the fact from Mrs. Bowen that when Lizzie sat there in the kitchen her hands were white and she was pale and distressed, as you know from other witnesses. And I suppose from that he is going to argue to you that she was not all covered with rust and dust that she got in the barn. Well, you will see the strength of that argument, and think what it amounts to. Think whether she could not go up there and look; whether she picked up

anything there or not nobody knows. I don’t know how he can tell whether she was fumbling around with dusty iron and lead. There is no evidence here about it, and I have seen many a young woman, and I presume most of them, who could walk out into the barn and come back without getting their hands dirty. So I will not stop long about that. Bridget told about the groan and Mullaly told about the scraping, speaking of her statements, but there is nothing else.

Whether she said that or not, we don’t know. If she did, it was nothing more than the statement that all of us are likely to make. When anything happens we imagine that we heard something; if it had not happened we should not have heard anything. How common that is. Then there were noises not connected with this tragedy which might actually have been heard. There are noises in that street; you were there long enough to find out about that; such noises are a common occurrence. Then it may be that the people in their excitement—Bridget in great excitement because she was running about breathless to find something and Mullaly in the breathlessness of his search may have got it wrong—may not have got it just right. It is not a serious matter. They may argue it for all it is worth on the part of the commonwealth. She thought she heard Mrs. Borden come in. They undoubtedly will make something out of that, so I want your attention there to see about that. This comes now in the first place from Bridget Sullivan. She is asked, after detailing the circumstances to a certain point, “What happened then?” You recollect that Bridget had told Mrs. Churchill that Mrs. Borden had a note and had gone out—“hurried off, did not tell me where she was going.” So you see anything from Bridget about that note and about Mrs. Borden coming in is all sustained. Now Bridget Sullivan says, in answer to the question, “What happened then?” “O, I says, Lizzie, if I knew where Mrs. Whitehead’s was I would go and see if Mrs. Borden was there, and tell her that Mr. Borden was very sick.” You see the confirmation about that note business right there right off. What should she say that she should go and see Mrs. Whitehead for if Mrs. Borden was there, unless she (Bridget) knew that Mrs. Borden had a note and supposed she had gone out as they both did. Then Lizzie said, “Maggie, I am almost positive I heard her coming in, and won’t you go up stairs and see.” Bridget said: “I am not going up stairs alone.” Now, following the testimony down, the very next question is: “Before that time that she said that, had you been up stairs?” “No, sir: I had been upstairs after sheets for Dr. Bowen.”