The face was hacked to pieces and the blood had covered the man's shirt. Two days after the murder, papers began reporting evidence that thirty-three-year-old Lizzie Borden might have had something to do with her parents' murders. Most significantly, Eli Bence, a clerk at S. Smith's drug store in Fall River, told police that Lizzie visited the store the day before the murder and attempted to purchase prussic acid, a deadly poison. A story in the Boston Daily Globe reported rumors that "Lizzie and her stepmother never got along together peacefully, and that for a considerable time back they have not spoken," but noted also that family members insisted relations between the two women were quite normal.
The Boston Herald, meanwhile, viewed Lizzie as above suspicion: "From the consensus of opinion it can be said: In Lizzie Borden's life there is not one unmaidenly nor a single deliberately unkind act. Police came to the conclusion that the murders must have been committed by someone within the Borden home, but were puzzled by the lack of blood anywhere except on the bodies of the victims and their inability to uncover any obvious murder weapon.
Increasingly, suspicion turned toward Lizzie, since her older sister, Emma, was out of the home at the time of the murders. Investigators found it odd that Lizzie knew so little of her mother's whereabouts after 9 A.
The barn loft where she said she looked revealed no footprints on the dusty floor and the stifling heat in the loft seemed likely to discourage anyone from spending more than a few minutes searching for equipment that would not be used for days.
Theories about a tall male intruder were reconsidered, and one "leading physician" explained that "hacking is almost a positive sign of a deed by a woman who is unconscious of what she is doing. On August 9, an inquest into the Borden murders was held in the court room over police headquarters.
During her four hours examination, Lizzie gave confused and contradictory answers. The next day, Lizzie entered a plea of "Not Guilty" to the charges of murder and was transported by rail car to the jail in Taunton, eight miles to the north of Fall River. On August 22, Lizzie returned to a Fall River courtroom for her preliminary hearing, at the end of which Judge Josiah Blaisdell pronounced her "probably guilty" and ordered her to face a grand jury and possible charges for the murder of her parents.
In November, the grand jury met. After first refusing to issue an indictment, the jury reconvened and heard new evidence from Alice Russell, a family friend who stayed with the two Borden sisters in the days following the murders.
Russell told grand jurors that she had witnessed Lizzie Borden burning a blue dress in a kitchen fire allegedly because, as Lizzie explained her action, it was covered with "old paint.
Russell's testimony was also enough to convince the Borden sisters to sever all ties with their old friend forever. A high-powered defense team, including Andrew Jennings and George Robinson the former governor of Massachusetts , represented the defendant, while District Attorney Knowlton and Thomas Moody argued the case for the prosecution.
Before a jury of twelve men, Moody opened the state's case. When Moody carelessly threw Lizzie's blue frock on the prosecution table during his speech, it revealed the skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden.
The sight of her parents' skulls, according to a newspaper account, caused Lizzie to fall "into a feint that lasted for several minutes, sending a thrill of excitement through awe-struck spectators and causing unfeigned embarrassment and discomfiture to penetrate the ranks of counsel.
The first several witnesses for the state testified concerning events in and around the Borden home on the morning of August 4, The most important of these witnesses, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Sullivan, testified that Lizzie was the only person she saw in the home at the time her parents were murdered, though she provided some consolation to the defense when she said that she had not witnessed, during her over two years of service to the family, signs of the rumored ugly relationship between Lizzie and her stepmother.
For example, Hannah H. Gifford, who made a garment for Lizzie a few months before the murders, described a conversation in which Lizzie called her stepmother "a mean good-for nothing thing" and said "I don't have much to do with her; I stay in my room most of the time. Sullivan testified that she opened the door for Andrew Borden after he returned home from his walk about town, and then described hearing Lizzie's cry for help a few minutes after eleven o'clock.
Several witnesses described seeing Andrew Borden at various points in town in the two hours before he returned home to his death. Household guest John Morse, age sixty, described having breakfast in the Borden home on the morning of the murders and then leaving the house to perform chores.
The next set of witnesses described events and conversations after discovery of the murders. Seabury Bowen, the Borden family physician summoned to the home by Lizzie in the late morning of August 4, recounted Lizzie's story about looking for lead sinkers in the barn and her contention that her father's troubles with his tenants probably had something to do with the murders.
On cross-examination, Seabury agreed with the defense's suggestion that the morphine he prescribed for Lizzie might account for some of the confused and contradictory testimony she gave at the inquest following the murders. Adelaide Churchill, a Borden neighbor and another important witness, remembered Lizzie wearing a light blue dress with a diamond figure on it, but did not recall seeing any blood spots it.
Three-fifths of the legislators signed on as co-sponsors. After 7-year-old Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by a twice-convicted sex offender, New Jersey required sexual offenders to notify police when they move into a community. At least 41 states and the federal government adopted similar laws. In New Jersey, the family of a woman who was murdered by her husband in front of their 3-year-old son is fighting his visitation attempts.
Russell had testified at the inquest, preliminary hearing, and earlier before the grand jury. But she had never disclosed one important detail. Distressed over her omission, she consulted a lawyer who said she had to tell the district attorney. On December 1, Russell returned to the grand jury.
She testified that on the Sunday morning after the murders, Lizzie pulled a dress from a shelf in the pantry closet and proceeded to burn it in the cast iron coal stove.
The grand jury indicted Lizzie the next day. Still, the attorney general and the district attorney dragged their feet. The attorney general bowed out of the case in April. He had been sick and his doctor conveniently said that he could not withstand the demands of the Borden trial. Yet he was convinced that he had a duty to prosecute, and did so with skill and passion exemplified by his five-hour closing argument. It might satisfy both those convinced Lizzie was innocent and those persuaded of her guilt.
If new evidence emerged, Lizzie could be retried. The district attorney perhaps underestimated the legal and cultural impediments he faced.
In a courtroom where men reserved all the legal power, Lizzie was not a helpless maiden. She only needed to present herself as one. Her lawyers told her to dress in black. She appeared in court tightly corseted, dressed in flowing clothes, and holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a fan in the other.
Finally, the jury itself presented the prosecution with a formidable hurdle. Half of the jurors were farmers; others were tradesmen. One owned a metal factory in New Bedford. A sole Irishman made it through the jury selection process.
Not surprisingly the jury quickly decided to acquit her. Then they waited for an hour so that it would appear that they had not made a hasty decision. But her life was altered forever. Yet many people there and in the Central Congregational Church shunned her. She withdrew to her home. Even there, neighborhood kids pestered Lizzie with pranks. Four years after her acquittal a warrant was issued for her arrest in Providence.
She was charged with shoplifting and apparently made restitution. She and Emma had a falling out in Emma left the house in and evidently the sisters never saw each other again.
Both died in , Lizzie first and Emma nine days later. They were interred next to their father. Joseph Conforti was born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Lizzie Borden in , two years before her father and stepmother's murders.
0コメント