The Investigators

In the minutes after Officer George Allen walked into the Borden House on the morning of August 4th, 1892, and saw the mutilated body of Andrew Borden lying on the sofa, an entire team of policemen descended on the house and into the life of Lizzie Borden. They worked in concert with prosecutors to gather evidence against Lizzie, who they almost immediately believed to have committed the crime, then charged her, arrested her and brought her to trial.

For a full biography of each person below, click on their name.

Chain of Command

• John Coughlin — The recently elected mayor of Fall River, the Honorable John Coughlin was the Police Marshal’s boss and ultimately responsible for the progress of the investigation into the Borden murders and proving to the anxious populace that the city was doing its utmost to apprehend the killer. Also a physician, Coughlin attended the partial autopsy performed by the county Medical Examiner on the afternoon of the murders. Coughlin was also the one who, two nights after the murders, informed Lizzie Borden that she was suspected of the crime. This revelation played a significant role later at the trial in the defense’s successful effort to have Lizzie’s inquest testimony ruled inadmissible.  
• Rufus Hilliard — It was the City Police Marshal himself who first took the telephone call informing police that there was “trouble” at the Borden house. From that point on, Hilliard headed the investigation into the murders, deciding which officers to send the house, which officers would continue working the investigation, and when to obtain a warrant. In the first week, he apparently held daily press conferences with reporters, often defending the work of his officers. He personally escorted Lizzie to testify at the inquest, causing Lizzie to claim he treated her kindly. He personally arrested Lizzie at the conclusion of the inquest. Lastly, it was his decision not to investigate the murders further when Lizzie was found “not guilty” by a jury.
• William Dolan — County Medical Examiner, Dolan was on the scene of the murders within 30 minutes of the first call to police, where he took responsibility for the bodies of the victims. He performed a partial autopsy of both Andrew and Abby, removing their stomachs to test them for poisoning. He was in charge of obtaining and interpreting all medical evidence for the investigation and for the prosecution, coordinating with other medical experts from Harvard and Boston. Dolan was part of all major decision-making in the case along with the City Marshal, the District Attorney, and the state detective assigned to the case.
• George Seaver — A Massachusetts state police detective, Seaver worked in tandem with the Fall River Police Department, taking part in the major search of the house on Saturday. He was one of the men who went through Lizzie’s clothes closet, examining Lizzie’s dresses for evidence of blood. He said he took an inventory of the dresses but unfortunately lost it, leaving a lot of open questions at trial about the dress Lizzie burned the day after the search. He took part in major decision-making meetings during the investigation and gave several interviews to reporters, making it clear he didn’t believe anyone other than an inhabitant of the house could have committed the crime.
• John Fleet — Assistant Police Marshal Fleet was second in command at the police station, and although he was not first on the scene, he was the first to direct an organized search of the house and send officers into town looking for possible suspects. He interviewed Lizzie twice on the day of the murders and also conducted a search of her room. He would later say he found her story unconvincing, boasting to the Boston Post after her arrest that he suspected her almost immediately. The officers chasing leads and conducting interviews reported directly to Fleet. Reporters at the trial described Fleet on the witness stand as arrogant and hostile toward George Robinson when cross-examined.
• Dennis Desmond — Captain Desmond was not on the scene the day of the murders, but he was one of the five officers who conducted the most thorough search of the house on Saturday, two days later. He supervised another search of the cellar on Monday, four days after the murders, and it was he who decided the handleless hatchet head should be taken to the police station. He testified to wrapping it up himself then giving it to Officer Medley, who stuck it in his pocket to transport to the station, where it sat for several weeks before being seriously considered as a possible weapon. Medley, however, contradicted him in court and said he was the one who wrapped it up.

Officers

• Patrick Doherty — The first uniformed officer on the scene, and the first to interview Lizzie. He was one of four officers who conducted the majority of witness interviews during the investigation. He was also one of the two officers, along with Officer Harrington, who discovered druggist Eli Bence and heard his story about a woman trying to buy prussic acid, a fatal poison, the day before the murders. Doherty escorted Bence to the Borden house to identify Lizzie.
• Michael Mullaly — The second officer to show up at the Borden House and interview Lizzie. During the investigation, he interviewed several witnesses who turned out to be important at trial, including Hyman Lubinsky, who helped corroborate Lizzie’s alibi of being in the barn at the time her father was killed. But he caused problems for the prosecution when he testified that he had seen his superior, Assistant Marshal Fleet, take the handle to the handleless hatchet head from the box in which it was found. Fleet was recalled to the stand and denied doing so.
• William Medley — Also early at the crime scene and the third officer to interview Lizzie, Medley found Lizzie’s barn story suspicious. He went up to the barn’s loft where he conducted a dust experiment that he believed cast doubt on her alibi. However, his experiment was later thoroughly discredited in court. He was often the one to travel out of town, such as to New Bedford, to interview witnesses, or chase down tips on suspicious characters.
• Philip Harrington — Officer Harrington did not arrive at the house until roughly two hours after the murders, but his report documenting his conversation with Lizzie turned out to be the most significant development of the investigation. He was so put off by what he thought was Lizzie’s overly cool demeanor that he appears to have been the first to openly suggest to Marshal Hilliard that Lizzie could be responsible for the crimes—even with no direct evidence. Harrington was the other officer, along with Doherty, who brought Eli Bence to Lizzie’s house on the night of the murders to identify her as the one who attempted to buy prussic acid the day before. He also worked as a team with Doherty in interviewing numerous witnesses. He was known to be close with Edwin Porter of the Fall River Globe, and fed him information about the case, which Porter used to whip up public sentiment against Lizzie.
• George Allen — the first employee of the police department to answer the call for help at the Borden House, George Allen was not a uniformed officer but a committing officer who escorted people to and from courthouse to jail. His job on the day of the murders was merely to report to Hilliard what he had discovered, and after that first day, he had nothing further to do with the investigation.

Prosecutors

• Hosea Knowlton — The famously forceful district attorney for the Southern District of Massachusetts, Knowlton was first briefed on the investigation into the Borden murders four days later. He conducted the inquest, questioned Lizzie, and came away convinced of her guilt. But he would also privately acknowledge to his superior, the attorney general, that he knew did not have enough evidence to convict her. He attracted much praise in the press for his legal skills during the trial as well as much criticism for bringing such a weak case to trial at all. The notoriety helped his career, as the following year he was elected Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. His portrait still hangs in the New Bedford courtroom where Lizzie was found “not guilty” of the charge of murder.
• William Moody — A talented attorney and the district attorney of Essex County in 1892,  Moody was appointed by the attorney general to assist Knowlton in prosecuting Lizzie at trial. More measured of temperament than the bombastic Knowlton, Moody conducted a great deal of the questioning of the witnesses for the prosecution and made the detailed arguments on questions of law in defense of the admissibility of their evidence. He would go on to become a congressman, a U.S. Attorney General and a Supreme Court justice.

Judges

• Josiah Blaisdell — The district court judge who presided over the inquest also presided over the preliminary hearing, despite the objection of Lizzie’s attorney, Andrew Jennings, that such a dual role necessarily prejudiced him against her. His decision to allow Lizzie, the primary suspect in the murders, to testify at the inquest while at the same time denying her request to be represented by counsel was later decided by the superior court judges at trial to have violated her rights against self-incrimination, making her testimony inadmissible. Blaisdell was the judge who pronounced Lizzie “probably guilty” at the preliminary hearing and kept her in prison to await the December decision of the grand jury to officially indict her.
• Justin Dewey — One of three superior court judges to preside over Lizzie’s trial, along with Caleb Blodget and Albert Mason, Dewey was the one who most drew the attention of the press during trial with his charge to the jury, in which his cautions for jury members to determine what was “proven fact,” and what was not, seemed to knock the foundation out from under the prosecution’s case. Many considered it a barely veiled instruction to acquit. His impartiality was also questioned, as he was appointed to his position by Governor George Robinson, Lizzie’s lead defense attorney.

Reporters

• Edwin Porter — One of the few reporters in court who were hostile to Lizzie rather than sympathetic, Porter played an outsized role in the case. He was one of three reporters who got into the house in the hour after the murders. He was the one who broke the news of druggist Eli Bence’s accusation that Lizzie tried to buy poison from him. He was the one who reported the story told by Hannah Reagan, the jail matron, about a quarrel between Lizzie and Emma that was later discredited. Yet, the prosecution never called him to the stand. Just a few months after the murders, he published the Fall River Tragedy, the first book ever written about the case.