Timeline: Murder Morning

Soon after police arrived at the Borden house on August 4th, 1892, and discovered the gruesomely hacked-up bodies of Andrew and Abby Borden (link to murder pages), they began the painstaking effort to put together what had happened in the house in the hours leading up the murders. Out of the five people who had been moving about the house that morning, three were left alive to tell what they remembered: John Morse (Lizzie’s uncle and an overnight houseguest), Bridget Sullivan (the maid), and Lizzie Borden herself. All three witnesses described what seemed to them to be an ordinary morning for the household, filled with ordinary tasks, in which nothing happened that hinted at the tragedy to come.

Indeed, whether the differences in witness accounts were typical of how people can form different memories of the same events, or whether those differences give us clues about the guilt of Lizzie Borden in the murders of her parents is up to individual interpretation. (For more on why Lizzie may not have been able to tell a coherent story, see Inquest: Mitigating Factors.) Overall, though, the broad strokes of what each person remembered happening in the house that morning are mostly in agreement.

As John Morse was the first one up and out of bed that morning, we will begin with his account.

Morse’s Testimony

Just before 7 a.m., or at about 6:55 a.m., Morse said Abby entered the sitting room for the first time.

About ten minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Bridget Sullivan had breakfast ready on the table. Morse, Andrew, and Abby entered the dining room and sat down to a meal of cold mutton, mutton soup, johnny cakes (a type of corn meal pancake), and coffee. While in the dining room, Morse said Bridget came in and out of the dining room several times, and it was during one of those times that he heard Abby give Bridget instructions to wash the windows that morning. (Bridget would later say she did not receive this instruction until after Morse had left the house.)

Morse would also tell the Fall River Herald that while at breakfast, “I asked Andrew why he did not buy Gould’s yacht for $200,000, at which price it was advertised [in the morning paper] and he laughed, saying what little good it would do him if he really did have it. We also talked about business.”

At about 7:30 a.m., the three had finished eating and returned to the sitting room. They sat talking for a bit, then Abby got up to start her morning chores. As Andrew and Morse read the newspapers and continued talking for a total of “an hour and three-quarters,” Abby came in out of the room several times, at one point dusting the room with a feather duster.

Somewhere between 8:20 and 8:25 a.m., Abby disappeared into the front hall and, according to Morse, she did not return to the sitting room while he was still there; presumably, she climbed the stairs to the guest room to straighten up and put clean sheets on the bed Morse had just slept in.

At 8:40 a.m. Morse decided to leave for a trip downstreet to visit a niece and nephew staying in town. He went into the front hall to grab his coat then went back through the sitting room and dining room into the kitchen to go out the side screen door, passing the sink room where Bridget was washing dishes. Andrew let him out and invited Morse to return for the noon meal, then hooked the screen door after him.

Morse first walked to the post office, where he sent a postcard, then walked about a mile to the other side of downtown where he hoped to visit his relatives, who were staying with a Mrs. Emery at 4 Weybosset Street. His nephew was not there, but his niece was, so he stayed visiting for over an hour. (Police would later verify with Mrs. Emery that John Morse had been at her house during the time the murders took place.)

At 11:20 a.m., Morse left the Emery house and caught a horsecar from downtown that dropped him off near Second Street. He remembered there were six priests on the same car, a detail that also helped establish his alibi. He walked the final few blocks to the house.

It was about 11:45 a.m. that Morse said he arrived back at the Borden house. He went in through the north gate and walked by the screen door to the pear tree in the backyard to pick up a pear from the ground to eat. Although numerous people were known to have been milling about in front of the house and in the back yard from about 11:30 a.m. on, he said he didn’t notice many people outside the house or anything out of the ordinary, something that strikes most observers as exceedingly odd. However, we know that once Assistant Marshal John Fleet arrived at the house, which was about 11:45 a.m., he had the yard “cleared” of people tromping about, so perhaps Morse arrived soon after officers chased off the curious. Either that, or he arrived much sooner than he believed, say at 11:30 a.m., before a crowd had a chance to gather. (If he caught a horse-car only a few minutes after he left the Emery house at 11:20 as he said, he may have covered the mile-long trip through town rather quickly.)

After picking up a pear from under the pear tree, Morse entered the house through the screen door and was told by Bridget of the murders. A stunned Morse went into the sitting room and viewed Andrew’s body, then climbed partway up the stairs where he could see Abby’s body. He then went into the dining room to declare to Lizzie, “My God, how did this happen?!” Afterward, he went out to the yard, where he said he walked around in different parts of the yard for the next three or four hours.

Bridget’s Testimony

Bridget testified that she woke up a little before 6:15 a.m. with a sick headache but she got up anyway and went down to the kitchen shortly thereafter. She went to work fetching wood and coal from the cellar, then started a fire in the stove. She next opened the side door and took in a milk can, leaving the door open afterward, hooking only the screen.

At about 6:35 a.m., Abby came down the backstairs from her bedroom and asked Bridget what there was in the ice box to make for breakfast. Abby instructed her to serve the cold mutton and warm over leftover mutton soup and make Johnny cakes to go with it. She added that there should be enough of the same food to serve again for the noon meal. Bridget got to work on preparing breakfast. While it warmed, she folded the laundry she had washed and dried earlier in the week and set it in piles on the kitchen table.

At about 6:45 a.m., Bridget let in the ice man in through the side door to restock the ice box with fresh ice. Around the same time, Andrew came downstairs in his shirtsleeves, then went out the side door to empty his slop pail under the pear tree and unlocked the barn to make use of the privy. Andrew then brought in a basket of pears that had fallen to the ground and set them on the kitchen table.

Soon after 7 a.m. Bridget finished cooking breakfast and set it on the dining room table. Andrew and Abby came in from the sitting room along with John Morse to sit down and eat.

By 7:30 a.m., the three had finished breakfast and gone into the sitting room. Bridget then sat down at the dining table and ate her own breakfast.

By 8:00 a.m., Bridget began washing dishes while Andrew and John Morse spoke in the sitting room. During this time, Andrew came through the kitchen to stop at the sink to brush his teeth.

At 8:40 a.m., Bridget was still washing dishes when John Morse followed Andrew to the screen door so Andrew could let him out. She heard Andrew ask Morse to come back for “dinner,” the noon meal. Andrew re-hooked the screen door and then went back upstairs to his room. He came down a few minutes later in collar and tie and returned to the sitting room.

At 8:45 a.m., Bridget heard Lizzie speaking to Abby, although she could not make out what they said. Lizzie then entered the kitchen and “set down her slop pail.” Bridget asked her if she wanted anything for breakfast, but Lizzie said no, although she might eat a cookie. Bridget said she saw Lizzie pour herself a cup of coffee and sit down at the kitchen table.

At 8:50 a.m. or so, Bridget felt sick to her stomach and went out the screen door into the back yard to vomit beneath the pear tree. She said she remained out there for ten to fifteen minutes.

At about 9:05 a.m. Bridget returned to the house. Andrew had already left. (The neighbor Mrs. Churchill said she saw him outside the screen door, looking toward the backyard, at about 9 a.m.) Lizzie was no longer in the kitchen. Bridget returned to work washing the dishes for another ten or fifteen minutes.

At about 9:15 a.m. (although Bridget thought it was closer to 9 a.m. but couldn’t say for sure), Bridget carried clean dishes into the dining room and saw Abby dusting the room with a feather duster. It was at this time that Bridget said Abby asked her to wash the windows, inside and out. (This is in contradiction to John Morse, who said Abby asked her during breakfast.) Bridget returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning up.

At 9:30 a.m. Bridget prepared to wash windows, getting a pail and a long brush from the cellar. She went into the dining room and sitting room to close the windows. She said Abby was no longer downstairs.  

At 9:32, as Bridget went out the side door, she said Lizzie appeared at the screen door to ask her if she was going to wash the windows. Bridget told her she was and that Lizzie could hook the screen, as she could get water from the barn. But Bridget said Lizzie did not hook it.

According to her testimony at the inquest, Bridget went outside at about 9:30 a.m. and spent the next 50 minutes washing the windows outside the house, starting on the south side of the house (the sitting room windows), opposite the screen door, where she saw the Kelly maid in the yard next door and stopped to chat over the fence for a bit. Abby was most likely murdered while Bridget was outdoors.

Bridget then went to the front of the house to wash the parlor windows and finished on the north side of the house to wash the two dining room windows. She said she trudged over to the barn about six or seven times to get more water and once went through the unlocked screen door into the kitchen to fetch a dipper by which to throw water up onto the windows to rinse them.

At about 10:20 a.m. Bridget was done washing the outside windows and came back into the house to get a hand basin and rag to wash the inside windows. She said she saw neither Abby nor Lizzie anywhere downstairs at that time.

At 10:40 a.m., Bridget was washing a sitting room window when she heard noise at the front door. She went to the door and struggled to unlock it, as it was unexpectedly triple locked, which caused her to say loudly “Oh Pshaw!”, an exclamation that elicited Lizzie’s laughter from somewhere upstairs. (Bridget said she only heard the laugh and did not see Lizzie.) Andrew came inside, and she let him shut the door, and presumably he was the one who locked it up tight again. (The door was found triple locked after his murder, although it was not the habit of the house to keep the door triple locked during the day, so it is curious why he would do so. For more, see Locked Doors).

At 10:45 a.m. Bridget was washing the next window in the sitting room when Lizzie came in from the front entry and walked through the sitting room into the dining room. She then spoke to her father. Bridget overheard Lizzie ask Andrew if there had been any mail for her and tell him that Abby received a note and went out on a sick call. A few minutes later, Andrew came into the sitting room to get a key from the mantel and went up to his bedroom.

By 10:50 a.m., Bridget had gone into the dining room to wash the windows there. She saw Andrew return to the sitting room and sit in a chair by the window to read either some papers in his hand or a newspaper.

At 10:55 a.m., as Bridget was finishing her last window, she said Lizzie came in and set a small ironing board on the dining table and began to iron handkerchiefs. Lizzie asked the maid if she planned to go out later that afternoon. Bridget said she didn’t know, as she wasn’t feeling well. Lizzie told her that if she went out to lock the door, because she might go out as well. Lizzie mentioned the note from a sick friend that Abby told her she had received. Bridget asked who was sick, but Lizzie said she didn’t know, “it must be someone in town.” Bridget then returned to the kitchen to put away her cleaning supplies.

At 10:57 a.m., Lizzie stepped into the kitchen to tell Bridget about a sale of dress goods at Sargent’s store, 8 cents a yard. Bridget said, “Then I will have one.” Then Bridget left the kitchen to head up the back stairs to her room “to have a lie down.” She said the last she saw of Lizzie, she was going back into the dining room, presumably to finish ironing her handkerchiefs.

At 11:00 a.m. Bridget was lying on her bed when she heard the city clock chime the hour.

At 11:10 a.m.,  or possibly a few minutes earlier, she heard Lizzie frantically calling her to come down, yelling that someone had killed her father. (For a timeline of the events that followed, see The Minutes After the Murders).

Lizzie’s Testimony

According to Lizzie, she first descended the stairs that morning at about 8:45 a.m., and we know this is probably accurate because neither she nor John Morse saw each other that morning (he left at about 8:40), yet she did speak to her father and give him a letter to mail to Emma before he left the house around 9 a.m. (at least according to Mrs. Churchill’s recollection).

Lizzie also said it was after coming back up from the cellar that she took her clean clothes (which Bridget typically left on the kitchen table) and carried them up to her room where she seems to have noticed something wrong with one of the items of clothing, because she spent several minutes sewing a loop on a sleeve. When she came out of her room to head back downstairs, she said she noticed the guest room door was closed. She believed Abby shut it “to keep the dust out.”

Lizzie said she first saw Andrew in the sitting room, reading the Providence Journal, but she spoke to him only after she encountered Abby, dusting in the dining room, on her way to the kitchen. The two women had a short conversation, in which Abby told her she finished making up the guest room bed after John Morse slept in it and that all she had left to do was put some pillow shams on the small pillows on the bed. During this conversation, Abby told Lizzie that she had received a Note from a sick friend, and that she planned to visit this friend and would also pick up meat for the noon meal. Bridget confirmed hearing Lizzie and Abby talking in the dining room as Lizzie “came along,” and described it as a “civil” conversation. But it is at this point that Lizzie and Bridget’s stories diverge.

At the inquest, Lizzie said that when she went into the kitchen, it was already clean and everything was put away except the coffee pot. Bridget had gathered her window washing equipment and was getting ready to go out the door. (Bridget said she was still washing dishes at the time and did not go out to wash windows for another 45 minutes.)

Lizzie denied having breakfast, or even drinking coffee, saying, “I did not feel as if I wanted any,” although she said it was possible she ate half a banana or a molasses cookie. She couldn’t remember exactly. (Bridget said she saw Lizzie sit at the table with coffee and “her breakfast.”)

She said once Bridget went out to wash windows, her father came into the kitchen and told her he did not know whether he would go down to the post office or not. (Apparently, she talked him into it, because he did visit the post office that morning and mailed a letter that Lizzie had written to Emma.) Lizzie would also say that soon after coming downstairs she went down into the cellar to visit the water closet and was down there about five minutes.

When she came back up at about 8:55 a.m., she said Bridget was nowhere to be seen (presumably out washing windows) and neither was Abby anywhere that she could see (presumably finished with the pillow shams and now out of the house on a sick call).Lizzie then went back downstairs and started getting her things together to iron some handkerchiefs, putting her ironing board on the dining table at about 9 a.m. And this, she suggested, was about the time her father left the house. (Bridget said Lizzie did not put the ironing board on the dining table until nearly 11 a.m.)

A Mysterious Hour

According to Lizzie, once her father was gone, she sprinkled her handkerchiefs with water then sat down to wait for her flat irons to heat up on the stove. She spent the next thirty minutes or so in a chair in the kitchen, reading an old Harper’s magazine. When she checked her irons, they still were not hot enough, so she fed “a stick” into the fire to get it going again. In the meantime, she busied herself “addressing some wrappers” (newspaper address labels) in the sitting room as she said Abby had asked her to do. It was during this time, between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., that the medical experts said Abby was viciously murdered and here Lizzie was admitting to being in the house, idly doing not much, sitting in sight of the only unlocked way into the house, yet she claimed not to have heard anything suspicious. (She did, however, say to the people who showed up in the minutes after the murders that she thought she had heard Abby come in during that time.)

In Lizzie’s first telling, she was still in the kitchen when her father returned home at 10:40 a.m. from his trip into town. In her second telling, she would say she thought she was upstairs when he returned, but then changed her mind, and in her third telling would again insist she was in the kitchen. (Bridget would testify she heard Lizzie laugh upstairs when she let Andrew in the front door.) She then said she spoke to her father in the sitting room to ask him about the mail and tell him about the Note from a sick friend she claimed Abby had told her about. (Bridget would say she spoke to him in the dining room.)

At the inquest, Lizzie also insisted she never saw Bridget washing windows in the dining room, nor did she return to ironing handkerchiefs after her father came home. (Bridget testified she saw Lizzie and spoke to her in the dining room as she was ironing handkerchiefs). Then, at about 10:50 a.m., ten minutes or so after her father came home, she saw him take off his shoes and lie down on the sofa. (He was found dead with his shoes on.) She asked him if he wanted the window left the way it was and left the room. Then, realizing there was not enough fire in the stove to heat her flat irons, she decided to go out to the barn to look for iron or lead to serve as fishing sinkers for her upcoming vacation trip to Marion. (The day of the murders, she had told friends she had wanted to find tin or iron to fix a rattling window screen.) She would later say she believed she had been out of the house—gathering and eating pears, poking around the barn—for about 20 to 30 minutes.

At 11:10 a.m., on returning to the house, Lizzie would soon tell Bridget she saw the screen standing open. When she went inside, she discovered her father’s freshly killed body. She would also tell police she had heard a sound, something like a groan or a scraping sound as she approached the house. However, at the inquest, she did not say anything about the screen being open or about hearing a noise; she said she came in and set her hat on the table and was headed upstairs “to sit down” when she stumbled into her father “cut up and bleeding.”

See Comparative Timelines below.

A So-Called “Confession”

After District Attorney Knowlton first heard Bridget’s account of the murder morning, then heard Lizzie’s rambling contradictory version, it’s no wonder he concluded that Lizzie was telling one falsehood after another in trying to cover up her guilt, or that he then approved her immediate arrest for the murders of her father and stepmother. It’s also no wonder that he would later characterize her testimony as her “confession” in a letter to Attorney General Albert Pillsbury. In his mind, she had all but revealed herself to be the killer with her own fabricated tale.

The fact that her attorneys did not challenge Bridget’s version of the morning at the trial tells us that Bridget’s timeline was probably what Lizzie would later largely remember to be true. It also tells us there were a number of mitigating factors—such as the lingering effects of traumatic shock—that likely impacted her memory at the time of the inquest, making her testimony unreliable. After all, why would someone trying to cover up their guilt purposely lie about what reporter Elizabeth Jordan, sitting in the courtroom at trial, would call “trifling matters,” such as whether she saw Bridget washing windows in the dining room? Lizzie’s memory of that morning, just like the memories of everyone else who showed up in the chaotic aftermath of the murders, seemed to have been effectively wiped clean in certain places, at least at the time of the inquest. (Dr. Seabury Bowen would tell Knowlton that it took him an entire week to put events together in his mind, and the task required being reminded by other people of what had happened.)

Nonetheless, Lizzie Borden’s problematic words went on record, and the transcript of her story of what she said she did the morning of the murders is one reason many today remain convinced of Lizzie’s guilt, perhaps rightfully so. The shock to her system that could have made her perform so poorly at the inquest could just as easily have been the shock of having just committed the violent murders of her own family members. Other significant pieces of circumstantial evidence support such a conclusion.

Yet Lizzie Borden was acquitted by a jury and thereafter remained legally innocent of the murders, and there are good reasons that support that conclusion as well. And so, this ever-perplexing case continues its hold on our cultural imagination, defying consensus and resisting any irrefutable conclusion at all.

Comparative Timelines