Timeline: Minutes After the Murders

On the morning of August 4th, 1892, Lizzie Borden told police officers she saw her father, Andrew Borden, lie down on the sofa for a nap; then she went out to the barn for a short while to eat pears and look for iron or lead to serve as fishing sinkers. When she returned to the house, she found her father “cut up and bleeding.” Horrified and frightened, she ran straight to the bottom of the stairs to summon Bridget Sullivan, the live-in maid, and sent her out to get help.

First, we will start with the bare facts of “who did what” as described at the inquest, the preliminary hearing and the trial, by those who were there.

Timeline

Observations

Even if the exact minutes of this timeline are an approximation, this is the known order of events as they were established in court testimony. But these simple facts do not tell us whether Lizzie committed the murders or not. The words and actions of Lizzie Borden in those confused and frantic fifteen minutes are up to interpretation. And they can easily be interpreted one way or the other, toward guilt or innocence, as one chooses, or at least as one deems reasonable.

Most often, Lizzie’s actions have been interpreted through a lens of guilt, influenced by the story told by District Attorney Hosea Knowlton in his closing arguments at Lizzie’s trial, a story he hoped would sway the jury toward a guilty verdict. He did not succeed with the 12 men of the jury, but he did succeed in the verdict of history, and his story is so often repeated it has the heft of truth. Thus, we will start with the story of those fifteen minutes as written by those who consider Lizzie guilty, then move on to the story as told by those who believe her innocent.

Through the Lens of Guilt

“Lizzie tells us that she came into that sitting room and found that foul murder had been done almost within the flash of an eye,” Knowlton told the jury. “She could not know that the assassin was not there. She could not know that he had escaped…. A single cry would have alarmed that street and brought crowds to her assistance. And yet I find, you find, that after the discovery of what would send the most abject terror to anyone of you that I am talking to, she never left that house, she never even went out on the steps.”

Knowlton was correct; upon discovering the horrific sight of her father’s destroyed and bleeding face, Lizzie did not run screaming into the street, or yell for help from neighbors or passersby, or show any instinct toward self-preservation. More pointedly, if she had just been surprised by the sight of a freshly murdered body, one would expect she would be worried that killer might still in the house. But from what we know, she did not act as if there was anything to fear inside. One can only conclude from such actions that she knew there was no one in the house to fear because it was she who had just killed her father.

Instead of sensibly fleeing the scene of horror, Knowlton continued, Lizzie “stood there beside the screen door, inside the screen door and calmly summoned her picked and chosen friends—first her intimate friend, the physician across the street—what on earth she wanted a doctor for I can’t imagine because there was the dead body of the man, and she [had already] told Maggie that he was dead.”

Knowlton was wondering what many have wondered since, why did Lizzie call for a doctor rather than immediately summon the police? She never asked for the police at all. It was Mrs. Churchill who told the men in front of Hall’s stables that a police officer was needed. As Knowlton said, “How long would it have been before the police authorities would have discovered this thing but for the vigilant eye of Mrs. Churchill?” All Lizzie thought about in those first minutes was to ask for Dr. Bowen. Why? Was she hoping the doctor could offer some protection from prying police officers? (There was that pail of bloody menstrual rags in the cellar that many believe she used to clean Andrew’s blood from herself, and she did quickly inform him about having been experiencing her “monthly illness.”)

Nor did Lizzie do other things we might expect her to do. For example, she did not call out to Bridget and ask her if she was okay before calling her down to go get the doctor. This tells us she already knew Bridget was unharmed. She did not call for Abby, her stepmother, even though she would soon be saying several times that “I thought I heard her come in.” This tells us she already knew Abby was dead in the house.

Lizzie’s actions were illogical for someone who has supposedly just innocently found her father’s body; but those actions were quite logical for a guilty person who had just killed him. She was clearly trying to control the scene by picking and choosing who came to her aid, just as Knowlton suggested. It is also telling that she kept sending Bridget away so she could be alone in the house to possibly do whatever last minute clean up or evidence-hiding she may have needed to do.

Taken together, Lizzie’s actions show us that she was trying to direct events and control the scene. And nothing betrays that more than Lizzie telling the women ministering to her that she thought she heard Abby come in, and would someone please go look for her. She clearly wanted Abby’s body to be found and didn’t want to have to wait any longer.

Ultimately, when we look at those fifteen minutes between the time Lizzie chose to call Bridget down from her attic bedroom to the time Abby’s body was discovered, we can see that Lizzie was calmly directing the action unfolding around her. Then, just as Knowlton said, she faced police officers with the “cool and quiet demeanor” that betrayed no upset, and no “lamentation of the heart,” in the words of Officer Philip Harrington. All her actions in those minutes reveal a clear consciousness of guilt that unmistakably let the police know then, and lets us know today, that Lizzie committed the murders.

Through the Lens of Innocence

While those who interpret Lizzie’s actions will often appeal to what would be a “natural” reaction to the traumatic experience of finding her father’s body—or at least how they imagine they themselves react—there is no correct way to respond to shock or express one’s grief. Each of us will react to unexpected traumatic events in our own individual way, and it often turns out to be a way that we ourselves would not have expected.

While Lizzie probably did think her father was dead when she discovered him, when asked by Knowlton at the inquest if she realized he was dead at that point, she said she wasn’t sure one way or the other. There is indeed a difference between thinking someone is dead and having it verified. What if she was wrong? What if he was still alive and needed medical help? It makes perfect sense that Lizzie was frantic for a doctor to come to her father’s aid, especially as there was one right across the street. It also makes sense that in her haste to get a doctor for her father she was not thinking of herself or her own safety. Plus, she had told Bridget that when she came back to the house the screen door was standing open, so that probably indicated to her that whoever had attacked Andrew had already made his escape. Either way, shock is well-known to be stupefying; as soon as stress chemicals hit the brain, logic goes out the door.

While other people may interpret Lizzie’s actions as asserting control of those post-murder events, from the testimony from those who saw her right after the murders—not counting police officers for whom she clearly pulled it together—show us she was feeling a great deal distress, and not in control of anything much at all. In fact, she was essentially doing nothing but standing, or sitting, by the back door, waiting for someone to come tell her what to do.

Bridget was the first to see Lizzie after Lizzie’s frantic call for help, and she testified that Lizzie “was more excited than I ever saw her before.” Lizzie was desperate for a doctor to come, clearly that was the only thought in her mind at that moment, and when Lizzie learned that Dr. Bowen was not home, she sent Bridget to get Alice Russell, saying “I cannot be alone in this house!” As she waited for Bridget to return, Lizzie still didn’t move from that door, simply stood, waiting. Mrs. Churchill looked out her window and could see that Lizzie was in “great distress.” According to the Jennings Journals, Mrs. Churchill would later tell one of her boarders, “there was such a look on Lizzie’s face— such an awful look when she leaned upside of the door.” Lizzie, of course, had no idea that Mrs. Churchill was looking out her window at that exact moment; this tells us that Lizzie’s visible distress was not manufactured, but a reflection of her genuine state of mind.

Mrs. Churchill hurried over and found Lizzie sitting on the back stairs just inside the screen door when she came in; it seems that knowing someone was on their way over allowed her to at last sit down. Lizzie then poured out her fear to her neighbor that her father had an enemy, and how they’d thought they’d been poisoned. She also blurted her worry that Abby had been killed, too, because she thought she heard her come in (her attorney would say at trial that Lizzie had thought she heard this before Andrew even came home). Mrs. Churchill then left to try get someone to summon a doctor as well as to let someone know a police officer was needed. When she returned “no more than five minutes later,” Lizzie was still sitting there at the back door where she’d left her. Apparently, she hadn’t moved as shock was setting in.

When Dr. Bowen arrived a few minutes later, Lizzie still lingered in the back entry. She left that back hall only long enough to lead Dr. Bowen through the dining room to point the way to the sitting room where her father lay; then, as if relieved the matter was finally in someone else’s hands, she went back to the safety of the back entry. And that is where she was when Alice Russell arrived, “leaning against the doorway between the back entry and the kitchen.” Alice described Lizzie as “very much overcome” as well as “dazed.” She told Lizzie she should sit down on the rocker in the kitchen. (Finally, someone told her what to do!)

At the trial, Alice said Lizzie “sat down as if she was going to be faint, and I asked for a towel.” Alice spent the next little while bathing Lizzie’s face, rubbing her hands and fanning her along with Mrs. Churchill. Again, it doesn’t appear that Lizzie was directing events, rather she was passively acquiescing to whatever anyone told her to do.  

Charles Sawyer, who had been assigned by Officer George Allen to guard the back door, didn’t know Lizzie but when asked at the inquest about Lizzie’s appearance, he replied, “She was apparently grief stricken, or something, although I might not be a judge in that respect … She seemed to be considerably excited and very uneasy, and the ladies seemed to be ministering to her, that is bathing her face.” The Jennings’ Journals records Sawyer remembering that Lizzie was “very much broken up” when he arrived.

It was only when Bridget said she might go look for Abby at her Abby’s house that Lizzie, according to George Robinson in his closing argument, remembered that she’d earlier thought she heard Abby come into the house, along with her initial worry that Abby could be dead as well, and asked Bridget to go look for her. Clearly, it was Bridget’s words that triggered Lizzie’s worried suggestion to go looking upstairs, and not Lizzie trying to control the situation.

In the end, the idea that a guilty Lizzie was trying to stage manage events and nudge someone to discover Abby’s dead body makes little sense. If she was guilty and wanted to get away with it, why not let the police or someone else find her? Why call attention to herself by sending someone to go looking for the dead body that she killed hours earlier? Wouldn’t it be best to be able to claim no knowledge or speak up her fears that Abby was killed, too? Sending someone up to look for her stepmother speaks more to worry about Abby than to some kind of scene management to obscure guilt.

After Bridget and Mrs. Churchill informed Lizzie that Abby had been killed, too, Charles Sawyer, who was in the kitchen with Lizzie at the time, would later tell Andrew Jennings that Lizzie “was very much surprised when told her mother was killed.” At the inquest he had put it more strongly, saying that when Lizzie learned Abby was murdered, too, “she apparently went off into some kind of swoon or hysterical fit, I don’t know what, and Dr. Bowen said she’d better be carried up to her room.” That was surely an overstatement, no one else recalled such an exaggerated reaction, but it was reaction enough that once Dr. Bowen returned from sending a telegram to Emma that he did tell Lizzie she should go up to her room. She did not herself decide to go up; she merely did as Dr. Bowen suggested.

Once up in her room, Lizzie had time to pull herself together and was able to face the parade of police officers knocking on her door with a measure of calm. For this brave effort to hold herself upright and answer their questions even as her world had just been turned upside down, she was immediately made suspect in the minds of police. And so, Lizzie’s nightmare continued …

Author’s Take

As we can see, either interpretation of Lizzie’s words and actions in the minutes after the murders, whether toward guilt or innocence, fits the bare facts just as well as the other. But ultimately, both are stories we tell without any true knowledge of what really happened; we are simply deciding what seems reasonable to ourselves, not what may have been reasonable to Lizzie. Because legally and morally Lizzie Borden is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and because there is absolutely nothing in the bare facts that proves guilt, it seems to me the story as seen through the lens of innocence best fits the bare facts.

I cannot deny that some of Lizzie’s actions seem illogical when we look back at what we are told happened, but of course, we learn these details while sitting in our comfortable chairs with all the time in the world to judge her actions. But when one is in the middle of a surreal and horrifying crisis that frightens and confuses, logic is hard to access. I know this firsthand because, like Lizzie, I also once found the dead body of my parent, head covered in blood, after her suicide, and, in the surreal shock of it, I did not react in logical ways either. I did not call the police right away (I called my sisters), nor could I bring myself to go into the room where her body lay to make sure she was actually dead. I did not cry, even though I loved my mother very much, but because I was so dry-eyed, and even laughed in bursts with gallows humor, I earned the suspicion of the police for one strange afternoon.

So, while I know it is possible that Lizzie was guilty of killing Andrew and Abby, I do not find evidence for it in the way she acted or in the choices she made in those first 20 minutes after the murders. Quite the opposite, I see only evidence of true, debilitating shock; and that by itself points toward innocence in my eyes.