A brief synopsis of the events of trial is helpful in understanding how the jury came to its conclusion. The trial lasted fourteen days, from June 5, 1893, to June 20, 1893. After a day to select the jury -- twelve middle-aged farmers and tradesmen -- the prosecution took about seven days to present its case.
Hosea Knowlton was a reluctant prosecutor, forced into the role by the politically timid Arthur Pillsbury, Attorney General of Massachusetts, who should have been the principal attorney for the prosecution. As Lizzie's trial date approached, Pillsbury felt the pressure building from Lizzie's supporters, particularly women's groups and religious organizations. Pillsbury directed Knowlton, District Attorney of Fall River, to lead the prosecution, and assigned William Moody, District Attorney of Essex County, to assist him. One author, Pearson, calls Knowlton "a courageous public official," while a second, Sullivan, considers his performance at the trial to be "a clear pattern of reluctance and lethargy." Shortly after the trial, Knowlton replaced Pillsbury as Attorney General.
Moody, according to Sullivan, was the most competent attorney involved in the Borden trial. He was the most thorough in the questioning of witnesses -- Knowlton, in contrast, would sometimes open a line of questioning and then walk away from it -- and Moody's arguments to the court about the admissibility of evidence were impressive, even if they failed to sway the three judges. His opening statement delineating the issues that the prosecution would bring to the demonstration of Lizzie's guilt were clear, firm, and logical. Moody was elected to Congress three times, served as Secretary of the Navy, then as Attorney General, both during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard classmate. In 1906, Roosevelt appointed Moody a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
William Moody made the opening statements for the prosecution. He presented three arguments. First, Lizzie was predisposed to murder her father and stepmother and that she had planned it. Second, that she did in fact murder them, and, third, that her behavior and contradictory testimony was not consistent with innocence. At one point, Moody threw a dress onto the prosecution table that he was to offer later in evidence. As the dress fell on the table, the tissue paper covering the fleshless skulls of the victims was wafted away. Lizzie slid to the floor in a dead faint.
Crucial to the prosecution case was the presentation of evidence that supplied a motive for the murders. Prosecutors Knowlton and Moody called witnesses to establish that Mr. Borden was intending to write a new will. An old will was never found, or did not exist, although Uncle John testified at first that Mr. Borden had told him that he had a will, and then testified that Mr. Borden had not told him of a will. The new will, according to Uncle John, would leave Emma and Lizzie each $25,000, with the remainder of Mr. Borden's half million dollar estate --- well over ten million in present-day dollars --- going to Abby. Further, Knowlton developed the additional motive of Mr. Borden's intent to dispose of his farm to Abby, just as he had done the year before with the duplex occupied by Abby's sister, Sarah Whitehead. Knowlton then turned to Lizzie's "predisposition" towards murder. However, two rulings by the court were crucial to Lizzie's eventual verdict of innocent.
On Saturday, June 10, the prosecution attempted to enter Lizzie's testimony from the inquest into the record. Robinson objected, since it was testimony from one who had not been formally charged. On Monday, when court resumed, the justices disallowed the introduction of Lizzie's contradictory inquest testimony.
On Wednesday, June 14, the prosecution called Eli Bence, the drug store clerk, to the stand, and the defense objected. After hearing arguments from both the prosecution and the defense as to the relevance of Lizzie's attempt to purchase prussic acid, the justices ruled the following day that Mr. Bence's testimony --- and the entire issue of her alleged attempt to buy poison --- was irrelevant and inadmissible.
The defense used only two days to present its case.
Jennings was one of Fall River's most prominent citizens. He had been Andrew Borden's lawyer, and from the day of the murders on, he became Lizzie's adviser and attorney. He was a taciturn man who never spoke of the Borden case in the thirty years he lived after its conclusion. Without a doubt, it is Jennings, along with his younger colleague, Melvin Adams, who worked successfully to exclude testimony that would have been damaging to Lizzie.
However, even with his lack of legal experience, the third lawyer for the defense, George Robinson, brought a prominent and respected personality to the proceedings. The fact that he had appointed Justice Dewey to the Superior Court certainly did not hurt their cause.
For the most part, the defense called witnesses to verify the presence of a mysterious young man in the vicinity of the Borden home, and Emma Borden to verify the absence of a motive for Lizzie as the murderer.
Emma Borden is something of an enigma. She is variously described as shy, retiring, small, plain looking, thin-faced and bony --- an unremarkable forty-three-year-old spinster. The only known depiction of her is an unsatisfactory drawing made of her in court. She was supportive of Lizzie during the trial, although there is one witness, a prison matron, who testified that Lizzie and Emma had an argument when Emma was visiting her in jail.
After the trial, she and Lizzie lived together at Maplecroft. While Lizzie found it impossible to attend church because of her ostracism, Emma, unlike her previous existence, became a devoted churchgoer.
On Monday, June 19, defense attorney Robinson delivered his closing arguments and Knowlton began his closing arguments for the prosecution, completing them on the next day. Lizzie was then asked if she had anything to say. For the only time during the trial, she spoke. She said, "I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me." Justice Dewey, who had been appointed to the Superior Court bench by then Governor Robinson, then delivered his charge to the jury, which was, in effect, a second summation of the case for the defense, remarkable in its bias.
At 3:24, the jury was sworn, given the case, and retired to carry out their deliberations. At 4:32, a little over an hour later, the jury returned with its verdict. Lizzie was found not guilty on all three charges. The jury was earnestly thanked by the court, and dismissed.
Five weeks after the trial, Lizzie and Emma purchased and moved into a thirteen-room, gray stone Victorian house at 306 French Street, located on "The Hill," the fashionable residential area of Fall River. Shortly thereafter, Lizzie named the house "Maplecroft," and had the name carved into the top stone step leading up to the front door. It was at this time that Lizzie began to refer to herself as "Lizbeth."
In 1897, Lizzie was charged with the theft of two paintings, valued at less than one hundred dollars, from the Tilden-Thurber store in Fall River. The controversy was privately resolved.
In 1904, Lizzie met a young actress, Nance O'Neil, and for the next two years, Lizzie and Nance were inseparable. About this time, Emma moved out of Maplecroft, presumably offended by her sister's relationship with the actress, which included at least one lavish catered party for Nance and her theatrical company. Emma stayed with the family of Reverend Buck, and, sometime around 1915, moved to Newmarket, New Hampshire, living quietly and virtually anonymously in a house she had presumably purchased for two sisters, Mary and Annie Conner.
Lizzie died on June 1, 1927, at age 67, after a long illness from complications following gall bladder surgery. Emma died nine days later, as a result of a fall down the back stairs of her house in Newmarket. They were buried together in the family plot, along with a sister who had died in early childhood, their mother, their stepmother, and their headless father.
Both Lizzie and Emma left their estates to charitable causes; Lizzie's being left predominately to animal care organizations, Emma's to various humanitarian organizations in Fall River.
Bridget Sullivan, as it has been noted, died in 1948, more than twenty years after the death of the Borden sisters, in Butte, Montana.
