Blood Relations (play) - Historical Context: The Murder and Trial

Historical Context: The Murder and Trial

On the morning of August 4, 1892, Lizzie reported to Bridget Sullivan, the Irish maid, her discovery of the bloody body of her father sprawled on the sofa in the sitting room, and instructed her to fetch the family physician, Dr. Bowen. When the doctor and the police arrived, they also found the body of Abby Borden upstairs, her head similarly crushed by multiple axe blows. Bridget Sullivan testified that she had been in her own attic room, resting from cleaning windows on a very hot day. She had neither heard nor seen anything unusual. Lizzie claimed that she had been in the barn, although the undisturbed dust on the barn floor seemed to indicate otherwise. Emma was out of town visiting friends. Four axes were discovered in the basement, one without a handle, and the head covered in ashes. No evidence of blood was found on Lizzie’s clothes, although her friend, Miss Russell, did discover her burning a dress three days later, which she claimed had been stained with paint. At the inquest, it was also revealed that Lizzie had bought prussic acid from a local pharmacy the day before, and that Abby and Andrew Borden had been ill that morning. Lizzie was arrested for murder and the trial date set for June 5, 1893. The trial lasted fourteen days, and caused a national sensation: it was the first public trial in the United States to be covered extensively by the media. Popular opinion was split on the innocence or guilt of Lizzie Borden, with strong support coming from feminists and animal rights advocates.

Lizzie and Emma hired the best lawyers, paid from their father’s estate. The legal rhetoric of the lawyer for the defense as recorded in the trial transcripts is passionate, persuasive, and very playworthy:

"To find her guilty you must believe she is a fiend. Does she look it? As she sat here these long weary days and moved in and out before you, have you seen anything that shows the lack of human feeling and womanly bearing? Do I plead for her sister? No. Do I plead for Lizzie Andrew Borden herself? Yes, I ask you to consider her, to put her into the scale as a woman among us all..."

Very strong, too, is the possibility that Lizzie's lesbianism was both known in select circles of the community and suppressed in the court record. People of the age were unwilling to acknowledge female homosexuality. If that was the case, then the jury was certainly prevented from knowing the "real" Lizzie—an essential part of judging her at trial. In looking at her, they could scarcely accuse her of murder. Lizzie’s social position, physical appearance, and public performance all militated against a guilty verdict. Although her testimony at the inquest was contradictory and confused, at her trial she was calm, impassive, and inscrutable. She did not testify at the trial, and her only words she spoke were, “I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me.” The transcript records only the words of others. And in Blood Relations, Miss Lizzie also evades direct testimony. Her part is enacted by her friend, an actress from Boston, and she assumes the role of the maid Bridget, an observer and director of the replay of the events that culminated in the murder of the Bordens. This framework establishes the possibility of multiple perspectives, as the play argues against convicting her. What “happened” ten years earlier depends on what is remembered, what is re-enacted. The past is played out as theatre, as is the trial. We are the witnesses, and we try to ascertain the “truth”—which proves endlessly elusive and multi-faceted.

Lizzie Borden was acquitted—her lawyers having persuaded the jury that the evidence was circumstantial. She continued to live in Fall River in a fashionable Victorian mansion located on “The Hill” with her sister. However, she continued a life of social circumscription, even more limited than before the murders, since she was understandably shunned by the community. She did travel regularly, however, maintaining a relationship with a young Boston actress named Nance O’Neil, which provoked yet more rumours, and resulting in Emma finding her own place to live. She died in 1927 and was buried in the Borden family plot.