The Murder Case against Lizzie Borden - Research Paper Example

The murder case against Lizzie Borden The Borden family belonged to Fall River, Massachusetts. It was a rich family and had the of New England. Throughout his life, Mr. Borden had served at several elite positions that included but were not limited to director of First National Bank, Globe Yarn Mill Company, Durfee Safe Deposit and Trust Company, president of Union Savings Bank, Merchants Manufacturing Company, and Troy Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company. Lizzie was born on 19 July 1860. Although not much is known about Lizzie’s childhood, yet she was, from her father’s side of the family, ninth-generation that had lived in the Fall River. Her older sister’s name was Emma Lenora who was the daughter of Sarah and Andrew. Emma Lenora was born on 1 March 1851. At the age of two, Lizzie’s mother caught uterine congestion and passed away. After her mother’s death, Lizzie’s father got married to another woman named Abby Durfee. “In 1884 when Andrew gave his wifes half-sister a house, his daughters objected and fought with their stepmother, refusing thereafter to call her "mother" and calling her simply "Mrs. Borden" instead” (Lewis, 2013). Lizzie was the patient of psychomotor epilepsy that causes the temporal lobe to be seized with a symptom. The patient of psychomotor epilepsy is able to execute the actions in the state of a dream, and is yet aware of all the actions without knowing what he/she is doing. As a result of this, Lizzie developed two personalities that were entirely different from each other; one, she was a sweet daughter, and another, as a mean daughter. As a sweet daughter, Lizzie was a brilliant conversationalist as well as a member of the Congressional Church. As a mean daughter, Lizzie was very resentful of the patriarchy. The family’s contradiction regarding the social statuses explained the development of these two personalities by Lizzie. In addition to this, Lizzie was also habitual of stealing things from the local merchants. J. Borden and his wife got murder while they were in their family home on 4 August 1892. It was a hot day. The Borden family’s maid was resting in her bed after she had washed the outside windows. The time was 11 o’ clock. Lizzie Borden was heard crying asking her elder sister Maggie to come down as she had discovered her father’s dead body. The body of her father had been hacked almost to the point that he could not be recognized. Almost half an hour later, after her father’s body had been discovered, Adelaide Churchill discovered the dead body of Abby Borden, Lizzie’s step-mother on the home’s second floor. Abby Borden’s body was found colder as compared to the body of Lizzie’s father, suggesting that the lady was murdered before the man. It was thought that her step-mother had been killed about ninety minutes before her father (Linder, 2004). After that, Lizzie Borden was charged with the murder of her parents; the case of parricide. In such a murder case, the accused is not guilty for the bloody and violent assassination. The murder of her parents in 1892 was an unusual event to occur given the vast newspaper coverage, swift justice, almost completely circumstantial evidence, divided opinion of the public as the accused’s guilt or innocence, acquittal, and incompetent prosecution. In addition to that, “The source of that fascination might lie in the almost unimaginably brutal nature of the crime--given the sex, background, and age of the defendant--or in the jurys acquittal of Lizzie in the face of prosecution evidence that most historians today find compelling” (Linder, 2004). The evidence in the case of murder of her parents was quite confusing right from the very start as Deputy Marshal John Fleet noted. This was so because of the fact that there was no weapon, opportunity for crime, and motive evident from the details of the case. Jewelry and money was in its right place and the investigators could not find any sign of force. Dr. Bowden was a neighbor of J. Borden and his wife. By profession, he was a physician and was also a close friend to J. Borden and his wife. After Dr. Bowden examined the dead bodies, he revealed the death of J. Borden and his wife was caused by their heads being crushed as a result of which, the excessive bleeding that happened caused their hearts to stop pumping blood. The trial happened on 5 June 1893. Lizzie was asked to tell whether she knew anybody who had wanted to assassinate her father and mother. Lizzie told that her mother had already died while Lizzie was a child and that the lady who had been murdered was her step-mother. She told she did not know who wanted to kill her father and her step-mother. According to Deputy Fleet’s testimony, although Lizzie did seem concerned about the murder of her parents, her concern more resembled that of a regular citizen rather than of a daughter who had just lost her parents. Papers started reporting evidence that Lizzie Borden might have murdered her parents only two days after the murder. The primary suspect of this murder case became Lizzie when this fact was discovered that just a week before the murder of her parents, Lizzie had attempted to buy the prussic acid poison worth ten cents. She had tried to purchase it from a clerk who worked at the Smith’s Drug Store and was called Eli Bence. A story published in the Boston Daily Globe spread the rumors about the conflict between Lizzie and her step-mother and that they had not talked to each other for a long time, though the family members said that their relation with each other was very normal. However, The Boston Herald considered Lizzie a suspicion, “From the consensus of opinion it can be said: In Lizzie Bordens life there is not one unmaidenly nor a single deliberately unkind act” (Kent and Flynn, 1992, p. 14). A neighbor, Adelaid Churchill, who lived seven houses away from their home down the street had been with Lizzie throughout while the doctor arrived and testified that no blood was seen anywhere on Lizzie’s body. Evidence of the case included a report of burning of a dress by Lizzie that was testified by a friend of having been stained with paint, and the news about the purchase of poison. The investigators could not find the weapon that had been used for the murder. A hatchet head that might have been purposefully made dirty in the look was discovered in the cellar. There were no stains of blood over the clothes. After thorough investigation of the case, the police reached the conclusion that someone within the Borden home must have committed the murders. However, they were startled by the fact that there was no blood anywhere on the place except for the victims’ bodies. The police could also not find any weapon obvious for murder. The suspicion increasingly turned to Lizzie because her elder sister was not at home while the murders were committed. Investigators thought that it was strange that Lizzie did not know much about the whereabouts of her mother after 9 am when Lizzie said she had left to cover her pillows with shams upstairs. The investigators were also not convinced by the story narrated by Lizzie that she was in the backyard search for irons for a fishing excursion due soon while her father was being murdered in the living room. She said she had looked for the irons in the barn loft and yet there were no footprints on the floor even when it was dusty. Besides, the temperature of the loft was too hot to let anybody feel comfortable spending a lot of time in search of a piece of equipment that would be needed several days later. Different theories about the murder emerged including the intrusion by a tall male. After a day post the funeral, Lizzie was seen burning one of her dresses in the stove placed in the kitchen. When Lizzie was asked about that, she said that the dress was stained with paint and was not in a condition to be worn. When all the testimony and evidence was presented before the Second District Court’s Judge Blaisdell, he wanted to charge Lizzie with a total of three murder counts; the first of her father, the second of her step-mother, and the third of both. As a result of this, Lizzie was to be death-sentenced by hanging is she was found guilty irrespective of her status of a child. Now, the jury had to decide her fate. It took a jury of 12 members no more than an hour to decide that the verdict was not guilty. There were also rumors that the jury took 15 minutes only to actually decide whereas the rest of the 45 minutes were spent out of the jury’s respect for the prosecution. Although Lizzie was set free, yet she was guilty in the opinion of the public at large. There were controversies about the simplicity with which the jury for this case was secured; “The ease with which the jury was secured was a surprise to everybody, particularly as almost every man examined had formed an opinion about the case, and many of the candidates were opposed to capital punishment” (The New York Times, 1893). However, Lizzie was imprison for ten months in Taunton, Mass pending her trial. She wrote a number of letters from her prison cell that were published in Parallel Lives. Although Lizzie was portrayed as a stoic and cold woman that showed no emotion at the time of trial, yet her letters revealed her grieving and sensitive side, that was in striking contrast with her previous image. The jury was not convinced of the guilt of Lizzie Borden since no direct evidence of her involvement could be found in the murder. Therefore, on 20 June 1893, Lizzie Borden was acquitted. She bought Maplecroft; a bigger and new home in Fall River. She also changed her name from Lizbeth from Lizzie. The two sisters remained together till the time of falling-out in 1905 probably because the elder sister was not pleased with Lizzie’s friends she had brought from the theater crowd in New York. Both sisters had many pets. Lizzie died in the year 1927 at Fall River Massachusetts. Her legend as a murderess continues to date. Her grave is next to the grave of her murdered parents. In the year 1992, the home in which the murders had happened was made into a bed-and-breakfast. References: Kent, D., and Flynn, R. A. (1992). Lizzie Borden Source Book. Boston: Branden Publishing Company. Lewis, J. J. (2013). Lizzie Borden. Retrieved from http://womenshistory.about.com/od/criminals/p/lizzie_borden.htm. Linder, D. (2004). The Trial of Lizzie Borden. Retrieved from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lizzieborden/bordenaccount.html. The New York Times. (1893, June 6). Borden Murder Trial Begun: Jurors Impaneled to Try the Celebrated Case. Retrieved from http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00814F7345B1A738DDDAF0894DE405B8385F0D3. Read More