The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders

At high noon on Thursday the fourth day of August, 1892, the cry of murder swept through the city of Fall River like a typhoon on the smooth surface of an eastern sea. It was caught up by a thousand tongues and repeated at every street corner until it reached the utmost confines of the municipality. A double murder, the most atrocious of crimes, committed under the very glare of the mid-day sun within three minutes walk of the City Hall was the way the story went and it was true in every particular. Andrew J. Borden and his wife Abbie D. Borden had been assassinated in their home at 92 Second street. The manner in which the deed was done seemed so brutal, so mysterious, and the tragedy itself so unprecedented that people stared with open-mouthed amazement as they listened to the story passing from tongue to tongue. In the excitement of the moment the murderer had slipped away unobserved, and bloody as his crime had been he left no trace behind, nor clue to his identity. He had wielded an axe or some similar instrument with the skill of a headsman and had butchered in the most horrible manner the bodies of his defenseless victims. 

When discovered, the remains of Mr. Borden lay stretched at full length upon the sofa in the sitting room of his home; the head literally hacked into fragments and the fresh blood trickling from every wound. Up stairs in the guest chamber lay the body of Mrs. Borden similarly mangled and butchered with the head reeking in a crimson pool. She had been murdered while in the act of making the bed and her husband had died as he lay taking his morning nap.

In the house was Miss Lizzie A. Borden, youngest daughter of the slain couple, and Bridget Sullivan, the only servant. They and they alone had been within calling distance of the victims as the fiend or fiends struck the fatal blows. The servant was in the attic, and the daughter was in the barn not more than thirty feet from the back door of the house. This was the condition of things on the premises when the cry went forth which shocked the city and startled the entire country. Neighbors, friends, physicians, police officers and newspaper reporters gathered at the scene in an incredibly short space of time. It was soon learned that the daughter Lizzie had been the first to make the horrible discovery. She said that not many minutes before, she had spoken to her father upon his return from the city; and that after seeing him comfortably seated on the sofa she had gone out to the barn to remain a very short time. Upon returning she saw his dead body and gave the alarm which brought the servant from the attic. Without thinking of Mrs. Borden the daughter sent Bridget for help. Mrs. Adelaide B. Churchill the nearest neighbor, Dr. S. W. Bowen and Miss Alice Russell were among the first to respond. Shortly afterward the dead body of Mrs. Borden was discovered and the unparalleled monstrosity of the crime became apparent. There had been murder most foul, and so far as the developments of the moment indicated, without a motive or a cause. The street in front of the house soon became blocked with a surging mass of humanity, and the excitement grew more and more intense as the meager details of the assassination were learned. Men with blanched faces hurried back and forth through the yard; police officers stood in groups for a moment and talked mysteriously; physicians consulted among themselves and kind friends ministered to the bereaved daughter and offered her consolation.