Lizzie Borden - Trial

Trial

Lizzie's trial took place in New Bedford the following June. Prosecuting attorneys included future Supreme Court Justice William H. Moody; defending were Andrew V. Jennings, Melvin O. Adams, and former Massachusetts governor George D. Robinson.

Prominent points in the trial (or press coverage of it) included:

• The hatchet head found in the basement was not convincingly shown to be the murder weapon. Prosecutors argued that the killer had removed the handle because it was bloody, but while one officer testified that a hatchet handle was found near the hatchet head, another officer contradicted this.
• Though no bloody clothing was found, a few days after the murder Lizzie burned a dress in the stove, saying it had been ruined when she brushed against fresh paint.
• There was a similar axe murder nearby shortly before the trial, though its perpetrator was shown to have been out of the country when the Bordens were killed.
• Evidence was excluded that Lizzie had sought to purchase prussic acid (for cleaning a sealskin cloak, she said) from a local druggist on the day before the murders.
• Because of the mysterious illness that had struck the household before the murders the family's milk, and Andrew and Abby's stomachs (removed during autopsies performed in the Borden dining room), were tested for poison; no poison was found.
• The victims' heads were removed during autopsy. After the skulls were used as evidence during the trial—Borden fainted upon seeing them—they went missing.

On June 20, after deliberating an hour and a half, the jury acquitted.

The trial has been compared to the later trials of Bruno Hauptmann, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and O.J. Simpson as a landmark in publicity and public interest in American legal proceedings.