This file examines the 1892 Fall River murders of Andrew and Abby Borden through the physical evidence and the forensic methods of the period. The narrative account of the household, the trial, and the aftermath appears in the companion post, Lizzie Borden: The House That Kept Its Secrets. The purpose here is to walk the evidence itself: what was collected, what it established, and where the science of 1892 reached its edge. The standard applied throughout is the one that governs any death investigation, which is to state what each step accomplished and to respect the professionals who did the work with the tools available to them.
Victimology and scene
The victims were Andrew Jackson Borden, a prominent Fall River businessman with rental properties in the city, and his second wife, Abby Durfee Gray Borden [1][2]. Both died within the family home at 92 Second Street on the morning of August 4, 1892 [1]. Abby Borden was found in an upstairs guest room, and Andrew Borden was found on a sofa in the ground-floor sitting room [2]. The maid, Bridget Sullivan, later testified that Lizzie was the only other person in the home at the time of the killings, which framed the case from the outset around who was inside rather than an intruder [2]. The two murder scenes sat one downstairs and one upstairs, in the Borden’s small house, and the time period between the deaths became the central forensic question.
Time of death by digestion
The most consequential finding in the case came from the stomach contents. Medical Examiner Dr. William A. Dolan preserved tissue and stomach samples at autopsy and forwarded them to Professor Edward S. Wood, a chemist at Harvard Medical School [3][4]. Wood compared how far the breakfast meal had digested in each victim and used the difference to estimate the interval between the deaths. In testimony he placed the gap “in the neighborhood of an hour and a half” [4]. Under cross-examination he narrowed his certainty and declined to fix the difference at less than an hour, which was the responsible limit of what the method could support [4].
A second line of evidence agreed with this laboratory result. The degree of blood coagulation and the state of digestion differed between the two bodies, and both pointed the fact that Abby Borden died first, and Andrew Borden died roughly ninety minutes later. That conclusion set the timeline for the entire investigation timeline.
Wound analysis
The autopsies were performed by Dr. Dolan with the assistance of Dr. Frank W. Draper of Boston [3]. Andrew Borden had ten laceration wounds, concentrated on the left side of the head and face and running roughly parallel to one another, with the largest measuring about four and a half inches [3]. The parallel pattern indicated a rapid series of blows delivered while he lay still, consistent with an attack during rest. Abby Borden had eighteen wounds, most on the right side and back of the head, with the largest measuring about five inches [3]. The distribution indicated blows delivered from behind and above while she was down.
The wound counts also correct a durable myth. The nursery rhyme assigns forty blows to the stepmother and forty-one to the father, and the record documents a far smaller total, on the order of eighteen or nineteen for Abby and ten or eleven for Andrew [1].
The weapon
Investigators recovered a hatchet head with a broken handle from the cellar, and it became the leading candidate for the weapon [1][5]. The wound dimensions were consistent with a blade of that class, which placed the recovered hatchet within the range of instruments that could have produced the injuries. Individual identification of that specific tool was a different matter and belonged to techniques that had not yet been developed.
Professor Wood subjected the stains on the hatchet head to chemical and microscopic testing for blood and reported negative results [4]. In modern terms the recovered head satisfied class characteristics while individual characteristics could not be determined.
Blood evidence
The blood evidence is frequently misremembered, so it is worth stating plainly. Serology in 1892 could confirm the presence of blood and little more, because blood typing and later DNA methods lay decades ahead.
Within those limits, the examination of Lizzie Borden’s clothing produced a single blood spot the size of a pinhead on a white skirt, about six inches from the hem, which Wood testified could be consistent with her menstruation [4]. The maid, Bridget Sullivan, had seen Lizzie between the two killings and noticed nothing unusual about her appearance [5]. Both murder scenes involved significant blood loss from each victim. But there was no apparent transfer of this blood to Lizzie’s clothing.
The poison inquiry
A separate line concerned poison. A local druggist, Eli Bence, reported that Lizzie Borden had attempted to purchase prussic acid, a form of hydrogen cyanide, on the day before the murders, stating that she wanted it to clean a garment [2][5]. The court later excluded this testimony [2]. As a matter of method, the poison inquiry and the blunt-force evidence describe two different modes of attack, and the exclusion of the poison kept the trial focused on the physical evidence of the hatchet being connected to the deaths.
Post-offense evidence
Investigators documented one further item of note. On the Sunday after the murders, August 7, 1892, a family friend, Alice Russell, observed Lizzie Borden burning a blue dress in the kitchen, and Lizzie described the garment as covered with paint [2]. Because the dress was destroyed, it could not be examined, and its evidentiary value rested entirely the witness account of the maid.
Investigative strategy and courtroom limits
The case reached trial in New Bedford in 1893. The Commonwealth was prosecuted by District Attorney Hosea Knowlton and William Moody, and the defense was led by former Massachusetts governor George Robinson with attorney Andrew Jennings [2].
Two evidentiary rulings shaped the forensic picture the jury received. The court excluded Lizzie Borden’s inquest testimony, on the grounds that she had given it without counsel and without the protections owed to a defendant, and it excluded the prussic acid testimony [2]. During the proceedings, the victims’ skulls were introduced and became visible in the courtroom, and Lizzie fainted [2]. The Commonwealth proceeded on a circumstantial case, and the jury acquitted Lizzie on June 20, 1893, after deliberating about an hour [1][5].
What the science of 1892 Delivered
The investigators achieved a great deal with the science of their day. They preserved biological samples, conducted autopsies, and obtained a Harvard laboratory analysis that fixed the order of the two deaths through digestion and coagulation acting in agreement [3][4][5]. These forensic results would still stand today.
The techniques that could have individualized the evidence simply did not exist in 1892. Fingerprint identification was not yet used in American courts, blood typing was years away, and DNA analysis lay nearly a century in the future. Those methods would later become the ordinary means of tying a specific hand to a specific weapon and a specific stain to a specific person.
Therefore, their absence is not due to the shortfall of the people involved.
The Borden investigators built the strongest evidentiary structure their era allowed, and the identity question they left open is the question their science was not yet equipped to close.
For the human story behind this evidence, the household on Second Street and the trial that gripped the country, see the companion post, Lizzie Borden: The House That Kept Its Secrets.
Sources
[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Lizzie Borden Took an Ax.” https://www.britannica.com/story/lizzie-borden-took-an-ax [2] Famous Trials (D. Linder), “The Trial of Lizzie Borden: An Account.” https://famous-trials.com/lizzieborden/1437-home [3] Famous Trials (D. Linder), “The Trial of Lizzie Borden: Autopsies.” https://famous-trials.com/lizzieborden/1439-autopsies [4] Famous Trials (D. Linder), “Testimony of Dr. Edward S. Wood in the Trial of Lizzie Borden.” https://famous-trials.com/lizzieborden/1461-woodtestimony [5] R. Sullivan et al., “The Lizzie Borden Murder Trial,” Westfield State University Historical Journal. https://www.westfield.ma.edu/historical-journal/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/lizzie-borden.pdf
