Evan Hunter - Lizzie

I don’t know who took charge of the room in the front part of the house, either. When Miss Emma was home, she done it. When Mr. Morse was there, and when Mrs. Borden had any of her friends there, I guess she done it, or helped do it. That is, as far as I can remember. The rooms belonging to the daughters, themselves took care of them, as far as I know. I didn’t have anything to do with the rooms, nothing of any kind to do with any bedroom.

I never had any trouble there in the family. I liked the place. As far as I know, they liked me, too. I never saw anything out of the way. Never saw any conflict in the family. Never saw any quarreling or anything of that kind. Miss Lizzie always spoke to Mrs. Borden when Mrs. Borden talked to her. There was not, so far as I know, any trouble that morning of the fourth. I did not see any trouble with the family.

I felt kind of a dull headache as I got up that morning. I got up at a quarter past six. I have a timepiece in my room, a clock, one of them little round clocks. I didn’t look at the clock in my room, but I looked when I came down to the kitchen. There’s a clock there. It was a quarter past six when I came down. I went downcellar then, and brought up some wood to start my fire, went down and got some coal. Brought that up in the coal hod. Then I unlocked the door, and took in the milk can, and put a pan out for the iceman and a pitcher with some water in it. The locks were just the same way as I’d left them the night before. After I’d taken in my milk and put out my pan for the iceman, I hooked the screen door, left the panel door open.

Before anyone came downstairs, I started my work around the kitchen, getting ready for breakfast. I had clothes on the clotheshorse, I suppose I took them down, as I generally did. Mrs. Borden was the first one appeared on that Thursday morning. I was in the kitchen, and she came through the back entry, downstairs from her bedroom. After she came down, she gave me directions for breakfast. Might have been twenty minutes of seven, or half past six. I can’t tell the time, for I never noticed it. Mr. Borden came downstairs, down the back stairway from his bedroom, no more than five minutes later, I don’t think. He went into the sitting room and put a key on the shelf there. The key of his bedroom door. He ordinarily kept that in the sitting room, on the shelf. Then he came out into the kitchen, put a dressing coat on, as far as I think, and went outdoors. Took his slop pail outdoors. He emptied the slop pail and unlocked the barn, and went into the barn. Then he went to the yard where the pear tree was, and brought in a basket of pears that he picked off the ground. I can’t say whether he hooked the screen door or not. He washed up in the kitchen and got ready for breakfast. Up to that time, I hadn’t seen anyone but Mr. and Mrs. Borden. Not until I put the breakfast on the table and Mr. Morse sat down to breakfast.

There was some mutton for breakfast that morning. And some broth and johnnycakes, coffee and cookies. The broth was made of mutton. It might have been a quarter past seven when they sat down to breakfast, I can’t exactly tell the time. While breakfast was going on, I was around the kitchen cleaning up things. I don’t know exactly what I was doing. I’d finished my ironing the day before, and put away the clothes. I guess they must have gone in the sitting room after breakfast. The bell from the table rang, and when I went in there was nobody in the dining room. So I sat down and had my breakfast. Then I took the dishes off out of the dining room and brought them out in the kitchen and began washing them. The next I remember to see was Mr. Borden and Mr. Morse going out the back entry, the back door. Mr. Morse went out, but Mr. Borden returned. He came to the sink, and he cleaned his teeth in the sink, and after that he took a bowl, a big bowl, and filled it with water, and took it up to his room. He had the key in his hand as he went up with the pitcher, took it off the shelf in the sitting room.

I was washing the dishes at the sink when Miss Lizzie came through. It was no more than five minutes later, I think. I don’t remember how the time was. She came from the sitting room, and through the kitchen, and she left down the slop pail, and I asked her what did she want for breakfast. She said she didn’t know as she wanted any breakfast, but she guessed she would have something, she would have some coffee and cookies. She got some coffee, got her cup and saucer and got some coffee. And I went out in the backyard, and she was getting her own breakfast. Mr. Borden hadn’t come back down again. The screen door was hooked, and of course I unhooked it when I went out.

I went out because I had a sick headache and I was sick to my stomach. I went out to vomit. In the back yard. I can’t tell how long I was out there. Maybe ten minutes, maybe fifteen. I didn’t see Mr. Borden again after he went up to his room with the water. I don’t know where he’d gone in the meantime. When I got back in the kitchen, I completed washing my dishes. Some of them was washed, but all of them wasn’t, and I finished them and took them in the dining room, and I got them completed, and Mrs. Borden was there as I was fixing my dining-room table, and she asked me if I had anything to do this morning. I said no, not particular, if she had anything to do for me. She said she wanted the windows washed. I asked her how, and she said, “Inside and out both. They’re awful dirty.” She was dusting, had a feather duster in her hand, dusting between the sitting room and dining room, the door.

I didn’t see Miss Lizzie anywhere at that time. I don’t remember to see her. I can’t exactly tell the time, but I think it was about nine o’clock...

My full name is Adelaide B. Churchill. I’m unmarried at the present time, I’m a widow. I’ve been a resident of Fall River for forty-three years and some months. With the exception of about six months, I’ve lived at my present residence all my life, forty-three years and some months, the house I was born in. It’s called the Mayor Buffinton house, after my father, Edward P. Buffinton. It’s the house next north of the Borden house. I occupy the whole house, live there with my mother, sister, son, niece and the man that works for us.

I’ve known the Borden family for the past twenty years. Been on terms of social relations with them, calling backwards and forwards. I can perhaps best describe Mr. Borden as tall and straight... a tall, straight man. Mrs. Borden was very fleshy, I can’t think she was as tall as I am, not any taller, A short, heavy woman.

On the morning of August fourth, 1892, I first saw Mr. Borden at about nine o’clock or so, somewhere along there, I can’t tell just exactly. I saw him from my kitchen. He was standing by the steps. Not on the steps, but on the walk by the steps. He wasn’t in motion, he was just standing. On the side of the house toward the barn.

“Can you tell me, Miss Sullivan, what you did after you received this direction from Mrs. Borden? Where did you go and what did you begin to do?”

“I was out in the kitchen.”

“What were you doing in the kitchen?”

“Oh, I was cleaning off my stove and putting things in their places and so forth. And when I got ready, I went in the dining room and sitting room and...”

... left down the windows which I was going to wash and went downcellar and got a pail for to take some water. The windows was up, and left down the windows. There was no curtains there. The shutters was open at the bottom, I remember. I didn’t see anybody there when I went in the dining room and sitting room to close the windows. I got a wooden pail downcellar, came upstairs, and in the kitchen closet I found a brush which was to wash the windows with. I filled my pail with water in the sink and took it outdoors. As I was outside the back door, Lizzie Borden appeared in the back entry and said, “Maggie, are you going to wash the windows?”