Evan Hunter - Lizzie

I was having some dealings with him with reference to hiring another store. I had already hired it. I wanted to see him to make arrangements. I had gone to Mr. Borden’s house to visit him with reference to this store. Twice. On Tuesday, the second of August, and on the following day, Wednesday. I was there the two days preceding the homicide. Mr. Borden let me in the first time. Bridget let me in the second time. I remained in the house with him, well, about ten minutes. The subject of our conversation was hiring the store.

On the morning of August fourth, Mr. Borden left my shop at exactly twenty-nine minutes past ten. Just as he left me, I looked at the City Hall clock.

I never saw him alive again.

My name is Benjamin J. Handy. I’m a physician in Fall River, been practicing there nearly the whole of twenty years. I know where the Andrew J. Borden house is, and I remember the day of the murders. I went by that house on the morning of the murders. At about half-past ten, a little after probably.

At that time, I saw a person in the vicinity of the house. I didn’t know who he was. A medium-sized man of very pale complexion, with his eyes fixed upon the sidewalk, passing slowly toward the south. In reference to the Borden house, as near I can tell, he was opposite a space between the Kelly house and Mr. Wade’s store. What attracted my attention to him in the first place, he was a very pale individual, paler than common. And he was acting strangely.

I turned in my carriage to watch him as I drove by, to look at him. I had a faint idea that I’d seen him on Second Street some days before. It was not Thomas Bowles that works for Mrs. Churchill and used to work for me. Nor was it George L. Douglass that used to keep the stable on Second Street, just above Spring. I know him well, and it wasn’t he. This man was dressed in a light suit of clothes. He was well dressed, collar and necktie. He seemed to be agitated about something or other. Seemed to be moving, swaying — rolling possibly — a little. Not staggering, but I thought it more than ordinary movement.

I think I’d seen him before that day. I wouldn’t state it as a fact, but I think I may have seen him before, on some other day, on the same street. On that day, I hadn’t seen him before. That was the only time I saw him on that day. Somewhere between twenty minutes past ten and twenty minutes of eleven.

My name is Joseph Shortsleeves, I’m a carpenter by trade. On the fourth of August, 1892, I saw Mr. Borden coming from the direction of the shop Mr. Clegg then occupied, toward where we was working on the new store Mr. Clegg had hired. We were making changes in the front windows, lowering them down. He came into the front door, went to the back part of the store, picked up a lock that had been on the front store door. It was all broken to pieces. He looked at it, laid it down again, went upstairs, then went from the back part of the shop up to the front part of the shop upstairs over our head. He was there a few moments, and came down again and picked the lock up and walked out. In the course of all this, we exchanged no words.

He went toward the west across the road, partways across Main Street. Then he came back, then turned around and looked at us. Says I, “Good morning, Mr. Borden,” and says he, “Good morning to you.” As near as I can remember, this was between half-past ten and quarter to eleven. I had a watch in my pocket, and I had the City Hall to look at, but I had no occasion to look at a timepiece. My testimony as to the time is an estimate. Mr. Mather was at work with me that day. James Mather.

On the fourth day of August, 1892, I was working up in Jonathan Clegg’s store, fixing it for him, the store he was going to occupy. I was working with Mr. Shortsleeves, the last witness who came in here. We were going to drop the front windows down lower, near that sidewalk. Working on the outside, pretty near all the time. The City Hall clock was in my view while we were working.

Mr. Borden went inside the store and picked up a lock, and then went out again. He turned in the direction of Spring Street. I was on the outside, so I could see him. He went away at about twenty minutes of eleven. I looked at the City Hall clock.

My name is Caroline Kelly. I’m married, the wife of Dr. Kelly of Fall River. We live in the next house to the south of the Borden house, and were living there on August fourth of last year. It was a very warm day, a pleasant day. I was about the house that morning, attending to ordinary household duties, and had an engagement to go downtown, to the dentist’s. Before I started downtown, I consulted the kitchen clock, and then went right out. The kitchen clock showed about twenty-eight minutes of eleven.

When I got out on the street, I turned to the right and north, downhill. And in going down the hill, I had to pass by Mr. Borden’s house. I know Mr. Borden to speak to as well as by sight. He was on the inside of his yard, coming round the house. From the back of the house, east, I think. He went inside the fence to the front door, and stooped down as though putting a key in the door. He had a little white parcel in his hand, I think.

I didn’t speak to him, and he didn’t speak to me. I don’t think he saw me. This was when I was going out to the dentist. Immediately after I’d looked at my clock. It’s an old-fashioned clock, a square wooden clock with weights. It’s been in the family for years, I’ve only had it for two years in my house. In August of last year, it wasn’t a good timekeeper, nor could it be depended upon for accurate time. It doesn’t run at all now, it’s broken.

... When I completed the rinsing of the windows, I put the handle of the brush away in the barn, and brought the pail and dipper in, and put the dipper behind, and I got the handbasin and went into the sitting room to wash the sitting-room windows. Up to that time, I hadn’t seen Miss Lizzie since I saw her at the screen door.

I had the upper part of the window down, in the sitting room, when I heard something. Like a person at the door was trying to unlock the door and push it, but couldn’t. I’d heard no ringing of any bell. I went to open the door, caught it by the knob — the spring lock, as usual — and it was locked. I unbolted it, and it was locked with a key. As I unlocked it, I said, “Oh, pshaw,” and Miss Lizzie laughed, upstairs. Her father was out there on the doorstep, she was upstairs. Either in the entry or in the top of the stairs, I can’t tell which. Not a word passed between me and Mr. Borden as he came to the door. I let him in, and went back to washing my windows, into the sitting room again. And he came into the sitting room and went into the dining room. He had a little parcel in his hand, same as a paper or a book.

He sat down in the chair at the head of the lounge. I was washing my windows. I went out into the kitchen after something, I see the man sitting on the lounge, and the chair at the head of the lounge. Miss Lizzie came downstairs, probably five minutes later. She came down through the entry, the front entry, into the dining room, I suppose to her father. I heard her ask her father if he had any mail, and they had some talk between them which I didn’t understand or pay any attention to, but I heard her tell her father that Mrs. Borden had a note and had gone out.

The next thing I remember, Mr. Borden went out in the kitchen and come in the kitchen door, come from the kitchen into the sitting room and took a key off the mantelpiece and went upstairs to his room. Up the back stairs. When Mr. Borden come back downstairs again, I was completed in the sitting room, and taking my water and taking the handbasin and stepladder into the dining room. As I got in there, he pulled a rocking chair, and sat down in the rocking chair near the window, and let down the window as I’d left it up when I got through. I was washing the dining-room windows when Miss Lizzie appeared.