Lizzie Borden’s doctor’s full court testimony, where he recalled finding Andrew and Abby dead

After Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, here’s the doctor’s full real-life court testimony, where he described what he saw as one of the first people on the scene after the murders. 

Lizzie Borden and their maid, Bridget Sullivan, were the only ones home when Andrew and Abby Borden were killed with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892. A neighbour, Adelaide Churchill, then arrived on the scene. As Bridget recalled in her own court testimony, she went to fetch Dr Seabury Bowen next, their doctor who lived across the street. 

Bowen, who had been a practising physician and surgeon in Fall River for 26 years, and the Bordens’ family doctor for 12 years, stood up in court and spoke in detail about the morning of 4th August, 1892, when Abby and Andrew Borden were found dead. 

“On the morning of August 4th, I started out on my professional calls, as usual. I came back to my house between 11 and 11.30am.  Mrs Bowen was looking for me, and in consequence of what she said, I went to the Borden house, to the side or rear door. The only persons-in the house were Miss Lizzie and Mrs Churchill, in the back entry, near the kitchen,” he said. 

Credit: Netflix

“I said, ‘Lizzie, what is the matter?’ She replied, ‘Father has been killed’, or ‘stabbed’ – I wouldn’t say which it was. I said, ‘Where is your father?’ She answered, ‘In the sitting room.’ Nothing else was then said in reference to her father’s tenants, or any other subject.  I went into the dining room and thence to the sitting room.”

Describing the moment he saw Andrew Borden dead, he continued: “I saw the form of Mr Borden lying on the lounge at the left of the sitting-room door. His face was very badly cut, apparently with a sharp instrument; his face was covered with blood. I felt of his pulse and satisfied myself he was dead. Glanced about the room and saw there was nothing disturbed; neither the furniture nor anything at all. Mr Borden was lying with his face toward the south, on his right side, and apparently at ease, as if asleep. His face was hardly to be recognised by one who knew him.”

Most Read

How to do the Hotel Lobby AI trend from TikTok that puts people into Quavo and Takeoff video

Here’s what the real Lizzie Borden’s father Andrew was actually like to be around

Aileen Wuornos and Lizzie Borden’s made-up connection explained after Netflix’s Monster

After feeling Andrew’s pulse, the doctor asked Lizzie if she had seen anyone suspicious, and she said she hadn’t. She told him she had been “in the barn looking for some iron”. 

Credit: Netflix

He told the court: “I asked for a sheet to cover up Mr Borden. Bridget brought me one.  Then Miss Lizzie asked me to telegraph to her sister Emma, and I went to the telegraph office. Nothing had been said about Mrs Borden until now, but before I went to send the telegram, the question was asked, “Where is Mrs Borden?” and the answer-from Miss Lizzie, I think, but I am not certain-was that Mrs Borden had received a note that morning to visit a sick friend, and had gone out.”

On his way home, the doctor met Adelaide Churchill who told him they had found Mrs Borden’s dead body “upstairs in the front room,” so he immediately returned to the house. 

“I went up the front stairs and stopped a moment at the door of the guest room. At that point, I looked over the bed and saw the prostrate form of Mrs Borden. I was standing directly in the door. I went round the foot of the bed and placed my hand on her head. I found there were wounds. Then I felt her pulse: she was dead,” Bowen said. 

“Never did I say to anyone that she had died of fright. My first thought, when I was standing in the door, was that she had fainted.  A moment later, I saw that she was dead.  I went downstairs, and told the people in the kitchen that Mrs Borden had been killed by the same instrument, I thought, and that it was fortunate for Lizzie she had been out of the way, or else she would also have been killed.”

For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. Featured image credit: Netflix