The hatchet head in the cellar that never matched the timeline

The cellar was damp and close on the morning of August 4, 1892.

In Fall River, Massachusetts, the bodies of Andrew Jackson Borden and his second wife, Abby Durfee Borden, lay in the house at 92 Second Street.

Andrew was on the sofa in the sitting room, his face nearly split by an axe-like blow.

Abby was upstairs in the guest bedroom, killed by repeated blows from a hatchet or axe.

The murders had happened sometime between roughly 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. on a hot summer morning.

The bodies were found by the couple's adult daughter, Lizzie Andrew Borden, and the Irish maid, Bridget Sullivan.

Down in the cellar, investigators found a hatchet head and a broken handle.

No blood was on them.

No blood, no witness, and no timeline ever placed that hatchet head in anyone's hand.

It was a documented object, found in the house where two people were hacked to death.

It was also the one object that never became the weapon.

The medical examiner testified that the wounds were consistent with a hatchet or axe.

But the murder weapon was never conclusively identified.

The hatchet head is what people still fixate on.

Not because it killed anyone.

Because it was there, in the cellar, so close to the crime, and the record says nothing more.

It is a fact of the case.

It is also a dead end.

THE MORNING OF AUGUST 4

The morning of August 4, 1892, was hot, and the house at 92 Second Street held six people.

Lizzie was there, along with her father Andrew, her stepmother Abby, and the maid Bridget Sullivan.

Abby’s nephew, a visitor staying in the house, was also present that morning.

The murders happened between roughly 9:00 and 11:00 a.m.

Lizzie told police she had been in the barn for about twenty minutes during that window.

The police later noted that her account did not align with the timeline.

Bridget Sullivan was in the house during the estimated time of the killings, and she was accounted for.

Suspicion briefly fell on her, and on an unidentified man seen near the house.

Neither was charged.

The police arrived shortly after the bodies were found.

They failed to secure the crime scene properly, allowing people to walk through the house.

That compromised the forensic evidence.

The medical examiner performed the autopsies and testified that the wounds were consistent with a hatchet or axe.

The murder weapon was never conclusively identified.

The exact movements of each person between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. are not fully established.

The unidentified man was never charged.

That is what the record leaves open.

THE PROSECUTION AND THE DEFENSE

The prosecution built its case on motive and opportunity.

Motive was resentment — resentment over her father’s property arrangements, resentment over her stepmother.

Opportunity was simpler: she was the only person in the house besides Bridget Sullivan, and Bridget Sullivan was accounted for.

That was the structure of the state’s case.

Then the case suffered.

Days before the murders, Lizzie had attempted to purchase prussic acid, a poison.