Gentlemen, that is a tremendous fact. It is a controlling fact in this case. It is the key of the case. Why do I say that? Because the murderer of this man was the murderer of Mrs. Borden. It was the malice against Mrs. Borden that inspired the assassin. It was Mrs. Borden whose life that wicked person sought, and all the motive that we have to consider, all we have to say about this case, bears on her. It is a tremendous fact for another thing, a significant fact for another thing. We are driven to the alternative of finding that there was a human being who had the unparalleled audacity to penetrate that house when the entire family were in and about it, so far as he knew, to pursue his murderers with a deadly weapon in his hand, to the furthest corner of the house, and there to select an innocent and unoffending old lady for his first victim, and then lie in wait until the family should, all get together an hour and a half later that he might kill the other one.
This murderer was no fool: he was obedient to craft and cunning. He could not forsee that Bridget would go upstairs. He could not forsee that Lizzie would go to the barn. He might have known from the habits of Andrew Borden that he would come back, but it would be back to a house full of people—Morse might come at any time: he knew not when Emma might come. He was waiting for the family to assemble, this man who committed this deed. It was no sudden act of a man coming in and out. It was the act of a person who spent the forenoon in this domestic establishment, killing the woman at her early work and waiting till the man returned for his noon-day meal in order that he could be killed when everybody would be likely to be around him. It is a tremendous fact, Mr. Foreman. It appears in this case from the beginning to end. She had not an enemy in the world. You and I sometimes have our jars and discords. Andrew J. Borden had had his little petty quarrels with his tenants, nothing out of the ordinary, but Mrs. Abby Durfee Borden had not an enemy in all the world. There she lay bleeding, dead, prone by the hand of an assassin. Somebody went up there to kill her. In all this universe there could not be found a person who could have had any motive to do it.