Author Talk with Cara Robertson

Fall River Community Media recorded this talk at a free event sponsored by the Friends of the Fall River Public Library on 1 August 2019 and placed it on the Internet Archive with captions. Cara Robertson, a lawyer, had just published The Trial of Lizzie Borden, drawing on court transcripts, newspaper coverage and previously unpublished first-hand accounts, including newly discovered letters from Lizzie herself.

The recording joins her talk partway through, as she describes the legal teams and the crowds of reporters who descended on New Bedford for the trial in June 1893. She explains how the jury was chosen, the defence argument that a woman could not have carried out such a crime, prosecution evidence the court kept out – including an alleged attempt to buy poison the day before – and how the press read Lizzie’s composure and her fainting in court. Robertson gives her own view before taking questions about the inquest testimony, the burned dress, the handleless hatchet, motives and later theories.

Every ghost story told at the Borden house rests on this case, and this talk is a sober corrective to the legend. Robertson works from the trial record, explains why the jury acquitted – key evidence was excluded and the prosecution never closed the gap of reasonable doubt – and is clear that her own conclusion is an opinion, not a verdict.

The questions from a hometown audience show how alive the case still is in Fall River, with theories about the uncle, the maid and family secrets. This is a community-access recording, so picture and sound are basic, and it begins after the talk had already started.