1. "300 AXE MURDERS AND THE BORDEN CASE"
Posted by charlie on Oct-13th-03 at 2:36 AM

This is sort of a continuation of a conversation Kat and I have going in the SECOND STREET SECOND SHOP (What do we think of this?). I thought it best to move it here seeing how it is no longer dealing with Lizzie items.

OK Kat, I'll give you a bit of my take on axe murders. For starters, there seem to be only two types of axe murders. The first one is an act of rage. This is the husband who becomes so furious, rather suddenly, and hacks his wife to death. The murder wasn't planned, it just happened. Another example might be the burglar who is discovered committing the crime and to cover the crime, starts killing. There are loads of scenarios but the overriding concept is that little or no planning went into the murder. Often the murderer was drunk. With axes and hatchets so readily available (everyone had a wood shed or at the very least a pile of wood out back where an axe and a hatchet would be easy to locate), the choice of an axe or a hatchet made sense because it was so handy. In all of these cases, once the killing begins, the killing continues until the murderer has accomplished his/her goal. There was no "down time" between murders if there were multiple victims. Many times, whole families were wiped out. It was also quite common for these enraged killers to, when they came down from their rage, to realize what they've done, and kill themselves.

The second is the real cold killer. This is the person who might have killed before, has no regard for human life and will kill for surprisingly little reward. Examples would be a guy who breaks into a house and kills everyone, then takes his time looting the place. He often didn't even know his victims and didn't care. I think Robinson said something during Lizzie's trial about the killer's blood running black (or words to that effect). Well, he was right. The person who killed the Borden's was of this second variety.

Often these killers are said to have been cruel as youngsters, often cruel to animals which was frowned upon back then just as it is today. They were usually described in the most unfavorable way even prior to the murders, real bad boys, worthless characters (to call someone worthless back then was a supreme insult). They were also sometimes drifters or tramps (the 19th century equivalent to homeless people or hobos) which made them hard to catch. In this respect, they might well have been serial killers.

Beyond that, axe and hatchet murders were terribly bloody. To suggest that Lizzie had a clue as to what angle to attack, or where on the body to strike so to minimize the splattering of the blood is ridiculous. The idea that she hacked her fathers face to pieces because she wanted to erase his existence due to incest is equally unlikely because nearly all axe and hatchet attacks, where the killer has the element of surprise, were to the head and Andrew just happened to be face up at the time. If the blows were to the upper torso or elsewhere on the body, it was usually because the intended victim took evasive action. Hitting a moving target with an axe or a hatchet is a little more difficult and while usually still successful, is also far more messy.

Based on my study of over 300 different axe murders, most of them taking place in the second half of the 19th century, Lizzie didn't do it. Besides the lack of a murder weapon (the murderer took it with him), lack of blood and frankly, an insufficient motive, there has never been any known prior indication that she had any of the characteristics needed to commit a double murder.

The notion that the Borden's were killed with multiple strikes doesn't mean it was Lizzie either. Few axe/hatchet murders incorporated single blows. Knowing when you have struck enough to know the victim is dead can be a little tricky. The Borden case was truly a case of overkill (pardon the pun) but most axe murders involved excessive numbers if blows. It could be a case that the killer enjoyed the act of killing and each blow was a treat.

Going against Lizzie however, the idea that a woman couldn't have been the killer has been pretty well disproved. Women were well versed at chopping wood. A fire had to be started every morning to prepare breakfast and only the most privileged women would have never chopped wood. I would imagine they tended to be pretty good at it, having done it all of their lives. In fact, women account for about a third of all axe murders in my collection. This fact however, doesn't mean that Lizzie did it, it simply means that one of the sex could have done it. And most, if not all female axe murderers were of the lower classes. To suggest that Lizzie couldn't have done it because of her social position, might very well have been accurate. She might not have been living a lavish lifestyle but she was still pretty far up there on the sccial/economic ladder.

As for the motives of women axe murderers? For single women it was usually for love. Rejected by a suitor, they'd killed him or her competition. For married women, the victim was usually their husbands and the motive would be either money or self defense. By self defense I don't mean the husband and wife went at each other with weapons. It was usually that the woman feared that her husband was getting ready to kill her. In one case the husband stated to his wife while he was getting dressed in the morning that as soon as he got dressed, he was going to kill her. His wife decapitated him with an axe as he ate breakfast.

Another angle here is the attempts at covering up the crime. Women in particular, seem to have been more likely to try to cover up their crime. After killing their husband, step son, neighbor, etc., they often tried to dispose of the body by burying it, or, surprisingly, they seem to fairly often dump it down an old well. Then they would set about scrubbing the blood off the floors, walls, etc. The bodies in the wells seem to have always been discovered because people just naturally like to look into wells, even old, forgotten wells. Some women tried to make the death look like an accident by throwing the body out a window or down the stairs but that never seemed to work.

Anyway, the cleanup of the crime scene always proved more difficult than anticipated. Often it was their undoing. In Lizzie's case, cleaning the crime scene wasn't an option anyway.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about the Borden case is that the murderers took place 90 minutes (= or -) apart. That seems to really point to a cold blooded killer, not a suddenly enraged daughter. For Lizzie to have become so enraged that she killed her stepmother, then maintained that rage for an hour and a half, then killed her father, seems impossible. And, for Lizzie to kill Abby in a rage, then come down from the rage and conduct herself in a reasonably normal manner, then become enraged again when Andrew got home? Well, I'm convinced that that is too convenient of an explanation. Beyond that, she would have to come down from that rage almost immediately after killing Andrew and summon Bridget and start playing the roll of the victims daughter. It is all just too far beyond normal human ability and despite attempts to make Lizzie appear abnormal, she conducted herself in a very normal manner for her entire life, complete with rather normal oddities. She exhibited no true signs of bizarre behavior. By the way, millions of otherwise normal people shoplift and millions of women have female friends without being gay.

Now, based on all the axe murders I know, I can't tell you who killed the Borden's but I can say that Lizzie didn't do it. Neither did Bridget, Emma, Dr. Bowen, Mrs. Churchill, etc. The killer was one of those "black blooded" characters. He could have simply been an intruder, or a "hired gun", a mental patient, who knows? His name and identity has long been lost to the ages and, in my opinion, will never be known. The trail has long since gone cold, real cold.

About the closest theory that makes any sense base on other similar murders is the Billy Borden theory. The idiot illegitimate son who decides to dispatch both of the old folks but has nothing against Lizzie so he lets her live. The only problem with that is the existence of this son is unproven and DNA samples are a little had to come by after 110 years. Besides that, there were hundreds, if not thousands of Borden's in Massachusetts in the 1890s.

As for the gruesome nature of axe murders? They were pretty awful and an axe murder was far more likely to be reported in the newspaper than, say, a stabbing or a shooting. There were something like 6600 reported murders in 1892 and while axe murders accounted for a very small percentage, they were still happening fairly regularly. The reason the Borden case received the lions share of press coverage is because of the social status of the Borden name. Had it been Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Smith that had been hacked to death, the case would have received little notice outside of Fall River. It is also likely that the police wouldn't have been under as much pressure and Lizzie wouldn't have even been arrested.

I could go on and on, sighting specific examples of these murders as they relate to the Borden case. There really are a lot of them with striking similarities. By the way, I've written all of this off the top of my head. I really haven't spent any time reviewing the cases I've got in a couple years. I've kept all this stuff as a project for when I'm old a gray.

I should also mention that in the collection there are about 25 other axe murders in 1892 that I know of, many in New England. Who knows, maybe the Borden murderer committed a few of those too.

One further note, in 1893, a girl named Lizzie Bender, killed her sister in Bordentown, NJ just a day short of the one year anniversary of the Borden murders. When I mentioned that several years ago in the old message board, someone suggested that psychologically disturbed people are often very aware of anniversaries. How bout that?

Wow, Charlie, very interesting points you've made!
Thanks for your take on things.

I had heard that the woman who murders with an axe would probably be of the lower classes.  Lizzie was raised, not quite as lower class, but certainly in a crowded envoirnment, from humble roots.  She quit school and so there is another less *classy* element about her.  I think any social class she had, she had to go find out about it on her own, other than the monetary handouts of Andrew.
Bridget seems to fit your description:  Low class, strong, probably used hatchets/axes, though she claimed only once in that house to fix the heel of her shoe.  Bridget could very well be lying about that.
Motive has always been a problem in my mind, because the house deed was remote to the murders as a festering motive of Lizzie, and I can't think of one for Bridget.
But we have to admit they both were there and I think it's pretty certain it was someone staying in the house or had visited often.  The whole kill  was too clean, quiet -and the killer was too invisibe.
Bridget agreed her dress was damp, she was probably disheveled (my supposition if she cleaned windows), and visably upset.
She seems to fit the axe-murderess description, besides which she vomitted in the yard long about the time Abby was killed.
I can't find a motive...

A *visitor* as murderer will always keep it's valuable position in the list of likely suspects.


That was a wonderful post, thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Thank you Charlie, very interesting and well written comments and
i agree with you.  It had to be a hired hit, you said it so well,
how could Lizzie be in rage one minute, then be fine, then be in another rage when Dad gets home, impossible. 

Well, it could be a cold hit by a family member.
The thing about hiring an outside assassin is where's the money?
I'd think that Andrew's fortune would be watched pretty closely by the state and everyone, waiting for a large withdrawl.  A rumored pay-out of a large sum to Bridget would also catch the attention of authorities.
I think the estate was largely property;  sales there could be tracked as well.
*Following The Money* was the big drawback for me in contemplating a hired hit.

I guess the only way that would work is if there was some large sum of money drawn out some time before the murders happened and stashed about the house. 

Nero, I think simplifying it to "rage, fine, rage" in order to naysay it is misleading.

I think we're talking "keep swinging until we're sure she's REALLY, REALLY, REALLY dead" then recover and clean up, and then either:

1) Get dressed to go out, get surprised by Father's arrival, and realize he's got to be taken care of - therefore, the second murder is NOT predicated on "rage," but necessity.  Note smaller number of strokes, too.

OR

2) Either as above, or Lizzie actually waits for Father, and, when Maggie is out of earshot, words ensue (Andrew doesn't buy the "Abby had a note" story?  Lizzie's acting weirder than usual?) and Lizzie charges in and attacks Andrew.

In any case, Lizzie, as indicated by the inquest, seemed to me to be quite a cool customer, who could've committed both of these murders, even in varying scenarios, with down-time in-between; but this doesn't mean she was "fine."  When she had to face her servant and her father, she was probably able to convincingly act as though it were just another day and there was no corpse upstairs.  Then again, as I've posited, maybe she fooled Maggie, but not Father!       

ADDENDUM:  Choice of weapon!  If we theorize that Lizzie did indeed intend to kill Abby that very morning, could she have been smart enough to use a masculine weapon like a hatchet, thinking it would help to disguise the gender of the killer?

(Message last edited Oct-14th-03  4:32 PM.)

My Ace Hardware man said that to me!
A man's weapon to throw off suspicion of a lady.

Harry mentioned to me future blackmail possibilities, as well, in a hit-man situation.  That's more monies to be followd!

yes, a cold hit "in the family", Uncle John hiring his roomate the
Butcher to do the job?

How do they keep him quiet and how do they protect themselves from blackmail, do you have an idea?
(I hadn't really thought about blackmail until recently)

You can read Arnold R Brown's book (between the lines, since not all of the original 1100 pages were published) for your answers.
If Brown couldn't prove his theory, neither could the 1893 officials (who were around at the time and had state power to use).

This is one of the best, if not the best, messages posted here in a long, long time. Congratualtions!!!

Has anyone ever heard of the Borden jury holding a reunion in Nov. 1898? It was described as a "remarkable gathering" and "unprecedented in the history of the state." Seems to me it's another really weird feature of this case.

Haven't heard of a reunion Charlie but they did present Lizzie with a photograph of themselves in July 1893.  Lizzie was reported as not being home and Emma accepted it.  (Rebello, p265+)

The Grand Jury however did hold a reunion, at least 11 of them anyway, in December 1893.  (Rebello, p268+)

That would be an interesting find if anyone has access to it.

Well Harry, it's always nice to come up with something new, even if it is a small item. Here is the original newspaper article from the Bridgeport (Conn.) Morning Telegram, Tuesday November 3, 1898.



Really makes you wonder what was going through their heads when getting together. Maybe they realized that it was their service on the jury was destined to be their only claim to fame.

(Message last edited Nov-7th-03  2:58 PM.)

That's great Charlie!  And it made me check my clippings where I found a similar article that was in the NY Times dated Nov. 3, 1898:



I wonder if they sent Lizzie a picture of that gathering.

(Message last edited Nov-7th-03  11:03 AM.)

Harry, do you have the New York Times on microfilm?

So, what did these jurors talk about? By this time, public opinion had swayed against Lizzie. Makes you wonder if any of the jurors had come to doubt themselves. They remind me of veterans from a war, reliving past excitement.

Fascinating stuff. Thanks Charlie!

No, Charlie, I don't have any microfilm files.  I do have, however,  quite a collection of Borden material accumulated over the years. 

I've picked up newspaper articles here and there and they are saved in .jpg format.  Because of that they are not searchable by text and I had forgotten all about that particular item until you posted the newspaper view.  I don't have too many newspaper articles except for the New Bedford Evening Standard which I transcribed into digital format. I also have a Rochester, NY paper digitized.

WHO added the text on top of that drawing?
I'll bet it wasn't original!

  Good one, Charlie!  Thanks for the laugh, Happy early Thanksgiving to you too. 

Thanks Charlie!  That was ceative!

Nice one Charlie.  You should add some pigeons!

Oh Yes!  It's Dr. Handy's Pale-Faced Man!

That was fun Charlie, thank you!

Good one, Charlie!    That looks like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals behind the snowman.