1. "The Pear Cores"
Posted by Lola on May-12th-03 at 3:36 PM

Here's a basic (and possibly lame) question that I'm putting out for your feedback:

Have you ever had discussion about the pear cores? Lizzie said she was outside eating pears, inside the barn eating pears. Pears! Pears! Pears! Where's the dang cores? Did she eat the entire pear? Just curious. Shouldn't there have been pear cores laying around somewhere?

Sorry, if this is a ridiculous question, but it's bugging the heck out of me. 

This is a family whose head of the house emptied his slops in the yard; I somehow think it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, if Lizzie really ate those pears, that the cores ended up in the yard as well, either tossed from the loft, or dropped on the ground as Lizzie returned to the house.

Yes, but don't you think someone would have looked for them? I mean, this was her alibi, after all.

I've always thought it was odd they didn't search for
them too. But, I guess by the time Lizze was considered
a suspect enough hours (minutes?) had passed and they
could have been finished by rats or birds, or perhaps
the friendly neighborhood possum.

No, Lola, definitely not a ridiculous question.  What you say is true, it was Lizzie's alibi, yet, no one seemed concerned to look for those pear cores at all.  And, it was never asked of her, where did you dispose of the said pear cores when through?  If she did actually eat any pears, they could have been tossed in the yard, in a trash barrel in the yard, down the privy out back, in the waste can in the kitchen?  I don't think the kitchen stove would have been an option, too wet to burn those cores.  Ooo, or possibly down the old well in front of the barn that was no longer in use. 

Lizzie was probably too lazy to go to all the trouble
of properly disposing of her finished pears -- I picture
her wandering around dropping stuff as she goes -- like
dirt falling off of Pigpen. Can't you just see her shuffling
around the barn sighing at the heat & lack of sinkers & her
miserable life?

Maybe I watch CSI too much, but it seems like the FR police did nothing to secure the crime scene - people were all over that house. Is "securing" the scene a relatively new technique? Does anyone know? It just seems like they would question Lizzie and Bridget, separately, after they'd secured the scene. Then wouldn't someone have immediately checked out their alibis? If so, wouldn't they have looked for those pear cores? I mean, she ate 6 or 7 pears, didn't she? (Which in itself is kind of curious)It's just surprising to me that it never once came up at the inquest, trial, etc. The pear cores, or lack of cores, seems like strong evidence to me.

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I value your opinions so much!

That reminds me -- has anyone heard those stories about
President McKinley (right?) after he was shot having his
wounds poked at by everyone trying to get the bullets out?

At Lizzie's Inquest, pg. 68, she says she was eating a pear in the kitchen when Andrew came home.

Pg. 75, Lizzie says she ate 3 pears in the barn...
Minimum=4 pears eaten, but in different places.

Also, tho, Morse claims he was eating pears in the yard when he returned from Weybosset St.

If Lizzie threw the pear cores into the yard, they could hardly have been used for evidence.

Don't forget about the mob that over ran the Borden property that day. I'm sure many of them were not above eating a pear or two and tossing the cores on the ground.

All of this is assuming Lizzie was in the barn that morning.  I don't think she was. Her story was part of her alibi.

I thought of Lizzie's pear consumption when I started that thread about modern forensics.  William's right about the fact that there were probably many pear cores in the Borden yard within an hour or so after the murders.  I suppose if the police had been very thorough AND had modern DNA analysis on their side, they could have sent someone out with a bucket to pick up all the pear cores in the yard, then taken them to the lab and analyzed them to see if Lizzie's saliva was on any of them.  Even if they had done so, however, what would a positive result have proved?  So she ate some pears that morning.  That still doesn't mean she wasn't the murderer, does it?
And if none of the cores in the yard tested positive, that wouldn't necessarily prove she didn't eat pears, because she might have deposited the cores elsewhere.  It might have made more sense to simply ask her what she did with the cores after she ate all those pears.  Her answer could have been illuminating.

All those pears!  Hmm! The police could've observed how many times Lizzie had to use the slop jar or privy that afternoon, after all that roughage!

In answer to a question above, no, the idea of securing the crime scene, in the sense that we understand it, was not SOP in those days. 

Also, aside from Harrington, it doesn't seem like Lizzie was suspected by the rest of the police very early on.  The young lady of the house was to be treated delicately (flea-bites, and all!).  Recall how, at the trial, Robinson tried to make a rather ordinary and expected questioning of Lizzie by Medley (I think it was he) look like an intrusion and insult.  Remember?  I'll paraphrase (I'm not home w/my books): "What would you do if a man, I don't care if he had blue on him, spoke to your daughter or wife that way...?"

Good job, defender, but a really nasty degrading of a man doing his job.  Who else was he suppose to interview?  Abby?  "M'a'm, do you mind if we move this bed?"

Bear in mind, unlike these days when the police assume a domestic slaying most often points to a spouse or relative (I quote my brother, an NYPD cop), the parade of officers and doctors and God-know-who-all in that house were taking Lizzie at her word that day; an unknown assailant had done away with the old folks...

...well, maybe not Harrington!  

Perhaps the presence of pear cores would not be evidence, but wouldn't the lack of them be? If the house had been secured, all evidence would have been preserved and nothing could have been attributed to the mob outside. If the scene were secured and no pear cores were found anywhere on the property, wouldn't this have been very damaging to Lizzie? If she was innocently eating pears at the time of the murders, wouldn't she have innocently disposed of the cores as well? So where the heck were they? Including the one she ate in the kitchen? Curiouser and curiouser.

Thanks for your thoughts - great fun.

Uncle John admitted to eating a few pears when he returned. So there must have been some there. Is this relevant to guilt or innocence?

I think it is. No one believes that Lizzie was in the barn eating pears. I think a lack of pear cores could be damaging to her. Am I the only one who thinks this? If so, I'll let it go.

Well, you might want to let it go, Lola! 

No one had the presence of mind to ask the lady where and how she disposed of the said pear cores and then go and check the physical evidence, so it's a tantalizing proposition that might occur to those of us who love procedurals, but as far as the FRPD that day, nope.  And they needn't even have been as "muddle-headed" as later alleged by the press; they were just following their training and minding their manners.

If you've been reading along, you know I don't even think anymore that Lizzie's "clean, white" hands mean anything one way or the other, since there was no moment-by-moment testimony elicited to tell us if she casually rinsed her sticky, dusty hands after returning from the barn (much less, carefully rinsed off her father's blood), and she certainly never volunteered this mundane information.

There are just so many things we're never going to know for sure, and so many things that the investigators back then didn't think to pursue or, maybe, were a little afraid to...  

(Message last edited May-13th-03  4:59 PM.)

ain't it the truth!

Am not sure that the pears were considered by the police as an important issue. I don't remember off the top of my head when Lizzie first mentioned eating the pears in the barn, whether it was during an interview with the police upstairs Aug. 4 or at the inquest itself.
The police turned over all the hay upstairs in the barn, but looking for a weapon or a person at that time.  If Lizzie had tossed them there no one would have known later because at the time they weren't looking for them there. There could have been a trash recepticle in the barn too.  She most likely tossed them into the yard rather than carrying them inside to throw away in the kitchen. Good point someone else mentioned about the other people walking about the yard who also would have picked up and eaten pears there, not to mention the man from the Crowe yard who jumped the tree and got a pear. To me it is an aspect of the case but does not have significance as to whether she did or did not murder the Borden's. There would be no way the police could have identified the cores she ate and tossed from anyone else's.  But it is a question I have pondered myself along with everyone else. I also wonder if by eating a pear Lizzie meant taking a bite or two out of them not consuming the whole thing.

Lola, there were men who looked for footprints in the grass, at least, if not for pear cores:

Trial
Cummings  [he called the police]
424+
Q.  Who went with you?
A.  Mr. Manning and Mr. Stevens.
Q.  Are they reporters of two different newspapers in Fall River?
A.  Yes, sir, one from the Globe, the other from the News.
Q.  Describe what you did after you got in to the Borden premises.
A.  I walked up to the front of the house, passed the front gate, and jumped over the front fence, and the other two gentlemen followed me.
Q.  Go on and describe what you did then.
A.  We went round the south side of the house, that is near Dr. Kelly's,---went in between the Borden house and the doctor's house in the yard.
Q.  What was the character of the ground there?
A.  Well, before we stepped in we noticed that there were no foot-prints in the grass, and the grass was a little deep, and we looked around through the grass thinking we might find something, which we did not.
Q.  Where did you then go?
A.  Round the back part of the house.
Q.  What did you do at the back part of the house?
A.  Looked round the back part of the yard.
Q.  Did you see anything?
A.  Did not, no, sir.
Q.  Did you do anything else?
A.  In the back part of the house?
Q.  Yes, what did you do?
A.  Tried the cellar door.
Q.  How was it?
A.  It was locked.
Q.  What did you then do?
A.  Well, we continued looking through the yard there for a few minutes and did not see anything out of the way and went round the same way we started from.
...............
428
Q.  You say that was a grass plot all round there running way back to the pear trees?
A.  Yes, sir.
Q.  You saw the pear trees?
A.  Yes, sir.
Q.  Did you see any marks of foot steps around the pear trees?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Did not?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Didn't look for any?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Why not?  Didn't see any marks of any one travelling there?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Not a bit?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Did you look along in the grass by the Kelly fence to see if there were any marks of any passing through that grass?
A.  Yes, sir.
Q.  Did not see any?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Did you know Bridget walked across that grass along that plot that morning to see if she could see anything there?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Did not know anything of that?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Did not know anything of her or the man, John Morse, being in that yard?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  You could not see anything in the grass which would indicate that any person had been through there?
A.  No, sir.
Q.  Did you look very carefully?
A.  Yes, sir.
Q.  You were really hunting for the criminal, weren't you?
A.  Yes, sir.

--Why didn't these men see the marks of Bridget's window washing?  The water splashes and her footprints?  (I think Muriel Arnold asks this question?)

lola:

no, you're right to wonder about this.  this is something knowlton missed.  he should have asked her what she did with the pear cores after eating them (3, i think) because if she really did eat them up there she would remember this.  this is another thing that slipped by, just like that "chip" of something she brought back from the barn (a sinker? no? well, what, and what for?)

David Kent's "40 Whacks" gives his timed re-enactment of LAB's trips according to the testimony. There wasn't enough time to go up to the back of the barn. ASSUMING her recall of the times were accurate. No wristwatches then, and no reason then to take to-the-second note.

I believe that LAB's first testimony was accurate (backyard eating pears). When she realized this could make her a witness against Nemesis, she changed the story (w/ JVM/s help?) to put her out of sight and unavailable as a witness against Nemesis.

AR Brown notes that the first thing they did on the new house was to put IRON BARS on all the first floor windows! Very unusual in those times for that neighborhood, Brown says.

Perhaps this is just a minor and irrelevant detail, especially if the presence of fresh pear cores was noted at the time. An unpublished detail?

An "unpublished detail" may be right.

Following a suggestion on this thread and elsewhere, I did a search to find out exactly when the pears were mentioned by Lizzie.

I'll state where I looked:

Witness Statements - No
Early Knowlton Letters - No
Evening Standard News Items - No
Rochester Papers - No
"Various Papers" - No
Bowen, all testimonies - No
Bridget, all - No
Churchill, all - No
Emma, all - No
Morse, all - No  (only his own pear consumption)
Alice, all - No
Dolan, all - No
Prelim. pts. 3/4/5 - No
Trial pt. 1 - No  > everybody else
Trial Pt. 2 - No  >    "

--That seems to indicate that Lizzie first mentioned the pear-eating at the Inquest.  Therefore the officials would not know to check the yard or barn for pear cores Thursday...unless this *pear-fact* of Lizzie's was known at the time, but not written in a statement anywhere that we have access to.

The next time those pears are alluded to is in Robinson's closing argument at the trial.  And this is a feat of mouth-manship, as far as MY opinion goes!

Trial, Robinson Closing, 1661+
"Now she told about her visit to the barn, and they undertake to tell you that she did not go out to the barn. Now let us see about it. They say that is another lie. We have got so we know what the small words in the English language mean in the idea of the Commonwealth. We can get rid of three letters pretty quick, but you cannot dispose of the facts. Now let's see about that. Did she go to the yard or the barn?  She told them she did, and they bring it in here and they say she could not have gone to the yard or the barn.  Now let us see whether she did or not. If she did go out to the yard or the barn, then she was there, upon her own showing, at the time when the murder of her father was committed. You see that. That will end the case if you see it. Now Bridget Sullivan said, 'I went right over to Dr. Bowen's, and when I came back I asked her "Miss Lizzie, where was you?" I says, "Didn't I leave the screen door hooked?" She says, "I was out in the back yard and heard a groan and came in, and the screen door was wide open.'" '

Now that is what Lizzie told Bridget right off. I am going to talk about going to the barn, and by and by talk about the groan---take them separately. Now she says that she went out into the yard, you understand. What did they have in the yard? Pear trees. That is the evidence, and the evidence that in the partially digested contents of the stomachs pear skins were found. Bridget says Mr. Borden had been out and had brought in a basket of pears, and they had those in abundance. You saw the trees: the neighbors saw the trees; Patrick McGowan saw them and got up on one of them and helped himself. We know that: there is no lie about that. This was an August morning, and it appeared that before this time Lizzie had been ironing---had been around the kitchen trying to iron some handkerchiefs. No doubt about that. She had been in and out about her work. She tells us she had been out in the yard. That was true, we will say, upon that statement.

Now Dr. Bowen said, 'Where have you been?' Her reply was, 'In the barn, looking for some irons,' or 'iron.' Now both can be reasonably true, can't they?
She could not get into the barn unless she went into the yard, naturally, and that she should stop there by the trees five or ten minutes is perfectly consistent. Does that look unreasonable? Do you not see families out in the yard, strolling about in your own yards, stopping under the trees, sitting under the trees, especially when they have a right to have a little leisure? "

--Blah, blah, blah, yes he sort of earned his fee...
--It seems like her council needs Lizzie to be in the yard after pears, to explain her first story of being in the yard.  He says *What's IN the yard?  WHY, Pear Trees!*
Oh that explains EVERYTHING!  My gosh, why didn't we see this sooner!?  [NOT!]
Why, because Robinson believes there is pear skin in the stomachs, and there are trees!  Therefore Lizzie was eating pears...
--Anyway.  We may end up discounting pears as first story after all.  Unless Hilliard Papers has anything in there like more in-depth witness statements.
--Lizzie had 5 days to think up the pear story as to why she was loitering in the back yard.
--Don't know why this would be meaningful.  Lizzie herself sounds odd when she claims she was just standing around out there in the yard gazing around for 5 minutes.
". I think I was under there very nearly four or five minutes. I stood looking around. I looked up at the pigeon house that they have closed up. It was no more than five minutes, perhaps not as long. I can't say sure."  (Inq., 88)

(Message last edited May-18th-03  2:58 AM.)

Good points Kat.  Also, there were pears already inside the house so why should she go out in the yard to pick some to eat off of the ground? Lizzie was hardly the one to exert herself.

Did they bother washing the picked up pears before eating back then? With Andrew throwing his slops all over the yard I sure hope so. Hopefully the ones inside were already washed.

I think the pear story is just that, a story, part of her alibi to help explain why she spent so much time in the barn. Eating pears in a hot, dirty, closed in barn is just as ludicrous as looking for lead to make a one or two cent sinker.

Thanks, Kat, that was excellent!  It appears that you have covered all the bases. 

Thanks for all that work, Kat. 

So at least some of us have labored under the delusion that Lizzie used the pears as part of her alibi when she was initially questioned.  And now there appears to be no basis for this. 

I did a 'quick and dirty search' through book sources to see if any authors show Lizzie referring to the pears prior to the Inquest. But  found nothing in Kent, Lincoln, DeMille,Porter, Sullivan, Radin, Spiering, Brown, or Pearson. 

Just as a sidelight -- Arnold Brown claims that Robinson (in his closing statement) and Dewey (in his charge to the jury) both said Lizzie ate the pears in the yard and not in the barn: 

"In her only testimony at the inquest, Lizzie said she was in the barn. And yet in the closing arguments at the superior court trial, the defense stated as fact that Lizzie was under the pear tree when her father was murdered. As a follow-up to this, in his charge to the jury, Justice Dewey also said that Lizzie was outside the house sitting in the shade of a pear tree calmly eating pears when Andrew Borden was being hacked to death." (Brown,125)

I did find the pear tree in Robinson's closing. However, word search didn't help me find any reference to "pears" in Dewey's charge to the jury.  [Could just be my methods, though.  They're always fairly suspect.]




 

I may be a bit slow today (I'm back at work after a few days fighting a stomach virus), but I just got it - so, even if Fall River's cops were on the order of Arsene Lupin or Sherlock Holmes, they wouldn't have thought to check for pear remnants, because Lizzie never mentioned pears until the Inquest the following week!

And then, of course, she used those pears to confuse and frustrate Knkowlton, didn't she?  

Clever Lizzie!

I've always wondered, especially after reading Edward Woods' testimony in the trial, just what kind of pears were growing in the Borden's backyard?

From the Trial Volume 2, page 992/i13:

"In addition to this there were a large number of vegetable pulp cells which resembled those of some fruit, or a pulpy vegetable such as a boiled potato, or an apple or pear, and there was also an undigested skin of a vegetable or fruit, one piece which I have removed and have there. (Indicating something in hand.) It looks like the red skin of an apple or pear."

So the pears in the Borden's yard were red?  I have always pictured them as green.  Did a little search on pears and here is what I have found:

Clapp or Clapp's Favorite pears originated in Massachusetts around 1850. It is a large, oval, greenish-yellow pear with a little bit of a red blush. It resembles the Bartlett in size, shape, color and flavor, although it may be grainy and gritty. It has good flavor but storage life is very short.

Anjou pears have their origins from France and were introduced to the United States in about 1842. There are two Anjou varieties: green skinned and red skinned. Both are medium in size with a round shape and a short neck. They both share a quite juicy and sweet flavor with a slight tannic taste.

Bartlett pears were introduced to the United States in 1797 from Europe. It is usually a medium to large fruit with a classic pear shape. It ripens to bright yellow and gives off a lovely aroma. Sweet and juicy, the Bartlett is perfect for eating out of hand but is also an excellent canning pear. There is also a red Bartlett variety that has a bright red skin when ripe. Other than color, the red Bartlett has the same characteristics as the yellow Bartlett.

Bosc pears have their origin in Belgium and were introduced to the United States in 1832. It is a rather large variety with a long, tapering neck and long stem. Color ranges from deep yellow to dark tan, and the skin often has a russet look. The Bosc has a sweet taste, but is not particularly juicy. Its dense flesh makes it ideal for cooking, especially baking or poaching.

Comice pears are a French variety discovered in about 1849. It has a stubby, almost round shape with green skin and often a significant red blush on one cheek. Considered the king of the pears because of its extreme juiciness and sweetness, the Comice is the variety most often found in holiday gift boxes. With its delicate nature it is not recommended for cooking however, Comice pears are excellent eaten raw, or served paired with cheese as a dessert.

Seckel pears, developed in about 1800, are a small variety with a dull green cast and often have red highlights. It is very sweet with a somewhat grainy texture since it is a hybrid of European and Asian pears. Seckel pears are the variety most often found in home orchards.

There are a few more varieties, but, they are newer and wouldn't have been around in the 1890s and they didn't have any red color in the skin.  Any ideas anyone? 

Thanks a Bunch, Susan!

I think William told me the lot across the street had an apple orchard, at Miller/Bowen.  Maybe Andrew swapped apples for pears?
(And I never believed the banana's).
If there were potatoes in the breakfast mish-mash, maybe they were those little red ones, unpeeled?

(Message last edited May-21st-03  10:47 PM.)

You're welcome.  Still wonder if those pears were red or green?  If that was an apple or pear skin?  Obviously, finding out won't solve anything, as always, I'm just curious. 

As I understand it, pears freshly picked usually have to stand a few days to ripen to softness.

Did Brown or Kent note that bananas were a luxury fruit in those days?

Rays, my understanding of what I read on the pear sites I visited was that pears are almost always picked off the tree and left to ripen.  If left to ripen on the tree, it gives them a gritty, grainy texture to the fruit.  And, it does sound as though Andrew was picking them up off the ground, they must have ripened on the trees.

Who was it that mentioned bananas at the breakfast table, was it John Morse?  I think Lizzie too had mentioned something about eating half a banana.  From a quick search I did, bananas were not known in the United States until the 1870s and 28 years later Americans were consuming over 16 million bunches a year.  Bananas were sold for 10 cents apiece wrapped in tin foil at a celebration in Pennsylvania in 1876 to commerorate the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Couldn't find out much more than this, but, apparently bananas started as a slave food, became a rich man's food, and then became known as a poor man's fruit.

Go here:  http://ak.essortment.com/bananasconflict_rzpa.htm

A quick history of bananas and the first person who sold them in the United States, a sea captain from Massachusetts!   

(Message last edited May-22nd-03  9:28 PM.)

My banana's came with 2 banner pop ups.
Anyway, I had seen on a T.V. show about banana's that the tree itself is an HERB...because the stalk is hollow.
And that the fruit does not just grow automatically it has to be cross-pollinated or spliced or tended in some way.
Is there info on that ..if it's true?

I'm not sure, would need to do a more thorough search and yes, did read that banana trees being an herb.  I've met a few people that have planted banana trees out here and as far as I know, after a certain amount of years they are just supposed to start growing bananas.  I will have to check into it.  Earlier I was curious as to Rays statement about the bananas, being the rich man's fruit, had to check on that.  Now, need to find out about this or I think I'll just go bananas.