The Lizzie Borden Society archive

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1. "Bowen Contradicted"
Posted by Kat on May-2nd-02 at 3:07 PM

I'm amazed that Dr. Bowen wasn't IMPEACHED as a witness.
His testimony is all over the place, and contradictory..and THIS is just THE SIMPLE STUFF!  I don't know how he got away with it!
It makes EVerythING he says SUSPECT:

Questioning as to When/where he may have seen Lizzie Wednesday:

Inquest, pg. 116, (Aug.  9- 11, 1892)
(Wednesday) "Lizzie I saw walking up the street."

Preliminary, pg. 408, (Aug. 25- Sept. 1, 1892)
Q: Did you see Lizzie at all that day? (Wednesday)
A: I think not
Q: Out of doors, or in?
A: I do not remember as I did.  I know my wife said she was going up the street, or going down street towards night , that was Miss Lizzie.
Q: You did not see her during the day at all?
A: No sir.  I remember that, because my wife accounted for Mr. Borden being out [by the gate] and Miss Lizzie being out, and I supposed they were all right.

Trial, pg. 297, (June 5- 20, 1893)
Q: On the day preceeding Aug. 4 did you see Miss Lizzie Borden at any time on the street?
A: I saw her after six o'clock--between six and seven o'clock.
Q: Going in which direction?
A: Going north, going down the street.
Q: Going down ?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Did you at any time see her coming up the street ?
A: No, sir.
Q: ...Second street...?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Doctor, you testified at the Inquest, ...?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: That time was very soon after these occurances...?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: ...Inquest...up the street on Wednesday ?
A: No sir;  I did not.
Q: (reads Inquest testimony...)
A: Down the street it should have been.  I made a mistake.


???????


(Message last edited May-2nd-02  3:11 PM.)

No wonder we get confused sometimes studying this case.

The good Doctor Bowen was a bit of a twit, I am confirmed to believe, as everything I read where he is quoted or mentioned as the source the statements are as you point out "all over the place".

Not only that many of his actions are really, excuse the pun, whacked!!  I have read in at least three sources that he actually took several different men to view the bodies.  He asked at least two women if they would "care to see" the bodies.

Gowd!!! What a ghoul. I am inclined to believe that the good Doctor was somewhat out of his gord...maybe the mere sight of two horribly chopped bodies caused him to go ta-ta.

There seems to a lack of testimony that BEFORE the murders he exhibited these peculiar tendencies.  Maybe he suffered some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome...I have seen this effect on humans who have come upon or witnessed multiple trauma on others.

It's not a pretty picture.

BC

And not to mention the letter burning in the kitchen stove the day of the murders, possibly destroying evidence from a crime scene?  The man is whacked!  Maybe he prescribed a bit of Lizzie's morphine for himself? 

Dr Bowen must have had many years experience with dead bodies in various configurations (accidents, etc). So why should he be upset by this one? I haven't read the transcript, but maybe its a misquote? I hope not.
A trial transcript does not record the tone, or the expressions and actions of the witness. You just get the written statement.

Unless this testimony is written down and rehearsed, it will tend to change somewhat over time. "Coaching" the witness?

I just plain think that ole Doc Bowen was a bit of a ghoulish sort. I agree that he must have seen countless bodies, I believe he did surgery as well.  But for some reason or other in the Borden case he went sort of haywire.  I have read in more than one source that he actually "wanted others to view the bodies"...spookie.

And of course there is the matter of the note he tossed in the fire, replying to the police officer, "oh its nothing, something I suppose, something about my daughter" his daughter's name was not Emma, and that was the name visible on the paper by the cop.

BC

And the speed with which he destroyed that note!  If it was nothing (something about his daughter going through somewhere) why wouldn't he let the officer see it?  Yes, it may have been a personal note, but, this was a crime scene.  But, it did allow him to see the burnt up roll of paper in the stove.

Ray, it seemed as if the attorney was ready and waiting for him to step into his own "testimonial trap."  Why else would he have the page # all ready to hand, in order to qualify Bowen's statement.
I think they were too easy on the man.
I think there were more inconsistancies in what he said that got lost in the bigger picture...even to the lawyers.

Dr. Thomas Nogushi's book "Coroner" may be in your library; it is worth reading in itself. He tells about the "gallows humor" that is often used by pathologists in the autopsy room; it is not often shared by the general public. Maybe humor is an attempt to get by in a difficult position? What do you think? Ever listen to doctors during an operation?

I think many posters here are too quick to speculate and imagine the worst about people who died decades before they were born. Are you such gossips in real life? Isn't the 8th Commandment the one most commonly broken in real life? "Thou shalt not bear false witness ...."

(Message last edited May-4th-02  11:12 AM.)

I think what we are trying to accomplish here is to ferret out the "False Witnesses."
That's all we CAN do, this late in the crimes.

I don't know if Dr. Bowen was the morbid type, prompting him to ask others (ladies even in that era) to view the bodies.  I do think he lost it a bit, as many in Fall River I think did that day.  I think Dr. Bowen was really upset.  These were his friends!  He just saw Abby the day before and tried to treat Andrew before he was run off.  I think he was in shock - because his friends were dead and the horrible way in which they were killed.  I think the cops got a bit rattled by it too.  This is a big reason, I think, why mistakes were made that day. 

I've read two of Dr. Noguchi's books.  They are excellent.  Gallows humor is a way to keep your sanity when you deal with death so much.  Good church going women who work funeral luncheons sometimes refer to them as "dead spreads" between themselves.  But I am sure Dr. Bowen was not trying to be funny.  I think the man was stunned.  I also think there was more behind his role than we now know, which we can only hope will be explained some day.

I'm with you, Augusta.  It's easy to get sidetracked on whether Seabury's behavior seems scandalous or ghoulish by our standards, but I think he was genuinely upset by the deaths - hadn't he, just the day before, tried to talk poor Abby Borden out of the notion that someone was trying to do her harm?  Let's go further, and suppose that he knew of the ill-feeling in the family and, even though he reportedly liked Lizzie, that he was already beginning to suspect that something, aside from the presence of the two corpses, was incredibly wrong.  I'm in the camp that thinks that the identity of the murderer was an open secret to Emma, Morse, and Bowen, who huddled together in the best tradition of those stodgy New Englanders to encircle Lizzie.  If it meant burning a note, or lying a bit, so be it.

(It's actually the seemingly out-of-character touches, such as Bowen inviting Addie Churchill in to "come in and see Mr. Borden" that make the case more interesting for me.  People are not only odder than we imagine, they are odder than we can imagine, as someone put it!)

(Message last edited Oct-6th-02  10:06 PM.)

I agree, David!  I too was frustrated at the witness' not being allowed to finish what was said to them or what they said!  It would make things a little clearer. 

(Message last edited Oct-6th-02  10:07 PM.)

David, you will surely exhaust yourself questioning or trying to change Ray's modus operandi.

Just a kindly suggestion from one who's been there!

Keep the faith,
Bob Gutowski

The reason for the interruption of the witnesses is: it wasn't in the script!!! Testimony is known (depositions, etc) and the lawyer wants the testimony to be what he wants it to be (unless he's trying to trip up the witness). That's my non-lawyer read of all this.

James Fenimoore Cooper documented the "horseshedding" (sounds like ?) of witnesses: rehearsed testimony in the horse-sheds (no garages then). It was considered bad form, I guess, for rehearsed testimony. But there should be no surprises to the questions asked in court, since its the way to impress the jury one way or another.

The way to cut thru the bullshit is to simply ask the date, time, and place where the alleged incident occurred (such as "Lizzie and the Cat"). If you don't know that, you weren't an eye-witness.

As Judge Dewey said, eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, or given under circumstances where it can't be corroborated. Agree?

And I'd rather fight than switch my modus operandi. Its worked for me all these years, etc. Can anyone suggest a better method than the facts and reason that I've used to discuss this case?

I totally understand and agree with you, Rays!  Of course they can't let a witness wander to far from what was gone over before court.  But, I still found it irritating when a witness started to say something that they said or was said to them and were cut off in midsentence.  We'd probably have a little more clarity in the case and possibly get to know all the players a bit better.  Oh well, thats the legal system. 

(Message last edited Oct-6th-02  10:08 PM.)

Whether a century ago, or today, "eyewitness evidence is unreliable" is a KNOWN FACT!!! Ask the lawyers, read a textbook.

Reliability goes back to the really olden days when most people never travelled more than a few miles from where they lived, and knew both the victim and the accused before the crime.

F Lee Bailey's "The Defense Never Rests" (?) makes this point, but see the saying of Judge Dewey (quoted in Robt. Sullivan's book).
Not to mention current transracial identification. "They all look alike to me". (Don't misinterpret what I say!)

And you can always play the game of showing a videotape of something to a group of people, then asking each one to write down what they saw. Then compare the results.

Wasn't there an old party game where somebody whispered something to one person, who then repeated it to others, then the final listener would say what they heard?

People have differect experiences, which may cause them to pay attention to different aspects of reality.

How reliable is "eyewitness testimony" when seen by a stranger for just a few seconds? You can look it up in a legal textbook anytime.

(Message last edited Oct-6th-02  10:11 PM.)

Just read the newspapers and books on this! Every so often a trial is reported, or a conviction overturned.

Chaim Lubinsky NEVER said he saw Lizzie in the back of the house. He saw a young lady there who was NOT Bridget (who he knew). So that only leaves Lizzie (unless there was some other stranger!!!).

I think F Lee Bailey's book makes this same point; it was published about 30 years ago. Or read Judge Justin Dewey's remarks to the jury (as printed in Robert Sullivan's "Goodbye Lizzie Borden").

Why are you arguing with reality? I'm talking about identification by one strangers. There was a case here a few months ago. A woman was raped by a man of another race. She was shown pictures from a mug book, but could identify no one. Months later, she saw a man on the street, then called police and said she identified him. He was convicted and went to jail. Years later, DNA evidence cleared him. They think she remembered him from the mug shot! Memory and minds can be tricked by time. I won't go into this, or the power of suggestion.

So what do the legal textbooks say? Mention any in the Public Library, and I'll check my county library system.

I was on a jury many years ago. A man was accused of abduction and rape. The victim identified him from a mug shot, and in person. But we found him 'not guilty'. No, not jury nullification.

The mug shot looked like him, but was of a different person ("looked like his twin"). There was NO physical evidence to tie the two together. The description from the victim did not match the accused (much taller), or his car (brand, color, presence of A/C, etc.).

She described him as 5 foot 8 or 9, "the same size as her boyfriend". The accused stood 6'1" or so. Also, no scar on the forehead. Some on the jury said she made it up to get an abortion because she thought she was pregnant.

I wonder how many rape accusations were made before the Roe vs. Wade decision?

(Message last edited Oct-6th-02  10:13 PM.)

Whether they called him Hiram or Hyman, I still think his name was Chaim. I did work in NYC for over ten years, you know.

Also, if Lizzie was in the shade (north side of house) then her medium blue dress could have appeared as a darker shade.
What do the rest of you think?
Can this be duplicated on a bright and sunny day?

I don't know much about this so hesitated to speak...
But I thought I had understood that "CHAIM" was pronounced "Hymie", and so I figured it wasn't such a *leap* to "Hyman", Anglo-Saxonized in the court records.
They DID get a couple of names wrong, or should I say Mis-spelled...and these have been passed down to us.
I think it feasable to have an error here.

As to what Mr. Lubinsky saw, I'd say IF he saw it, it lasted about one and a half seconds, and I personally would not trust this fleeting glimpse of even someone he knew.