The Lizzie Borden Society archive

Lizzie Andrew Borden

 

Forum URL:

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/LBForum/index.php
Forum Title: LIZZIE BORDEN SOCIETY
Topic Area: Lizzie Andrew Borden
Topic Name: The hatchet

1. "The hatchet"
Posted by joe on Jan-29th-02 at 9:56 AM

Did anyone ever find the missing handle from that hatchet?  Can't find another reference to the handle other than one cop's testimony.  Lt. Edson said that Officer Medley had the hatchet head "in his pocket" (Trial, p. 661)
Q. Did you find any handle or anything having the appearance of a handle to this hatchet, except the piece that was in the eye of the hatchet?
A. No, sir.. (ibid, p. 698) 

Q. ...If you had picked that hatchet head out of a box in plain sight, having no handle to it, and there had been a handle there, you would have probably seen it, wouldn't
you?
A. Yes, sir, I think I should probably have seen it.( ibid, p.715)

'Course I've read that it was burned up in the stove.  Maybe so.  Am I correct in my dismissal of that ash-covered hatchet head as porbably NOT being the murder weapon assuming a single weapon?


2. "Re: The hatchet"
Posted by Kat on Jan-29th-02 at 11:23 PM
In response to Message #1.

The blade fit the wounds, according to forensics.
Some dispute this.
The prosecution pushed the "claw-headed" hatchet forward in the Prelim., as having been the weapon.
By the Trial, THAT hatchet was out of the picture and the Handle-less hatchet was IN.
The fact that 2 officers contradicted each other as to the finding / not finding of the handle On The Stand, did NOt help the case.
No specific hatchet was named in the Indictment.
Apparently the evidence as to "gilt" in Abby's wound was suppressed at trial.


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