1. "I'm Like Andrew"
Posted by Kashesan on Aug-6th-02 at 9:16 AM

After an unfortunate theft at work in my department, with a rather obvious thief (who was not caught inflagrante-but like the Borden 'robbery'...)I have taken to locking up my belongings, and leaving the keys in plain sight-without realizing that I'm doing just as Andrew did under similar circumstances. (Not without others present in the room though)
When I read about him leaving the key on the mantle, I never really understood his motivation, but now I think I do...

At one or two places where I worked, women were cautioned to keep their pocket books locked in their desk whenever they left their cubicle. NO outsiders were seen!!! But there were 'temporaries' around.
At some places, you were well advised to lock up everything overnight, because even pencils would "walk away".

I guess I still don't get it, Kash. Why did you lock your stuff up and keep the key visible? Explain your psychology? My mind can't wrap around it. Sorry.

Yes, I too would like a glimpse into this motivation to leave the key in plain sight after you have locked things up?  It might help us understand Andrew Borden better as a person. 

What motivation? Please somebody explain to this dimwit.

Sorry, I'm still a little vague about it myself. Sort of an instinctual gut thing. The person who most likely committed the theft (you're right Ray, a temp) still malingers around the area acting like Little Bo Peep. When this happens and I have to leave the area (to go to the ladies room, or to just get the hell away from her-she's extremely annoying, theft or no theft) and there are other people at the workstations, I lock my overhead locker and drop the keys in back of the computer terminal,loud enough to be heard. (If I am alone in the area,or she is the only one there, I lock it and take the keys with me-pointedly)
For some reason, this gives me satisfaction. Whereas I cannot come right out and accuse her of the theft, I feel that this action makes it abundantly clear that we are onto her, and that I trust my other co-workers. I feel that by taking the keys with me, while my co-workers are still sitting there, she could presume (and would say so to them) that I don't trust them. It is further complicated with the addition of cultural diversity-I feel that she would not hesitate to play this up and make me look like the bad guy.
So there it is...

Getting back to Andrew and why I could empathize: perhaps by leaving the key on the mantle he was symbolizing his trust in those of the household he did not suspect-Bridget and Emma (and Uncle John if he was around) There are people in my area who I would trust with my life, let alone my few measley dollars-and I don't want them to feel slighted.

Thanks for the explanation. I am beginning to grasp the symbolic nature of the action.

However, I was never clear as to why Andrew did what he did. If I didn't want my stuff stolen, I would lock up my stuff and take the key with me. But the lock that that key went to was the door to his bedroom and Abby had to get in there during the day. I reasoned that he left the key on the mantle for her, not to throw it up in his family's face.

He didn't put the key on the key hook in the back hallway. He chose the mantle, in a part of the room not easily accessed. We know the door to the kitchen was mostly shut. If a robber were to come into the house, he would be directed by the open doors to go into the dining room then the far end of the sitting room, then upstairs in the front. The mantle is right by the closed door to the kitchen.

Perhaps the key was hidden on the mantle, not really hidden, but placed behind some knick-knack on the shelf, ever so slightly, so that an intruder would not know what it was or how to find it, but Abby would.

I can't see him throwing it up in Lizzie's face by placing the key there.

And Kash, you said that you had to put the keys down loudly while the thief was in the room for effect. Lizzie didn't eat with them and would not have been present most of the time he was putting that key away. The effect isn't really the same in my eyes.

Why couldn't it have been that he was simply protecting his stuff from an intruder? How did this key on the mantle become the "throw it in Lizzie's face" thing that it has? Maybe it is a simple thing, not a game of psychological chess.

After the 'robbery' the doors that led from the outside were kept locked at Andrew's request, if I'm not wrong. That included the screen door to the kitchen which was 'hooked' in summer. The only door inside the house kept locked was the one to Andrew's room.(I think) Why put the key on the mantle at all? Why not just give it to Abby, or have another one made for her?.(I know, I know, he was too cheap...) To me, leaving the key hanging on a key chain by the entryway/pantry would be unwise (in case the screen door became unhooked throughout Bridget's comings and goings) and I can't imagine a thief finding the key on the mantle and then taking the time to figure out which door it went to.
I feel that the key on the mantle had to be a symbolic gesture to the other members of his household, as was his calling off the police investigation.
(And after really thinking about what you said Stef, my dropping the keys down loudly just makes me feel better...but I'm getting over it)
 

I believe there were other "inside" doors that werse kept locked.  Lizzie mentioned that nobody could have thrown anything into her room, because it was kept locked.  When the police wanted to search the large dress closet off the upper hallway, they had to get a key from Lizzie.  If Lizzie's room was locked, then Emma's was effectively locked too.  With the exception of the guest room, it seems most of the rooms on the second floor were kept locked.  It seems to me that the rooms that were kept locked were those in which valuables might have been found.  It's always sounded to me as if an attempt was being made to foil robbers.  After all, as I believe Kash mentioned, an "outside" person wouldn't have known which key fitted which door.

Thanks for the explanation, Kashesan.  I can see where you are coming from with the key thing better.  I've always felt that this was pretty much Andrew's motivation for dropping the key on the sitting room mantel too.  But, as Stefani pointed out, Lizzie was not around when the key was plunked down there in the morning.  So, it might have been just a thing for her to find on a daily basis, Oh, look, Father has left his key out to taunt me with. 

(Message last edited Aug-8th-02  12:24 AM.)

I don't know...I'm thinking...
Edisto and I had a conversation on here about the public nature of Andrew's business...that he had persons coming to the house and probably had conferences in the sitting room, and the women didn't know who these people were.
And so we compared this practice to Dr. Kelly's house which had a home office, and Edisto opined that they also probably kept their interior doors locked from the public access (or we agreed...or something)  Anyway, it made sense.

If Andrew's house was a house of women, they may ALWAYS have kept the latch on the front door, and a hook, at the minimum, on the screen.  The locking of INTERIOR doors was supposedly law after the robbery.

We can't know Lizzie was suspected in that just because Andrew "called off" the search?  If I recall, it's not so much he called off a search for the detection of the miscreant, but more a matter of him not having any faith in the police finding the robber?  Wasn't he "Quoted" as saying something like "You'll never find out who did this?"

Kat, your post made me think how its even more strange that Andrew would leave that key on the mantle in a "public" room in the house.  Strangers allowed into the house and there is a key just sitting on the mantle.  Odd.

Yes, I recall Andrew as being quoted as to saying such, but, didn't Lizzie say he said this?  I don't know how much faith or not I could put in her word. 

Didn't the robbery happen shortly after Lizzie moved into Emma's old room with the connecting door into Andrew and Abby's bedroom?  Circumstantial evidence, but, coincidence in that house?

And what of the incident during the dress making when a police officer, I'm sorry, I don't have time at the moment to search, came to visit Lizzie and spoke to her and her alone.  I believe its in the dressmakers testimony, Mary Raymond. 

Well, Lizzie always had access to the elder Borden's room, whether her room adjoined theirs directly or not, though that's interesting that you pointed out that time frame...
As to the police accosting Lizzie in the presence of Mrs. Raymond, I'm not sure to what you refer?  (Did I misunderstand your reference?)

As stated before, if thart key was slight;y beind a vase or a clock, on the mantle, a casual caller may not have known what the key was for.  And Dr. Bowen, who HAD been inside that house several times did not know about that key when he wanted a sheet from upstairs-- at least he brought out different keys until he brought out That One.

(Message last edited Aug-8th-02  10:43 PM.)

Sorry, Kat, its not in Mary Raymond's testimony, but, I'm still looking!  Its someone on the stand and this person lets slip that while they are at the Borden house doing something, a detective or police officer shows up and goes off in a room to speak with Lizzie alone.  This is before the murders, but, it is after the robbery.  Maybe you know what it is I was after, was it Hannah Gifford maybe? 

I really don't know to what you refer.
The officer who investigated the robbery, tho, was Desmond, who knew the family a long time.  Maybe he interviewed Lizzie?  Should you try him?

I think the incident is noted in Victoria Lincoln-I just recently read of it Susan, and I'll try and find it tonight. A police officer came to the house and spoke to Lizzie in private, some months before the murders. Pretty sure i read that in Lincoln.

Thanks, Kashesan!  I remember bits and pieces of things like that and can't recall where I've read them.  It drives me crazy!!!

Knowlton Papers, p. 74-5,
(Knowlton sends the enclosed report to Pillsbury, with a short note dated Sept. 9, 1892)

"Enclosure

On or about the 24 of June 1891 I was called into City Marshal's office.  Marshal Hilliard said, ' Mr. Desmond, Mr. Borden says his house has been robbed.  You go with him and see what there is to it.'  Mr. Borden and myself left the office and went direct to Mr. Borden's house Second St.  I found there Mrs. Borden, Emma Borden Lizzie Borden and Bridget Sullivan.

On second floor in a small room on north side of house I found Mr. Borden's desk.  It had been broken open.  Mr. Borden said '$80 in money and 25 to 30 dollars in gold and a large number of H,car tickets had been taken.  The tickets bore name or signature of Frank Brightman.'  Brightman was a former treasurer of Globe St.  railroad co.  Mrs. Borden said 'her gold watch and chain, ladies chain, with slide and tassel attached, some other small trinkets of jewelry, and a red Russia leather pocket-book containing a lock of hair had been taken.  I prize the watch very much, and I wish and hope that you can get it; but I have a feeling that you never will.'  Nothing but the property of Mr and Mrs Borden reported as missing.

The family was at a loss to see how any person could get in, and out without somebody seeing them.  Lizzie Borden said 'the cellar door was open, and someone might have come in that way.'  I visited all the adjoining houses, including the Mrs Churchills house on the north, Dr Kelly's house on the south, Dr Gibbs house & Dr Chagnon's house on the east, and made a thorough search of the neighborhood to find some person who might have seen someone going, or coming from Mr Borden's house; but I failed to find any trace.

I did get a 6 or 8 penny nail which 'Lizzie Borden said she found in the Key hole of door,' leading to a sleeping room on 2nd floor, east end of building.  So far as I know this robbery has never been solved.

PS:  Mr Borden told me three times within two weeks after the robbery in these words 'I am afraid the police will not be able to find the real thief.'

--Now to find out what Lincoln's twist on this will be...Should be interesting.  I couldn't remember, also, where I had read THIS (above).  I think there is another official reference to it.  It may be by the City Marshal?

(Message last edited Aug-9th-02  10:37 PM.)

LINCOLN, p. 58-9:

"The dressmaker was a star witness for the defense, such an amusingly obliging star witness that a serious-minded editor deleted her testimony from the published trial, and all who have since written in Lizzie's defense find it wise to treat it very lightly and scantily indeed. Yet, when I got that despaired-of Volume II in my hands, I found that Mrs. Raymond had something thought-provoking to say; the best coached female tongue will occasionally run away with itself.

Her bit of information came late in the trial. A weary and discouraged prosecution showed no interest in it, and it has never been mentioned since. But it is interesting.

Lizzie's 'peculiar spells,' as I have mentioned, were reported to have come about three or four times a year, at the menstrual period. The slight irregularity, it was said, seemed to depend on whether or not she had 'got worked up.' This, I have been told by a specialist, is medically sound. Uncle John's visits were upsetting. The bloody death of her pigeons was unthinkably upsetting (Lizzie's almost pathological love for birds and animals is one of the best known facts about her; she left a large part of her inheritance to the Animal Rescue League 'because they have so few to care for them').

The pigeons died;  Uncle John dropped in;  and toward the end of her stay, the dressmaker mentioned casually, Bartholomew Shaw, head detective of the city police, came to see Miss Lizzie Borden and talked to her for a long time in private. 'I don't know what they talked about.' (T.,Mrs. Raymond)

None of us will ever know. Shaw was not asked to testify. The defense quickly diverted Mrs. Raymond from the subject, and the prosecution did not bother to cross-question her at all, the rest of her testimony being so patently what it was, a rehearsed piece.

Yet, it is interesting. Detective Shaw's call came just three months before the murders---the normal lapse of time between one 'peculiar spell' and the next. "

--Now we need the trial checked for Mrs. Raymond's testimony...

TRIAL,
Mrs. Raymond  [came to sew, early May, 1892]
Pg. 1577+

Q.  But does not light blue when it fades approach the color of drab?
A.  Well, it doesn't seem so to me.

Q.  Didn't you tell me so?
A.  No, sir.

Q.  The other day in my room?
A.  No, sir. I told you I couldn't tell you.

Q.  Didn't you tell Mr. Shaw that this faded so as to look something like drab?
A.  I said when I read Dr. Bowen's evidence that I thought he might possibly have taken that for that; I couldn't tell.

RE-DIRECT.

Q.  (By Mr. Jennings.)  You say it didn't look so to you?
A.  It didn't look so to me; no, sir.

Q.  Who is this Mr. Shaw?
A.  Well, I don't know. It is some one that came where I was sewing. I understood him to say it was detective Shaw.

Q.  Is he a dressmaker?
A.  Not that I know of. I don't know what his occupation is any more than that.

Q.  Was he there to have a dress made?
A.  No, sir.

Q.  Did you find out what he was there for?
A.  Well, he seemed to come to ask questions.

Q.  That is about all you know of that?
A.  That is all I know about it anyway; yes, sir.

--HMMM, what does this mean?  Good memory, you guys! .... You know what?  I think she's saying SHAW came to ask HER questions, about Dresses, at HER place...!  That wouldn't be about the robbery, right?
--Oh, Miss Lincoln strikes again!
--The most interesting item to come out of this testimony, I Think. is that Mrs. Raymond was privy to Dr. Bowen's testimony prior to her OWN!



(Message last edited Aug-10th-02  5:23 AM.)

You're right, Kat.  M. Raymond is talking about Shaw questioning her at her place.  On first reading, because they are talking about Lizzie's dress, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that they are talking about an interview at 92 Second. And that may be where Lincoln got her idea about Shaw interviewing Lizzie.  (Or is it possible that Shaw was involved in the robbery investigation at one point?)

As far as Mary Raymond seeing Bowen's testimony prior to her own -- could she be referring to his inquest testimony.  He talks about the "drab" dress there.  Was any of that published in the paper prior to the trial?   

Thanks, Kat!  Ugh, I hate when I remember stuff that is unsubstantiated!!!  Mainly stuff from Lincoln's book!!!  I had this clear memory of reading it in the trial transcripts though. 

I was going to say "Please quote me no more Lincoln"...BUT I found that whole thing interesting.  SO, bring on any Lincoln, and we'll see what we can do with it (?)

"I'm Like Andrew"...because he and I share the same birthday... September 13th...and we are both wicked Virgos.

BC

  Are you tight with your money?  Has your daughter robbed you yet?  Watch out!!! 

That was cool kat.

Lately, little things are bothering me about this case. The nail. Why would there be a nail in the key hole "leading to a sleeping room on the second floor" if this robbery occurred before the door was locked? Isn't the nail supposed to be a way to pick the lock? If it wasn't locked, then why the nail. Conversely, if it wasn't locked, then Lizzie would have known it and wouldn't need the nail to pick the lock. No robber would need the nail to pick an unlocked door.

So I again ask, why the nail?

Perhaps it obscured the view thru the keyhole.

Are we really sure that Andrew's and Abby's door was not locked generally before this incident?  Who's the source that it was not?

Thats my feeling too, Harry.  That the door to the elder Borden's dressing room was kept locked because of Andrew's safe being in there.  But, was the nail found in the lock in the Borden's bedroom or, if I recall what I read correctly, in the basement door?  My guess is that the nail was supposed to be a stand-in for a lock-pick from someone who didn't know any better.  Someone who maybe needed to be told not to use those horsecar tickets as they were numbered and could be tracked to who used them. 

Lizzie is the only one in the primary souces who is directly asked about the key and how long her father's door was kept locked.

Q. Could you then get to your room from the back hall?
A. No sir.
Q. From the back stairs?
A. No sir.
Q. Why not? What would hinder?
A. Father's bedroom door was kept locked, and his door into my room was locked and hooked too I think, and I had no keys.
Q. That was the custom of the establishment?
A. It had always been so.
Q. It was so Wednesday, and so Thursday?
A. It was so Wednesday, but Thursday they broke the door open.


But no one else talks about it, not in the Inqust, the Prelim, or the trial----meaning the exact time frame that the key was first put on the mantle and the parent's door was locked. I did find these small references, however, for what they are worth.


Alice Russell from the trial: p 377-378.

Q. Anything about trouble with tenants, or anything of that sort?               
A. She says, "I don't know," she says, "I feel afraid sometimes that Father has got an enemy. For," she said, "he has so much trouble with his men that come to see him." She told me of a man that came to see him, and she heard him say---she didn't see him, but heard her father say, "I don't care to let my property for such business." And she said the man answered sneeringly, "I shouldn't think you would care what you let your property for." And she said, "Father was mad and ordered him out of the house." She told me of seeing a man run around the house one night when she went home. I have forgotten where she had been. She said, "And you know the barn has been broken into twice." And I said, "Oh well, you know well that that was somebody after pigeons; there is nothing in there for them to go after but pigeons."  "Well," she says, "they have broken into the house in broad daylight, with Emma and Maggie and me there." And I said, "I never heard of that before." And she said, "Father forbade our telling it." So I asked her about it, and she said it was in Mrs. Borden's room, what she called her dressing room. She said her things were ransacked, and they took a watch and chain and money and car tickets, and something else that I can't remember. And there was a nail left in the keyhole; she didn't know why that was left; whether they got in with it or what. I asked her if her father did anything about it, and she said he gave it to the police, but they didn't find out anything; and she said father expected that they would catch the thief by the tickets. She remarked, "Just as if anybody would use those tickets."

Bridget Prelim, p. 22:

Q.  Was it the usual place to keep the key of his room on the shelf in the sitting room?
A.  Yes Sir.

Q.  That room was kept locked?
A.  Yes Sir.

Q.  That is the room that lets in from the back stairs?
A.  Yes Sir.

Q.  Did he bring the key back when he came back?
A.  Yes Sir, and put it on the shelf.

Does this mean this whole thread has no basis in fact? When Kash first said she felt like she knew Andrew when she put the key in plain sight, right in front of the suspected thief, she was operating under the assumption, as was I, that the key on the mantle happened after the robbery.

Now, after doing searches in all the primary documents, I can find no facts to back up this "myth". Thanks Harry for asking the obvious.

The key was just a key. Not a message.

Stefani, thats what I was wondering, if indeed the door to the elder Borden's room was always kept locked, even when Emma occupied Lizzie's room.  Its beginning to sound as though that was the case!  And, I've read in a few books that the robbery came about shortly after Lizzie moved into Emma's old room.  Do we have anything to back that up other than hearsay?  So many juicy little "facts" to this case, but, when held up and examined prove to be quite dry and tasteless. 

It's Lincoln (who else?), p. 51:

They were not the discoverers of the robbery; Andrew and Abby themselves discovered it upon their return. The thief had moved like a ghost---a well-informed ghost, for he had gone directly to "Mrs. Borden's room" and ransacked it. He had made off with her gold watch and chain and her very modest supply of jewelry; he had also broken into one drawer of the small desk and stolen the money Mr. Borden kept in it---between thirty and forty dollars in gold and eighty dollars in greenbacks---and a book of horse-car tickets.

Mr. Borden sent for the police.

Miss Lizzie Borden was overexcited. She talked incessantly, taking the police to the cellar to show them how she had found the door unbolted and a large nail stuck in the keyhole, which they put down in their records as "an eight or ten penny nail."

Considering the general preference for a skeleton key, this in itself was strange. It was even stranger that in a flimsily built small house, not one of the three women had heard a sound.

Mr. Borden requested at once that the theft should not be reported to the papers. Three times in the next two weeks he asked that the investigation be dropped. He said, "You will never catch the real thief."

He was quite right. That crime, like the later crime, was never solved.

In that day and part of the world, the Irish maid was the automatic suspect in cases of theft, like the Negro in the South. Bridget was not discharged.

Mrs. Borden locked and bolted the door that led from her bedroom into Lizzie's; Lizzie fastened the hook on her own side of the door. Abby and Andrew also took to locking their other door, which led onto the back stairs, when they left the bedroom. But Andrew saw to it that the key was thereafter laid out in plain sight on the sitting room mantelpiece


So Lincoln just made this stuff up because it sounded good?

Lincoln seems to do that a lot. Natch, no source is cited.

Thats what I wonder, is it all made up?  Then I have to say, no fair!!!  When writing about a factual event, lets stick to the facts.  If the Lincoln book was published under a fictionalizized account of the case, so much the better for us.  Like the Legend movie, at least it states that it is based on a true crime, but, doesn't claim to be 100% factual.  As much as I enjoyed Lincoln's book, I'm finding what I recall from it as "facts" are throwing me off! 

"I did get a 6 or 8 penny nail which 'Lizzie Borden said she found in the Key hole of door,' leading to a sleeping room on 2nd floor, east end of building.  So far as I know this robbery has never been solved."--officer Desmond.

For some reason I also thought of the nail as obstructing the keyhole for anyone trying to look in, but I guess that maybe that doesn't make much sense...but then neither does the nail offered as used as lock-pick.
Maybe there's another meaning to it, that we haven't grasped, yet.

The use of previous testimony to prime a witness, I suppose, may not be so awful, but I thought that was why witnesses about to appear were kept sequestered from the courtroom,; so they COULDN'T devise THEIR testimony to suit what others had said.
Anyway, the Inquest was supposed to be "secret" and "hush-hush", so I don't know that the witness Raymond would be availed of it.  Maybe more likely the Prelim.?  (i haven't checked, tho).

Another thing is that we kept reading in Witness Statements etc., that no one KNEW OF THE ROBBERY...BUT if Desmond knocked on all those neighboring doors, you can bet those neighbors knew of it!  How come they didn't tell anyone, like gossip?  I wouldn't think too much went on day-to-day that THAT wouldn't be exciting enough to gab about to friends!

The other aspect of this robbery that is Strange, is Lizzie quoted as saying the cellar door was open the day of the robbery.  It was not wash day...it was not drying day...so why was it open, if in fact it really was?  And where are Emma's and Bridget's statements about this occurrence and whether THEY recall the cellar door open that day?

Thanks, Kat!  You know, I was just thinking, ooo, ooo, if it was in the keyhole to Andrew and Abby's bedroom, yeah, maybe they shoved a nail in it from their side to fill the hole so no one could peep in.  As I've said, I grew up in an old house and there were keyholes in the doors that you could spy through, including the bathroom door!!!

But, since Andrew locked his bedroom door all the time, the nail would get in the way of the key, so, I don't think it was something that was in there all the time.

The only other reason I can think of for that nail being there was that it was a calling card of sorts, a sign to Andrew and Andrew alone as to who it was.  A nail is used by carpenters, one of his tenants?  Mr. Carpenter?  Thats the only other thing that comes to my mind on this. 

I agree with Harry completely (as I often do).  Lincoln's book, while certainly entertaining, is pretty much a work of fiction.  I kept asking myself, "How could she possibly have known this?"  In most cases, I don't think she could have.  On top of her fictionalizing, she also had a bad memory.  It's tough enough for a trained medical professional to diagnose a patient who's sitting right in front of him/her.  Yet Lincoln, who as far as I know had no medical training,  managed to do it with a patient who had been dead for years and whose symptoms weren't a matter of record.

Victoria Endicott Lincoln said she researched her book by getting the Trail records, Volume I, and the missing Volume II. Also the New Bedford paper printed the Inquest after the jury was selected.

Let's not assume intentional dishonesty here. Only those who can browse and search these files can say what's there.

I believe that VEL did NOT write a work of fiction. It is based on the 'dubious hearsay from the hill' as she knew it. Given the facts, there is certain room for interpretation of them.

VEL mentions that "the man in the street" doubts circumstantial evidence (the only thing for concealed crimes). Then tells us something that proves the value of this doubt.

For example, no murder weapon was found (known from the Knowlton papers unavailable before 1991?). Does this mean the murderer carried it away (because it was marked with his initials?), or, does it mean that Lizzie was able to hide it so it was never found? Two different interpretations of the same fact.

No bloodstained dress was found. Does this mean that there was none to be found because Lizzie didn't do it, or, that she successfully hid the dress during the many searches, and burned it? Two different interpretations of the same fact.

Yes, Ray, there is more than one interpretation of the facts. You say there are two, but I think there are more like 5. Nevertheless, Lincoln, as did/does other authors on the case, interprets the facts/gossip to fit her theory and states those "discoveries" as facts, thereby misleading the reader into thinking that it is so. I for one have ALWAYS beleived that the key appeared after the daylight robbery. Now I realize that it was Lincoln that put it in my mind.

I feel duped.

Since there is NO evidence that the key appeared after the daylight robbery, LINCOLN MADE IT UP. There can be no interpretation of the evidence if there is no evidence! As you read other threads here, you see many instances where she did this very thing.  We need a thread titled "Deconstructing Lincoln" to properly address them all in one place.

fic·tion   Pronunciation Key  (fkshn) n.
1. a. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
b. The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.

2. A lie.

3. a. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
b. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.

4. Law. Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.

(Message last edited Aug-13th-02  5:37 PM.)

I remember other writers saying the same thing, even tho they did not agree with Victoria Lincoln. Did they use the same sources? Trial transcripts, Preliminary Hearings, etc. Maybe even the newspapers.

Note that the Fall River Globe and the Providence Journal were both anti-Lizzie. The New York Times and Baltimore Sun were pro-Lizzie. Is this the objectivity from a distance, or the lack of close-hand information? Another two inferences?

It only takes one author, a Porter or a Lincoln, to say a thing is true and forever more, writers believe it to be so. It is easier than looking it up themselves. Besides, most of the primary sources (trial, prelim, inquest, witness statements) were not available to some authors. They instead relied on other authors for facts.

Now we are finding out that those authors, the original ones who said that such and such occurred, made it up to fit their theories. Or, at the least, misread the material and misquoted the facts. Either way, there are many myths that have grown up around this case. It is our responsibility to point out the discrepancies where and when we find them. Lincoln may have "read it" somewhere, but it wasn't the trial, the prelim, the inquest, or the witness statements. I've checked them all and cannot find the origin of the key 'fact" she speaks of.

And don't get me started on newspapers! ANY author who uses the newspapers as source of fact need to go back to school and study research methodologies.

That is the reason for the free distribution of the primary source materials on my website. ANYBODY can now read the trial, the witness statements, the inquest for free. We can now be equal in our understanding of the case. A very big advancement!

That really was well-said.
I was thinking last night that we might be being too harsh on *the authors* (as I call them), as they are published and I am not.  I respect what they have achieved but at what PRICE to us, the students of the crime?
We can't afford, anymore, to be lulled into false pathways.
And now WE ARE EQUAL, in that we do now have access to these primary documents, and can be just as informed, and our opinions just as valid, as these *authors*.  The playing-field is even now.  We owe it to the next group that comes along, to correct what we can.

I can not say that these authors deliberately lied, as may be implied by Ray in his questioning (as in:  Do we think these people deliberatly lied)...I'd say "No".
BUT, fiction IS a form of lying, in itself, and I have ALWAYS taken that into consideration when I read Fiction.  Ray, I don't think you even LIKE fiction, do you?  I would think you were more likely to gravitate to Biography or Documentory (sp?) or History.
I would think YOU would feel *duped* after reading the glaring misconceptions we've uncoved in Lincoln's work....

Bridget claims the girls had, upon occaision, been seen by her to come down the back stairs...the inferrence being that they had access to the elders bedroom as a quicker route to the downstairs back.

Bridget also said that Mrs. Borden got HER key to the side door at the same time, she, Bridget, got hers., the month after the robbery.

In the "Hip-bath" collection of Jenning's notes we also find that previous to the murders Mrs, Borden's Front Door Key was taken from her.

--just adding more *key* info testimony, here, for what it's worth...

Brava!!!  Both very well put, Kat and Stefani!

The analogy that comes to my mind is when I was a little girl and found out there was no such thing as Santa Claus!  I felt cheated, and sad and even a little guilty that my parents had to perpetuate this myth.

And so it is with me with the authors who perpetuate their myths that don't have anything to back them up yet become "facts" for us studying the case.  When I find out what I've been led to believe is true by them, but is not, I feel lost and cheated.

But, with sites such as the LAB VM&L, I do feel like I at least have a fighting chance.  The facts are laid out on the table within easy reach and all I have to do is sift through them to find what I need.  Meantime, I just have to shake some of old beliefs and "truths" out of my mind that have lodged there over the years. 

(Message last edited Aug-13th-02  10:39 PM.)

OOOPS

(Message last edited Aug-14th-02  4:44 AM.)

Well put, Susan.  I feel the same way the posters on this thread seem to feel.  It's why I asked the question on another thread, "How do we know Lizzie was a redhead?"  So far, I haven't found any primary source that says that, nor any genuine eyewitness who described Lizzie's hair as red.  I do find that several of the "authors" describe it that way (not even all of them, though).  What does that tell me?  I think it tells me to be dubious, at the very least.

Yes, didn't they say that the door from Lizzie to her parents used to be unlocked BEFORE that robbery in May?

Also, if you ever copied from a book, then retyped it for a message, did you ever make a mistake? I'm not a professional anyway. We did hear about those (Doris Kearns Goodwin, Steven Ambrose) who were forced to admit to errors in copying from others?

MOST OF ALL, publishing is a business, not an art. A novel solution sells books and makes money and fame for the author. IF I could write a book with "proof" that Jack the Ripper (said to have gone to America) did in Abby and Andy, I'd make a mint. Until there was a counter argument published.
Didn't this happen in 1961 with Radin's book, then the newer version of Pearson's book, then Lincoln's book? Next Sullivan's book, then Spiering's book, finally Brown's solution? Then Masterton, then Rebello.  It just depends on the market for these books.

Some months ago a TV show put on the Patricia Cornwall book on "Jack the Ripper". Sounded good from that show (did the network also own the publishing house?). Yes, some had that solution in the past.

Was Abby's key taken from her at the time of the robberies?
Was this key EVER found during the searches after 8/4/1892?
Maybe it was someone from outside the house?

*Didn't they say the door from Lizzie to her parents used to be unlocked before that robbery in May?*  This not-quite-quote from you, Ray, needs to be backed up, if you can, please.  That's the purpose of this topic, if possible.
We don't know this and we're trying to find out...

Your question as to Mrs. Borden & her key being taken...:

From PROCEEDINGS [my transcription]:
"j.  Mrs. Dr. Bowen--called and said that on Tuesday of the murder she was walking up the street with Mrs. Borden and (spoke?) and (B saw?) said L wasn't up yet but Mrs. Bowen had seen someone come away so she knew she was and went over there with Mrs. Borden.

Mrs. Borden said she couldn't get in the front way 'for they had taken her key.'  So she and Mrs. Bowen went in by the back door. "

--We don't know when her key was taken.  It seemed to me possibly nearer to the murders than to the robbery, merely because the info was just coming out.  My opinion.

Your speculation that the key may have been taken in order to give an outsider access is interesting.  Wouldn't this have come out?  What other reasons can YOU speculate on as to why her key was *taken*?




(Message last edited Aug-15th-02  4:36 AM.)

I do NOT have the books at hand, and they do not reference this in the index. My memory is that the door was unlocked when Emma had the bigger bedroom. Those with better indices can confirm (or deny) this.

Well, can you think of another reason why Abby's key would be taken from her?
The way this is put down in the defense notes, seems odd...(?)
She ends up with a side door key in July, '81, and possibly no front door key Aug., '92......why?

The question should be: why didn't Andy spend a dime for a replacement key?
Also, the theft of valuable implies a thief only, IMO. If Abby's bedroom was also thrashed (?) that would imply hatred. But I could be wrong.

I agree about the *thrashing* of the room as being a sign of personal violence.  I can think of one place I read THAT, and the author really went to town, in their imagination.

I was wondering if Andrew was collecting the keys to the front door prior to replacing a possibly faulty lock.  (see Mrs. Holmes, Jerome Borden, Morse etc.)
Then I wondered if he had lost HIS or had it stolen, or had misplaced it, and took Abby's.
Then I thought, that would be AFTER Emma left, otherwise he might have taken HERS first, for his own use, since she would be away.
Then I thought, maybe it was taken in order to give to someone else, either temporarily, or permanetly...but at that point balked at who that person might have been for ANDREW to have given the key, not one of the *possible conspiratores*.

If someone swiped AnDREW'S key, and then HE borrowed Abby's, THAT could be by a conspirator...

(Message last edited Aug-16th-02  11:01 PM.)

It is a cryptic statement or the report thereof is cryptic, "They took my key."  Who they?  Andrew, Emma, and Lizzie?  My thought would be the "girls" took it.

But, when Abby says they took it, did they swipe it from her?  Did they say, reasonably, well, you really don't use the front door as your bedroom is towards the back of the house and ______ lost her key to the front door, can we have yours? 

More "Locked Door" Info, for what it's worth:

Inquest
Morse
Pg. 102

Q: Was it the habit to keep that hooked? (Screen door)
A: Always
Q: And the front door?
A: Always keep it fastened;  they have been very cautious, always have been, about the doors.