Forum Title: LIZZIE BORDEN SOCIETY
Topic Area: Lizzie Andrew Borden
Topic Name: From the Mouth of Morse

1. "From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by augusta on Jun-30th-02 at 11:49 AM

In reading Morse's Preliminary Hearing testimony, I was surprised to see that he certainly seemed to know Lizzie's bedroom well!  Listen to him as he testifies about it:

Q:  Mr. Knowlton asked you if there was any way of getting into that spare room from the back hall, and I thought you said something about the doors being locked; do you know whether the doors were locked or not?
A:  I do not know whether they were locked that night; they generally keep them locked.  I did not try it that night.
Q:  Which doors do you refer to as locked?
A:  This door that goes out of the hall into Lizzie's room.
Q:  Was that locked, or hooked?
A:  I think it bolts.
Q:  How was the other door between her room and her father's room generally fastened?
A:  I do not know; there is a hook on it on the side opposite from her, on the east room.
Q:  Was the hook on her father's side, or on her side?
A:  On her father's side.
Q:  Sure about that?
A:  I think I am correct about it.
Q:  There was a hook there at any rate?
A:  Yes.
Q:  That was the way it was generally fastened?
A:  I do not know how it was fastened.  I know there was a hook there.
Q:  Did you ever notice whether it was hooked or not generally?  I suppose you had occasion to go through there.
A:  No Sir.
Q:  There is a door that opens from Lizzie's room into this spare room?
A:  Yes.
Q:  Is that door fastened, do you know, or kept fastened?
A:  I do not know.
Q:  Do you know whether Lizzie kept her desk standing directly in front of that door?
A:  She kept her desk in front of that door that goes from her room into the spare room.
Q:  Right up against the door?
A:  Yes Sir.
Q:  A large or small desk?
A:  Just about large enough to fill up the door.  I do not know about the height or the width of it.
Q:  It filled up the whole width of the door?
A:  I think so.
Q:  How high should you think the desk stood, the top of it?
A:  O, I can't tell; it might be five feet; I can't say for that.
Q:  It was quite a large desk?
A:  It was quite a desk.

Now, how did Morse know this about the hook and the desk?  At first he says "I do not know about the height or the width of it," then says "it might be five feet".  He had SEEN the desk.  Isn't that something for someone who claims he did not see Lizzie during this visit until after the murders, nor had he seen her the prior TWO times he had visited that summer. He says he did NOT have occasion to go thru there. It reeks.


2. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by edisto on Jun-30th-02 at 1:29 PM
In response to Message #1.

Actually, since Morse had been staying at the Borden house after the murders and was apparently on better terms with Lizzie then, he may have recalled these details from the period subsequent to the murders. Of course, he probably should have made that apparent while he was testifying, but he didn't, and nobody probed to see how he knew the layout of Lizzie's room.


3. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Kat on Jun-30th-02 at 11:24 PM
In response to Message #2.

I wonder if after the murders the sisters still kept all the doors locked?
If they did, from habit (?) then Morse might not have the chance to know how Lizzie's room was decorated, or even WHICH interior room WAS Lizzie's...unless:
-Unless they had talked about the changing of the rooms in the past   or
-The room had the desk from when it was Emma's room, and he had visited Emma there, or at the doorway   or
-The girls no longer locked all the doors...and THAT IS strange!
(?)


4. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by augusta on Jul-1st-02 at 10:10 AM
In response to Message #3.

I had thought of that, too, Edisto - maybe Morse knew of Lizzie's room from before.  Lizzie did not have that room when he lived there for that year (wasn't it 17 years before?). 

I don't see how he knew, unless he saw it.  And it had to be after they started locking the bedrooms.  Unless someone told him.  Still, he actually described that dresser up against the door.  I guess it's possible that Andrew told him about it:

"Remember that big dresser that Sarah used to have, John?  Lizzie has that up against our common door."  He and Andrew talked a lot.  (Which makes it all the stranger that he just gave Andrew's body a glance when he came in.) Morse and Lizzie supposedly scarcely spoke.  If Emma mentioned it in one of her letters to Morse, like when the rooms were first changed around, I can't imagine why he would remember what the dresser looked like - and I don't think Emma or anyone would have gone into that detail.

Or maybe Morse blew it on the stand and nobody  caught it then.


5. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Kat on Jul-1st-02 at 10:24 PM
In response to Message #4.

I'm confused.
We're describing the desk that is in front of the locked door that communicates between (now) Lizzie's room, and the Guest Bedroom where Morse slept Wednesday night...(And other subsequent nights?)  A desk?  And a hook that was on Lizzie's side of the door that communicated between her (now) bedroom and the Elder Bordens room?
The elder's side had the bolt.

A dresser MAY have been in front of the elder's side of the door that communicated with Lizzie's, but that is first shown in the Sullivan book, and is not contemporary to the murder date, as far as we know, and it is not described in testimony.  Only a "portierre" or curtain is described as being in front of that door, and not on which side... I don't think is made clear.


6. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Susan on Jul-2nd-02 at 2:56 AM
In response to Message #5.

Do you think that John Morse knew the layout of Lizzie's room from being in there while the police investigated it?  I mean, now, whether or not he wanted the title, he was unofficially the man of the house and these strange men were digging through one of his women folks things.  So, do you think he would keep an eye on them so that they didn't linger too long in her underwear drawer and finger her finery too much.  I know I wouldn't want strange men or women for that matter digging around in my bedroom! 


7. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by rays on Jul-2nd-02 at 5:24 PM
In response to Message #6.

People's memories may play tricks on them; they may remember things after the fact as occuring before. That's why some states insist on Preliminary Hearings to get the testimony down when it is fresh in the witnesses' memory. (It also prevents the prosecution from concocting theories to convict on dramatized evidence.)

One writer (A Dershowitz?) said the Preliminary Hearing assured OJ's verdict of Not Guilty since all the testimony was nailed down before the trial.


8. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Edisto on Jul-2nd-02 at 5:49 PM
In response to Message #6.

Susan, I agree with you that there are perfectly innocent ways in which Uncle Morse could have learned the layout of Lizzie's room.  It never occurred to me that it was at all odd for him to know that there was a desk on Lizzie's side of the door that led from her room to the guest room.  However, I've always thought it very peculiar that he had no contact with Lizzie during his August 1892 visit until after the murders.  After that, it seemed as if things were okay between them.  He carried lunch to her in the lockup, for example.  Most people who met John Morse seemed to like him.  The newspaper reporters loved him.  He appeared to be a genuine American character.  I don't know what went on between Lizzie and her Uncle John before the murders, but I think they patched things up somewhat, and he probably had access to her room after that, if not before.  He seems like the logical person to have trailed after the police (as you say) while they were performing their various searches.


9. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Susan on Jul-2nd-02 at 11:52 PM
In response to Message #8.

Yes, Edisto, I too have to wonder what the story was that Lizzie avoided John Morse earlier in his visit and at other times in the past.  Do you think maybe its because he liked and respected Abby whilst Lizzie did not and thought him a traitor to the memory of his sister and her mother?  Unless it was something of a darker nature that I won't even speculate on. 


10. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by rays on Jul-3rd-02 at 3:47 PM
In response to Message #8.

Didn't A R Brown suggest that this coolness between LAB and Uncle John was feigned? To suggest no collusion? "We hardly spoke, so we c
couldn't have concocted an alibi." IMO

(By "alibi" I really meant a cover-up of embarrassing facts.)

(Message last edited Jul-3rd-02  3:48 PM.)


11. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Kat on Jul-3rd-02 at 7:08 PM
In response to Message #10.

If the *distancing* of Lizzie to Morse was feigned, then he could have been in that room as late as Wednesday night, concocting a plan...(though they probably would meet in Morse's room as Lizzie's was too close to the eventual victims....).

Regardless, it seems he was there often enough, and stayed long enough in past visits to know every nook & cranny in that house, if he'd a mind to.

Wondering about the locking of the rooms though.
If the girls discontinued this practice after the elder folks were dead, this might make us ask, WHY did they only lock doors when Andrew and Abby were alive?

And Why Stop Locking After A Horrendous Murder in the home when they don't know who the culprit is???

THAT is when I WOULD start locking my door!

(Message last edited Jul-3rd-02  7:11 PM.)


12. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by augusta on Jul-4th-02 at 12:02 PM
In response to Message #11.

I didn't know Morse and Lizzie were on friendly terms after the murders.  That would suggest to me, a Morse skeptic, that they did not want to be seen speaking together before the murders.  But Lizzie didn't write to him while he was out west all that time, while Emma and Andrew did.  So it does sound as if something was patched up.

Morse was wrong on the witness stand at the Preliminary Hearing.  In Porter's "Fall River Tragedy" it's stated that Andrew's side of the door had a BOLT, and Lizzie's side had a HOOK.  When Morse is questioned, the attorney kept asking him "Are you SURE Lizzie's side had the bolt?" (or words to that effect). 

The likeability of Morse has always stymied me.  I believe that was so since we have a bit of source material on that. But since I suspect him, I'm surprised his personality was not more dour. But a lot of our worst murderers look like the boy-next-door.  He had no motive, tho.  That gets me. 

That's a thought, Susan & Edisto - that Morse saw Lizzie's room AFTER the murders.  That makes sense.  Even if the two were in collusion, I don't think Morse would have went into her room for a killer's caucus.


13. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Susan on Jul-4th-02 at 3:21 PM
In response to Message #12.

Well, if Lizzie and John were innocent of collusion, it makes me wonder if there was bad blood between them or if Lizzie just couldn't stand the man because he was so "country" while she, being all worldy having made the Grand Tour and all, was more "city"?  I have nothing to back this up, just my supposition, but, from the descriptions of him being so salt-of-the-earth and a down home guy, he sounds to me like he would scratch in public, belch and pass gas at the dinner table and probably pick his nose to boot!  One suit, no toothbrush or toiletries whatsoever, did he even have a hankie with him?  He sounds trashy and that may be why Lizzie didn't want to associate herself with him, being the lady that she was and all.  But, during the trial he may have extended himself to her, and a port in any storm as the saying goes, she may have taken him up on his support. 


14. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by rays on Jul-4th-02 at 3:43 PM
In response to Message #11.

They would stop locking the doors because the house was guarded by the police, and watched by passers-by. They KNEW who did it, and that Wm S Borden would NOT be back again!!!


15. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by augusta on Jul-5th-02 at 8:50 PM
In response to Message #14.

They must have had to stop with the bolts and hooks after the murders because of the searching that needed to go on. 
I got the impression that the bedroom locks were used after the daytime robbery to convey the distrust inside the household.
Rays:  Did Arnold Brown think William Borden did the daytime robbery?


16. "Re: From the Mouth of Morse"
Posted by Kat on Jul-6th-02 at 3:02 AM
In response to Message #15.

Lizzie's Inquest, pg. 58, Lizzie describes her room and the locks on the doors and the big desk in front of the door connecting to the guest room.
For what it's worth.
Don't know what it means in relation to Morse's knowledge...
(Inquest held Aug. 9, 10 & 11th.)



 

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