1. "Our Respect/Fascination for Lizzie Borden"
Posted by haulover on Jan-20th-03 at 11:34 PM

this has nothing to do with lizzie borden, but is a challenge for us as admirers or enthusiasts of the crime.

why are we attracted to the enigmatic lady?  it is telling of something in us, isn't it, that we both fear her and admire her?  after spending the better part of a day on her inquest testimony, i find myself anticipating her as i walk through a doorway or enter a room.  isn't that creepy?  or i get insights about her while i'm doing something more important than this crime which is a done deal.

i guess it's in being attracted to a mystery that is supremely difficult to solve.  the murders are unbelieveable.  apparently a phantom appeared out of nowhere and murdered them and disappeared.  but that's not the case, since their skulls are bashed in.  but how can it be that the only plausible suspect shows no sign of having been the murderer? 

none of the above is new.  i'm just sketching  out what we already know.  i took it up again last year, and i know nothing more about it now than i did before.  (well, not to short change myself.....yeah, i do know more but not enough.)

maybe the psychology could reveal some important evidence.  why the fascination for lizzie borden?

What I've always found so fascinating about this case is just that, given the facts, it couldn't or shouldn't have happened, but, it did. 

I've been reading a book called Serious Creativity by Edward De Bono and he talks about how the human brain works and how it tries to find patterns in things, things that work for them, like when a baby cries to get food or changed, etc. learned behaviour and response, something that works for them in their mind.  When the brain comes across something that doesn't have rhyme and reason to it, like the Borden murders, it tries to find the pattern in it.  Maybe thats what we are all trying to do, find the pattern?  Trying to organize the chaos of it? 

I believe our devotion to this case is in large part rooted in the fact that the crime occured long before the polygraph, fingerprinting, forensic research, and all the other tools available to criminalogists.  Coupled with the fact that it's late 19th century Victorian New England when women of Miss Lizzie's social standing are rarely if not NEVER considered prime suspect in any sort of crime.

We know that the moral conscience of Massachusetts during this period strictly forbades the execution of a female which carried over from the dreaded witch trials two centuries prior.  Putting a woman on the gallows just plainly did not set well with civilized proper folks.

I am convinced that that alone kept Lizzie from life in prison. 

The single most factor of fascination for me in this case and one other of notoriety in Massachusetts both of which are still unresoloved, The Boston Strangler, is just that...the two cases have yet to be solved.  Lest I mention that one can still visit the scene of the crime(s) albeit absence of the gore of the day.

Maybe I need professional help but I have an obsession with these two cases that goes beyond sensible.  Collecting books on both has become a second hobby although I do have my dollar limits.  I suspect the true facination of all this is plain pure simple human curiosity.

That's my share and I'm sticking to it....

BC

I've read that the reluctance to execute females in Massachusetts harked back to a later time than the Salem witch Trials.  I believe it involved a woman with the picturesque name of Bathsheba Spooner, who with her lover was charged with killing her elderly husband.  She was sentenced to death, even though she protested that she was pregnant.  Nevertheless she was exccuted, and it turned out she had indeed been pregnant.  Judges and juries were subsequently loath to exccute women, lest they punish the innocent along with the guilty.  I haven't yet been able to find my reference for this... 

Edisto, I remember that story as well. It is in Sullivan, starting on page 91:

"THE DEATH PENALTY

Strangely enough, the very influence which affected the press in their pre-trial handling of the Borden case probably had more impact than any other factor on the minds of the public and thus the minds of the jurors in Lizzie Borden's favor. I am referring to the great reluctance to convict a female defendant of a crime requiring the imposition of the death penalty.

It is true that in 1893, at the time of the Borden trial, there were two degrees of murder defined by law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and it was for the jury to determine the degree within the statutory definitions. Nonetheless, on any reading of the facts of these murders, Lizzie Borden could not possibly have been found guilty of murder in the second degree within the definition of that crime. The Borden jury had one alternative and one alone---send her to her death or set her free. Robinson had recognized this and stressed it time and again in his closing argument.

Research into the subject allows this statement to be made with reasonable certainty of its accuracy: No female criminal defendant has been executed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since the Revolutionary War. The last female put to death by the state was Bathsheba Spooner, publicly hanged in the courthouse square in Worcester in 1778, and the chilling sequelae to her hanging were to have a deterring effect long felt in Massachusetts. Here in brief is that sad saga:

Like Lizzie Borden, Bathsheba was a member of a well-known and distinguished family. Her father, General Timothy Ruggles, was, by an odd coincidence, Chief .Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. The Massachusetts Superior Court is the lineal successor to Chief Justice Ruggles's Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Because he owed his judicial appointment to the Crown and because he had been a British general in the army of Jeffery Lord Amherst, Ruggles, a confirmed Tory, was

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forced to flee to Nova Scotia at the outbreak of the Revolution. Before leaving, he arranged a marriage of convenience for his beautiful daughter Bathsheba with Joshua Spooner, an elderly cantankerous merchant of Brookfield, a town near Worcester. The marriage was a great failure and the embittered young wife soon sought surcease from her aging spouse and unhappy state.

Ezra Ross, a seventeen-year-old veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill, invalided from Washington's army, passed through Brookfield en route home from New York State and met Bathsheba, who undertook to nurse him back to health. Her nursing ministrations, though protracted, were yet so remarkably effective that the end result was glowing health for Ezra and pregnancy for Bathsheba Spooner.

Gauging correctly that her husband might be suspicious of her pregnancy and adopt a dim view of it, Bathsheba joined her lover in a plan to murder Joshua, and engaged, to help her, two freebooting British soldiers who were passing her way.

On 1 March 1778 the task was quickly done, and shortly thereafter Joshua's body, badly beaten, was found head down in his own well. The discovery came too soon to allow the British soldiers to escape, for they had tarried to celebrate in a Worcester tavern, wearing Joshua's clothes and toasting Bathsheba's health with the fee she had paid them. At the time of their arrest they implicated Bathsheba and Ezra, and almost immediately all four confessed, and on 21 April 1778 they were put to trial together.

The trial was remarkable for the speed with which it was carried out: beginning very early, and ending very late, in one day all four were tried by a jury, convicted, and sentenced to hang. After the death sentence was pronounced upon all four defendants, it was protested that to execute Bathsheba would, of course, take the life of her unborn child.

A body of two male midwives and twelve "discreet and lawful matrons" was appointed to examine Bathsheba physically, and they pronounced that her assertion of pregnancy was without foundation. A second examination by a group of five midwives resulted, unhappily for Bathsheba, in a split decision.

The entire matter was resolved by marching the three men to the gallows erected in the square in front of the Worcester courthouse and hanging them. Shortly thereafter Bathsheba was conveyed to the gallows in an elegant carriage, accompanied by the local minister. This delicacy in allowing a suitable interval between the hanging of the three men and the hanging of Bathsheba Spooner, together with the thoughtfulness in allowing Bathsheba to ride to her death in a fine carriage, added a

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chivalrous touch to the day's events for the howling throng gathered in the square to witness the hangman's skill.

Almost immediately after Bathsheba's swaying body was cut down from the gallows, an autopsy was performed. It revealed the presence of a well-formed, well-nourished five-month fetus.

The self-guilt of the people of Worcester County was not soon erased. No female was ever again executed in that county.

Further, my research has been unable to discover that any female was ever again executed in any county of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In the early nineteenth century, however, executions were performed, and records of them were kept, only by the county officers of the fourteen counties of the state; thus it is difficult to assert with finality that no female was hanged during that period. Yet all indications point to the truth of this assertion.

In 1857 a female charged with murdering her husband by arsenic poisoning was tried in Plymouth County. The evidence against her was overwhelming, but the jury resisted conviction and was unable to reach a verdict.

Months later, in 1858, the state legislature enacted the so-called "murder statute" for the first time, distinguishing murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree, defining both and requiring a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment and not the death penalty for persons convicted of murder in the second degree. It had been argued to the legislature that regardless of the evidence, it was impossible to convict female defendants in murder cases because of the mandatory death penalty.

Immediately after the new murder statute was enacted, the Plymouth County female defendant just mentioned was re-tried and, after a discussion of abandonment of purpose to kill and some flimsy evidence of lack of deliberate premeditation, she was convicted by the jury of second degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Some thirty years later, and only a few years before Lizzie Borden came to trial, Sarah Jane Robinson, accused of six murders, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Shortly thereafter, on the sole ground that she was a woman, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Incongruously, militant equal-rights-for-women groups exerted considerable pressure upon the Governor to obtain this commutation.

We should note here that no second-degree escape hatch was open to the

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prosecution or the jury in the Borden case: among many reasons, there were two separate murders involved, committed with some time interval. The facts of the Borden case simply did not accommodate anything but a first-degree murder conviction.

In 1900 the method of execution in Massachusetts was changed from hanging to electrocution. Since then the electric chair has been used sixty-five times. All sixty-five persons who were put to death by the Commonwealth by electrocution were males. The last was executed in 1947.

It is said that scientific scholars have urged that the reluctance to execute female criminals has its psychological genesis in the evolution of an early misogyny on through to the male attitude which we know as chivalry, and that chivalrous forces extend to protection of the female from all recognizable harm, including the hangman's noose. In the facts of the Borden case with specificity, students of psychology urge that a Guilty verdict would have also been an acknowledgment by the male jury that Lizzie had the mental and physical strength and capacity to commit the gruesome acts, thus negating the universally preconceived image of the weak and helpless female of the nineteenth century.

Whatever the psychological explanation of the Borden verdict may be, the law, if it is a science, is a practical science, and it deals in hard facts. The hard facts are, first, that there is a clearly recognizable pattern of reluctance to convict females of murder when the death penalty is involved, and, second, that Lizzie Borden was guilty of double parricide---and despite the evidence she was acquitted.

One wonders how many persons have escaped punishment for murder solely because the death penalty was, the jury's only alternative to acquittal. And one wonders why this compelling, if inverted, argument was not more forcefully advanced by the organized opponents to capital punishment in their long, untiring, and fruitful campaign to re-orient the nation's views on criminal punishment, this reorientation being reflected in the 1972 Furman opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, equivocally abolishing capital punishment in the nation. "

Robert Sullivan's "Goodbye Lizzie Borden" tells of this case. Did you read it? Your library may have it, or as a paperback reprint.
Wasn't there a woman executed around this time? Perhaps Judge Robert Sullivan (any relation to Bricget?) was just thinking wishfully to explain the verdict?

Read Edmund Pearson's "5 Tales of Murder" for the shipboard axe killing.

NB Has ANYONE done any independent research to verify Judge Sullivan's claim? I won't dispute it.

(Message last edited Jan-21st-03  6:13 PM.)

WOW!
That was good!
Thanks Stef.

This is Odd.  Ray replies at 4 pm and it seems as if Stef's post wasn't there when he replied, as he gives similar info--and edited at 6:13?.
Yet Stef's post is timed near 11:30 am, and both are EST?

(Message last edited Jan-21st-03  6:22 PM.)

My other, most favorite famous Unsolved case is Jack the R.
However, that one is becoming hard to follow, as there are suspects and theories Galore and more to come!  It's getting out of hand, and out of any one person's being able to keep most of the case in their head.

Our Borden case seems to have a finite number of characters, a reasonable amount of info that can be retained or at least managed, in the sense of knowing where to look to find a source, and it is right here on our shores so that we can visit the crime scene and see the exhibits at the FRHS.  That makes it seem solvable, and that is a definite attraction.

If at one point, I was looking for a hobby, in the line of true crime, This Borden Case is primo, for the reasons I gave.

Maybe because she would have probably been found guilty
if it happened today? But I guess money talks now, too.
Maybe because she HAD have done it there was no one else,
but still how could she have done it & gotten rid of most
everything that pointed to her? Maybe because we don't
expect the dainty Victorian ladies in antique photographs
to such things? What were the odds a rich, Victorian, New England
Sunday school teacher would be accused of smashing her parents
heads in? It seems like she was a legend then too........

"...One wonders how many persons have escaped punishment for murder solely because the death penalty was, the jury's only alternative to acquittal..."

Maybe that was true for Sullivan but today I don't believe juries are supposed to taken into consideration what the penalties are for the different categories they are to decide on for a defendant. That is a matter for the judge or court.  If the jury is to decide the penalty they aren't supposed to entertain any of those possibilities until after they render their verdict.  Or maybe that varies from state to state? 

I think the mystery is the draw for many people to think about cold cases. We are fascinated by Lizzie because she was the suspect in the Borden case, if it was some other woman then Lizzie wouldn't be the one of interest. She was exceptional because of the case. 

There is a book by James Ruddick called "Death at the Priory--Love, Sex and Murder in Victorian England" which is a wonderfully written book about a Victorian murder in England in which he attempts to solve the case. Again there is a woman as the suspect. Her husband was the victim. By reading it a person can anticipate that one day someone might write something of it's kind for the Borden case.

I just saw the Patricia Cornwell talk on her new book where she says she has solved the Jack the Ripper case.  She starts out by saying what a rough time she had with the British over her conclusions. It seems that the British feel Sickert was a national treasure, could this be because he was a famous painter, because Cornwell says clearly she believes he was a serial killer, psychopathic personality and all around villain. Until now Sickert was never really considered a suspect in the Jack the Ripper crimes.

Now my question is, would some of us feel more inclined to see Lizzie Borden as something other than the most likely real killer of the Bordens if she had become famous for something else during her lifetime...maybe married again to a wealthy politician or found a cure for something, or became a champion of the needy?  People find it hard to give up their image of a person even with new forensic evidence.

Cornwell also says she considers the interest in the Jack the Ripper case today comes from a sense that people need justice, not just for the victims (they will never know) but for us as a community.  She says that she will never look at crime the same way, could never write a satirical or humorous crime novel after her immersion in the London case, it was too real.  My question is, how many of us really see Lizzie Borden and her family as real people?  Or is it because we do see them so that we are able to be humorous, etc., sometimes in our discussions because humor helps alleviate the realness which would be overwhelming otherwise.

I look at Celebrity suspects, and have to say no, that probably wouldn't make a deal of difference.
If a person is found guilty, tho, and is a Celebrity already, I tend to distain their proficiency in their craft as well as the person themselves, upon conviction.
Somehow I have trouble dissassociating the person and what they are famous for, and the deed.
For instance:  I used to think Sean Connery was cool, cute and a great James Bond.  Then he did admit in an interview that he slaps his wife.
From then on, I was not interested in his career or his fame or his body of work.  It was reduced to nothing in my eyes.
It is a loss when that happens.
I have had family discussions where we have tried to reconcile the person with the deed and then separate it from their Celebrity or their fame or work, and I just can't seem to divide the two.

Did Cornwell destroy some of Sickert's work from disgust?

Sean Connery comes from a "working class" environment, where this may be more common. But many hard working peasant or farm women (think Bertha Manchester) could hold their own with many men. Especially a man who doesn't really want to "get tough" since this is not a good reputation. (Think about 5'9" and 175 pounds (this is not anything personal.)

I am also from a "working class" background & most people I
know consider it "white trash" to beat your wife. I have
known a few brawling couples in my day --- but for the most
part it is not a "nice" thing to do, even to poor people.


And I agree with you Kat, people do lose what good things
you may have thought about them when you find out how they
really act & treat others.

Anyone who slaps his wife around, common practice, working class or not, is an asshole.

Actually, that person is probably guilty of a crime. You must know this? It is also a cultural thing, found in many 3rd world countries, etc. And much worse!

Maybe Sean Connery needs to spend a night with Camryn Manheim (spelling?).

(Message last edited Jan-28th-03  6:05 PM.)

carol:

i don't have an answer, but you make a good point in that sickert is a talented artist and left a valuable legacy as such.  it would be very difficult for a big fan of his work to believe him to be jack the ripper.  he's basically a good painter, in some ways very odd and interesting, though i'm not a big fan.  but if i were, and it also appeared that he was jack the ripper, i would probably feel it to be a negative reflection on myself somehow.  yet it is not impossible for a serial killer to be a talented artist.  life does not make sense in that way. 

similar to lizzie in how people could not believe a devout church goer and bible teacher could do that deed.  in the aftermath, those same people could not believe that an innocent lizzie could be tight-mouthed about what happened.  admirable accomplishments could only have helped lizzie's reputation, but lizzie didn't have enough going for her there.

What does that mean?

Why not spend the night with Lizzie? She was a well-to-do
woman while Bertha Manchester was a burly farm girl & ended
up killed --- Lizzie was in the house with an axe
murderer & they left her alone. Who was tougher?

(Message last edited Jan-28th-03  10:56 PM.)

I was very interested to read everything, good points all around. I think part of it with the British about Cornwell latching on to Sickert as Jack the Ripper is that maybe some of them feel an American shouldn't be interfering in or tearing down the ideal of their treasured artists, etc.  And Lizzie was a suspect at the time of the Borden murders whereas Sickert becomes a suspect only after l00 years. I used to like Woody Allen movies but after learning of his escapades I no longer find them agreeable to watch, even if his humor is great, it is spoiled now for me.

I enjoyed your comparison of Bertha Manchester to Lizzie in relation to the murderer Kimberly. I still think the two cases are somehow related.

"Did Cornwell destroy some of Sickert's work from disgust?" I don't see how she could unless she bought some of his work first as an original or print.  Aren't the drawings and pictures in museums and his letters still in custody of the police or museums? She never indicated doing such a thing in her talk on CSPAN. It doesn't sound like something a professional would do. She did indicate some pity for Sickert because of his early deformities. 

My early interest in the Borden case revolved around the questions, "Did she or didn't she, and if Lizzie didn't do it who did?" Over the years and through the theories I have concluded that Lizzie was probably guilty as charged. Now the puzzle for me is largely why did she do it and how, as well as how did she manage to get away with the crimes? As Lizzie was acquitted and no one else brought to trial these other questions become puzzles within the bigger (legal) puzzle of who was "really" responsible for the deaths of Abby and Andrew Borden.

Perhaps my use of the word "puzzle" in the comments above is my real answer to the question, "Why the fascination for Lizzie Borden?" Lizzie and the Borden case are a human puzzle with pieces missing and other pieces that even seem to change shape as we try again and again to fit them together in ways that make sense. And the images which appear, while usually familiar, contain gaps that will never be filled and shades of light and dark which change with our own perceptions of the evidence about this baffling family and their baffling mystery.

http://www.casebook.org/suspects/sickert.html
  
"Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert had been tangentially implicated in the Ripper crimes as early as the 1970s, with the release of the now infamous "Royal Conspiracy" theory. But it wasn't until the early 1990s, with the release of Jean Overton Fuller's Sickert and the Ripper Crimes, that the peculiar artist became a Ripper suspect in his own right. More recently, Patricia Cornwell has claimed to have found DNA evidence linking Sickert to at least one "Ripper letter".

We are still putting together a proper suspect page for Walter Sickert, but in the meantime you may be interested in reading Wolf Vanderlinden's excellent, in-depth essay on Sickert's candidature as Jack the Ripper, entitled The Art of Murder.

Those interested particularly in Patricia Cornwell's claims in Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed may be interested in reading Patricia Cornwell and Walter Sickert - a Primer. "......

------------
PRIMETIME THURSDAY, Aug. 8, 2002
......
....."Cornwell has spent $4 million on her obsession, delving into Sickert's life and work in a quest for evidence tying him to five Ripper murders committed in the East London district of Whitechapel in 1888.

She bought up 30 of Sickert's paintings, some costing as much as $70,000, only to tear some of them up to look for clues. She bought his painting table and had forensic experts scour it for fingerprints. She visited the scenes of the Ripper's crimes, and the modest graves of his victims.

The idea that Sickert might be Jack the Ripper has been around since the 1960s, and most experts believe it is a myth stemming from his macabre paintings. But Cornwell's research has convinced her that she has the right man.".....

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/pt_ripper_011206.html

From The Archive LINKS at LizzieAndrewBorden.com

--Apparently Cornwell did not tear up his paintings in disgust.  She did it for evidence.


(Message last edited Jan-29th-03  9:20 PM.)

Yes, it feels like a puzzle.
I wonder how many of us did puzzles growing up?  Picture puzzles, word puzzles---- See haulover:
http://www.arborwood.com/awforums/show-topic-1.php?start=1&fid=27&taid=1&topid=1084
Played chess or backgammon?

The case DOES change like a Chimera...glowing in multiple hues, with varied and ungainly parts that don't quite add up to one monster.

I was thinking about Impulse Control while taking a walk yesterday.
I have always thought that the KEY to the muders lies in the first victim.
And when anyone was asked "Did Abby have an enemy?", the answer came back Lizzie.  But I think Emma disliked her maybe more.
But when I think of a first horrific murder that was so outrageous with hate that it took 19 bloody blows to exhaust the hate and anger, I think of Lizzie.  Of no "Impulse Control".  Then I wonder about the ultimate mystery...which is :
"Who WAITED all that time between killings, and HOW COULD THEY?"

at one time, i was into logic problems.  the goal being to make correct identifications -- but to do this, you're given a list of cryptic facts.  the answers are there but hidden.  you get the answers by comparing each "fact" to every other fact.  at first its baffling, but there is a satisfying moment when everything falls into place at once and all questions are accounted for.  i think it's something like this that we're after in the borden case.  but in this case, no plausible scenario seems to work satisfactorily enough.  my impression is that too much information is missing.

if we are simply lacking information necessary for solving the crime, this is probably an indication in lizzie's favor -- which gets right back to the reason for a NOT GUILTY verdict, which i believe was just, because she was certainly not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which we all have to admit.

that we know factually which was the first murder and that two hours separated the murders -- this is what makes lizzie look so guilty.  but the flip side of that coin is:  how could she destroy all physical evidence connecting her within the timeframe.  as for abby's murder, she had plenty of time to destroy a dress.  if she killed abby, she must have still had the weapon on hand to kill andrew.  the explanation here is that she intended to remove the weapon from the house.  yet in the end, if guilty, she did manage to remove it after killing andrew, and in a matter of a handful of minutes.  the handleless hatchet theory is so difficult, it's hard to accept.  so she threw it on that barn next door -- or dropped it down that unused well by the barn. 

maybe i'm missing something, but why would she find it necessary to conceal the weapon?  why not leave it in andrew's skull?  they were not admitting fingerprinting into evidence, were they?  knowlton makes the point that an outside killer would have left the weapon rather than risk being seen with it later.  so why would a guilty lizzie believe it necessary to conceal it?  which is a question knowlton does not answer.  to get into that is to psychologically speculate about lizzie -- that she wants to destroy/deny anything that connects her to the crimes. but lizzie herself makes it tempting to buy this idea in the way in which her testimony is an irrational denial.

you would think the 19 blows to abby would be a clew...but even there we find different explanations.  1) they were delivered by a powerful madman.  2) they were delivered by a woman who had to compensate in number for a lack of physical strength.  3) they were delivered as they were because of the hatred felt by lizzie borden. 

well, all of the above is old hat, and it gets us nowhere.  the only thing i am reasonably certain about is that she lies throughout her testimony, and she does so in a way to contradict her statements in the immediate aftermath of the murders.  even so, this is not proof that her own hands did the deeds. 

however, there is always this:  once you speculate that someone else did it, it gets less credible, doesn't it?  all in all, the story that makes the most sense is that she did it.

as for someone hiding for two hours in the house -- i don't see how without lizzie knowing about it.  and her sinker story is ludicrous anyway. 

if she's guilty, we still have the problem of the dress and the weapon.  i don't guess i can know, but i still wonder how thoroughly was the kitchen searched for some implement that could have been used and washed clean?  and that coat under andrew's head seems like a missed clew.

to answer my own question earlier in this post:  could it be that the reason the murder weapon was not left with the last victim is that it was something that belonged in the household and would have easily been identified as such?  this is one thing that would necessitate concealment.  while they were looking for hidden axes, was the real thing put up in the kitchen where it belonged?  we don't have an inventory of the kitchen, do we?

lizzie either outsmarted the police or she protected the murderer.

 

Two excellent questions, Kat. Why was Abby killed and who waited all that time...? I believe Hosea Knowlton, too, thought the circumstances of Abby's death were key to understanding both murders and I agree. While every theory of the Borden case can be challenged I think the theory that provides the most and best answers, and remains the most astounding of all, is that Lizzie indeed committed both crimes.

Haulover, this is a most interesting analysis. I think the "not guilty" verdict was reasonable given the exclusion of Lizzie's inquest testimony and Bence's testimony, both vital to the Commonwealth's case against Lizzie. As far as destroying a blood-stained dress I believe Lizzie did that on Sunday morning at the kitchen stove. Where the dress was hidden for the three days prior I do not know. I have never read that any authority who searched the house between Thursday and Sunday found a paint-stained dress, let alone a blood-stained one. As far as the weapon was concerned I think Lizzie feared it could somehow be connected to her (a new hatchet recently purchased in a store somewhere in the area?) and she disposed of it, though I don't know where or how. I think Lubinsky may well have seen Lizzie near the steps leading to her back door around the time of Andrew's murder, perhaps she had just hidden the weapon somewhere in the barn or yard. But this is supposition. The fact is the weapon which left gilt in Abby's head wound was never identified, the prosecution knew it, and tried to turn the handleless hatchet into an acceptable substitute.

I think we can probably lay to rest the theory that Lizzie threw her hatchet down the old well on the Borden property.  Hadn't that well been filled in?  I'll have to go on yet another information hunt, and that can take months, but I'll try to find the info.  I know the police searched inside the "privy vault" in the rear of the barn, so even if the well had been in use (or simply drained of water), they would probably have searched it too.

Right you are Edisto. From the trial, page 675. Policeman Edson testifying:

Q.  Anywhere else you went in the yard?
A.  Yes, sir, an old well.
Q.  What did you see there?
A.  Searched round in there as fully as we could.
Q.  That was all filled up?
A.  Yes, sir, practically
Q.  Nothing in there but dirt?
A.  Nothing but dirt.
Q.  And that well stands westerly behind the barn?
A.  Yes, sir.

Actually westerly is in the front of the barn not the back.

The hatchet was not dropped down the well adjacent to the barn.  The well was no longer in use and had been filled in with dirt, long before the murders.  The authorities included the well in their initial search for evidence. It is not documented, but I would assume they probably sifted through the first couple of feet or so. Nothing was found.

"Did Cornwell destroy some of Sickert's work from disgust?" and
"--Apparently Cornwell did not tear up his paintings in disgust.  She did it for evidence."

Right, if a person buys something it is their right to do what they want with it. I am not totally convinced she actually destroyed the paintings as the article says. She might have taken the painting off the frame (tear) looking for something and to let the experts work on the painting for evidence. I don't think she would destroy evidence she might need later when some other expert or method of detection came forward. I haven't read her book yet, maybe she goes into this more there.

She said in her interview on CSPAN that she spent $6 million not $4 million on her quest.

Cornwell affirms that Sickert was never a police suspect at the time or even subsequently.

"As far as destroying a blood-stained dress I believe Lizzie did that on Sunday morning at the kitchen stove."

OK, then was the blood-stained dress the Bedford cord that was made in the spring?  Because Alice Russell who originally caused all this trouble about the dress, said that she had seen the dress when it was made in the spring and never saw it again until she saw it in the kitchen Sunday by the stove. That means that it most likely wasn't the dress Lizzie had on August 4th when she saw Lizzie immediately after the crimes. Even though Alice says she doesn't remember what Lizzie had on that day, she knows it wasn't the Bedford cord because she hadn't see it from the spring till that Sunday.

Do you think Lizzie disposed of two blood-stained dresses August 4th? Do you think Lizzie burned two dresses Sunday? If no one saw any blood on Lizzie in the immediate aftermath of Andrew's murder and Alice didn't see any blood on the dress that was being burned, the dress burned why do you say there was a blood-stained dress burned Sunday mornning?

"Over the years and through the theories I have concluded that Lizzie was probably guilty as charged. Now the puzzle for me is largely why did she do it and how, as well as how did she manage to get away with the crimes?"

It's interesting that you are able to conclude that Lizzie was probably guilty as charges without answering your next two statements...her motive and how she was able to do it. If it was Lizzie she got away with the crimes because she was found not guilty.

thanks for clearing that up about the well.

This is why AR Brown's theoritical solution works. It doesn't have a videotaped confession, but it best explains almost all of the questions. (Since I went over this once before, I won't repeat it all.)

The main one is: if neither Lizzie or Bridget did both (alibis at the time), who did? And why was he never found (silence after the fact)?

Why take the hatchet with him? Its the natural thing to carry away what you own! Especially if not of sound mind, etc. Or had his initials on it!

(Message last edited Jan-30th-03  4:30 PM.)

If never a suspect, doesn't that sort of clear him?
Especially if those picture postdated the crimes. Maybe a sick mind, but not a murderer?

I remember when Stefani saw that Primetime show of August 8 this past year.  She recounted to me the story of the buying up and destruction of some of Sickert's art work.
I didn't see the show but I have noted before, when Primetime writes up their episode, as they did here, it is almost the script, it is so accurate as to what was actually on the program.

Other than that Stef recounted to me what she saw, and I read the show I cited, I also have not seen this recent program.  A few people I know did and told me about it.  I would think it's possible that Cornwell spent $2 million more since the last recounting of her adventures.  That sounds reasonable, because she is still so dedicated.  I am still currently 1/2 way through her book  as I had stopped to read Library books before their due date.

As to Sickert being considered a suspect, I would NOT ignore the Ripper website and their information they gave that Sickert HAS been named in different ways, as involved with the Ripper case since the Royal Conspiacry theory.
Here is an area of which I am familiar, having 15 books on Jack not 10 feet from me.
I pulled out a cross-section of 5 and he is in the INDEX of 4 of them, the odd one being Spiering's work Prince Jack, and has no index.
If you are new to Sickert, there is plenty of info out there.
One lists Sickert in the index, author Sharkey, 1987...and another...Rumbelow, 1988, 15 years ago.
--I believe Rumbello also has a 2003 model out and Stef just received it.

(Message last edited Jan-30th-03  8:34 PM.)

Taking the idea of *poor impulse control* and finding in it the possibility of Lizzie having murdered Abby, the WAIT between murders negates this impulse-control theory?  Or does it?

I just currently read Terence Sharkey's Jack The Ripper-100 Years of Investigation.  Its interesting that the police at the time put out the idea that Jack possibly suffered from epilepsy and murdered these women whilst having a fit.  Very interesting book, I read up what there was on Sickert.  Cornwell is firmly convinced that it was he who committed the crimes?  Theres such a long list of suspects! 

kat:

if i understand your question -- i have theorized that it really did take lizzie an hour and a half to destroy evidence.  that she burned the dress in the stove, had to wash herself, and get dressed again for going out -- and when she's about ready, father comes home.  at this point, this theory gets more difficult.  she has no time at all compared to the time she had after killing abby.  so she puts on father's coat, which protects her dress.  now it really gets sticky.  the weapon?  this may be a desperate stretch, but is it possible that she buries the whole weapon underneath coal and/or wood in the stove?  i remember that someone (i don't know if dr bowen or one of the officers says a fire was burning in the stove.)  would anyone have stoked the fire and looked?  i read mrs. russell's testimony last night, and she mentions it was much cooler in the dining room.  an indication that the stove had been really hot?  and i've always wondered why a guilty lizzie would decide to iron hankerchiefs when she did.  to explain the fire in the stove?  her story about the fire going out and her flats not hot enough is troubling to me, because she did in fact iron some of them.  and apparently the stove was still hot after the last murder.  it looks more like she quit ironing when bridget went upstairs and got down to "real" business. 

under this scenario, the dress-burning witnessed by alice russell really was a matter of "house-cleaning" after the police were finished?  about this, i'm stumped.  blood stains would look like brown paint stains.  if police had ever seen a dress that was "stained" would they not have taken it as evidence to be examined?  but they didn't.  and alice doesn't see it in detail -- only that the edge was "soiled."  that was her word:  soiled.  at that time, was it common to put a soiled garment in a cabinet in the kitchen, with the intention of burning it later when a convenient fire was going?

i'll look for this myself, but does anyone know if an officer testified that he saw a paint-stained, or any kind of stained dress?

 

Nobody says they saw a paint-stained dress that weekend.
Emma is the only one who says she did.  She said she hadn't seen Lizzie wear it in weeks before Emma left town but then Emma says she saw it on a nail in the clothes press at the top of the stairs at 9 o'clock Saturday night, the evening before the destruction of the dress.  (And by "destruction" I mean exactly that...the tearing of the outfit that was in two parts.)
No one actually saw it burned.  It is inferred that is was burned.  No one says it wasn't burned.
Emma takes it upon herself to suggest to the court that it was her idea to destroy the dress, or to get rid of it.
Trial
Emma
1540
Q.  What did you say to her?
A.  I said, "You have not destroyed that old dress yet; why don't you?"

This has always sounded like bologna to me.

--Oh, back to the impulse control question:
Do you think, then, that Abby's murder was planned but ended up  Spontaneous...and that Andrew's murder was not planned but was even more spontaneous?  


(Message last edited Jan-31st-03  12:03 AM.)

Stefani just verified to me that on the Aug. show, she remembers that at least one piece of art of Sickert's that Cornwell had bought outright, was in a degenerated condition and that was a piece that she allowed to be sacrificed for the investigation.
If anyone else saw the Aug. show of Primetime they can add their comments or recollections.

kat:

If she's guilty:

The first murder was part planned and part spontaneous.  from all the poison talk and especially her visit to alice russell, it appears she was working on it or trying to set it up.  i don't see how she could have known who would be where and when beforehand.  the fact that emma was away was probably a big factor.  she might well have known that mrs. borden had already told bridget that she wanted the windows washed soon, and so lizzie could have anticipated that bridget would be outside soon long enough for her to do it.  (or mrs. borden might have told bridget clearly on wednesday that she wanted the windows washed "tomorrow."  that mrs. borden was heard telling her that thursday morning could have actually been a reminder of something already discussed.)  also, in hearing conversation between morse and the bordens downstairs, she might have known morse's plans for that day.  so when she visited alice that night, she could have anticipated that "tomorrow is the big day."  of course, she knew mr. borden's routine.  so i don't think it was a case of sudden insanity or irresistible impulse taking control of lizzie.  it would be that she anticipated an opportunity, watched for it, and "laid for abby."

to follow this through . . . you next have the number of blows to interpret.  isn't it common sense that when an axe penetrates a skull into the brain -- that person is dead?  abby might not have been dead by the first blow, but certainly by the second or third. to keep at it that way -- how can that be anything but an expression of hatred and rage?  that raises the question of just who was it who hated abby.  i've always thought that if a powerful man, skillful with an axe, murdered abby out of the necessity of silencing her and getting her out of the way -- then 3 or 4 blows would have sufficed.  this is a bizzare aspect of the murder:  someone enjoyed doing it.

now, to go on to the second murder . . . i am puzzled and torn in the very context of your question.  i have argued it both ways -- that she planned and waited for dad, and that she got caught and decided to kill someone she anticipated would name her as the killer.  it's pretty factual that mr borden came home earlier than usual that day from not feeling well; he cancelled some appointments.  interesting to speculate that if he had attended his board meeting, he might have come home to an empty house.  he might have wondered where abby was.  he might or might not have gone up the front stairs to look for her.  lizzie might have come home later and gone to her room and seen the body and screamed for father.  or she might not have.  she might of waited for morse to return and discover it.  but then there is this:  when she talked to alice that night she spoke of her father having trouble with people -- in other words, that he was the object of the violence she feared.  if she's setting a stage, she's thinking of her father being killed.  she's not talking about abby's enemies but father's enemies.  this indicates that she had his murder planned.  or does it?  it could mean that she expects violence done to someone in the house because of him (in a sense all of them being his).  if lizzie's motive is freedom and money, then andrew is the primary obstacle. 

but . . . (and i think i understand what you're getting at) mr. borden's murder was far more according to chance circumstances.  she could anticipate when mr. borden came home, but how could she know when morse would show up or when bridget would finish the windows?  this makes it look like (if lizzie is guilty) that andrew's murder is unplanned and spontaneous. 

this is an interesting comparison.  it makes sense that lizzie planned abby's murder.  but it's hard to imagine lizzie doing anything but responding to unexpected opportunity in terms of andrew's murder.  that situation is subject to so much chance that she could not have possibly planned it.  bridget might not have gone to her room, and morse might have returned sooner.  either lizzie seized an opportunity for murder or someone else was waiting for andrew to get home. the theory of a guilty lizzie would seem to depend on the fact that she had not planned to kill andrew. 

as you say, you would think that the first murder would provide the motive or the rationale for the whole thing.  on the other hand, if the real target is andrew and abby simply got in the way -- then lizzie had to have seen or heard something in connection to it, and for reasons we don't know, she chose to keep it a secret.  in the immediate aftermath of the crime, she makes statements about who it could not have been.  this is almost an admission that she knows who it was.  her inquest testimony is literally nonsense -- though a reading between the lines can provide valuable clues. 

in summation, if she is guilty, then the second murder is a freak of chance circumstances that affords her an opportunity.

i see i have clarified nothing - except that andrew's murder could not have been planned the night before.  the crime just gets more baffling the more i examine it.  if lizzie did it, she found she could not leave the house looking innocent and seized a chance moment to off papa.  if lizzie did not do it, something very strange and mysterious is going on.

that's all i've got for now.  a piece of the puzzle is missing, and can we ever hope to retrieve it?

      

That was really good.
I had to take notes.  Here are some thoughts.
A bit more disjointed than your flowing narrative, which I enjoyed.

--One blow--reminds me of CSI last night.  One blow killed a man.  A hammer fell on his head from above, but we didn't know it til the end.  It was like a locked-room mystery.
Anyway, one of the forensic tech.s said "The first blow is free."
I have heard this before and repeated it here.
The first blow spatters hardly ANY blood.
A single blow can kill.  A single blow can almost kill just enough to be as if the person had died.
A butcher ...a *professional*...would know this.
An amature, full of hate, would not.

--Windows-  Mrs. Churchill may be exaggerating but at the Prelim. (127) she says Thursdays are window-washing days, approximately weekly , at the Borden's:
Q.  Do you remember how long before that time she had been out washing the windows, whether that same week, or the week before?
A.  I dont think she washed windows but once a week, and Thursday was generally the day.

So there is your Thursday info.  We know Bridget had a *routine*.  Neighbors probably knew it, too.
Monday wash and dry laundry.  If Monday can't dry, dry Tuesday or continue into Tuesday.
Wednesday is ironing.
Thursday wash windows?
But remember, Mrs. Churchill also says she knows not much about her neighbors:

Inquest
Churchill
126
Q.  Who usually did the marketing for the Bordens, Mr. or Mrs. Borden?
A.  Mrs. Borden went a good many times out. I dont know that, I dont know their private affairs at all.


--I'm not sure that Andrew came home *early* Thursday.  I've not found that specific reference?  Do you know?
I had thought the meeting he missed was Wednesday, but am not sure.
I did find today (again), tho, that Lizzie said her father told her he did not think he would go to the post office that day.

Inquest
Lizzie
59
A. Maggie went out of doors to wash the windows and father came out into the kitchen and said he did not know whether he would go down to the post office or not. And then I sprinkled some handkerchiefs to iron.

Maybe Lizzie makes sure he goes out by giving him the letter to mail to Emma.

--If Lizzie was so afraid of something that might happen, why doesn't she warn Andrew that last time she says she saw a shadow of a person near the back steps?  And why didn't she tell him of these strange ideas when she got home Wednesday night from Alice's?
PLUS, how can Lizzie even walk home alone at twilight or just-dark being scared for her family's lives and her own?

Inquest
Lizzie
90+
A. No, sir. It was after my sister went away. I came home from Miss Russell's one night, and as I came up, I always glanced towards the side door as I came along by the carriage way, I saw a shadow on the side steps. I did not stop walking, but I walked slower. Somebody ran down the steps, around the east end of the house. I thought it was a man, because I saw no skirts, and I was frightened, and of course I did not go around to see. I hurried in the front door as fast as I could and locked it.
Q. What time of night was that?
A. I think about quarter of 9; it was not after 9 o'clock, anyway.
...............
Q. Did you tell your father of this last one?
A. No, sir.


--When you say, Lizzie telling who could Not have done it, can begin to sound as if that means she knows who did, seems an interesting conceptual explanation of those remarks of hers.
HMMMM....



(Message last edited Feb-1st-03  1:43 AM.)

Wasn't that the solution of AR Brown? Lizzie (and Uncle John) knew but wouldn't tell. Greater family scandal, the possibility of criminal prosecution for Uncle John (arranged for the meeting).
Proesecutors are in the business of generating a body count of convictions, not necessarily in the Justice business. Note how this (and other famous cases) helped him land a better and richer job.

I often read the advice columns in the newspapers. It is not unusual for some people to fear trouble when certain relatives arrive for a visit. Especially when there was prior trouble.
Aren't even marriage receptions prone to fighting?
The reason the bride and grooms relatives are separated by the church aisle it to prevent gossip comments from provoking fights. What is your experience?

"As to Sickert being considered a suspect, I would NOT ignore the Ripper website and their information they gave that Sickert HAS been named in different ways, as involved with the Ripper case since the Royal Conspiacry theory."

I didn't say Sickert wasn't named or considered the possible murderer by some people, he was, but not by the police. Cornwell said this so your must take this up with her.

Sometimes TV shows are accurate and sometimes not.  The National Geographic Channel, who one would think would be accurate, did a totally reprehensible show on crop circles which misled the public. So maybe Primetime is right, maybe not, on the destruction of paintings, Iwill have to wait till I hear from Cornwell on this, she would be the one I would trust to know.

Re: the expression "he did not know whether he would go to the post office or not," I am wondering if this is not just a late-19th century way of saying, "He said he would probably go to the post office."  I noticed at the inquest Lizzie used the same phrasing when she said something like, "I don't know whether I ate half a banana or not," or "I don't know but that I ate a cookie."  I think this is just their way of saying, "I probably did something," or "I think I'll do something."  THerefore, it probably means that the person DID do the intended thing.  In this case, Lizzie probably means, "Father told me that he thought he'd go to the post office."

Lizzie Borden was acquitted and the "real" murderer of Abby and Andrew went undetected. However, in reconsidering all the evidence available I think it is reasonable to conclude that the jury's verdict was wrong. If so we move past the question of "who?" and on to such issues as Lizzie's motive(s); contention in the household; the mechanics of the crimes (such as the unidentified weapon, the dress or covering, Andrew's coat, the 'clean' Lizzie, planned vs. spontaneous); why Lizzie's family and friends were so loyal to her; the police investigation; the role played by the press; the exclusion of evidence at the trial; Justice Dewey's charge to the jury. These, and others like them, are the questions I prefer to ponder now. I do recognize, though, that other people who study the case come to different conclusions entirely while addressing similar questions!

i disagree.  the jury's verdict was right.  the most damning evidence against her (her inquest testimony) was excluded.  the eli bence testimony was also excluded.  how do you find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?  there certainly was and is a reasonable doubt. 

i tend to  think she's guilty, but it would have been wrong for the jury to have found her guilty.

Alice Russell testified at Lizzie's trial that the dress Lizzie had at the kitchen stove on Sunday morning, August 7, was the Bedford cord dress made in the spring of 1892, "Light-blue ground with a dark figure-small figure." Emma Borden gave a similar description of the dress in her testimony. If this dress was soiled enough to be disposed of in the stove three days after the murders it is unlikely Lizzie was wearing it late Thursday morning when neighbors, friends, and the police began arriving at 92 Second St. Someone would have noticed the stains (whether paint, blood, or both) and soiling and would have remembered.

This is part of Alice's re-direct examination by Moody.

Q.  Was this Bedford Cord of which this dress was composed, cheap or otherwise?
A.  Cheap.

Q.  Cheap material.  Which edge was it that you saw soiled as the skirt of the dress  was exposed to your view on Sunday morning?
A.  The bottom of it,---what touches the ground.

Q.  The part that touches the ground, do you mean?
A.  Yes, sir.

Q.  Did you see soiling upon any other part than upon the bottom of the dress?
A.  No, sir, I did not.

Q.  Could you see sufficiently of the rest of the dress to see whether it was soiled or not, except the edges?
A.  No, sir.

Q.  It might have been soiled with a number of things without---

MR. ROBINSON. Well, wait.

Page 417 / i438

Q.  Could it have been soiled with a number of things without your seeing it?
A.  Yes, I think so.

Alice's testimony infers that Lizzie was holding the dress in such a way that soiling only around the bottom edge was visible.

Both Alice and Emma testified they did not see Lizzie actually place the pieces of the dress in the stove and burn them. However, during cross-examination Alice gave evidence showing that the Bedford cord dress was in fact burned in the stove.

Q.  Now, in the morning, Monday morning, you told Lizzie and Emma that Mr. Hanscom had asked you about their dresses, didn't you?
A.  Yes, sir.

Q.  And then you said. "I believe that the burning of that dress was the worst thing you could do."  or something of that kind?
A.  I said, "I am afraid the burning of that dress was the worst thing you could have done, Lizzie."

Q.  And Lizzie said what?
A.  "Oh, what made you let me do

Page 414 / i435

it?  Why didn't you tell me?

I don't believe Lizzie burned two dresses on Sunday morning (I doubt there were two blood-stained dresses on Thursday, August 4), but I think she was very anxious to burn one. Why would she be so anxious? While this dress had been successfully hidden for three days I think Lizzie was afraid of it being found by the police and examined. What would they find? It is reasonable to surmise there was blood evidence on the dress and this would be enough to put Lizzie in a jail cell. She had already heard the evening before from Mayor Coughlin that she was suspected and police remained outside the house standing watch. I don't believe this dress burning was an innocent act. Not in a house where two of the occupants had been hacked to death 72 hours earlier, where the authorities were conducting searches, where uncomfortable questions might be raised at any time. I think Lizzie disposed of this Bedford cord dress in the kitchen stove to protect herself.

I think the trial jury had little choice but to come in with a verdict of "not guilty" given that Lizzie's inquest testimony and Eli Bence's testimony were excluded (see my post number 25 above). In that sense the jury's verdict was right. I also think that a review of all the available testimony, evidence, and commentary on the Borden case can lead one to an entirely different conclusion, that is that Lizzie was in fact guilty.

i'm sure that on the day of the murders, andrew excused himself from at least one meeting because he was not feeling well.

from the witness statements:

"Andrew J. Borden visited the Union Saving Bank about half past nine a.m. thursday, and explained to Mr. A. C Hart the reason for his inability to attend a meeting of the Board or Directors which he said because he did not feel well. He remained but a few minutes, and went north from the bank.  He was alone when he came and went away from the bank."

what i've found in this issue is that lizzie insists that father left at 10 --  but that's not true, he left at 9.

My impression was that since Andrew was at his sickest Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, that Wednesday was the day he was explaining about.
Wednesday was when Dr. Bowen came over,  & Morse showed up and Andrew declined a ride to Swanzy.
I suppose it can be read either way.
But thanks for the citation!

Doug, that Sunday was also the first day Bridget did not come to work.

Your question about the hatchet as murder weapon, being taken away Vs. being left behind, reminds me of a paragraph in the newspaper about the Bertha Manchester slaying:

Evening Standard
Wednesday, May 31, 1893    Page 1
(By Associated Press)

"On the other hand it has been claimed by friends of Miss Borden that a murderer always has a horror of being connected to the crime by means of finding the instrument and will take it with him to avoid all risk.  This they think is why no hatchet has been found by the police [in the Borden case].  Yet in this fresh tragedy the bloody axe is left exposed upon the wood pile near the house."

--I don't know the benefits of using a weapon belonging to the household vs. the benefit of bringing one and taking it away.
Supposedly, in the Manchester murder a household weapon was used AND left behind in sight.   

(Message last edited Feb-2nd-03  3:10 AM.)

As Lizzie's lawyer explained, a person who uses a murder weapon found at the site will leave it, lest it connect him to the crime. But someone who carries it there will take it away to prevent any connection. That sounds right to me!

kat:

andrew "called in sick" and got home earlier than he otherwise would have on thursday, the day of the murders.  this did not happen wednesday, but on the day of the murders.

I have heard it before mentioned that Andrew came home *early* on Thursday.
I have heard this for a couple of years, but when I ask how someone knows they don't tell me.  This is something I have always wanted to know.  If you have the citation for this, and since you are thorough, maybe you can be the one to tell me?

I understand your reference in the Witness Statements, as having happened Thursday.
All I am thinking is the interpretation of the same words could  possibly be that Andrew, on Thursday, gave an excuse as to why he did not attend a meeting on Wednesday.
The only reason I was led to think that, was because Wednesday was the day Andrew was sick.

I believe you infer the statement as referring to *that day*--Thursday as being the day Andrew missed a meeting..  As I read it, it doesn't specify what day.
If there is independent corroboration of either of these assumptions I'm totally open and ready to hear it from anyone.

Maybe I'm being dense.  I just don't want to read into the statement quoted more than it actually says.
Not that you have done that.  You are specifying how you interpret it.  Is it possible that it is an inferernce?  You can tell me.  I can take it.

If..."...dress was soiled enough to be disposed of in the stove three days after the murders it is unlikely Lizzie was wearing it late Thursday morning..." and if "It is reasonable to surmise there was blood evidence on the dress..." and if "I think Lizzie disposed of this Bedford cord dress in the kitchen stove to protect herself."

Then...is what you think that Lizzie must have been wearing the Bedford cord at the time of at least one of the murders in order to get blood on it? and is what you think that if so Lizzie was never in the barn then because she couldn't have both cleaned and changed herself and been out in the barn? and is what you think that Lizzie was wearing only the Bedford cord during the two murders? (because if so she must have been walking around the house with blood spots on it for the time Andrew was away and both Andrew and Bridget  would have observed the spots from Abby's murder) and is what you think that Lizzie must have changed her clothes three times that morning? (if so why didn't Bridget observe this or why if she did observe it why didn't she say something).

okay.  i see what you mean.  i had never read it that way.  but from the exact wording of the statement, you can't be sure.

the question is did he come home earlier than he usually did?  i'd have to go through bridget's testimony again to see how much she says about his routine.  i don't know. 

but as far as how he was feeling thursday, there is this:  From Mr. Everett Cook of the First National Bank:  "...He was not here more than ten minutes.  While he was here I noticed that he looked tired and sick; knowing him so well, I could not help noticing that he looked real sick."

i'm uncertain as to its importance.  my train of thought on this started with something in lizzie's inquest testimony.  she volunteers several times the info (and it's a rarity when lizzie tries to clarify) that she's sure he didn't leave the house until 10.  since he was seen in town at half past 9, lizzie cannot be right.  one can say that lizzie remembered it wrong -- but it makes sense for a guilty lizzie to say this because that would significantly close the gap between the two murders, unless you can believe that the murderer killed abby while andrew was still home.  but we at least know that the approximate time of abby's murder was 9.  and i also thought there was a weird psychological twist here:  lizzie trying to use her dead father to account for her whereabouts in the house.

but the way i read that bit from the witness statements is the only reason i said he came home early.  together  with the way it fits if you believe lizzie intended to leave before andrew came home.  and it may be .. ...  but then that falls apart when you consider that lizzie concealed everything after the second murder in a few minutes.

So this *coming home early* on Thursday Could come from an author like Lincoln or Brown?
I haven't looked but maybe someone who has read either lately would know?
It Is possible, and exactly for a reason you state--that Andrew still felt ill effects and was adjudged so by a witness.  Yes, this is true.  I appreciate your taking the extra time to understand my point about the meeting.
As I see it, this whole part that you have brought up is the CRUX--It is CRUCIAL--to our theory of the crime (whichever theory we each may hold)--to the possible sequence of events which followed Andrew's return home.
Because:  IF he came home early that could force a confrontation that may not have been anticipated by the killer or someone in league with the killer.
If he Didn't come home early, but merely followed somewhat his *regular* routine (that's redundant, right?), then his demise could more easily be planned.  So that speaks to motive, means AND opportunity...which is vital to solving Andrew's murder, at least.

The circumstances would be so different, it is 2 separate events...Abby's killing and Andrew's.

It speaks to the preparedness of the killer, a pre-arranged alibi that might have been established or failed to be established--like the author who claims Lizzie was in her bombazine and was ready to go out when Andrew *came home early*--(Is that Lincoln?).

Anyway, this part is fraught with important combinations, of possible coincidences, of possible planning vs. opportunity...
Crucial.
I'm so glad you understand.

can't we say that the sequence of events contains an inescapable logic? 

firstly, it is almost comical to imagine an outsider unknown by lizzie who was able to pull this off without lizzie's knowledge.  it would be a situation of someone slipping around corners just as lizzie turned her head -- a series of incredibly lucky turns.  this was illustrated in that piece (i forget name) that concluded "the murders did not happen."

some crimes can be planned way in advance if the whereabouts of people and the timing of events can be foreseen with a reasonable certainty.  in the borden case, abby's murder looks to be planned as much as possible, while requiring a commanding view from the inside, and from someone capable of responding one way or the other to chance events.  perhaps another way of saying it is that abby was "stalked" until the right moment presented itself, and when it did, the killer was prepared.  and the only known person who had such a perspective on the situation in the house was lizzie borden.  lizzie might have anticipated mr borden leaving and also morse leaving (though not absolutely certain).  she may have known that abby had been after bridget to wash the windows, but until bridget actually went out and started it she could not have been absolutely certain it would happen that day.  least certain of all was where abby would be in the house when finally only she and lizzie were in it.

(btw, i think it is lincoln who advanced the theory that she never intended to kill andrew until he came home and saw her there.  i think knowlton thought much the same.  i don't have any quotations on hand, but they are easy to find.)

the approx. two hours between the murders is fraught with questions and it's easy to get lost or mislead.  the only evidence we have of it is that lizzie was in the house during that time and did seemingly innocuous things and saw and heard nothing.  now maybe there is something to be discovered in this:  whether or not a guilty lizzie tried to get out of the house because father came home and (for whatever reason) could not -- or a guilty lizzie planned his murder as well and was waiting for him to come home -- what is interesting is that she took a much bigger chance with the second one.  bridget might not have decided to go to her room; she might have taken more time with the windows or started dinner preparations in the kitchen.  mr borden might have got up and gone to his room while bridget was in the kitchen.  worse still, morse might have returned.  (in fact, he did return about 30 min later, didn't he?)  now that's really cutting it close!  a guilty lizzie might never have been guilty of killing her father without that few minutes of opportunity.  abby might have lived had she not gone up to that room when she did.  but as i said, the killer appears to be something of a stalker. 

so on the one hand, it's hard to believe that everything could have worked out so well for a guilty lizzie borden.  but it's also hard to believe the story of an innocent lizzie borden.  yet what is it about this case that does NOT have an unbelievable character?  the reality of the crimes seems most improbable but it is fact.

my problem with the brown theory is that it delves too far into speculation and assertions that can't be proven sufficiently.

my question is not a unique one but it's basically this:  can we not reason that it is necessary that the killer has, at each point, knowledge of whereabouts of people in the house?  and that points to lizzie.  abby's murder occurs at precisely the moment when only she and lizzie are in the house.  andrew's murder occurs at precisely the moment when only she, andrew, a dead abby, and the maid (who has gone upstairs) are in the house.

i've noticed one curiosity in lizzie's testimony that seems to have some bearing on what we're talking about:  lizzie claims that she had got out the ironing board and had commenced to iron before andrew left.  according to bridget, she said lizzie brought the ironing board into the dining room while she was still at the windows and after andrew had come home.  how do you express what this means?  it's as though lizzie has erased that whole block of time when she was in the house alone with abby.

It does seem like a set-up.

Morse leaves for a specific period.  (Arriving back approx. noon)
Because he has come to stay overnight, the guestroom needs fixing.
Everyone knows Lizzie won't do it, so everyone knows Abby will have to.

The time Abby is up there would be determined possibly by the time she had to sit with her guest at breakfast and afterward in the sitting room.
Then she will get up and start her dusting and fixing up.  This might be Morse's pre-arranged clue to get ready to leave.

Lizzie does not unlock the front door that morning and by the time Andrew arrives home the screen door is hooked.  It might just be possible that Andrew arrives home from his sojourn around town to find all doors locked for a reason--the reason being that someone needs to know his exact time of arrival and also needs whatever small delay there is in someone's stopping what they are doing & going and letting him in.  Even if Bridget wasn't thru yet with the outside of the windows by the time of Andrew's arrival, Lizzie supposedly had Bridget's suggestion/permission to hook that side door if she wanted to.
So in this case with all doors locked there is notice given *to get ready...He Is Home.*
We also need to remember that what Bridget says happened after that (and including HER letting in Andrew) may possibly be part true/ part false.

Now, I was thinking "Why does it have to be the FRONT DOOR?"
What would be the purpose (pre-determined) of guiding Andrew to enter from the front.
The only thing I could think of...if this WAS the purpose at all...would be to keep him from coming in the side way and going DIRECTLY up stairs to his room.  His stairway to his room is immediately inside that side entrance door.
What's up stairs in his room, that he is kept from entering immediately?
His safe.
He had deposited a check at the bank that morning but he still had a sizeable amount of cash on him and whatever he brought home from the trip downtown, and whatever he may have gotten at the post office.
And Bridget says Andrew went upstairs and Lizzie swears he didn't.
By guiding him purposely to sit and relax in the sitting room after assurance that Mrs. Borden is out, he is kept downstairs possibly for a purpose.  Once he is killed, maybe there IS a robbery.  The robbery of something known to be on his person by an intimate but would not be known to be missing by the police.

Other than that, there are several people besides Lizzie who would know the routine of the house or have access to that information.  What you call a perspective on the situation of the house, I agree it can't be a stranger (ducking & hiding a la Todd Lundy?), but it CAN include Morse, Bridget, Lizzie, Andrew and Emma..

(Message last edited Feb-5th-03  3:04 AM.)

Aha!  How's this for a "solution" to the crime:  Morse sets up the murders with Bridget and Lizzie's cooperation.  Morse even suggests it.  He would be happy to take whatever Andrew had on his person (and share it with Bridget?) and let Lizzie and Emma have everything else.  Everyone gets something and everyone is held to silence for fear that any one of them will be found out?  What a great analysis, Kat.  If anyone ever really solves this, I bet it will be you!

Oops! I forgot one little thing?  Who actually murdered them?  Well, it had to have been one of the intimates or someone they hired.  Perhaps that "stranger" seen outside by one of the ladies loitering outside the Borden house.

I like Evan Hunter's way of getting Bridget in on it. I think
it made a lot of sense that way. It seems nicer to say it
happened like that than having it just be about money. Do
people really kill their parents for money? Is that rare?

A for effort, D for reasonableness (IMO). Why not let Nemesis wait in the bedroom for Andy, so the others can claim ignorance of the deed until much later? Then make it look like a robbery?

I still believe that there was a meeting arranged with WSB that morning, and things went awry when Abby found him hiding in the guest bedroom. When Andy told him he would never get another cent from him, then WSB decided to finish the job.

Neither Uncle John or Lizzie expected this. They did cover it up, because Lizzie recalled Uncle John via Dr Bowen, who decided on the cover up. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Note that AR Brown's theory presents a point of view that satisfactorily explains all the puzzles of this mystery.
If neither Lizzie or Bridget did both, or even one apiece, who did it?
Brown provides the perfect LOGICAL solution, IMO.

Andrew cannot be allowed to go upstairs because that is where the safe is.
THEY cannot get into his safe!
It took them a LONG time to breach that safe once Andrew was dead.

I'm sorry but Brown is on my garbage list right now.
Please don't quote me Brown.

You can please say what YOU think, Ray, but not what THAT man thought.

Oh!  You cracked me up on this one!!
Thanks for the good chuckle!
Forgotalittledetail?  ha

(Message last edited Feb-5th-03  8:34 PM.)

Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder on March 20, 1996, for the shotgun killings of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.

Couldn't be money now could it??? LOL
   Red

Are there very many cases of that? I can only remember these
two, that is only 2 famous trials in over 100 years? Usually when childern turn on their parents it seems like it is over abuse & hardly ever about money.

Wasn't there testimony that Andy went upstairs after he returned that day, before going downstairs to the sitting room? As I remember it.

And AR Brown still provides the best solution if neither Bridget and Lizzie did it; it would have to be an unknown person. (Some said Emma, others Uncle John.)

Can you give me a few days of no "Brown", please?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, please excuse:

Bridget says Andrew went upstairs after he came home.
Lizzie says Andrew did Not go upstairs.
Lizzie says she will swear ..

That seems to make the upstairs rather an important point.
It seems to be practically the one thing she is sure of.

Inquest
Lizzie
pg. 84+
Q. Don't you remember he took the key and went into his own room and then came back?
A. No, sir.
Q. You don't remember anything of that kind?
A. No, sir; I do not think he did go up stairs either.
Q. You will swear he did not?
A. I did not see him.
Q. You swear you did not see him?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You were either in the kitchen or sitting room all the time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. He could not have gone up without he had gone through the kitchen?
A. No, sir.


(Message last edited Feb-7th-03  1:41 AM.)

It seems to me that Lizzie is willing only to swear that she didn't SEE Andrew go upstairs.  She isn't agreeing to swear that he didn't GO upstairs, even though she doesn't think he did.

Yes, that's why I put the *dots* after  the word swear.  I didn't want to be more specific than Lizzie was.
But, really if we read that whole thing and not just the portion that I transposed here it does seem to be pretty certain that Lizzie is sure.
Remember all that rigamorole she went through as to why she may not have seen Abby after 9 a.m. if Abby were still alive and moving through the house?  And she says things like *if Abby had gone to her room while I stepped into the cellar* or whatever excuses she was trying to come up with to explain the inexplicable to Knowlton at the Inquest?  It almost sounded reasonable, as if she was really trying to figure out how she, Lizzie, could be in one room and not know Abby was passing through another (Which didn't happen)...Anyway, this segment is not like that.  This is  pretty confidently stated the first time and is not equivocal or ambigious and she does not falter and no hems and haws and she doesn't change the statement.
That's what makes it important to me--plus it contadicts Bridget exactly.

Yes, I think Lizzie wore the Bedford cord dress during at least one of the two murders, which means she put that dress on at least once and took it off at least once during the morning of August 4. I think it is possible Lizzie went to the barn or out in the yard that morning though only one person, a passerby, reported seeing someone who may have been Lizzie outside. I don't believe she spent 20-30 minutes in the barn loft while her father was being killed. I also think it is possible that during one of the murders (most likely Andrew's) Lizzie somehow shielded herself (Andrew's coat, some sheets of newspaper, "Then she stood behind the door...") and minimized any blood spots, smears, and spatters on her person or clothing.

Why didn't Bridget observe Lizzie's change(s) of clothes that morning? Why didn't she say something about it? Those are good questions, Carol. I don't know.

kat:

i can't figure out why either of them would lie about mr borden going up to his room.  i can't see what difference it could have made.  yet the contradiction is there. 

It is NOT a question of "lying" but of how they remember it.
Bridget would be attuned to the wishes of the master.
Lizzie would not be paying as much attention.
Isn't this how things work?

i notice that as well.  it's extremely puzzling.  seems to be, in particular, that if she's guilty she surely knows where he is every minute.

an honest mistake on someone's part?

recently i compared lizzie's to bridget's account of the time when mr borden came home.  i find it hard to dispute bridget.  it all sounds credible.  she gives a fair amount of details, there is nothing odd about it, it does not sound invented at all.  her little curse word at the door, hearing lizzie laugh behind her.  how she moved from one room to the other washing the windows.  mr borden sitting in the rocker.  seeing lizzie get the ironing board.  lizzie telling her of the sale.

and lizzie's insistence that she didn't even see bridget, that she had gone upstairs.  and her eventual insistence that she was in the kitchen when father came home (putting herself out of bridget's sight).

this should be an important clew because it is a clear descrepancy.

what is extraordinary if bridget is lying is that she single-handedly invents a great part of the lizzie borden legend.  that lizzie stood on the stairs and laughed at abby's murdered body.  and that she tried to coax the maid out of the house.

as i think i said earlier, i've been trying to figure out a reason for either of them to lie about whether mr borden went up to his room.  I can't come up with anything.

I've found a reference to Andrew's  missed meeting while reading "Did She?  Didn't She?".

On Aug. 5th, 1892, pg. 2, it states Andrew missed a meeting Wednesday of the Massasoit Bank Directors, "and his friends inquired concerning his health."

--I can't tell HOW they inquired.  Did they send a runner over on Wednesday and ASK?  Did they wait until Andrew Was seen on Thursday to inquire why he missed Wednesday and why?
--Guess who else was a Director of the Massasoit Bank?
Southard Miller...Andrew's ex-employer from years ago and neighbor across the street.
Maybe they asked him?  His son-in-law was Dr. Bowen, the Borden "family physician"...