Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

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Phil1963
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Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by Phil1963 »

I'm trying to understand a few things from attorneys' statements in the Borden trial, regarding what Abby did in the half hour or so before her death. Sorry for the somwhat long post; if you like, just jump down to the questions at the end.

From prosecutor Moody's opening statement (p 65 in the trial transcript; p 61 in the "part 1" PDF available on this web site):
There was some talk then between Mrs. Borden and Bridget about washing the windows on the inside and the outside, and Bridget received the directions from Mrs. Borden to do that service. Mrs. Borden disappeared at this time, and it will appear that she told the prisoner that, having made the bed in the spare room, she was going upstairs to put two pillow cases upon two pillows that were there, -- a trifling duty, a duty which would take less than a minute. You will be satisfied, gentlemen, that that was not far from half past nine o'clock, and upon the evidence you will be satisfied that she never left that room alive, and that she was killed within a very few moments after she left the room, because no living person saw Mrs. Borden from that time until her death, except the assailant.
[emphasis mine]

This sounds as if Abby made the bed in the guest room, upstairs ... then returned downstairs ... then went back upstairs intending to put two pillow cases on the pillows.

From prosecutor Knowlton's closing statement (p 1875 in the transcript; p 647 in the "part 2" PDF from this web site):
Mr. Morse went away at about a quarter or ten minutes of nine. [...] He sees just before he goes [...] Mrs. Borden in the sitting room, and she disappears up the front stairs, obviously to make the bed. [...] [Lizzie] sees Mrs. Borden making the bed, because she tells Fleet so. This is about nine o'clock, as she tells Fleet. [...] Bridget goes out in the yard a moment. When she comes in Lizzie had gone upstairs again, and Mrs. Borden is still upstairs. The bed is not made. Bridget goes about her work. [...] Mrs. Borden comes down again, and Bridget sees her there in the dining room or sitting room [...] and receives her directions as to washing the windows
[emphasis mine]

How does he know the bed wasn't made?

I've been looking over Bridget's testimony and that of John Morse, and I just don't get how Abby's movements and actions can be determined with that level of precision. Knowlton misstated Morse's testimony; Morse did not say he saw her go up the front stairs, but only that he saw her go into the front hall from the sitting room (p 134-135 in the transcript; 109-110 in the "part 1" PDF). There is Lizzie's statement to Fleet, but I don't think it can reliably be used for this particular purpose ... although I do also think Lizzie's statement is highly incriminating for another reason, which is where I'm headed with this nitpicking.

Then there are the photos of Abby after death ... and 1892 photography being what it was, all I can really tell is that the bed looks like it was at least partially made when Abby was killed.

So, I'm not asking to be spoon-fed, I have been digging into this and will continue to; but I'm sure others have asked themselves these same questions and examined these things, and why "reinvent the wheel," as they say?

Anyway, my questions:

How certain is it that Abby made two trips upstairs? For example, as Morse was leaving, could she have gone from the front hall into the parlor instead of upstairs as was assumed? Is there anything that disproves that possibility; that she only made one trip upstairs, her final trip? Is there anything that implies or proves that is what happened?

If (as seems likely) Abby did make two trips upstairs, how would Knowlton (or anyone else) know that the bed wasn't made the first time? According to whom? Who would have seen that?

What was the state of the bed when Abby was found? Fully made? Partially made?

Thanks, and believe it or not, I am actually headed somewhere with this ... :)
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

You've cut to the quick of this episode - I've also found it puzzling and hope you pursue this. We've only the words of Bridget, Morse and Lizzie to go on and her account is tendentious.

I suppose one question is - If Lizzie did see 'Mrs Borden' making the bed then exactly when was that? There's little doubt the bed was made. Too many people would troop through the room that day; they would notice if it was otherwise. There was some good observation going on. One of the professionals noticed an open sewing-box.

It's kinda conceivable Abby needs to fetch pillow 'shams' from a second, a different source. We use other names in Britain but I take 'shams' to be the more decorative covers rather than functional bed-linen. That apart, I must comb through testimony to see if Abby Borden oscillates upstairs and down more than is plausible.

One mystery to this morning of two time-spaced murders lies in the apparent lack of situational trigger to the violence. It's occurred to me lately, as I pursued the curious aspect of Andrew Borden's body-position, that a case might be made for a scenario where Abby's very activity in that 'guest room' instigates a quick violence.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by Phil1963 »

What really made my eyes pop out of my head was Knowlton's statement that the bed was not made after the first time Abby went upstairs.

Anyway, I said I was going somewhere with this; here it is. And this is the first time I've dug into the transcripts and such, so it's likely that I'm reinventing someone else's wheel or stealing someone's thunder, etc; if so, sorry about that. Sorry for the length that follows, but I feel I need to explain my reasoning; I hope it's worth it to anyone reading.

First, let me set things up by saying some things about admissions. An admission is not a confession, but instead is an acknowledgement of a fact that tends toward proving ones own guilt. Admissions can be powerful stuff. And criminals sometimes try to concoct tales, evidentiary cover stories, intended to explain certain facts while arguing for their own innocence. And in the course of offering these evidentiary cover stories they sometimes make catastrophic admissions. Here's an example an attorney once told me, based on a real case with which she was familiar:

Once upon a time there were two guys, let's call 'em Tom and Dick -- friends, dimwits, and chronic low-grade troublemakers. (If you're familiar with Beavis and Butt-Head, these two were of the same ilk.) One night, in the wee hours, they were walking from some familiar place to some other familiar place along their usual route, which was to go east on 1st Street until they came to an empty block -- a building had once stood there but had been demolished and nothing had been built in its place -- where they'd cut across to 2nd Street then continue east.

On this particular night they were arguing. And as they got to the middle of the block tempers reached the flashpoint. Tom pulled out a gun and shot Dick dead. He was immediately remorseful but it was too late. And Tom, panicked, ran away down down 2nd Street.

He got home and thought things through. He knew that even if the police didn't suspect him, they'd still want to talk to him. "Sorry for the bad news, but your friend Dick has been murdered. We need your help. What can you tell us? Did anyone have a grudge against him?" And he knew it would look suspicious if he refused to talk to them -- his best friend had just been murdered, and he didn't want to help the police? So he'd have to tell them something. But what?

He reasoned that there couldn't be any witnesses who directly saw the shooting and could positively ID him. Anyone close enough to do that would have had to have been in that empty block with them; but that block was just one big empty space, nowhere to hide, and Tom would have seen anyone else there. So far, so good. But while the best possible story would be to tell the police he was nowhere near the shooting, he couldn't do that because of the possibility of other witnesses -- he had no way of knowing who might have seen him and Dick walking together on 1st Street just before the shooting, or him running alone down 2nd Street just after.

So he came up with this story. He and Dick were walking on their usual route and everything was fine. When they got to the middle of the block a man ran out of nowhere and robbed them at gunpoint. The robber was very nervous, and when Dick reached for his wallet too quickly the robber misunderstood the sudden move and shot him. The robber panicked and ran away. Tom also ran away in terror. And he hadn't contacted the police because he was frightened the robber might know who he was and might retaliate.

The police did come to see him. "Sorry for the bad news, we need your help," etc. Tom gave them his pre-prepared tale of woe. And by doing this he hung himself.

Tom had it right, at least as far as he had thought it through, which wasn't far enough. There was no way anyone could say, "I saw the shooting and it was Tom who did it." And as it turned out, there were no witnesses who saw anything on 1st or 2nd Streets just before or after. Had he just said to the cops, "sorry, got nothing to say to you" he would have been fine. They'd suspect, sure. So what? They couldn't prove anything.

But what Tom didn't know was that a video security camera several blocks away had caught the shooting in its image background. Far too distant for any specific identification, but that didn't matter.

Why? Consider these four facts. Tom admitted he was present at the murder. The video showed that there were only two people present at the murder, the killer and the victim. The victim was now dead. Tom was still alive.

Well, the court considered those facts, and Tom is now enjoying a lifetime of free prison food -- johnnycakes and stale mutton broth; yummy!

That's one true story (although surely very distilled and simplified from the actual case to demonstrate the essential point). Another nice illustration worth considering (far more briefly) is the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley.

Michael Skakel maintained for a long time that he was nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the murders. Then, technology advanced. DNA could be recovered, and could become evidence. And suddenly, Skakel's story changed. Now, it seemed, he was at the murder location on the night Moxley was murdered ... but it was before the actual murder. He didn't kill her. Oh, no. But he did climb a tree so he could peek into her bedroom window, and while gazing at her from his perch, he performed a certain act which in Lizzie's time would have been euphemistically called "self-abuse." And that tree just happened to be near where Martha was murdered later that night and where her body was found. So if his DNA was recovered from the crime scene evidence, that was the reason; he himself had sprinkled it over that area.

Suuuure. Whatever you say, dude. Personally, I've gotta agree with the famous detective who called that one "the mother of all evidentiary cover stories."

Admissions can be powerful stuff. And if you've been patient with me and have read this so far, I thank you; I regret the length of this post, but I felt it important to make the point that such statements by defendants can be damning, and to establish that at least IMHO I'm not making a mountain out of a mole hill on the topic at hand.

And with that said ... at long last, regarding Lizzie:

Consider this sentence from the above excerpt of Knowlton's summation -- "[Lizzie] sees Mrs. Borden making the bed, because she tells [Fall River's assistant city marshal, John] Fleet so." And Fleet himself testified:

"I then asked [Lizzie Borden] when was the last time that she saw her stepmother -- when and where. She said that the last time she saw her step-mother was about nine o'clock and she was then in the room where she was found dead and was making the bed. That is to say, she was making the bed in the room where she was found dead, at 9 o'clock." (page 470 in the transcript; p. 438 in the "part 1" PDF)

Well, there it is. Regarding Abby Borden's murder -- Lizzie admitted she was with the murder victim ... at the place the victim was murdered ... at the approximate time the victim was murdered.

Of course, Lizzie puts herself at that scene a half hour or so before Abby died. Well, how very convenient for her. And for what it's worth, I think Abby did make two trips upstairs. I can't imagine why she'd hang out in the front area of the first floor (or perhaps go outside) for a full half hour or so before coming back, giving her instructions to Bridget, then making her final trip upstairs. So yeah, maybe Lizzie did see Abby at 9 AM in the guest bedroom, making the bed, on Abby's first trip upstairs.

But if Knowlton's statement that "the bed [was] not made" can be supported, then the only time Mrs. Borden could have made the bed -- and thus the only time Lizzie could have been with her as she made the bed -- was on her second and final trip upstairs. And if that's the case -- Lizzie admitted she was with the murder victim ... at the place the victim was murdered ... and almost, within just moments of the murder.

(And if Abby had been actually making the bed when she was killed and this could be shown ... say, if the sheets were neat but she hadn't quite got the covers done ... this would mean Lizzie admitted to being with Abby at the time and place of the murder and while Abby was doing the very thing she was doing when the murderer slammed a hatchet into her head. But I think that might be too much to hope for.)

And yet Lizzie heard nothing? Saw nothing?

Why Knowlton didn't argue that particular point is mystifying to me. Maybe this sort of argument wasn't ... I dunno ... fashionable in courtrooms back then? Or maybe he had good reason not to, and I'm missing something?

So yeah, I'm becoming very interested in these questions.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

By the way, did Morse again sleep in that guest-room the Thursday night?
I must be mis-remembering - It's such a ghastly thought
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by Phil1963 »

InterestedReader wrote:By the way, did Morse again sleep in that guest-room the Thursday night?
I must be mis-remembering - It's such a ghastly thought
I was hoping someone else would jump in with this, because I can't remember the details ... while looking at the stuff about Abby, her trips upstairs, etc, I came across something that said Morse slept in a different room that night. That didn't have much to do with the question I had on my mind, and so I didn't pay much attention to it -- unfortunately, I can't remember just what it was that I saw. I'm looking over the transcripts but also re-reading Sullivan's book, Goodbye Lizzie Borden, and I can't even recall which of those I saw it in. Maybe that'll ring a bell for someone else?
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

I believe I read it in a long-ago post on this forum. It stood out because it's not one of the constantly-repeated bits. Same here, I didn't make a note because it didn't seem relevant at the time! I just thought Ick, what a cold piece of work. And what a cavalier attitude to the crime-scene. If it's not the Thursday night then was it a successive night..? I'll try and find it. Morse was also up in the attic at some point. Alice Russell spends that night in the Bordens' bedroom then moves to Emma's, from memory...

When Morse testifies as to the door between his guest room and Lizzie's being locked, we all visualise him trying that handle in the night and we wonder why, and why he sees fit to announce his findings.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by Phil1963 »

InterestedReader wrote:Morse was also up in the attic at some point.
Yeah, I think that's what I saw ... whatever it was that I saw when I wasn't looking for that. That is, I'm thinking that I saw that Morse slept in the attic guest bedroom on the night after the murders. But that's very vague; I'm not at all sure that he slept somewhere other than the room where Abby had died, and even less sure as to what specific other place it might have been.
InterestedReader wrote:When Morse testifies as to the door between his guest room and Lizzie's being locked, we all visualise him trying that handle in the night and we wonder why, and why he sees fit to announce his findings.
Personally, if I were trying doors around that place, and I were up in that attic like Morse, I'd call on Bridget and chat her up a bit. She was kinda cute. :wink:
InterestedReader wrote:I just thought Ick, what a cold piece of work. And what a cavalier attitude to the crime-scene.
Ya know, looking at it from Morse's perspective, I could see sleeping in a house immediately after someone's died there. (I've done that, actually.) I could even see sleeping in the very room where someone has just died, if they had died of natural causes or even an accident. Sleeping in the room where someone had just been murdered might be beyond my limits, though.

But looking at it from Lizzie's perspective (whether she's guilty or innocent), what I don't think I could possibly do would be eat off the table where my father had just been autopsied. Agggh!
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

Hi Phil. As to Morse sleeping in that guest-room a second night, it appears to be a misconception. I've had a search and found where I read it on this Forum - in some long-ago posts by respected posters, but even they weren't sure where they got it from. It's almost like popular lore. So far I cannot find any warrant for the assertion in trial sources. It seems likely that Morse's own testimony has been mis-read. In reality Morse went up to the third floor on the Thursday night to a half-completed guest room there. (With Bridget sleeping across at the Bowen house).

Fleet for example, in the Preliminary:

A. ...We searched Bridget’s bed, and searched also a bed where John Morse had slept since, and I think had before.
Q. That is in the attic?
A. That was in the attic.


It appears that Morse had slept on the third floor on his previous visits; his sleeping in the guest-room the night before the killings, his occupying the the very locus of one murder just hours before it occurs, may well have been a break from custom. All the same it seems natural Abby would hurry there to get the bed more fragrant.

En passant - The night before the murders Morse slept with his door wide open, so he says, which if true is a bit of a hindrance to the 'intruder hiding overnight' theory.

The 'bodies on the dining-table' may also be a well-rehearsed fallacy. The partial autopsy was done on undertakers' boards (Wynward mentions them in testimony), more boards were employed for the laying-out, then they went into caskets. The folks were eating in the kitchen.

I'm going to focus on what we really have to time Abby Borden's shift upstairs. Now you've brought it up I realise how worrying I've found the accepted version because it flies in the face of economy and plausibility. It's nap on Bridget's testimony really, or key discrepancies between Bridget and Lizzie, or interesting slips by either... Lizzie's account alone transgresses most rules of physics and barely establishes she was in Fall River at all.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by twinsrwe »

I found this in the thread titled, Morse's Behavior:
Harry wrote:The authors strike again! I don't believe there is any evidence that Morse slept in the guest bedroom the night after the murders. I did locate the following from The Cases That Haunt Us, page 90:

" ... Finally, the police left, cordoning off the house to keep away the curious, who had assembled en masse. Bridget left to stay with Dr. Bowen's maid while Emma and Lizzie remained in the house. Uncle John slept in the guest room where Abby had been killed, and Alice Russell slept in the Bordens' bedroom."

However, Fleet's testimony, describing his search in the attic, in the Preliminary definitely contradicts this. Page 360:

"... We went into each one as she unlocked them, and turned over things, and put them back in their proper places, and found nothing there that we wanted. We searched Bridget's bed, and searched also a bed where John Morse had slept since, and I think had before.
Q. That is in the attic?
A. That was in the attic. That is all I can state just now."

I think I'll go with Fleet.

......
Link to thread: http://tinyurl.com/hml3gaz


I found this on page 2 of the thread titled, Why Did Alice Change?:
Allen wrote:
Harry @ Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:55 pm wrote:
I seem to remember a similar discussion and that Morse would use the small bedroom when the guest room was being used in dress making or some other activity by the family. I may be wrong though as it's been a while since that discussion. Maybe that was speculation in that discussion.
I came across this while looking for something for another thread.


Trial testimony of Emma L. Borden page 1553+:

( The questions are in reference to her uncle John Morse.)

Q. Do you remember when the last time he came and stayed over night was?
A.No, I do not.

Q. Was it for a good while before that time?
A. No, I should say not a great while, but I don't remember.

Q.Some time that summer, perhaps?
A. Yes, I think so.

page 1554

Q. And stayed over night?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. Where did he sleep then?
A. I think in the attic.

Q. Did you then have company at the house?
A. I don't think we did.

Q. Had he usually slept in the attic or the guest chamber?
A. Just as it happened.

Q. And what made it happen?
A. Sometimes when we were using the room more especially as a sewing room than we did others, he would go to the attic.

Q. And were you using it as a sewing room at the time he slept in the attic, the time he was there last before?
A. As I tell you, I don't remember; I think very likely.

Q. You do not recall. Did he come to the house pretty often?
A. Just as it happened.

Q. About how many times had he been there that year?
A. I can't tell you.

Q.Well, half a dozen, more or less?
A.Well, I should say half a dozen.

Q. And of those times that he had been there, as near as you can tell, if you can tell, how many times had he stayed over night?
A.Oh, I don't know: perhaps two or three.
Link to page 2 of the thread: http://tinyurl.com/jnjbqkl
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

Yes, there's clearly need for caution in supposing Morse departed from habit on this occasion. The trouble with Emma is she's so damn non-committal. What did Morse usually do. That's the vital question. Attic or guest-room.
Oh, 'Just as it happened.'
'And what made it happen?'
Quite.
Then Morse's frequency of visits has to be dragged out of Emma. She doesn't seem comfortable answering about Morse, his visits, and where he gets put. She's having such trouble I think her account is questionable. In any case -

Some may say this points to Morse having a hand in the crime. My own impression is he was too attentive of Lizzie so Lizzie thought him a nuisance. At the time George Petty was busy putting about the rumour of an incestuous affair between Morse and Lizzie, but there you are - gossip is a fundamental part of that 'sin-eating' engine.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

OK, this error about Morse sleeping in the grisly room after the murder - apparently it Went Into Books. Namely John Douglas' The Cases That Haunt Us.

Here's a contemporary photograph of the rear. It was once posted by Harry and what Harry didn't know about the Borden case isn't worth knowing. Bridget's room was the left attic window, closer to the Kelly House. Morse's room was the right attic window, closer to Mrs Churchill's.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by twinsrwe »

.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by Phil1963 »

Various comments:

1) Regarding whether Morse departed from his custom by staying in a different room than usual, I'd like to toss a question out.

Did he even have a customary room he usually stayed in?

Here's my understanding of it, which of course may or may not be entirely correct. Morse stayed with the Bordens when he was in town on business. He wasn't a frequent guest, but an occasional one. When he arrived, it was often without any invitation or prior notice. The Bordens sometimes used the second floor guest room (Abby's death chamber) as a sewing room or for other purposes. (I had never heard that until I read it here, but it seems reasonable; there really isn't a lot of room to spread out in that house.)

Now, I have no idea what John Morse was like as a person, what he expected from his relatives, etc. But putting myself in his place ... if I dropped in on a relative, without warning, and without any prior knowledge of what I might be interrupting ... I'd be mindful that no matter how much they proclaimed "our home is yours," that the truth was that my presence was an unexpected event and at best a mild inconvenience, I'd be quite happy with whatever room they put me in, and I'd make sure they knew that I expected them to select whichever place worked best for them. Just give me six-and-a-half horizontal feet somewhere.

So -- did he even have a customary room, or did he just sleep wherever was handy?

2) Regarding Abby and her "shift upstairs," I'm specifically interested in and examining three things at this point.

A) Knowlton's statement that the bed was not made (after Abby presumably made her first trip upstairs).

B) The timeline itself. So far I've been accepting the most probable version as the correct one; Abby disappeared from Morse's view at about 9 AM or so, and was murdered at about 9:30 AM. But now I'm wondering how much of a margin of error those estimates have, and whether moving times around within those margins of error validates or invalidates certain possibilities.

C) Morse only saw her go out into the front entry hall. Did she go upstairs, as Knowlton said in his summation? Right now I think the answer is probably yes, because there are only four places someone could go from the front hall -- (i) upstairs; (ii) into the sitting room; (iii) into the parlor; or (iv) outside. It seems to me that with the circumstances and timeline as I currently understand those things, she would have probably been seen if she had gone any other place but upstairs, and it's difficult to understand what she might have been doing for all that time in those other places anyway.

Well, at least now I've got something to do this weekend; reading transcripts and such instead of skimming and probably missing things.

And on the lighter side ...

3) Now that I look around on the Internet, I see some other references to the autopsies being done on boards instead of directly on the table; and it seems that Abby was dissected in the dining room while they used the sitting room for Andrew. That doesn't change my earlier point, though; to me, the gross out factor would be from eating at the same place where anyone had been autopsied, whether it was done directly on that table or not. I dunno, I guess folks back then were made of sterner stuff.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

A) Knowlton's statement that the bed was not made (after Abby presumably made her first trip upstairs).

Yes, it's odd now you point it out. He seems to be taking licence from Lizzie's own Inquest testimony but even so, where's the warrant to change an ongoing activity into an undone one..? I suspect it's casuistry to put Lizzie bang in the frame. Knowlton had an eye on Lizzie's change of position - first she held she twice saw Abby Borden go up to that room, then she could remember just the one trip. But this is my own memory and not good enough. I'm also going to work at the transcripts.

If Lizzie killed her step-mother, then the guest-room presented her one best hope of pulling it off; it's beyond Bridget's purlieu and free from a passing Bridget. So after her father and Morse have exited Lizzie has a finite amount of time to catch Abby there... My instinct is, Abby Borden was slaughtered as soon as circumstances made it possible, and lay there in congealing blood from the outset of the permitted time-ambit.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by phineas »

That's great reasoning on the admissions Phil. Very interesting.

My pet obsession in this tale of bed making is the open door.

1) Abby is found with the guest room door open, seen by Mrs. Churchill and Bridget from the stairs. Lizzie admits she was up and down those stairs all morning. Why admit that? She only has to account for her upstairs whereabouts once. The only time she was seen upstairs was when Bridget saw her on the landing as she opened the door for Andrew. Lizzie is the only person who could have seen the body because Bridget didn't clean the girls' rooms or have any business going up those stairs. (Her room was accessed through the back stairs.)

2) The door is open. But. The door HAS to be closed for Lizzie to not see the body all morning. And for Lizzie to believe that Abby had finished and gone out. In her inquest testimony, Lizzie says:

63(20)
Q. Did she (Abby) say anything about making the bed?
A. She said she had been up and made the bed up fresh, and had dusted the room and left it all in order. She was going to put some fresh pillow slips on the small pillows at the foot of the bed, and was going to close the room, because she was going to have company Monday and she wanted everything in order.

(Leave aside the probable lie about upcoming guests - no one ever came forward.)

Lizzie knows she's been seen on the landing so even if she left it open directly after the murder she now has to have that door closed. Right? She's steps away from the body. The only compelling reason I can think of to leave it open is to indicate a killer in a rush. But she'd have to weigh that need against more serious needs: a) having a reason to believe Abby is out , b) having a barrier to seeing the body

Of course without mass forensic knowledge, Lizzie would not have known that doctors could tell Abby and Andrew weren't killed together....and the timing problem will appear that argues for a person in the house as the killer. Did she feel safe to leave the door open because she had it staged? And Bridget wouldn't be up and it was just a bother? Ok, then, leave it open.

BUT if you want to put yourself away from the body in general as any normal person would do....why in the hell admit that you're up and down those stairs with an open door?

My only explanation is that she doesn't know whether or not it's open when the body is found; she's in another room. She just tells people to search for Abby. She honestly doesn't remember.

So very confusing. In a weird way, it tends to argue innocence for Lizzie.

------

On another note...the murders must have been planned, and not impulsive if it was Lizzie, because she has to have a hatchet handy to catch Abby in the midst of making the bed. If the murder of Abby was touched off by some explosive argument, wouldn't Abby have moved out from the side of the bed while Lizzie runs for a hatchet?
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InterestedReader
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

oops. double-posted.
Last edited by InterestedReader on Sun Sep 04, 2016 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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InterestedReader
Posts: 496
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Real Name: Wendy A.
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Re: Abby in (and out of?) the guest bedroom, just before ... well, ya know ...

Post by InterestedReader »

People seem to find that only one step on the staircase affords the view under the bed... and this is with a bed raised somewhat higher off the floor than the one actually present in 1892. This photograph of the original bed does seem to show a very shallow space beneath its base. So it may well have been possible to fail to see the body when going up or down the stairs.

Did Lizzie admit she was up and down all morning? There's the clean laundry taken up and she allows she sewed briefly in her room...

Supposing Lizzie were the killer then why didn't she just shut the guest-room door after the killing? Which would make any lies easier to maintain. Or does the open door suggest a desire to display the atrocities?
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