The Guest Room Door

[leitskev]

My first post. No doubt will be repeating some things, let me apologize ahead of time.

Visited the house this week. It definitely gives some fresh perspective. Here some thoughts.

1) the door - Mrs. Borden was definitely visible from the stairs. I mean one couldn't miss it if the door was open. The stairs turn toward the room, one just couldn't miss it. Which leads to the question: why was the door open if Lizzy killed Mrs. B? Let's say she killed her around 9:30 as the the prosecution indicated. And now she was waiting for her father. Wouldn't she close the door? The stairs leading to the guest room are accessed right from the front door. Anyone going half way up the stairs would have seen the corpse. It seems to me a sure thing Lizzy would close the door. Even if she forgot to, she would have had an hour and a half to make the quick run upstairs and close it. Bridget was elsewhere and wouldn't have known. And it would have taken seconds.

If she did close the door, and if she was the killer, she must have closed it...who later opened it? Certainly she didn't. So who?

Bridget was not allowed in those rooms. That's why Mrs. B was making the bed. And there was no hallway. So the only people that went near those rooms were Mrs. B, Lizzy, Emma and a guest, if there was one, such as uncle John. Emma was long gone, as was supposedly John.

Was it possible for someone to open that door and not see Mrs. B's corpse? Maybe. So it's possible Bridget went looking through the house in the chaos, opened the door, and didn't see her. We would have to believe that someone opened the door, didn't see the corpse, didn't see the blood, and then left the door open. It's possible. But then why did none of them later admit to this?

2) whoever killed Mrs. Borden without a doubt knew her well. The location of the killer during the hacking was across the room from the door. No one could possible enter without Mrs. B knowing it. Had a stranger entered, she would not have remained where she was and would have shown defensive wounds. So she knew the killer well, who was probably speaking with her when it happened.

Bridget was not allowed in those rooms, though I suppose she cannot be completely eliminated. Emma was away. This leaves Lizzy, and possibly John. Would Abby have stayed on her knees making the bed if John entered? Well, John HAD slept there the night before, so could have had all sorts of reasons to come back. Yes, I know about John's alibi, but I believe his time on that trolley would have been later than when Mrs. B was killed, so he can't be ruled out.

Could it have been anyone else? Well, it would have to be someone Abby knew well enough to be unbothered by having him/her in the room. I have never seen anyone mentioned who could fit that. And getting into the house was hard, with all the locked doors. Even Mr. B had to be let in by Bridget.

3) sex with Uncle John - I had entertained this idea before visiting the house. It seemed plausible to me that Lizzy had sex with John, and left blood stains in the guest room, which Abby discovered, and caused Lizzy to lose it. However, for this to happen, Emma would know. He tiny bedroom is adjacent to the guest room, and the guest room bed is up against the fireplace and Emma's bedroom wall. There were no secrets in the 3 rooms shared by Lizzy, Emma and John.

But also, there's this problem. Alice Russel claims that Lizzy was confiding in her, a mere 13 hrs before, that she believed they were in danger. This leaves 2 options: either they really were in danger, or Lizzy was already scheming. If the latter, then the killing was not an outburst related to Abby's discovering some hanky panky with John.

4) John's guilt - It's hard to avoid concluding John knew something. The trolley alibi is way to on the nose. This guy was desperately trying to establish that he was not in the house. And his behavior upon arriving is way too peculiar. There would have been a small crowd, and with everyone thinking an ax murderer was on the loose, it would have been an excited crowd, probably crawling all over the property. John would have heard what happened. When he got off the trolley, he would have seen people running to the house. So why didn't he go in right away? One can only speculate. But absence of honesty points to some form of guilt here.

And one should always be at least suspicious of coincidences. John shows up, stays overnight, and then murders take place. A connection to those two things seems a fair starting point.

And there's the letter from Mr. Borden to John requesting his presence...which was given to the prosecutor, and then disappeared. Huh? A letter like this disappeared? Another coincidence?

Supposedly the letter said Mr. Borden wanted to discuss the business of hiring someone to oversea a farm. This required him to summons John? Does that sound likely? But if Andrew had wanted to discuss Lizzy...or perhaps Lizzy's relationship with John...then such letter would surely have been written in a kind of code. As in "we have business to discuss".

Why would the prosecutor lose the letter? The prosecution wanted a simple case. It didn't want any complications involving John which might have been used to create reasonable doubt. And Lizzy would not have wanted it used in trial either, if there was any unusual relationship with John. This letter would have been destroyed by a kind of gentleman's agreement involving all the parties...if, I repeat if, there was anything suspicious in the letter. If there was not, why would the letter disappear?

5) Andrew's jacket - couldn't this solve the mystery of how Lizzy cleaned up so quick? Let's say she killed her mother and made a mess on herself. She had plenty of time to clean up...and to learn about the splatter. So when she killed Andrew, she took his jacket in her left hand, held it in front of her, and proceeded to make girl's jump rope history with however many whacks. I would speculate that if she did this, some of the blows would have had a side angle to them. I think Andrew's left eye absorbed the first blow, but the blows eventually worked their way toward the right. I assume Lizzy was right handed...I don't know. It seems to me that holding the jacket in front might have minimized the splash she would have absorbed.

6) a second look at Abby's death - based on the location of the corpse, when I at the house, I pictured Mrs. B on her knees making the bed, talking to someone behind her and to her left. She would have taken the first blow on her left cheek, and then blows to the back of the head.

But my quick amateur glance at the autopsy suggests she took the early blows to the right side of her face. This does not require a huge adjustment in thinking. The killer might have been right behind her, and she glanced toward her right while making the bed and talking with the killer. But the fact that this first blow came to her face suggests she saw it coming. We should not, perhaps, assume that an older woman would be quick to put up her hands in self defense if it happened fast. She might be too stunned to act in defense, especially if she only had a second or two to absorb what was happening.

Well, if this is true of her reaction to someone behind her, it might also be true of someone attacking across the bed. Let's say she is on the floor making the bed, and someone charged up into the room. When she raised her head above the bed, that person could have charged over the bed for the first blow, and with her hands on the floor, she would have been slow to react.

That would still leave the problem of how Lizzy and Bridget did not hear any of this, how the man got into the house, and most importantly, how the man lingered around another hour and a half unseen before killing Andrew.

But it's not impossible. He could have simply waited in the guest room, door closed, with the dead Mrs. B. The front door to the house is right down the stairs, so from the bedroom he could easily...easily...hear when Mr. B came home. And he could have heard when Lizzy went outside. Of course, another problem was sneaking up on Mr. Borden. If he went down the stairs and straight to the sitting room, Mr. Borden was on the opposite couch...difficult to sneak up on. So he would have literally had to navigate around the whole house...parlor, to dining room, to kitchen...where he could easily attack Mr. B.

Those are my amateur musings! thanks for putting up with them. Has anyone ever noticed the smell in that house? An old, musty smell...like a funeral parlor, actually.

[Curryong]

Some musings by leitskev on the door and other matters to ponder over. Why not post with us again, leitskev, and let's discuss these things! (Smile)

[irina]

Interesting.

[debbiediablo]

I believe Uncle John's alibi although I think he lied just like everyone else. My understanding is the news spread like wildfire through Fall River. John Morse may have been odd, but he wasn't stupid. He likely heard about the murders on the way home (or even before he left his niece's home) and then committed to memory everything he needed to prove when and where he was. Or maybe he naturally remembered such stuff.

Certainly the good citizens of Fall River wanted the monster who committed these brutal crimes to not be a monster of their own...and most assuredly not a female by the surname Borden! Either John or Bridget would've been so much better than Lizzie or Emma! And despite his social deficits Morse knew it!!

Uncle John's ineptitude reminds me of a number of HFA or Aspergers persons I've known over the years: showing up with no luggage and totally unexpectedly, poor personal hygiene which is literally a curriculum for persons on the spectrum, extreme frugality and a memory for odd information.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying he was autistic, but autism presents on a continuum and some of his behavior (eating the pears, not noticing the crowd, immediate interest in locks rather than family) remind me of my daughter's friend who came to visit for a few weeks one summer. We were 40+ miles from home when a tire on the van went down. I'm fussing about who to call when he pipes up with the phone number of a tire repair business open 24/7. Come to find he was a phone book memorizer....:-) which is not all that uncommon for Aspies. Ditto for train schedules, airline flights, baseball stats, whatever piece of trivia triggers their interest.

[Curryong]

Interesting, debbie, is it akin to savant syndrome? I remember a documentary once on a middleaged man who lived with his mother and had some difficulty with everyday tasks but only needed to hear a piece of music once and he could play it on the family piano. He had a wonderful memory for music of all kinds that he had heard years ago but little memory for anything else.

[debbiediablo]

Sort of savant and but mostly not... Savants have profound deficits in all areas except one in which they exhibit astounding genius. The only true savant among all the hundreds and hundreds of persons with autism I've seen was a boy about fourteen whose mother moved him to the country because he would run away, enter neighboring homes unannounced, eat their food (often with his hands), sleep in their beds and make grunting noises for communication. He was non-verbal, not toilet trained and could be aggressive when no one was able to translate what his latest grunting noise meant. (Behavior is always a communication...even Lizzie's... )

They were so far out in the country he couldn't terrorize the neighbors, but then she was so terribly isolated and alone as his single parent. He, too, was a piano playing savant...anything he heard once he could play back exactly as he heard it. Anything. Even the most complicated Mozart runs. His mother wished for him to become a concert pianist...hope dies hard when it comes to our children. Of course, even though he could replay anything, there was no expression to his performance, just a series of perfect notes, loud and soft and without emotion.

In the end he started venturing further and further from home and showing up miles away sitting in front the tv when families would awaken in the morning. Or he'd surprise them with some totally amazing music. He and his mother moved back to where their natural supports were, and I never heard from her again. Sadly, until you mentioned 'savant' I had forgotten all about him, and he should've been one of my least forgettable persons ever!

Nowadays kids like him learn to use iPads as communication devices. Back then iPad was merely a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye. Not too long a ago I saw an eight year-old similar to the musician (except no savant music skills) having an argument via iPad with his mother. They were debating whether or not he would be watching NetFlix. She said "no" after which he would press the icon for the iPad to say, "NetFlix." Over and over and over; I had to smile. Then, after she held firm, he pressed the icon that said, "I want a cheeseburger." Twenty-five years ago he might've thrown something instead.

[phineas]

Great point about Asperger's Debbie. It makes me think of John in a whole new light. It's an alternate explanation other than conspiracy for why he paid such close attention to the details of his trip back to the house. Makes sense!

[PossumPie]

Before I became a nurse, I was a children/adolescent therapist. This was before Asperger's was even in the DSM. I had a young man who I frustratingly had to Diagnose as High functioning Autism, but I knew he was something I hadn't seen before. He obsessed over batteries, testing and retesting them with a volt meter and he obsessed over temperature, getting frustrated when the thermometers on the bank signs didn't match up exactly with his. He could take a laptop apart (to the horror of his parents) but also put it back together in working order. I spent several years working with these folks and learning to love them before moving on to a more depressing specialty of trauma and abuse counseling.

[debbiediablo]

My own daughter (high functioning autism, not an Aspie, although at her age now they look pretty much the same) went through a period of collecting fungus. Her bedroom smelled like the Great North Woods. My rule was any new fungus coming into the house had to be catalogued - family, genus, species - and put in archival boxes under her bed. I was really glad when her interests moved on to photography.

[Curryong]

What eventually happened to the fungus specimens? Discreetly disposed of?

[debbiediablo]

Yes...after a very long time...we moved them to the basement and then to the garage and finally out the door! She especially loved polypores and would take wax crayolas and rub them lightly with different colors and then sit them in a window to melt the colors into the fungus as it dried out. This would give them a faint rainbow sheen. After that she'd glaze over the color and give them to people!!! Receiving a polypore meant she held a person in very high esteem....

[irina]

I had considered Uncle John in this light before but didn't say anything because I had read a former post of yours, Debbie. Figured you or possum could better address this idea. Interesting posts.

[debbiediablo]

Just from what everyone who knew him reported, Uncle John seems nearer on the continuum toward an autism spectrum disorder than the average guy on the street. But not even close to the point where his weirdisms impact his ability to live and work independently. The DSMR-5 doesn't have a diagnosis code for "kinda odd."

[Catbooks]

Visited the house this week. It definitely gives some fresh perspective. Here some thoughts.

1) the door - Mrs. Borden was definitely visible from the stairs. I mean one couldn't miss it if the door was open. The stairs turn toward the room, one just couldn't miss it.

thanks for this info, leitskev. this is something i've wondered about for years: if bridget and mrs churchill saw abby so easily because they were looking for her, and if anyone going up those stairs, not looking for anyone, would have likely missed seeing her body.

Which leads to the question: why was the door open if Lizzy killed Mrs. B? Let's say she killed her around 9:30 as the the prosecution indicated. And now she was waiting for her father. Wouldn't she close the door? The stairs leading to the guest room are accessed right from the front door. Anyone going half way up the stairs would have seen the corpse.

lizzie was perfectly safe leaving the guest bedroom door open, and she knew it. emma was gone, bridget never came up there, andrew would have little reason to (it was basically 'the girls'' domaine, except when a guest was staying), abby had a dress in the closet and had occasion to go up there, but since she'd been not-so-neatly dispatched, abby wasn't going to cause any more problems!

plus, abby's body had to be discovered by someone, at some time, and the sooner the better to get it over with, once the alarm had been sounded after andrew was dead.

2) whoever killed Mrs. Borden without a doubt knew her well. The location of the killer during the hacking was across the room from the door. No one could possible enter without Mrs. B knowing it. Had a stranger entered, she would not have remained where she was and would have shown defensive wounds. So she knew the killer well, who was probably speaking with her when it happened.

if her back were turned, say facing the window on the north side of the room, it's possible someone could have sneaked quietly in without her knowledge. but personally, i agree with you.

3) sex with Uncle John - I had entertained this idea before visiting the house.

heh, i can't see the very class-conscious, meticulous lizzie and uncle john together! from what we know, it appears lizzie didn't even like uncle john (although emma did), so i have to go with no on that.

But also, there's this problem. Alice Russel claims that Lizzy was confiding in her, a mere 13 hrs before, that she believed they were in danger. This leaves 2 options: either they really were in danger, or Lizzy was already scheming. If the latter, then the killing was not an outburst related to Abby's discovering some hanky panky with John.

true, it does only leave those two options: there was some reason for lizzie to believe they were in danger, or it was premeditated and planned.

4) John's guilt - It's hard to avoid concluding John knew something. The trolley alibi is way to on the nose. This guy was desperately trying to establish that he was not in the house. And his behavior upon arriving is way too peculiar. There would have been a small crowd, and with everyone thinking an ax murderer was on the loose, it would have been an excited crowd, probably crawling all over the property. John would have heard what happened. When he got off the trolley, he would have seen people running to the house. So why didn't he go in right away? One can only speculate. But absence of honesty points to some form of guilt here.

john's alibi has always bothered me too, unless he had a photographic memory, which was never mentioned. although, debbie's point is a good one. if he did somehow find out about the murders before returning to the borden's, he may have thought he'd be a suspect and so made darned sure he had a provable alibi.

i agree his behavior on returning is suspicious. i don't see how he could have avoided seeing unusual activity at the house, not become either curious or alarmed, and gone right in. it's always struck me he was out there thinking, but about what? making sure he had his story/alibi straight? collecting himself first because he already knew about the murders?

And one should always be at least suspicious of coincidences. John shows up, stays overnight, and then murders take place. A connection to those two things seems a fair starting point.

yes, he did show up unexpectedly, without even a toothbrush. so it appears he left for the borden's in a hurry, to talk to andrew. was it really about overseeing the swansee farm? did andrew promise to sell him the farm and then back out of the deal, deciding instead to give it to abby? had andrew and abby realized there was something really wrong with lizzie, and things were escalating, so they were planning to have her put away? did lizzie overhear that conversation -- either plans to have her put away, or andrew deeding the farm to abby? andrew's giving abby her sister's half house caused all hell to break out with both emma and lizzie, so i can only imagine what hearing the news he was then planning to give her the farm would do!

Supposedly the letter said Mr. Borden wanted to discuss the business of hiring someone to oversea a farm. This required him to summons John? Does that sound likely?

yes, that sounds likely enough to me. the two were friends, and it wouldn't be the first time they discussed business together. the strange part is john showing up unexpectedly, appearing to have rushed off to come. why the urgency to discuss finding someone to oversee the farm?

5) Andrew's jacket - couldn't this solve the mystery of how Lizzy cleaned up so quick? Let's say she killed her mother and made a mess on herself. She had plenty of time to clean up...and to learn about the splatter. So when she killed Andrew, she took his jacket in her left hand, held it in front of her, and proceeded to make girl's jump rope history with however many whacks.

i think lizzie put on andrew's prince albert coat when she killed him. the coat was kept hanging up in the dining room, which is where lizzie was. andrew was a creature of habit, and there's no way he'd have jammed that wool coat under his head like that. people were very careful with their clothing in those days, because they had few of them. it'd have been a wrinkled mess if he'd, inexplicably, suddenly decided his coat made a comfy pillow that day, and he would know that.

so then, for what other reason was the coat folded up and put under him? andrew didn't put it there, so someone else did. who, and why? debbie thinks lizzie put it there in an act of 'undoing.' i too think she put it there, but that it was a practical matter of putting it where, if there were blood on it, it would be easily explained and not thought anything of. hiding the evidence in plain sight.

But the fact that this first blow came to her face suggests she saw it coming. We should not, perhaps, assume that an older woman would be quick to put up her hands in self defense if it happened fast. She might be too stunned to act in defense, especially if she only had a second or two to absorb what was happening.

yes, i too think abby saw it coming, for a second, before she had a chance to protect herself, or even absorb what was happening.

Well, if this is true of her reaction to someone behind her, it might also be true of someone attacking across the bed. Let's say she is on the floor making the bed, and someone charged up into the room. When she raised her head above the bed, that person could have charged over the bed for the first blow, and with her hands on the floor, she would have been slow to react.

i can't see anyone charging at her over the bed. there was no evidence of it (bedclothes mussed up), and i can't see the killer remaking the bed, with that hank of abby's hair on it!

That would still leave the problem of how Lizzy and Bridget did not hear any of this, how the man got into the house, and most importantly, how the man lingered around another hour and a half unseen before killing Andrew.

as you know by now, i'm in the lizzie-dunnit camp (most of the time anyway ). no matter how i turn it, i inevitably return to lizzie being abby's killer. andrew i waffle about, which of course means there would be a second killer. but who?? i never can come up with any logical suspect. anyway, bridget was outside, on the south side of the house, washing windows. it was a busy street, lots of activity and noise. i have no problem with bridget not hearing anything.

Of course, another problem was sneaking up on Mr. Borden. If he went down the stairs and straight to the sitting room, Mr. Borden was on the opposite couch...difficult to sneak up on. So he would have literally had to navigate around the whole house...parlor, to dining room, to kitchen...where he could easily attack Mr. B.

an intruder could have sneaked up on him. he was napping, lying facing the kitchen, not the doorway leading to the hall. we do know the killer swung from the dining room door (which is where lizzie had been).

thanks for your post, i hope you come back!

[camgarsky4]

In a couple of threads, it is noted that Andrew hung his Prince Albert coat in the dining room closet. I've tried to find this reference in the trial transcripts and have been unsuccessful.

Does anyone know where we have substantiation that the dining room closet is where the coat was normally hung?

[mbhenty]

Perhaps the information you search for is in Bridget's testimony at the preliminary hearing. Around page 180.

Where it says:


Q. Did he do anything about his coat when he came down that time?
A. I did not see him. He went in the sitting room.
Q. Where did he keep the coat that he wore out of doors?
A. In the dining room.
Q. Did you see him with that on?
A. No Sir.
Q. So the last time you saw him before he went out, he had his house coat on?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. You say you did not see him go out?
A. No Sir.
Q. You do not know who let him out, or whether he went out the back way or not?
A. I do not know.

[camgarsky4]

Perfect...appreciate the reference!

[Fargo]

The Parlor was locked.

[phineas]

Back to the door...Catbooks made the good observation that Lizzie did not need to close the guest room door behind her as there was no one to come upstairs. So this points to her as the murderer. Open door = Lizzie.

A closed door would seem more likely if an intruder murderer is trying to stay concealed in a house with one more murder to go.

My theory is that either way, open or closed, the door indicts Lizzie.

First, Point A: everyone agrees it was impossible to miss seeing Abby from the stairs with the door open.

We have Lizzie on the stairs that morning at least twice.

1) She is seen laughing on the stairs after 10:30 by Bridget who is struggling to open the door for Andrew.

2) Lizzie puts herself on those stairs by saying she went up earlier to baste a seam or alternately bring up clean clothes.

For Lizzie to be innocent she can’t have seen Abby — so the door must be closed all morning by an unknown killer.

That said, the door must later be open by 11:15 in time for Abby to be found by Alice/Mrs Churchill, who easily see her from the stairs.

So thinking about the door constraints, there are two possibilities.

1.
Lizzie saw the body on her multiple trips upstairs because she’s the killer. Or she closed the door behind her and knew the body was inside. (The door could be open or closed according to her whim as she’s the only person on that floor).

2.
The door was closed all morning during Lizzie’s trips upstairs. So she didn’t see Abby and is innocent. The door was later opened by an unknown killer after Andrew arrived home around 10:30-10:40 and after Lizzie came downstairs.

So let’s take scenario #2 and give Lizzie the closed door that she needs to be innocent....

For an intruder to kill Abby and Andrew 1-2 hours apart the murderer almost certainly had to conceal themselves in the house between murders. He/she could conceivably have been elsewhere on the property but let’s going with the in-house concept and accept Abby is the first victim.

Because the door must be closed for an innocent Lizzie to NOT have seen Abby’s body on at least two occasions on the stairs, then the only place in the house the killer can hide is IN the guest room with their victim.

Why? Because for Lizzie to be innocent you need the killer to open the door. This has to be when they leave to kill Andrew downstairs.

But. Try as I might, it does not make sense that a murderer so stealthy and clever enough to escape detection would leave that door open rather than close it behind him.

Leaving the hiding place is the second riskiest action of the morning. There’s always a chance you could be met on the stairs by someone (Andrew, Morse, Bridget or Lizzie or some unexpected other person.) You’re blind upstairs - the window faces the street - so you can’t see Lizzie or Bridget moving around outside as they stated in testimony. All you have is what you can hear - and while you can hear Andrew come in, it’s difficult to account for all the whereabouts.

So you’ve got to be extremely cautious while exiting and then creeping down the stairs. You must absolutely close the door behind you. If you encounter someone on the stairs with an open door, they will see the body. At that point you’d be forced to flee or commit another murder and not the one you want.

So if an intruder murderer will logically close the door behind him...who opened it?

Lizzie is still the only person who could have opened the door. And the person who opened the door knows the body of Abby is there and that person is the killer.

I suspect Lizzie did close the door initially after the murder. I think you’d have a powerful compulsion to do so. It’s your first murder, it was shockingly violent. I don’t think she was so psychopathic that she’d leave the door open while she pranced around the house. I believe that Lizzie opened the door when Bridget went out to run for a doctor.

Why she opened the door when it was to her advantage to keep it closed, is a mystery. Maybe she couldn’t stand the suspense. Maybe she thought it would look more harried.

Having said all this, I admit that old houses do shift and doors do not always stay closed. Could the “murder door” have been closed then creaked open on its own? Possible.

Could Bridget or others in the house after Andrew’s death have opened the door and remained silent for some reason? As an accomplice? Possible. Seems unlikely.

[Fargo]

Yes, you could miss Abby when walking up the stairs if you were not looking for her. Besides that the room was dark as the shutters were closed.

[camgarsky4]

Phineas -- great thoughts. However, agree with Fargo that if you're mind is on anything in particular, someone could not be sufficiently focused to notice something that is not clearly in front of them. The split seconds that the walker would have visual under the bed and the relatively limited visual frame would make it very possible to not see Abby on the other side of the bed.

Also, if the killer had been hiding in the guest room, realized it was time to go downstairs and take care of Andrew, they could very well have left the door open. They are planning to kill and escape in the coming minutes, so someone seeing into the room once they vacate would be irrelevant.

All that contrariness aside, I very much agree with your observation that a killer hiding in the guestroom would likely require telepathic powers to know when to come downstairs and strike Andrew. To succeed required Lizzie go to the barn, Bridget go to the 3rd floor and Andrew laid on facing away from front lobby. If any of those 3 situations didn't exist, the killer would have likely been unsuccessful killing without being seen or heard.
However, there is no possible way the guest room hidden killer would know all 3 of those things indeed happened.

If it was not Lizzie or a Lizzie aided killer, the Parlor seems like the only possible hiding place not visited that morning, but close enough to have awareness of Lizzie, Bridget and Andrew movements.

[leitskev]

Been a while for me, thanks for those that replied. Here are some follow-up thoughts.

I seem to have thought back then that there was no way Lizzie could walk up those stairs without seeing Abby under the bed. But I no longer think that and not sure why I did.

The room was dark. And the light entering the room will vary based on where the sun is or whether clouds are passing through. Certainly the sun was lower at 10:am than at 11:30. Churchill and Bridget were in a highly alert state when climbing those stairs, on the lookout for Abby, but also wary the killer was still present. Lizzie, on the other hand, might have been looking at something in her hand, or in a fog. I am not suggesting Lizzie was innocent, I am saying that the fact she did not see Abby under the bed doesn't really tell us anything. Maybe the door was closed. Maybe it was open, the lighting was poor, or she was distracted.

I do believe Lizzie would close the door after killing Abby...unless she wanted the body to be discovered more quickly. While Andrew and Bridget seldom went upstairs, the instinct of the killer is to hide the crime. What if Bridget went part way up the stairs to call for Abby?

Assuming Lizzie never killed anyone before, she'd be somewhat shocked at what she did. Even if there is part of her psychopathic brain that is excited, she would initially close that door. She might later come back and open it. And she sent Churchill and Bridget looking for Abby, so she did seem eager for the discovery of her work.

If she initially closed the door and then later re-opened it, when did she do this? She could have done it before Andrew came home...but this was risky and against instinct wasn't it? Andrew came in the front door and was steps away from discovering the corpse. Bridget let Andrew in, so was also steps away. We can say that they were unlikely to make those steps, but the instinct of the killer would be to leave the crime hidden until she could take her next steps.

There was time for Lizzie to run up the stairs, after killing Andrew, and open the door. She could have done this before calling Bridget down, or after having sent Bridget to fetch Dr. Bowen.

But it's somewhat hard to picture. The time between Andrew's murder and Lizzie calling Bridget down seems to have been around 5 minutes, perhaps as much as 10 minutes. In that time, she had to clean up and hide the weapon. In that flurry of activity, would she also run up and open the door? I say no, that would not be on her mind. Then after she sends Bridget to fetch Dr. Bowen, which took a minute or two, she was seen by Mrs. Churchill in the side doorway. Did she also have time to run up and open the door? Yes, but it's a stretch.

I guess I would conclude the fact the door was found open does not really indicate anything useful about guilt or innocence. To sum up:
1) Lizzie was more likely than not to close the door after the crime. There was no reason to leave it open, and even if the risk of discovery was low, it was still a risk.
2) I don't think she would have opened the door until after Andrew was murdered and her work complete.
3) Opening the door was not important. Eventually Abby would be discovered anyway. The only reason to go back and open it was her eagerness for the crime to be discovered.
4) while she did have 2 opportunities to open the door after Andrew's murder, those opportunities were limited and it seems she had more pressing issues.

Lizzie's lingering in the side doorway

This tends to suggest innocence to me. Again, I fall in the Lizzie-did-it camp, no one else had means and motive, but just trying to look at pieces of evidence on their own.

If Lizzie does the crimes, after calling Bridget, I would expect her to be focused on cleaning up as much as possible. She'd be looking in the mirror a lot, making sure there was no blood spatter. She'd be checking her dress and shoes, washing her hands. She had cleaned up in 5 minutes or less, she could have missed something. You use that time to double and triple check.

This would also give her a chance to create a crime scene in her favor. For example, she could unlock the front door and leave it ajar. She could unlatch the screen door in the back. She could even break it, which would indicate forced entry. Lizzie stayed cool for an hour or two after killing Abby. Why couldn't she be cool enough to stage a crime scene?

Hanging in the doorway is rather what someone innocent might do. She doesn't know if the killer is in the house, so being by the door gives her an escape route. She wants to be away from the corpse. She's stunned.

lingering questions

I recently re-read the trial testimony and some other materials, such as old articles. The cops strongly suspected Lizzie within an hour or two, that's pretty clear. It's why they searched the barn for the murder weapon that afternoon.

Why did they suspect her? Because she was not hysterical and swooning. It's pretty clear that was the initial cause of their belief in her guilt. They had expectations about how a woman should act in those circumstances, and Lizzie did not meet that. So they started looking for that weapon right away. They searched the cellar, the barn, the rooms. It was not an organized search at this point, but the fact they were searching proves they believed it was Lizzie.

As often happens, once a narrative forms, it colors everything else. This is called the rush to judgment. But that narrative was quickly spreading. I am not saying Lizzie was innocent, but I am saying that if she was innocent, this narrative was going to spread anyway, because she did not act hysterical.

A narrative had also spread about Morse, but his alibi quickly checked out.

Which leads me back to the murder weapon. It was never found. Yet Lizzie never left the house. Multiple disorganized searches took place that day, as cops were sure the weapon must be somewhere on the premises. Then 2 organized and thorough searches came within a few days. And the house remained under police guard. Yet the weapon was never found. That creates sufficient reasonable doubt.

If Lizzie is the killer, someone likely had to remove the weapon for her. Who had the means? Not Morse, who was closely watched. That leaves Dr. Bowen and Bridget. I doubt Mrs. Churchill or Mrs. Bowen would be a part of this. I personally can't conceive why Bridget would do it. She had nothing to do with the Bordens after this "affair", as Lizzie called it.

5 days before the trial, a hatchet was found on the roof of the neighbor's barn. There's little info on it. It was given to the police, where it disappears from history. The police would have had every incentive to present this as the murder weapon if it was. I can't think of any incentive to hide the truth on it. So my guess is this hatchet was easily dismissed. Maybe it was very old and rusted. Maybe it was the wrong size.

[camgarsky4]

leitskev -- welcome back!! The forum has greatly quieted down last couple months.

In the spirit of dialogue....a couple of quick thoughts.....
1) Presuming Lizzie was guilty, after killing Abby, and while Bridget was washing the outside windows, I think that Lizzie, after triple locking front door, kept 'post' in the kitchen. Once Bridget migrated back inside, Lizzie scurried upstairs to secure the murder scene, but avoid interaction w/ Bridget. Lizzie was checking out her handy work in the guest room when Andrew surprisingly came home earlier than expected and knocked on front door. Lizzie popped out of the guest room to see what was up, made the strange noise that Bridget described as a laugh and once seeing that AJB was home, Lizzie's mind began preparing for the next step in her plans. She inadvertently or indifferently, left the guest room open.
2) Personally, I do think the crowe roof hatchet was the murder weapon. The hatchet was found on the roof the evening of the 14th, several days after the trial had commenced. Newspapers viewed it as 'good news' for the defense because it supported the idea of an intruder and cutting thru the pear orchard was the escape route. That said, the trial was already looking very bleak for the prosecution and the finding wouldn't prove guilt or innocence.
I was hoping the Hilliard papers would tell us what the police did with the hatchet.....but no such luck.
3) In my opinion, Lizzie originally planned to kill AJB in the early afternoon and then establish alibi of shopping. Morse coming for dinner blew that plan up because Abby was already dead and Lizzie would have zero control on when Morse would leave the house that day. What if he remained for the entire day....there was no chance that Abby missing wouldn't become the dominant theme for the day as the hours ticked by. Once she realized she had to act immediately regarding AJB, Lizzie when into 'ad lib' mode and I don't think that was Lizzie's strength. Afterwards, she explained her actions with the first 'answers' that popped in her mind. The note, the barn alibi, screen repair/sinker lead, heard groan/didn't hear anything, and so on.....her explanations morphed as she had a chance to realize their relative plausibility. Lizzie calling up to Bridget was her keeping the flow of the action moving along. I think if someone knew that a violent murderer was in the house just moments before, they would run from the house....not remain standing inside by the screen door. Even Sawyer thought to lock the door down to the cellar out of concern where this person might be lurking. Your post on another thread does have me stewing on Bowen's failure to get the police and lack of fear. Need to think about that......

[leitskev]

Great points Cam

the guest room door

I think the main thing, and we probably both agree, is that nothing much can be concluded from the fact that it was open when Churchill and Bridget went up. The suggestion has been, and I think maybe this was even argued at trial, though I'm not sure, is that Lizzie would have to have seen Abby on the floor when she went upstairs earlier. I don't conclude that at all. The room could have been darker, Lizzie could have been distracted, or the door could have been closed at the time. So the door doesn't tell us anything about Lizzie's guilt or innocence. I believe that if Lizzie was guilty, she would have closed it. Which means she had to find the time later to open it. This could have happened when Andrew came home, as you say, or she could have run up there before killing Andrew, or she could have gone up right after killing him, or after sending Bridget to get Bowen, or to get Alice. There were plenty of chances. With all that was going on, I find it somewhat improbable that she thought to run up and open it. If she was thinking that far ahead, it would have been more crucial for her to leave the front door open after Andrew came home in order to create the possibility of an intruder, but she didn't think to do that. So for me, the open door Churchill found is slightly...slightly...in favor of the Lizzie-didn't-do-it theory, though at the end of the day it tells us really nothing.

the roof hatchet

You think that was the murder weapon, huh? Hmm. How frustrating we know nothing about it. So was it the police or the prosecution that destroyed the weapon? Or the cops at the behest of the prosection? I am absolutely open to the idea of such misconduct. I think we saw misconduct with what seems to be the destruction of the handle found in the tool box with the weapon they tried to set up as the murder weapon. It's kind of like an OJ's glove scenario. Official misconduct is always a possibility in any case.

But this is a very bold misconduct if that's what it is. This was the crime of the century, the most famous trial in the world at the time. For the cops to receieve the murder weapon and then just make it disappear, during the trial, that's a hard move to pull off. They obviously didn't return the weapon to the Crowes. If it wasn't the weapon, it would still be very valuable to the Crowes. It's hard to know how to process this. The murder weapon was the most important piece of evidence. It's the cops turned over that house with one disorganized search that day and two subsequent meticulous searches. The prosecutors involved in this trial were very prominent people in society. It's really hard to imagine them engaging in such high level misconduct.

It's worth taking a closer look at the possibilities here. Let's say this was the murder weapon. We know the murder weapon was newly bought(or unused anyway) because there was gilt in Abby's wounds. Presumably, despite being on the roof a year, they could still get a sense of the age of the weapon.

If Lizzie threw it on the roof, she probably did not clean the blood off of it, at least not thoroughly. Would there still be blood on it a year later? I think so.

Would that weapon be helpful to Lizzie or the prosecution? Hmm. An intruder could also have thrown the weapon on the barn roof. By why would he? If you are escaping, why stop to do that? Especially given the chance of being seen. It seems to me an intruder would stuff the weapon in his pocket or shirt until he's further from the house. Once he's a distance away, hiding it becomes easy. So if the Crowe weapon is the murder one, it tends to point to Lizzie, who had the great problem of disposing it while unable to leave the property.

What would it do to the prosecution's existing case? I don't know where they were in the trial. Had they already told the jury the handless hatchet was the weapon?

For this to be the weapon, it would have to go something like this: the Crowes turn in the weapon to the police. Word of this spreads like wildfire through the city. Newspapers report on it. The police would be very excited. They now have the weapon! Word is sent to the prosecution. And the prosecution sends back word: get rid of it! It will ruin our case.

I have a hard time imagining that, since, as I said, these prosecutors were prominent members of society, and it would be impossible to contain word of what they did. And I don't see the police doing it on their own. They would have been excited to have the murder weapon. The defense team would have had a right to this evidence. There was no way to make this weapon disappear unless both sides agreed it could know by the weapon. As far as I know, there is no mention of this hatchet in the Jennings Journals.

So for me, the more likely scenario is this: they find an old hatchet or something similar. Word spreads through the city that this has been turned in to the police. But the police quickly dismiss it as something that doesn't fit. Maybe it's got years of rust on it. Maybe the handle is so rotted it crumbles.

I'd love any more info or ideas on this you might have!

More thoughts on the hatchet:

Testimony from those that used the cellar and cut wood for the Bordens, if I remember correctly, was that the Bordens had 4 hatchets/axes. Exactly what was found. We should go back and check on this, let me know if you have info handy on that.

So Lizzie had to have bought a new hatchet for her murders. Which fits the evidence of gilt on Abby's wound.

Where did Lizzie buy it? The pharmacy stores remembered her very well. No hardware stores remembered the Borden girl buying a tool?
Why would Lizzie buy a hatchet instead of using one they already had?

The problem of the murder weapon really is the key to establishing reasonable doubt in this case. So for me all of these questions are important. Maybe you know some of the answers.

Lizzie's plan:

So hard to know. Assuming she acted alone, how much of this was planned and how much spontaneous? Obviously at the very least, if she is the killer, she was thinking about doing it for, at the very least, a matter of days. But was there any reason she couldn't do this the next day when Morse was gone?

I've never seen any evidence on changing wills or anything that would create the urgency of this being done right when it happened. All we know about Morse's visit was that it was about managing the farm in Swansea.

This is why the whole case tantalizes all these years later and the discussion never ends. Too much doesn't add up. Lizzie despised Abby, yet there was not evidence of outright hostility between them. All witnesses testified their relationship was civil. Lizzie was not poor, and she was destined to inherit wealth, even if she wasn't happy some of that inheritance was going to go to Abby. It's suggested Lizzie was eager to move up onto the hill and advance her social status in that way. Perhaps. Not overwhelming motive, but perhaps.

The problem with any intruder theory is that it just seems impossible. Someone would have had to get into that house, through the side or back door, unseen, crept up into the guest room to kill Abby in a way which produced no scream, then hide in the house, then kill Andrew, and escape unseen, with the front door seemingly locked. It just doesn't seem plausible. And to what motive? If Andrew had an enemy, and he certainly could have, why would this guy creep upstairs and kill Abby first? Why not kill Lizzie and Bridget? If the motive was anger at Andrew, why not simply get him on his walk home?

The problem with the Lizzie-did-it theory:
- little evidence of outright hostility in the household
- no evidence of hostility between her and her father
- while she stood to gain from the murders, she was pretty well taken care of anyway
- she made no effort to stage a crime scene. She didn't even take the obvious step of leaving the front door open.
- she had minutes to clean up and dispose of the weapon, one hell of a trick
- Morse could have walked in at any time. She could not know when he was returning, but she knew he was.

Don't get me wrong, I believe Lizzie is guilty. But I also believe there is reasonable doubt. The case is so great because it shows how evidence just doesn't stack up sometimes, and yet there are two dead bodies, that's beyond dispute.

[camgarsky4]

Leitskev -- there are a number of articles published in the Fall River and Boston papers on the 15th & 16th on this finding that might fill in some blanks.

Below is one snippet.....
Boston Globe June 15th.
"Counsel on neither side knew just what to do about the discovery. News of the finding of a hatchet on Crowe's barn in Fall River reached here (New Bedford) about 10 o'clock. Neither counsel for the government knew enough about it to say whether they would put it in or not, and ex Gov Robinson said he did not know about it, but understood that the police have it."

There is absolutely no way to prove the Crowe roof hatchet was or was not the murder weapon. I don't believe it was a hoax, so how did it get there?

We know that it was found in a location that the police likely hadn't searched, had the appropriate dimensions and conditioning to match the murder weapon and was within tossing distance of the SE corner of the Borden property or a simple toss to the right for an intruder escaping the murder scene. And we KNOW that a murder weapon is missing and the autopsy report indicates it was likely a hatchet.

If Lizzie tossed it from the backyard, that would match with Lubinsky seeing a woman approaching the side steps from the backyard at the time of murder.

There was a carpenter who claimed he had worked in the neighborhood and lost his hatchet around the time of the murder. If he didn't misplace it via any of number of other possible means, and the Crow hatchet was his, it would be fascinating to learn how his work hatchet ended up on the roof of a barn and why he didn't climb onto the roof and fetch it back?

Besides the carpenters claim, there is zero evidence that this wasn't the murder weapon. I think it was either the carpenters or it was the murder weapon. I vote it was the murder weapon.

All that 'said', after repeated forum debates, I've learned that there is literally no way to convince someone one way or the other on this topic.

[Steve887788]

The trolley alibi is way to on the nose. This guy was desperately trying to establish that he was not in the house.

It's not the fact that John remembered these details such as the conductor's cap number or that he noticed 6 Irish Priests, that is weird enough to take note of esp the numbers on the cap. It's the fact that Uncle John wanted to "feather" his nest with verifiable bits of information. Why ?

The journey from where he was to the Bordens was a little over 6800 feet. I could understand running into interesting people along the way of a cross state(s) train ride. But he was loaded with facts and figures and ready to dispense them at a moments notice.

I am curious - did he ever produce a trolly ticket for his journey back - or maybe he just walked back and took note of people as as he was walking past them ?

[camgarsky4]

Do you think John did the killing or was a co-conspirator? If yes, how and why did he get involved?

[leitskev]

Thanks Cam

Very interesting.
Found this thread: https://lizzieandrewborden.com/LBForum/ ... ght=crowes
shows the articles

So it seems they found this after the prosecution had rested their case, so they couldn't use it. The press seemed to think it would help the defense. Even the family that found it thought it would help them and tried to contact Jennings.

Really hard to know what to make of it. Definitely intriguing. The people who found the hatchet rubbed some rust off it for some reason. Looking for blood? The report says there was gilt under the rust, so it was largely unused, but did that description come from the people who found it? This shows how closely everyone was following the trial, and even average citizens where aware that gilt was found in Abby's wounds.

The hatchet was rust-covered, the handle weathered. Was a year enough for that to happen? I don't know.

There are questions about whether someone threw that on the roof as a hoax, and it seems that was the conclusion at the time. If that was the murder weapon, wouldn't the people who turned it in have held onto it? The prosecution couldn't use because they had rested. The defense didn't need it. But if it looked like the weapon, it would be very valuable.

[camgarsky4]

Good find on the articles. A few key articles are missing from that thread, but I need to learn how to snip and paste on a posting. Been on this forum for going on two years and still not sure how to attach visuals. I'll see if one of my kids might help.

The gilt that a couple doctors believe they found in Abby's skull in April/May '93 was never shared with the general public. We know of it via the Knowlton Papers. I think the conclusion of the Crowe hatchet having signs of gilt on the Crowe hatchet is that it was newer when tossed on roof.

There are a number of key physical items that might have been instructive if available for the trial, but no sign of their existence then or now is know...... AJB's Prince Albert coat, Elizabeth Johnston's letter from Lizzie (presumably Elizabeth burned it hmmm), and the Crowe hatchet.

I find a compelling string of items......1) EJ's Marion letter which reputedly included Lizzie taking on wood chopping chore because of a good, sharp hatchet, 2) Lubinsky seeing a woman returning to side steps from backyard at time of murder, 3) hatchet found on neighboring roof in a matching condition with signs of being new at time of disposal. The overarching fact that brings it all together....the murder weapon has never been found.

It would be interesting to read a rational hoax scenario. I've given it thought and each scenario feels more fantastical than the oddity of the Crowe hatchet being found during the trial.

It seems reasonable that an 1890 item made of wood & iron and left on a roof for 10 months over a New England winter would be considered weather beaten at the end of those 10 months.

[isn'tthat special1]

But was she laughing at Bridget?? Just a thought people, but If Lizzie did the killings, was at the top of stairs after cleaning up after killing Abby, what if she was laughing from seeing Abby's body on the floor, and was pleased with self? I just think fumbling with the locks was a regular happening at the Borden House and wouldn't think much about it when happening. At worst though, if Lizzie on top of the stairs, she would know Abby was dead, even if she didn't do it, but she states to Andrew, Abby went out, knowing that isn't true.

Just thoughts

[camgarsky4]

Your take is pretty similar to how the Elizabeth Montgomery movie portrayed the laugh. If she was a maniacal psychopath, I suppose she could have been laughing at her handy work on Abby.

On her possibly laughing at Bridget.....the thought is that she laughed because of the colorful language Bridget used to express her frustration with the lock. Not specifically because anyone fumbled with the locks.

[WFordII]

Who was behind the guest room door??