Consciousness of Guilt

[irina]

This is the opposite of consciousness of innocence. There are plenty of points that fit here too.

1) That Lizzie's alibi was that she was at the farthest, most difficult to get to part of the barn where she had no ability to see the side door and that part of the yard, and that she was there eating pears and adjusting a lace curtain on a barn window, among other things.

2) Turning over a dark, bengalene silk outfit to the police/prosecution, when they demanded the dress she wore Thursday morning. Plus not volunteering her shoes and stockings at that time.

3) Burning the dress~~can be taken two ways. Consciusness of guilt OR innocence.

4) Lying. Even I don't think she told the truth about a lot of things. Lies or covering for someone else? Don't know but surely not a sign of innocence.

5) Lizzie and Emma not continuing to seek the real killer after Lizzie was found not guilty.

Again there are many more instances that fit here and many that can be taken either way.

[debbiediablo]

This is a cross-post from Consciousness of Guilt:

Possum has said this multiple times and I have said it a few: people cannot be judged by their behavior in the hours and even days after traumatic experience. For every person who falls to pieces, there's another who reacts with stoicism. Some throw themselves into the process of making life right again; others crawl away to hide, sometimes forever. There's no telling how anyone (including each of us) would respond to finding our father hacked to death with a hatchet and then finding our step-mother upstairs, killed the same way. That said, I'm not sure Lizzie was like everyone else. IF she was guilty then she was a psychopath. (IMO, and I don't have a PhD in psychology or clinical notes to make that diagnosis, but we have run her through Hare's checklist before...:-) Psychopaths are fearless, bold, lacking in remorse, dishonest, cunning, manipulative, impulsive and often live a parasitic lifestyle. Psychopaths don't have consciousness of guilt or consciousness of innocence.

[Curryong]

I do believe that Lizzie did have a consciousness of guilt and this lasted for the rest of her life. It may even have spurred on her good deeds (and there were many) in her later life. I remember reading once, goodness knows where, that most murderers (serial killers aside) who get away with it, live their lives in perfect placidity as the 'cause' of their irritation has been removed!

She seems to have had some, if not most, of the psychopathic tendencies listed at times in this Forum, but who knows! The most medically trained amongst the posters can only guess about Lizzie's mental state at this length of time.

I used to believe that Lizzie killed in an excess of terrible rage that day at something she believed Abby was conniving at (a new will or sale of the Swansea farm perhaps) and Uncle John's arrival deepened those fears.

I still adhere to that belief to a certain extent but I do think that Lizzie brooded about Abby's death for years in a spirit of malevolence which became obsessive, especially in the last year or so before the murder. There were so many incidents. It wasn't just sheer greed in my opinion that drove Lizzie to kill but the most terrible festering resentment and an overweening sense of entitlement.

There were so many untruths. I do place the burning of the dress and the handing over of the Bengaline silk outfit as the things that scream guilt to me. An innocent woman wouldn't have performed either action. No-one recognised the silk dress as the one worn on that Thursday for the plain and simple reason that Lizzie didn't wear it.

[debbiediablo]

If I were to pick one behavior for the Consciousness of Guilt list it would be being buried at her father's feet. Even then, it might've been her last hurrah against Fall River...not spurred from guilt but saying one more time she didn't do it, even if she did. I, too, used to think she acted on impulse in fit of rage against Abby, but the festering resentment makes more sense to me now.

[irina]

It would be a good other thread to discuss the dress turned over to the police. I just don't get it. If the police took the clothes I wear today they'd get capri pants and a halter top (with spots of fish blood because I went fishing). I would never assume I could pass off one of my wool suits from wintertime as today's outfit. Someone called the bengalene silk a "winter party dress"; probably Victoria Lincoln. My point is it was warm summertime and even the most ignorant policeman should have had an idea about appropriate clothing for summer. PLUS by all accounts the dress Lizzie actually wore must have been a light blue with small dark pattern, so how in the heck did ANYONE accept a dark blue silk for that garment????? All I can think is that someone in law enforcement made a loose comment that if there was a drop of blood on Lizzie's clothes, she would hang, and she or someone who cared, heard this. Thus whoever, made absolutely sure any garments turned over had not been near any blood, perhaps had been cleaned after the last wearing. This is wild speculation on my part but it makes sense. Science such as it was could BARELY tell human blood from animal. It certainly could not distinguish victim's blood from non-victim. Perhaps Lizzie pricked her finger while sewing the "tape" onto her dress that morning, and there WAS blood on her skirt. Perhaps she had had a nose bleed at some time while wearing that dress and she feared residual stains. Just guessing.

[debbiediablo]

I think the operative word here is 'ignorant'.

[phineas]

I agree about the dress Irina. I don't know enough about seasonality of clothing in the 1890s (silk seems to me a reasonable fabric?) but it sounds like it was a dressier item and not for household wear. The lack of the "figure" clearly points to it being the wrong dress. I like your idea about someone, not even Lizzie, having decided to hand it over in an executive decision because something was "wrong" with the right dress.

Consciousness of guilt I find in the distancing statement, "SOMEONE'S killed father," not father has been murdered or father's dead or father's been killed. It's just an odd phrasing. Same thing with standing near the door right after the fact - how you could not run out in the yard and get as far away as possible I don't know. She sends Bridget away??? The one person she believes to be in the house?? It's not much safety but it's something. I understand go for a doctor, but the only reason to stay and not run with Bridget is if you were going to tend the victim yourself. I also find it very guilty that she stays away from the body as if to stay away from the blood. A lot of people would crouch down and take a hand, see if the victim was breathing, shake them, anything but stand blandly by the door.

[Curryong]

I believe that Lizzie killed both Abby and Andrew in the paint-stained garment that she later burned, shocking Alice Russell's socks off. We have to remember that the dress burning occurred after the idiot mayor of Fall River had more or less warned Lizzie (after the funeral) that she was probably going to be arrested. Time was short. The police had already searched the premises fairly thoroughly once. The hose were probably a different pair and the slipper shoes were well cleaned off, no doubt.

Bengaline silk is an imitation silk. In the 19th century silks and satins weren't 'floppy'. They were often stiffened, so they would have been slightly heavier than they are today. The outfit (a walking-out costume, as it would have been known) may have come from the winter dresses at the back of the closet that were never examined.

I think that Andrew's Prince Albert covered much of the 'burned' dress in the latter murder, and in the former Lizzie may well have worn Abby's black gossamer raincoat, which she then carefully wiped. Even so, she changed into the pink wrapper as soon as she considered she was able to. If only Officer Harrington (who did take notice of women's clothing) had been at the house at 10am not noon!

It wasn't just the males in the house that didn't take notice of what Lizzie was wearing that morning. All the female witnesses seemed to have developed mass amnesia on that point as well! Only Mrs Churchill had a stab at describing it!

[phineas]

Curryong, I think you nailed it. I'm curious....do you think it was a crime of opportunity - today's the day, I can't get poison, I just told Alice my dark intimations of danger...? Or do you think she was set off by something in the house that day and she exploded?

[Curryong]

That's been a source of fascinating debate on this board for ever, Phineas, and I wish I knew!
What if I start a new topic, 'Premeditated or...?' and we could perhaps list the things we know about the subject!

[Franz]

...
Consciousness of guilt I find in the distancing statement, "SOMEONE'S killed father," not father has been murdered or father's dead or father's been killed. It's just an odd phrasing...

I noticed that Mrs. Churchill said exactly the same thing (Inquest testimony, p. 130):

... I think I was the first one that let him (Morse) in. I says, “Mr. Morse, something terrible has happened, someone has killed both Mr. and Mrs. Borden...

[irina]

We all have different ways to express the unknown. I lived many years in a fairly poor area of the US, where there was also a big drug problem and lots of property crime like burglaries. My home and premises have been burglarised more than once. I always refer to unknown perpetrators as "they" which drives the police wild. "How do you know there was more than one?" I'm an artist by profession and except for technical writing my thought processes are fairly abstract. Unknown, unseen criminals to me are "they" or "them", words which keep me from saying 'he' or 'she' when I have no idea, actually about anybody. I see Lizzie's use of "someone" as being a bit more accurate than something I would say and I don't think it means anything. That is her way of expressing the unknown.

[debbiediablo]

Placing the folded coat under Andrew's head...a common sign of 'undoing' in a domestic homicide.

[Curryong]

I'd really love to know whether that coat was hung up on its usual hook in the dining room when Andrew came home that day. The Bordens' dining room, a small room as it was, seems to have used as a cloakroom as well. Isn't that where Lizzie hung her garden hat as well, (the one she supposedly took off after coming in from the barn?)

[irina]

I posted on another thread recently that I wonder if the coat was taken from a nearby hook or rack and used to prop up the body for photographing. Several of the old newspapers vaguely said Andrew was arranged for photos as befitted a leading citizen of Fall River. One said his shoes were put back on his feet. I wouldn't think a lot of this but that there was a picture in one of the papers done by a sketch artist, probably from a photograph and Andrew had socks on his feet and no shoes. (I believe I can relocate this but you know how bad I am at furnishing links.) I further commented that if Andrew was propped up for a nap as much as the picture shows, and the blows came from "left to right" as I understand the forensic findings, wouldn't he have been knocked onto the floor? Nobody ever commented on the coat being where it was at the time, as far as I know. If the body was much flatter on the sofa it would have been hard to photograph as the cameras were heavy and if they were using a powder flash it would have been even trickier. My understanding of the cameras used for mortuary pictures of Jack the Ripper's victims in 1888 was that the cameras could only take pictures straight ahead. That is the reason at least one victim was propped up or it is said, hung on a nail against the wall. This is just another thing to think about.

[Curryong]

1890's cameras were quite lumbering and awkward pieces of equipment. Dr Bowen said, when viewing the photos at the prelim that he felt Andrew had slipped down a little in position. There does seem to have been some furniture moved for the convenience of the photographer and Andrew's feet may have been placed in a more elegant position.

However, the coat was in situ when Dr Dolan arrived at No. 92, at 'about 11:45 am, according to his trial testimony. (The photographer was present at about 3pm.)

Dolan stated '...The body of Mr Borden was lying on the sofa...The body was covered with a sheet. Dr Bowen was with me... The head was resting on a sofa cushion that had a little white tidy on it. The cushion, I think, rested on his coat, which had been doubled up and put under there. And the coat in turn rested on an afghan or sofa cover.'

[irina]

Good find, Curryong. So now I'm just left with wondering why from that elevated position, he wasn't knocked forward onto the floor during the attack. If the coat was put there after death there would have been a bit of heavy lifting or manoeuvering to get it under his upper body dead weight. Literally. An efficient way to move the body forward would be to grasp the front of his clothes at the neck. Think about it. Maybe he did have something he was protecting inside his coat pockets and he did intentionally lie down on it. That's a weird set up~afghan, coat, pillow (with a lace tidy on it~how elegant).

[Curryong]

Yes, tasteful! There was some discussion on an earlier thread between those of us who believe the killer wore the coat and it was then slipped under after death, that perhaps Andrew's damaged head was lifted up balanced on the cushion, and the blooded coat, quickly folded, was then tucked/pushed underneath. I agree though that it would take some manoeuvring.

[PossumPie]

I'm just thinking out loud here...what if the killer put their body behind the door frame and just the right arm with the hatchet through the door frame to whack Mr. Borden? That sofa was pushed into the open frame (presumably to make more room to walk out from the kitchen) and someone could lean in just their head and arm. No blood anywhere except maybe face and forearm that are easily washed.

[Curryong]

Would you be able to get a very strong vicious chopping rhythm if you were just gently leaning in, though, Possum? I just get the feeling the killer would have had to loom over the victim at least a little bit and when you consider that (if the killer was female) there were enough firm strokes to virtually destroy one half of Andrew's face, that's quite a bit of energy expended there.

[irina]

I think Victoria Lincoln suggested both that the coat was used that way & stuffed under the body after, and that the killer was shielded by the door. As far as position and damage, it would depend on the build and strength of the killer. Those of us who spend time in the woods know axes can be used in many different ways besides simple chopping. That's why I always question Lizzie's knowledge of axes/hatchets. If her experience was making some kindling I would expect her to simply think of chopping heads like kindling is chopped. A person used to using an axe for other things knows about different ways to swing it. It might be interesting for folks here to look up timber carnivals on line and look at some of the axe competitions. Timber carnivals are a western US thing when lumber jacks got together to have competitions with their skills. Frequently there are competitions where axes are used to chop through logs.

If my only axe experience was chopping wood, probably on a block, that would be how I would instinctively use an axe to commit murder. On the other hand I have experience bumping limbs and chopping brush with an axe or hatchet. I sometimes use a hatchet in construction/carpentry projects. I am a strong woman and I can swing an axe in a lot of ways with one hand. (The way I mention my size and strength, you might get the idea I'm a masculine type woman. I'm not. I was a ballet dancer many years ago. I grew up in the woods and my family had a history of working in the woods.)

[Curryong]

Lizzie, on the face of it, doesn't seem to have had that much experience with axes/hatchets, (I'm excepting the murders here, folks!) except for the brief mentions of kindling wood at picnics.

Of course, Andrew had the two Swansea farms for years as the girls were growing up and became adults. We know that Andrew and Lizzie would fish together. I'm just wondering whether he or his farm overseer taught the young Lizzie to use an axe on these farm holidays on something different to kindling/brush cutting. We know so little about Lizzie's activities in her younger years, really.

We have those sort of wood-chopping competitions in Australia, Irina. My elder daughter, then very young, was given a newly chopped chair by a competing axe man when we viewed a contest at the Royal Melbourne (Agricultural) Show one year.

[debbiediablo]

It may seem marvelous, that, with the world before her,—kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure,—free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being,—and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her,—it may seem marvelous, that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.

– Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

[Curryong]

That is very striking, debbie, and indeed for many of the residents of Fall River Lisbeth Borden did wear a scarlet letter for the rest of her life. She stayed at Fall River in a spirit of defensiveness, I believe, a sort of 'I am not going to be driven from my home town by those who think me guilty'. Perhaps there was a feeling of fatality about it. Certainly, I feel that she would have perhaps been happier if she'd settled in Boston or even New York.

[irina]

How much of Lizzie's staying in FR may have had to do with Emma, I wonder? I have the idea Emma thought if they lived quietly and respectably in FR, it was proper mourning for their father. I really think the break with Emma came because Lizzie did something ostentatiously frivolous~entertaining show people at home~which was not withing Emma's definition of proper mourning behaviour. This was still the time when people frequently mourned deaths for a lifetime.

[phineas]

On the matter of chopping, I think Lizzie could well have been behind the door. I am struck by the notion that the first killing was a virgin outing and you could expect the killer to improve on the 2nd go round. She learned how much force was required. And after the first blow, she could have moved into position above him with Andrew dazed, or even on the verge of death.

If Andrew's eyes weren't closed and he was not really dozing as much as resting, blinking and thinking, then I think stealth would have been needed for Lizzie wasn't prepared to look him in the eye the way she may have done Abby. We don't know whether he was seated and fell back (the clenched fists) or whether the body was posed by the killer, not to mention the photographers. I tend to believe the Prince Albert was hanging on a hook and Lizzie slipped into it; I just don't feel Andrew would be the type to bunch up his coat for a pillow, he was fastidious in dress and his waste not, want not philosophy would extend to caring for one's possessions properly.

[phineas]

Fascinating idea about staying in Fall River. Was it consciousness of guilt or innocence that caused Lizzie to stay? She could have felt justified in killing and thus, justified in staying in the only town she knew. If she had a consciousness of innocence, then she must have wondered what all the fuss was about. Why are people not more kind? But then she did have her coterie that supported her, even if most of society gave her the cold shoulder.

[Curryong]

Emma certainly lived a quiet life herself after she parted from Lizzie, but of course she never lived permanently in Fall River again, always elsewhere with friends and cousins. I wonder sometimes whether Emma had a martyr complex. "Yes, I am being cold-shouldered in my home town too. It is very unpleasant but it is my duty to stand by Lizzie as I promised mother, and that I shall do, to the end if necessary."

I don't think it was Emma's choice actually, to go and live in an ostentatious house on 'the Hill' so soon after the trial, but it was Lizzie's wish and she indulged her.

I've never believed in the Nance O' Neill lesbian theory myself, though many on this forum have. Emma was probably a very serious-minded person and just wanted to live quietly and soberly while Lizzie craved a bit of excitement.

The idea of her sister seeking out as friends people who made their living on the stage may well have shocked Emma to the core and so a huge quarrel blew up (I believe) in which things were said that could never be forgotten.

[Curryong]

Surely, Phineas, two or three strokes on a person's skull with a hatchet would be enough to kill, unless they were exceptionally light taps? I agree that the killer learned more the second time around, but eleven strokes still appears to be over-kill and as if the attacker was exhibiting some anger though not, I agree, the frenzy shown with Abby.

I do believe Andrew was snoozing, though not asleep. His reactions, as an old man, would not have been as swift as a very young one who may have reacted if, even when snoozing, they heard movement behind them. I also agree with your theory of the coat being used and then bundled under.

I think Lizzie did exhibit some degree of resentment at the beginning with those who were cold-shouldering her. I've forgotten now which thread it's in, but FactFinder once posted a notice from a local newspaper stating that Miss Lizzie would not be allowing a room at a building she owned to be available to the young ladies of a certain organisation because of their behaviour towards her!

Later on she became fatalistic about it all, I believe, though friends in later life did state that in moments of depression Lizzie would say she regretted staying in Fall River.

[debbiediablo]

On the matter of chopping, I think Lizzie could well have been behind the door. I am struck by the notion that the first killing was a virgin outing and you could expect the killer to improve on the 2nd go round. She learned how much force was required. And after the first blow, she could have moved into position above him with Andrew dazed, or even on the verge of death.

If Andrew's eyes weren't closed and he was not really dozing as much as resting, blinking and thinking, then I think stealth would have been needed for Lizzie wasn't prepared to look him in the eye the way she may have done Abby. We don't know whether he was seated and fell back (the clenched fists) or whether the body was posed by the killer, not to mention the photographers. I tend to believe the Prince Albert was hanging on a hook and Lizzie slipped into it; I just don't feel Andrew would be the type to bunch up his coat for a pillow, he was fastidious in dress and his waste not, want not philosophy would extend to caring for one's possessions properly.

Totally agreed. Andrew was not a guy to sprawl on the sofa with beer and cookies. He took off the Prince Albert and hung it in the proper place. His hands do make me think there was some sort of reflex, either defensively or at the moment of death.

[debbiediablo]

How much of Lizzie's staying in FR may have had to do with Emma, I wonder? I have the idea Emma thought if they lived quietly and respectably in FR, it was proper mourning for their father. I really think the break with Emma came because Lizzie did something ostentatiously frivolous~entertaining show people at home~which was not withing Emma's definition of proper mourning behaviour. This was still the time when people frequently mourned deaths for a lifetime.

I'm more inclined to think Lizzie violated proper Yankee behavior, not so much mourning behavior.

[debbiediablo]

Emma certainly lived a quiet life herself after she parted from Lizzie, but of course she never lived permanently in Fall River again, always elsewhere with friends and cousins. I wonder sometimes whether Emma had a martyr complex. "Yes, I am being cold-shouldered in my home town too. It is very unpleasant but it is my duty to stand by Lizzie as I promised mother, and that I shall do, to the end if necessary."

I don't think it was Emma's choice actually, to go and live in an ostentatious house on 'the Hill' so soon after the trial, but it was Lizzie's wish and she indulged her.

I've never believed in the Nance O' Neill lesbian theory myself, though many on this forum have. Emma was probably a very serious-minded person and just wanted to live quietly and soberly while Lizzie craved a bit of excitement.

The idea of her sister seeking out as friends people who made their living on the stage may well have shocked Emma to the core and so a huge quarrel blew up (I believe) in which things were said that could never be forgotten.

No telling what might've been said:

E: "Lizzie, the whole town is watching this three-ring circus and you seem to enjoy acting as ring master!"
L: "I could care less what the fine citizens of Fall River think. They abandoned even after the trial where I was exonerated."
E: "Well maybe they'd be a little less judgmental if you didn't behave so ostentatiously. It's not like you were innocent."
L: "I'm no more guilty than you Emma Borden. The only difference between us is you're a sniveling coward and I'm not!"
E: "Sometimes the way you talk makes me think you enjoyed killing them, Lizzie."
L: "Maybe I did...maybe I did."

[Curryong]

Why, debbie, it's as if you were there at Maplecroft yourself, standing behind a curtain. It's almost word for word....!

I wonder whether the servants heard any arguments? If I had been a maid I'd have found an excuse to polish the doorknob outside whichever room they were in!

[debbiediablo]

E: "I've had all I can take, Lizzie. Either this extravagance ends and these vulgar people leave...or I do!"
L: "Don't let the door hit you in the bustle!"

[PossumPie]

Irina, I appreciate your open-mindedness...many of us have a difficult time not letting our belief of guilt get in the way and cloud our judgement. I know you haven't made up your mind yet, but lean towards innocence. We do need balance here.

I tend to think staying in Fall River afterwards is more behavior of an innocent person than a guilty one, but a guilty person with no remorse or who cares little about what people think would stay also...

Lest we forget, women and men were much more intimately acquainted with hatchets back then than they are today. A first blow would have had to have been the killer blow, you don't want the person to scream out...Hard swing first. The number of blows indeed seems to point to someone with passionate rage against both Andrew and Abby. A theory that it was someone KNOWN to them and who hated them makes much more sense than a tramp with his feelings hurt. The period of time between killings (90 min. or 15 min. it doesn't matter) The period of time giving the person time to calm down then have to ramp themselves up to rage again seems to point also to someone with a lifetime of rage built up, not a stranger, or casual acquaintance....

[Franz]

...
I tend to think staying in Fall River afterwards is more behavior of an innocent person than a guilty one, but a guilty person with no remorse or who cares little about what people think would stay also...

I agree.

[irina]

Funny dialogue, everyone! Sounds plausible.

Considering time between murders and also rage, we can consider the Vilisca axe murders. That man (probably), had enough whatever (rage?) to kill a bunch of people, including children. Six as I recall. He was more efficient with an axe as a murder weapon and didn't have to chop a bunch of times to make sure the job was done, plus his victims were sleeping. Then he hung around, covered mirrors, had a snack, had some self gratification with a slab of bacon and looked under a young girl's night gown. Granted everyone was dead but the house wasn't isolated way out on the prairie. There are a number of cases modern and old where criminals hung around after the fact. I find that to be less problematic than some other things in the case~like someone turning over a dark blue dress in place of the light blue dress Lizzie undoubtedly wore.

[debbiediablo]

With regard to Billy the Axman (thought by some to be responsible for the Villisca Ax Murders) at least twice previous to the Villisca killings he killed one entire family with an ax and then made his way through the neighborhood (in one case right behind the initial crime scene) and killed an entire second family with an ax on the same night, starting with the John Burnham family and the Francis Wayne family in Colorado Springs, CO. on 9/17/1911.

Less than a month later a similar perpetrator tried to gain entrance into the home of the Ellsworth, KS, town marshall who went to investigate the noise. Later the next day the William Showman family was found dead in their beds with their heads bashed in by an ax. Their home was two houses over from where the town marshall lived.

On the night of June 6, Mrs. Joseph Longmeyer in Paola, KS, was awakend to the sound of a glass breaking and saw an unidentifiable man fleeing from the house. Her daughter had awakened to see a strange man standing over the mother's bed. The Longmeyer family survived, but the man left a momento of his visit behind - a Kimono-style dressing gown belonging to Anna Hudson who had been killed alongside her husband with an ax to the head as they slept in nearby house.

I understand the unlikelihood of rage that dissipates and then reignites, but the chain of ax murders that preceded Villisca indicates even the strangest of strange can happen.


SOURCE: Murdered in Their Beds by Troy Taylor....this is an excellent book right up until the end. Factual and well-written and truly scary. Unfortunately, like so may Lizzie authors, Taylor tries to solve the crime. The good thing is his solution actually could've happened and might makes sense out of the chaos when a Methodist pastor confesses to the crimes and is then acquitted by a jury!

[phineas]

E: "I've had all I can take, Lizzie. Either this extravagance ends and these vulgar people leave...or I do!"
L: "Don't let the door hit you in the bustle!"

Coffee splurt at that one!

An odd thought...could the "overkill" be not the product of rage but inexperience...not knowing whether or not they were dead 'enough'? If you start you may be scared to stop because the victim could fight back (even though you have the odds with the hatchet).

[debbiediablo]

I belong to the school of overkill mainly because overkill is so often an element of a domestic homicide. Repeatedly hatcheting a loved one in the head must involve a lot of rage unless the killer is psychotic. I don't think it's happenchance that Abby was struck almost twice as many times as Andrew. However, the element of being unsure could possibly play into it, particularly with Abby. Only a moron could look upon Andrew's face with eyeball split in half and brain oozing out and think he wasn't dead or wouldn't die within minutes.

[phineas]

I don't think the amount of blows is accidental either. Abby seems to be the primary victim simply by going first (although that could just be opportunity) and by the amount of chopping. I"ve said this before, that it seems the murderer learned from the first and achieved the second with less work. And I do believe the killer had rage, I just like upending things I accept as fact to see if there's any other plausible explanation and how that might change the case. In this instance, say Lizzie did the killing but the plan was Emma's - she who had the real rage - and Lizzie simply didn't know when to quit. By the second time around, she did.

[Curryong]

I agree, Phineas, though among other things I do think that the killer was conscious of time getting on and having to clean up before Bridget came down, with Andrew's killing, whereas time was not such a problem with Abby. I also agree with the over-kill theory but of course Lizzie's resentments about her father weren't as strong a spur as the hatred she had for Abby, and that probably played a part.

[irina]

I think a consideration about Abby should also be that she apparently ducked the first time, thus the flap on the side of her head. How ever it came down she ended up face down on the floor with a chop to her back also. Looking at it this way is another reason I favour a male intruder. He was ticked off, she ducked, maybe tried to get away but couldn't. When she was subdued on the floor he worked out his rage.

A problem I have with any woman doing the crimes~although a woman could have done it~is that women usually don't like to mutilate faces. When women commit suicide with a gun they usually shoot at the chest. Women murderers tend not to aim for the head. If Abby had fallen backwards with her face exposed I have no question but that her face would have been mercilessly mutilated. The head is definitely the right area to aim for to cause fairly instantaneous death, but would a woman keep chopping on the head? Might she move toward the rib cage? Just something else to consider.

The first cut to Andrew's head did enormous damage to the eye and surrounding region. I take that to mean whoever did it was determined to kill with the first stroke but the other whacks were to make sure he was dead. I like the idea the killer was behind (more or less) the dining room door and operating one handed.

Curryong~~Something that scrambles my mind is international time. I guess the forum runs on whatever time here, thus your recent post says August 2. But really, isn't it August 3 in Australia? I understand about the International Dateline and that Santa Claus gets to Australia first, but I get confused about whether or not it's tomorrow there and yesterday here...or something. When I was following MH370 on an hourly basis I would use tomorrow's date about noon here, to get the earliest news reports from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. It worked.

[debbiediablo]

Deliberately destroying a face while committing a murder is termed depersonalization which Robert Ressler, et el. (1986) defines as stripping the victim of his or her individuality through mutilating or objectifying the face.

[Curryong]

I am near Melbourne, Victoria (in Australia, obviously!) What makes it a bit difficult are your different time zones (as in L.A., New York and all places in between!) In the summer some of our states have 'summer time' and some don't, and
Western Australia is two hours behind the Eastern States, anyway. Complicated, hmm?

However, as of now, Melbourne is 15 hours ahead of Chicago, which I suppose is in the middle of the US, isn't it? Hope that gives some idea!

[twinsrwe]

I am near Melbourne, Victoria (in Australia, obviously!) What makes it a bit difficult are your different time zones (as in L.A., New York and all places in between!) In the summer some of our states have 'summer time' and some don't, and
Western Australia is two hours behind the Eastern States, anyway. Complicated, hmm?

However, as of now, Melbourne is 15 hours ahead of Chicago, which I suppose is in the middle of the US, isn't it? Hope that gives some idea!

Oh my, I didn't realize that the Australia time zones are so complicated! The US also has time zones, but they are not as complicated as Australia time zones!

I live in Wisconsin, which is in the Central Time Zone. So, the eastern Time Zone is one hour ahead of us, the Mountain Time Zone is one hour behind us, and the Pacific Time Zone is two hours behind us.

USA-Time-Zones3.gif

usa-map-text.png

Actually, Chicago is located in the Midwestern region of the US.

Chicago_In_USA_MAP.jpg

[debbiediablo]

It's 10:55 PM and I know where my children and my husband are...although little mixed up about where I am!

[Curryong]

What is in the very middle of the US, please, is it Omaha, (or nearby.) Is anybody on the Forum near Chicago?
Perth (Western Australia) is 1,690 miles from Melbourne (and the Eastern States) but we don't really formally call the two hour time difference a different time zone in case the Western Australians get uppity and decide to secede as they have threatened to several times in the short history of Australia. (Smile.)

In the summer most of the States keep to summer time, except for Queensland up the North, which always wants to be different to the rest, so it's not that complicated. I think the biggest difference between the US and Australia is because the outback is so dry the continent is not so heavily settled and the difference between cities can be massive.

[Curryong]

On midnight Saturday coming into Sunday in every State in Australia except for Western Australia,
It would be 7am in San Francisco on the Saturday.

Midnight as above in Aus.

10 am in Indiana, and in New York (bit of a surprise) too, on the Saturday.
And in Wisconsin it would be 9am Saturday.

[irina]

Hmmmm............It's the date change thing. Somewhere it's yesterday or tomorrow or something....

I'm in mountain time zone, close to the Idaho/Oregon border. It is 11:40 now. Note on the mountain time zone how there is a jog into Oregon. That's most of Malheur County. Just what I said~most, but not all, of Malheur County. Figure that one out. Does the earth have a wrinkle right there or something? The Snake River forms a good part of the division between Idaho and Oregon. That still doesn't explain why a portion of that county is in Mt. Time Zone. If it was an ill defined line I'd say it's the way the earth is made and some scientist somewhere made the decision, but that's not what I'm seeing. My best guess is that the largest Oregon city in the area is Ontario which is 60 miles from Idaho's largest (and capital city) of Boise. Maybe Ontario wants to be on the same time as Boise which actually fits in the Mt. Time Zone.

BTW our capital city Boise is pronounced BOY-see. It is the French boise (bwaas) for forest. When Captain Bonneville came across the endless desert and found trees at last, along the Boise River, he and his party jumped up and down and yelled, "Le boise, le boise, avec le boise!" Or something like that. The name stuck. Still lots of trees in Boise.