Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

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phineas
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Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by phineas »

I stumbled across the fascinating story of James Fallon, a neuroscientist who analyzed murderers' brains...then reviewed his own brain scans and found they showed the same distinct markers of psychopathy. He is distantly related to Lizzie. Story overview from NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =127888976.

The very interesting point is that his family line produced seven (or eight) MURDERERS. INCLUDING LIZZIE:

"His late father's lineage was drenched in blood. An early ancestor, Thomas Cornell, was hanged in 1673 for murdering his mother. That was one of the first recorded acts of matricide in the Colonies. Seven other possible killers later emerged in the family tree. The most notorious was distant cousin Lizzie Borden of Fall River, Mass. In 1892, she was accused and then controversially acquitted of killing her father and stepmother with an ax." http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125745788725531839

One of the hallmarks of psychopathy (antisocial disorder in the DSM) is lack of empathy. The bulk of opinion seemed to be that Lizzie was somehow odd. When Fallon showed his family the results, they basically said it made sense and told him he was odd and cold, which shocked him.

Coldness, not observing society's norms, Lizzie's lack of affect when Andrew's body was found...can this all be explained by lack of empathy? There are many other instances where Lizzie's behavior just seems off.

With so little evidence to go on with this crime, a data point that psychopathy and murder run in Lizzie's line just seems amazing. Psychopathy is believed now to be a genetic predisposition that is influenced by environment, possibly requiring abuse to tip the balance. Andrew's upbringing of her and Emma? I have not been able to find out if this is coming down Lizzie's paternal or maternal line. Somehow I suspect Borden but her mother Sarah was definitely seen as "not well."

What say you?
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JamesInnocentBorden
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by JamesInnocentBorden »

Interesting that you mention this because I just ordered the book, "Killed Strangely, The Death of Rebecca Cornell" by Elaine Forman Crane. Rebecca Briggs Cornell would have been Lizzie's 6th great grandmother from Rhode Island. She is the mother of Thomas Cornell that you mention. You can buy this book on Amazon. The cheapest is the Kindle version for $9.99.
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Oh, Mrs. Churchill, do come over, someone has killed father.
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Franz
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by Franz »

JamesInnocentBorden wrote:Interesting that you mention this because I just ordered the book, "Killed Strangely, The Death of Rebecca Cornell" by Elaine Forman Crane. Rebecca Briggs Cornell would have been Lizzie's 6th great grandmother from Rhode Island. She is the mother of Thomas Cornell that you mention...
Interesting. This Rebecca was Lizzie's 6th great grandmother, but of paternal or maternal line?
"Mr. Morse, when you were told for the THIRD time that Abby and Andrew had been killed, why did you pronounce a "WHAT" to Mrs. Churchill? Why?"
phineas
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by phineas »

It is the Borden side Franz. I looked it up on Ancestry:
Thomas Cornell m Rebecca Briggs
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Thomas Cornell 1627-1673 m Elizabeth Fiscock (he killed Mother Rebecca, hanged)
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Innocent Cornell 1673-1720 m Richard Borden 1671-1732
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Thomas Borden 1697-1740 (Mary Gifford)
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Richard Borden, Sr. 1722-1795 (Hope Cook)
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Richard Borden Jr. 1749-1824
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Abraham Bowen Borden 1798-1882
|
Andrew Jackson Borden 1822-1892 m Sarah Morse
| |
Emma Lizbeth
phineas
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by phineas »

Here's a link to Fallon's book. https://amzn.com/1591846005 "The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain"
I'm going to buy it. I'd love to know who the rest of the killers are. And whether he had an opportunity to scan his father if he is still alive.

Before posting this info, I searched the board for 'Fallon' to see if it had been discussed previously and found nothing. Today I searched 'geneology' and 'Cornells' and there's a lot of discussion of the Cornell link. The new piece of course is a Lizzie relative having had their brain scanned and finding psychopathy (as we understand the structure today at least).

I've done a lot of research in psychopathy and narcissism over the years on another project. I'd seen the Fallon story but never the Lizzie link (how did I miss it???) I haven't had any luck finding anything on the Fallon tree in Ancestry. Maybe someone else is a better searcher?
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Franz
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by Franz »

Many thanks, Phineas!
(P.S.: His daughter Innocent (!) was born in the same year when he was hanged!)
"Mr. Morse, when you were told for the THIRD time that Abby and Andrew had been killed, why did you pronounce a "WHAT" to Mrs. Churchill? Why?"
CerintheM
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by CerintheM »

Phineas, I think this is a really interesting point:
One of the hallmarks of psychopathy (antisocial disorder in the DSM) is lack of empathy. The bulk of opinion seemed to be that Lizzie was somehow odd. When Fallon showed his family the results, they basically said it made sense and told him he was odd and cold, which shocked him.

Coldness, not observing society's norms, Lizzie's lack of affect when Andrew's body was found...can this all be explained by lack of empathy? There are many other instances where Lizzie's behavior just seems off.
It's interesting because you are suggesting that psychopathy is not evidence for her killing, but that perhaps you can see it in her behavior. It's totally true that most psychopaths don't kill anyone, and some are very successful (like possibly this neuroscientist!).

I mean, I think she did do it. But regardless of whether she did, there are hints that she might have had a personality disorder of some kind, including psychopathy. (With all the caveats about diagnosing from afar.) There was her unflappable lack of emotion after the fact - which is frankly a little weird even if she *were* the killer. It was pretty noticeable that Emma says she keeps in touch with Morse, but Lizzie doesn't, that all the house chores/responsibilities that are supposed to belong to both are actually done by Emma, Emma turned over the bigger room to Emma, that she never had a serious romantic relationship we know of (not that that by ANY means always indicates a personality disorder, just noticing she ALSO didn't have romantic relationships in addition to other stuff), walking into her house and going straight upstairs without saying hello to people, shutting Abby out of her life for the perfectly reasonable request Abby made to her well-to-do husband to help out her step-sister, possible thefts, falling out with Emma later in life, refusing to call Bridget by her real name, etc etc etc.
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by Twokeets »

Regarding her not getting married or having a long term serious relationship--that would make sense if she had been the victim of abuse. She may have been traumatized, and lost the ability or desire to have deep relationship with humans. Animals are a different matter--they give you unconditional love without any of the challenges of inter-human relations.
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by violette »

Lizzie could have possibly equated a long term relationship with child rearing. She was only 2 when her own mother died. Perhaps, she feared bearing children and succumbing to death. Maybe her hatred of Abby made her fear a stepmother for her own children. Who knows...
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Star
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Re: Lizzie relative today has anatomically "psychopathic" brain... connection?

Post by Star »

As someone who majored in psychology (my focus was "abnormal psychology" aka all forms of mental illness) I find this absolutely fascinating. I have indeed heard of Dr. Fallon--a very intriguing man!--and to hear of all the murderers in his family tree is stunning. And to learn he's distantly related to Lizzie Borden is utterly mind-boggling!

I too was always struck by Lizzie's incredible coolness and lack of emotion throughout the aftermath of the murders. It just isn't "normal", whatever "normal" is! It was so noticeable, so strikingly unusual, that it was repeatedly remarked upon during and after the murders and the trial that followed. And yes, it made me wonder if Lizzie had some kind of psychopathy in her makeup, because she just didn't seem to give a damn and she showed very, very little emotion. That's a pretty common thing among psychopaths. And she was frequently described as "odd" which admittedly can cover a multitude of things--but in Lizzie's case it does seem somewhat ominous. I wonder if that was one reason she found it so difficult to make and keep friends--people might well have sensed that something was very wrong with Lizzie, even if they couldn't put their finger on it--they'd never heard of psychopaths or Antisocial Personality Disorder and sociopathy, but they definitely might have felt that she was so odd and off-putting, it was better keeping out of her way. (Altho I am aware she had just a few friends, she apparently was good to her servants, and seemed to love animals, none of which seems consistent with being a psychopath, but still...)

Twokeets, I too have wondered about Lizzie's eternal spinsterhood--altho she certainly was not the only woman in Fall River who never married (her sister Emma and Alice Russell come to mind) and not marrying is certainly not a "symptom" of being antisocial/a psychopath or whatever else you might label it. It has also occurred to me (maybe I just have a dirty mind!!) that her coldness and the fact that she never married could have been a sign of something else--as you said, possibly a victim of abuse, most likely by her father. That could also help explain the murders, esp. their excessive violence--IF Andrew had abused Lizzie, she would have felt a LOT of rage that only grew over the years. And it certainly could have given her a lifelong aversion to anything remotely connected to marriage or any kind of physical intimacy. Some people might say, "Well, even IF Andrew abused her, why would Lizzie have also gone after poor Abby?" The fact is, that wouldn't be unusual, even if Abby never laid a hand on her. Abby was not the biological mother of either Lizzie or Emma, but she was their stepmother--in loco parentis, so to speak--and I hope I'm not "butchering" that phrase, no pun intended! Lizzie would have looked to the only other "parent" she had--Abby--to protect her from her father's molestation--if it happened, of course. Maybe Abby didn't know. Maybe she knew but was unable to do anything about it. Regardless, children abused by one parent often hold the other parent equally accountable--because the other parent failed to protect them. And so they often want to punish not just the parent who abused them, but the other parent as well--the one who should have kept them safe, but didn't. (Please note, all this about abuse is pure speculation, there is no proof whatever that Andrew ever overstepped the bounds with either of his daughters, BUT if he did, IMO it would explain a lot!)

Last but not least--that ancestor of Lizzie's, Thomas Cornell, who murdered HIS mother--the fact that his daughter was named "Innocent" absolutely gave me the shivers--and not because it's a cold winter night!!!
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