Just re-read all the Witness Statements

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NancyDrew
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Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

All 58 pages of them. Thanks to Stefani, et al for transcibing them into one place.

There hasn't been a whole lot new to talk about so I thought I'd review this stuff with a pair of fresh eyes. Wow. Some things really stood out for me:

1. More than one source, many more, talked about how unpleasant the relations were between Lizzie and Abby. One quote has LIzzie saying that Abby "is the type who never dies." (p.11 Miss Ida Gray, No. 27 Whipple street.
Last Friday evening, Aug. 5, while in the horse car, two ladies were talking of Lizzie Borden. One remarked that Lizzie said, when referring to Mrs. Borden, that
“she was one of the kind that never die.”)

While this isn't surprising to me, it was clear to me that Bridget lied when she talked about friendly relations between the two. As did Lizzie herself.

2. The police officer, Harrington, had misgivings about Lizzie right from the start. Her demeanor was, to him, off-putting. She was too calm, not upset, didn't even try to fake any grief or stress: ( ". All this, and something that, to me, is indescribable,
gave birth to a thought that was most revolting. I thought, at least, she knew more than she wished to
tell." ) I think this is telling, to say the least. What kind of person remains unflappable after witnessing their own father's body hacked to pieces, eyeball cut in half, wounds dripping fresh blood?

Why did Dr. Bowen think it necessary to sedate Lizzie, not one, but twice, then with a stronger sedative, then doubling the dose? She wasn't hysterical, didn't feel faint (by her own admission) and was perfectly able to answer all the questions the police had for her literally MINUTES after the tragedy. It boggles my mind!

3. The police wasted a lot of time chasing down gossip. I won't go into the dozens of rumors they investigated, of bloody axes, suspicious people, etc. I guess it was their duty to be thorough, but it seems they did an awful lot of running around based on nothing more than speculation and innuendo.

4. I have a question I hope isn't stupid: On page 7, John Fleet writes "Lizzie said that she had not seen Mrs. Borden since about nine o’clock. She then saw her in the bedroom when she was coming down stairs." Wait, What? I thought she last saw her step-mother was when she was flicking a feather duster downstairs. Or...I though Lizzie "thought she heard her go out." OR..."I'm positive I heard her come in."

So which IS it? When DID Lizzie last see her stepmother alive?

5. Regarding William Medley's statement: ". I inquired about some cloths which looked to me like small towels, they were
covered with blood, and in a pail half filled with water, and in the wash cellar. She said that was all
right; she had told the Doctor all about that. I then asked her how long the pail and its contents had been
there; and she said three or four days. I asked the Doctor about it, and he said it had been explained to
him, and was all right.
I then had a talk with Bridget about the pail and it contents. She said she had not noticed the pail
until that day, and it could not have been there two days before, or she would have seen it, and put the
contents in the wash, as that was the day she had done the washing."

Okay, 'couple of questions for the good folks here:

1. Who do we believe? Lizzie or Bridget? I tend towards the latter. A servant worth her salt wouldn't have ignored a pail of bloody rags that needed to be washed, right?

2. What does Lizzie mean by "She said it was ALL RIGHT; SHE HAD TOLD THE DOCTOR ALL ABOUT THAT." Why does explaining the pail of bloody rags to the doctor mean it is of no consequence? Is this a delicate way of saying that the pail was full of menstrual rags?

I have more to say, but though this was a start. All comments appreciated.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Sigh. 21 views, no comments. Ok, I realize that my post is probably going over old ground. And I know that I may be uttering sentiments that are very familiar, but well...I thought I'd just jump in somewhere and try to get us talking about the case again. No?

Oh well. (sad face.)
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by patsy »

Sometimes I think it's just that a mood affects our motivation to acknowledge a post right away, and we may just want to let some of sink in with the intent to come back later. Glad to hear at least that your post is being read.
I'd like to reread the witness statements just to refresh. You're right to look at things with fresh eyes I believe.

The statement about the pail with the bloody rags does cause a lot of wonder because it does appear that the explanation was accepted too easily. If it was Bridget's job to wash them we would probably think she should've seen the pail if it had been there for a couple of days, but it may also have depended on whether she did indeed have that job and how busy or distracted she may have been.

I am very leery about analyzing any impression someone's demeanor might cause because we are all so different in how we act and how we perceive things. So I'd have trouble putting any weight on Lizzie's reactions initially or throughout the trial one way or the other.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Thanks for replying, patsy. I have a different opinion than you do regarding demeanor....I think it's very telling that the policemen took note of Lizzie's lack of affect. I feel the same way about her choice to change into a pink striped wrapper with a red ribbon tied in a bow too; hardly the outfit I would choose if I just found my beloved father murdered.

It appears as if Bridget was a very dutiful servant and that Mrs. Borden had no complaints about her work; towards that end, I find the pail of bloody rags very significant...and I believe Bridget that it wasn't there for 'days.'

What about Lizzie's answer that she talked to the doctor and "it's all right"? Do you have any opinion as to what that meant?
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by patsy »

Sorry I didn't get back to reply sooner, Nancy.

It is puzzling about the pail of cloths that had what looked like blood on them and the amount of time they had been soaking. My thought was that Lizzie was more correct because it was mentioned that there was only half water which caused me to think of evaporation which would make it seem that it was there for several days. It does seem that they just accepted the explanation that Lizzie had given to the dr. about the rags as a matter of fact.

Heard you about having a different opinion regarding demeanor. I stand fully by my belief. Maybe because of my background and life's experiences regarding things having been taken in ways that they were not meant to be taken. When I face a tragedy I freeze and show nothing because it's usually something so overwhelming and huge that I have to be in control or lose it. Let me lose a pen or something and I'm all emotional and sad for a couple of days. Totally different when it comes to the big things in life. So maybe I gauge Lizzie's demeanor by my own reactions but that's the way it is for me.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Point taken. Actually, I too, freeze over when a big stressful event happens..and then I have a delayed reaction to it.

Do you think that Lizzie broke down in her bedroom while speaking alone with Dr. Bowen, and that is why he gave her a sedative? I still wonder: why did he change her medicine to morphine? Did she complain that the bromide wasn't working, or wasn't strong enough? Did the good Dr. decide on his own, by observing her, that "yikes, she is still a nervous wreck, I'm going to up the ante and give her an opiate." ?
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

I should say I agree with Patsy about 'demeanour'.

I'd been reading about the Borden case quite a while before it crept up on me there were parallels with my own experience. It's bizarre but it did take a while. Some five years ago I had to call the police to break into my father's locked house. He was found dead in suspicious circumstances. The police advised me not to go upstairs and see the body but I did. It was August and there was some five days' corruption accelerated by the heat.

It took my partner an hour to drive there, my sister was counties away, our mother was in hospital. I sat for hours being questioned by the police and answering like an automaton. The questions seemed a refuge from what I'd seen. I was 'calm' but drugged by shock. Some of the easiest of things like my Dad's birthday I just blanked on. Looking back I suppose I wasn't being 'demonstrative' or 'emotional' in demeanour, I just went into something of a removed trance. But - I am an extremely emotional person and always have been. Just ridiculously hyper-emotional. When I first saw my Dad's body I screamed "No!" like in anger and briefly, cried my guts up. None of the police and other people who later filed through all afternoon would have seen that and it was the worst day of my life, an August Friday the 13th.

I'm rather hesitant about ideas of how people 'should' behave in extreme situations, or in extreme shock, or ideas about how Lizzie Borden 'should' have been behaving if she were normal. I'd suggest there may be types of displacement activity we slip into in retreat from horrors. Perhaps some people like Lizzie slip into behavioural rôles, and she was snippy, and high-handed, and Phil Harrington 'didn't care for her'. But it seems unreasonable to infer, like Harrington, that she was deficient in response, suspiciously so - because there isn't enough to go on. Harrington couldn't see inside her, he's employing prescriptive, feminised behavioural norms; Miss Russell stood mute and wringing her hands, and that he says is the yardstick norm... though I don't suppose she was much use to man or beast. Also, it isn't just a case of Bridget saying Lizzie cried then Bridget denying it. Someone else said Lizzie initially broke down... but I keep forgetting who it was.

I was surprised to read the Witness Statement account of Lizzie's night journey down to the cellar - her return, after she's already been down once with Alice Russell. I've seen this countless times relayed or paraphrased (in that way which can get ever so tendentious when free of the actual words) as 'Lizzie seen stooping down over the menstrual pail'.

But Hyde did not report that, he reports this:
'About fifteen minutes after, Miss Lizzie came down the cellar alone, with the small lamp in her hand. She set the lamp on the table, and went over towards the sink again, and stooped; but I could not see what she did there. Then she took up the lamp again, and went up stairs.'

This is the sink where Hyde had just heard her emptying water or some other liquid.
When she returned she might very well have been vomiting.
It's just not so suspicious, in the actual wording.
Last edited by InterestedReader on Sat Apr 01, 2017 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Nevermore »

Good points to ponder. With regard to officer Harrington, it is easy to overlook the fact that in trying to assess what he says about Lizzie's 'off-putting' demeanor, the statement is Harrington's assessment (opinion) of Lizzie, not an objective fact. It would be most helpful to have an idea of whether he had a set of fairly rigid expectation of what people are or ought to be like. What we have a statement that is an opinion formed partly through opinions the officer had had previously. I can lean on it only so far.

I agree very much with what others have said about the wide variety of reactions people may have and exhibit in traumatic situations. I used to hang around with our small-town police chief who told me he had had an officer who, at the scene of a grisly accident, would only wander about picking up stuff and tidying up after obtaining the required information.

As to the police pursuing gossipy tidbits -- how would one know it's gossip unless you pursued it?

And with Medley's account of the 'bloody cloths', two points.

1. Assuming the towels were used to wipe blood from the crime scene, why do this at all? I see nothing that can be concealed in these bloody crimes by wiping blood with small towels. Both victims were clothed and presumably had bloody clothing on; and Andrew, at least was on a bloodstained sofa. You couldn't wipe blood from fabric, and why bother when two mutilated bodies giving their own gruesome evidence?

2. As Sherlock Holmes put it there is a tendency here to alternatively attribute to Lizzie too much and then too little cleverness. Why go to the trouble of getting the towels and using them only to leave them in plain sight in the basement?
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Thanks for replying, Nevermore. I am satisfied that Harrington's statements were pure speculation on his part, and probably based on what he expected a Victorian woman to act like. Lizzie never did fit any type of mold; she was her own person, to be sure. In an age when females where so oppressed and buttoned up, this may have been the only outlet for self expression that she could employ. However, it seems to fly in the face of the fact that her own Doctor deemed it necessary to sedate her not one, not twice, but three times. First with a bromide, then sulphate of morphine, the a double dose of same morphine.

So we have Lizzie displaying little to no affect, answering questions in a routine and matter-of-fact way, then not many minutes later, behind closed doors in her bedroom with Dr. Bowen, requiring powerful opiates. It does seem odd, no?

The bloody rags: Nevermore, this is the first time I've read that they might have been used to clean up the crime scene. What is your basis for thinking that? I've always assumed they were menstrual rags. What I do not understand, however, is what I stated before....why LIzzie's explanation to police that she explained their presence "to the doctor" was sufficient to put the matter to rest. I remained confused about this darned pail! :cyclops:

And finally: exactly WHEN did Lizzie see Abby last? I'd like to devote an entire thread to this subject, as it seems to be full of contradicting statements.

Thanks!
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Nevermore »

Thanks, ND. I hadn't meant to suggest the bloody rags were actually used to wipe blood at the crime scene or scenes. I actually feel they are irrelevant to the crime; i could not -- and still can't -- see any connection between them and the crime. No one would think twice about finding an empty bucket in a basement; it is only the contents that spark interest here and I see no other plausible connection. I feel Officer Medley was right in asking about it, and the answer he got is about what I would expect from the era when (I understand) many proper ladies would hang bedsheets on clotheslines to screen drying undies from public view.

I agree Lizzie may not have fit in any mold, but suggest she may have been one. An answer-giving prototype of Kato Kaelin.

I'm also curious about when Lizzie saw Abby.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Nevermore: I actually think the bloody rags could be very relevant to the crime; to whit: What happened to all the blood on the killer(s)? I cannot fathom in any way how anyone could deliver 18 blows, then 11, with gore on the walls, dripping wounds, etc, and NOT get blood on themselves?

IF LIzzie did it, she must have cleaned up. When Andrew came home at 11:40, and she greeted him, she has just disposed of her father's wife, cleaned herself up, composed her demeanor and spoke calmly enough to him that he was not alarmed (he was found in a position that indicated he was relaxed .) While upstairs, it would have been messy. Again supposing she is the killer...we have her straddling the body, perhaps even sitting on the generous backside of her step-mother and wailing away repetitively with the weapon. Blood was found on the rug, the bed, the walls. She would have had it, and perhaps even bits of bone and/or brain tissue flying in bits everywhere, sticking to her hair, her blouse, the generous folds of her skirt, her shoes.

So here is Lizzie, post-Abby-murder, probably flushed, out of breath, mussed up and contaminated. What does she need to do? Bridget is unlikely to come upstairs, Father & Uncle are out of the house. She has time on her side, and she MUST remove any physical evidence of her deed from her body.

Fetch water & rags and clean up. I'm assuming each bedroom had a water pitcher and towels. She uses a damp rag, wipes her face, her hair, her hands. Inspects her clothing and decides to 1. change into a new outfit or 2. take off her clothes (assuming she was wearing protective clothing over her house wrapper.) Here i wonder if she DID change into the Bengaline silk, as I always though that was an odd choice for her to be wearing on a random Thursday with no real plans to go anywhere or receive anyone. But I digress.

The cloths she used to wipe her hands, hair and face (and possibly shoes) will have blood on them. What to do with these? She could burn them in the stove, or she could put them in a pail normally reserved for menstrual rags. No one would touch that with a ten-foot pole (no man, anyways.)

The pail was downstairs. So Lizzie must go downstairs, alone, and toss the rags in the pail. She must then go BACK upstairs, if we are to believe Bridget's story that she was on the 2nd story when she let Andrew in the front door.

Phew! Okay...what do you think? I want to continue on this line of thinking....it seems a lot of attention is paid to LIzzie's clothes...specifically, the paint stained dress. But there would be bloody cloths, and I wonder about these just as much....
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Nevermore »

sdYou're absolutely right ND. I totally overlooked that possible use of the towelettes for some reason. Approaching dotage, I suspect.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

LOL...this case has so many details to consider. The darned blood is one of the most confounding parts of this case. Whoever did this HAD to clean up, right? I'm so bothered by the absence of bloody footprints and any other blood trails...none on the stairs? If this was Lizzie, she did a fine job of erasing all visual evidence and getting rid of any physical signs. If it was someone else, THEY did a fine job, or had help. Sigh. So many loose ends.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Greel »

Hi all,

I'm a criminologist who's been interested in this and similar cases for a long time. I'll give you some input you may find interesting (or not!).
NancyDrew wrote: 2. The police officer, Harrington, had misgivings about Lizzie right from the start. Her demeanor was, to him, off-putting. She was too calm, not upset, didn't even try to fake any grief or stress: ( ". All this, and something that, to me, is indescribable,
gave birth to a thought that was most revolting. I thought, at least, she knew more than she wished to
tell." ) I think this is telling, to say the least. What kind of person remains unflappable after witnessing their own father's body hacked to pieces, eyeball cut in half, wounds dripping fresh blood?
It's quite dangerous to prescribe reactions to someone who's undergone a traumatic event. People behave incredibly weirdly under stress, and lack of reaction or otherwise may be a result of shock. Current research indicates that people have responded to these circumstances with no reaction, too much reaction, or even just tuning out and doing something else.

Or she killed him and was a psychopath of sorts...

NancyDrew wrote:Why did Dr. Bowen think it necessary to sedate Lizzie, not one, but twice, then with a stronger sedative, then doubling the dose? She wasn't hysterical, didn't feel faint (by her own admission) and was perfectly able to answer all the questions the police had for her literally MINUTES after the tragedy. It boggles my mind!
This one is interesting. I genuinely had no idea; the effects of the drugs administered were well know in that time.
NancyDrew wrote:4. I have a question I hope isn't stupid: On page 7, John Fleet writes "Lizzie said that she had not seen Mrs. Borden since about nine o’clock. She then saw her in the bedroom when she was coming down stairs." Wait, What? I thought she last saw her step-mother was when she was flicking a feather duster downstairs. Or...I though Lizzie "thought she heard her go out." OR..."I'm positive I heard her come in."

So which IS it? When DID Lizzie last see her stepmother alive?
Again, this could be a result of stress, shock or something else. Unfortunately, eye-wittness testimony is awfully unreliable, and memory can be scattered by trauma. In this day and age, police are trained to deal with this sort of thing, and she'd have undergone a psychiatric evaluation. In those days, a lot of policing was based on an individual officer's experience.
NancyDrew wrote:5. Regarding William Medley's statement: ". I inquired about some cloths which looked to me like small towels, they were
covered with blood, and in a pail half filled with water, and in the wash cellar. She said that was all
right; she had told the Doctor all about that. I then asked her how long the pail and its contents had been
there; and she said three or four days. I asked the Doctor about it, and he said it had been explained to
him, and was all right.
I then had a talk with Bridget about the pail and it contents. She said she had not noticed the pail
until that day, and it could not have been there two days before, or she would have seen it, and put the
contents in the wash, as that was the day she had done the washing."

Okay, 'couple of questions for the good folks here:

1. Who do we believe? Lizzie or Bridget? I tend towards the latter. A servant worth her salt wouldn't have ignored a pail of bloody rags that needed to be washed, right?
Bridget definitely comes off as the more reliable wittness.
NancyDrew wrote:2. What does Lizzie mean by "She said it was ALL RIGHT; SHE HAD TOLD THE DOCTOR ALL ABOUT THAT." Why does explaining the pail of bloody rags to the doctor mean it is of no consequence? Is this a delicate way of saying that the pail was full of menstrual rags?

I have more to say, but though this was a start. All comments appreciated.
That's what I assumed, yes--that they were menstrual rags. That said, the doctor's actions are a bit odd throughout all this.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

What sort of size would these bloody napkins be?
I've tried to find out.
Apparently there's no commercially available, disposable product yet, even in 1892 America. (One was launched in 1896 in America but it failed.)
So these were pieces of absorbent material, hemmed at home, and very typically measuring about 24 inches by 11 inches. They'd be folded into three-ply along the length.
After use they'd be stooped in cold water to soak - in an enamel pail, say - then laundered with a boil wash. It looks as if yes, this would be done by your maid, if you had one to do the laundry. This seems really gross today and there are Kotex adverts in the 1920s which reflect how problematic women had found it - expecting the domestic staff to launder menstrual blood.
http://www.mum.org/kotnov21.htm
Of course, it was a problem experienced by very few - most women did their own laundry - but Lizzie expected someone else to launder her sanitary protection.

I found all this on http://www.mum.org/index.html
Lots of interesting stuff there.
And if you go to one of its pages and scroll down to the letter from a retired American teacher
http://www.mum.org/pastgerm.htm
there's the most fascinating account of a grandmother's and great-grandmother's wisdom back to 1848. It's claimed that most nineteenth century American women had a functioning knowledge of poisons and many preferred poison to divorce, as means of freeing themselves from a man :shock:

Anyways... what we're talking about is pieces of absorbent fabric about 24 inches by 11 inches, if we're trying to visualise how much slaughter they could sponge off a person... Most women today never use sanitary pads except after childbirth but we know you'd have two very different effects, two very different patterns of blood-placement, if you were to use a cloth folded against menstrual flow, as opposed to using a folded or unfolded cloth to wipe blood from the whole person... I mean, if this is what Lizzie Borden did do to clean herself she'd need to get the napkins quick into the soaking-water, to disperse the blood, to dissolve the evidence of its placement...

It would have been ideal to establish that same day if Lizzie Borden were menstruating or not. It would have been ideal to bring in some matron to do a physical examination. Did they only realise that when Bridget piped up she'd never seen no bloody clouts in a bucket, down cellar, that week, not even when she was doing the wash..? Yes it's a shame they hemmed and hawed their way around the embarrassment of a 'menstrual pail' but it's a bigger shame Lizzie wasn't given a medical, because those bloody cloths constituted the only potential evidence. It could have been crucial to determine where she was in her cycle, and that much was within current medical competence.

With regard to Bridget's contribution about the pail, I think it perfectly possible she's attempting to validate the idea that Lizzie was, even now, menstruating. That's what Bridget's evidence does, after all. 'The menstrual cloths must have been put there today or in the last two days, they weren't there Tuesday...', in paraphrase. To confirm that Lizzie is bleeding today, the day of the murders, is so valuable it's almost an alibi of sorts; at least, a bucket of blood gets an alibi. But to corroborate Lizzie and agree the blood was there three, four days ago - would be, paradoxically, to favour the wrong emphasis and deny her this blood-alibi. No-one, in 1892 Massachusetts, was going to examine a well-to-do woman to determine where she was in her cycle, but by saying what she does about the bloody towels she 'only today noticed to be there', Bridget comes the closest to offering evidence which establishes Lizzie is still having her period and has a valid reason for a Thursday bucket of blood.

Bridget's evidence is typically ambient, it can be read either way.
'No there was no blood there before, that bucket of blood appeared today, just when people are slaughtered upstairs!'
or
'The fact it appears today or perhaps yesterday at the most, proves Lizzie is currently menstruating.'

As we have seen above it was Dr Bowen who offered the professional assurances that this must be menstrual blood because Lizzie Borden was menstruating - but Bowen no more knew this to be true than anyone else. Lizzie told him it was the case.
Last edited by InterestedReader on Wed Apr 26, 2017 6:13 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

There's something that's really bothering me. It's something I thought I read in the Witness Statements just recently but I've been looking and looking for it and now can't find it there or anywhere else.

I bet Judy knows where it is off the top of her head.

Somewhere, Bridget goes over to the Bowens house opposite and reports that both the Bordens are dead.
I could've sworn it was the Bowens house, and Bridget says something like "Both the old folks are dead."
I know she went twice, but weren't both trips over the road before Abby Borden's body is found? So Bridget shouldn't yet know both Bordens are dead?

Where on earth is this from?
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

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InterestedReader wrote:... I bet Judy knows where it is off the top of her head. ...
:shock: You give me way too much credit for this one, Wendy!!! :grin: However, I will definitely give it my best shot and see if I can find it for you.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

I hope it wasn't just a contemporary newspaper.... though of course it's very possible, I've been reading through a lot....
I'm sure it wasn't a rendition of what Bridget said to Sawyer...
I made a mental note of it (!!!), thought I'd come back to it, then lost it. In my memory Bridget tells someone both Bordens are dead - but at that point in time only one Borden is known to be dead, surely...
I'll search through bookmarks and newspapers giving Bridget's say-so in court.
I really thought it was Witness Statements & it happened at the Bowens door, but I'm not refinding it there!
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by mbhenty »

Yes:

The statement was not given by Bridget but by a stable tender from Second Street. So it was a "he said, she said," sort of thing. We don't know if Bridget ever said that. It was said by another party. That it was what Bridget had said. By that late in the game so much gossip was circulating that someone may have given an erroneous description or statement or the officer could have mis-spoke.

You can find the notation in the witness statements.

Alexander B. Coggeshall, a stable keeper on Second street, left his stable at 11.10 to go to diner. He stopped to talk with Mrs Buffington, and she told him that there had been trouble in the next house. Just then Bridget Sullivan came out of the house on the run, and went over to Southard H. Miller’s house, and went in. Soon after Mr. Miller came to the door, and called him over, and said “Here Alex, I want you to listen to what this girl says,” Bridget then told them that Mr. Borden and his wife had both been murdered. Mr. Coggeshall then went to dinner at Mrs. Tripp’s No. 80 Second street, and he told her of the murder. It was then 11.20 by the clock in the restaurant.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by twinsrwe »

Thank you, MB!!! :grin: :bounce: :lol:

Wendy, you have a great memory! :shock: You're right, according to the time indicated on the statement, it was before Abby was found.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

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Oh thank-you both!
There it is toward the end of the Witness Statements.
And it's Coggeshall saying this on August 24th, which is a heck of a long time afterwards. And I suppose the 'both Bordens' he's telescoping onto the memory...
If Bridget really had said "both Bordens" then Southard Miller would have noticed, don't you think?
But then if Southard Miller is ever interviewed, I'm not finding it...
You'd think he would be... He was good for confirming timing, he's directly opposite, and he was on friendly enough terms with Andrew Borden to have Borden witness his will that year... and after the murders Bridget is fleeing over there to his house every two minutes... and what's more he's Bowen's father-in-law, and I'm reading he was also Borden's first employer. But no-one gets a witness statement from Southard Miller.
Humph.
I'm reading that Miller declined to step over to the Borden house that day when it was turning into an open carnival, so he wasn't a get-involved type... And given he built the house - didn't he? - he could have been a useful old guy...
Southard Miller was 81, and he can't have been home that long because at the Preliminary Hearing he deposed he was in Whitehead's Market when he saw Andrew Borden turn onto Spring Street (Fall River Weekly News, August 17 1892) - And that would be soon after 10.15, according to another witness... [Edit - though that seems a bit early..?]

So - It would be a fascinating slip if Bridget really did say "both" a little after 11.10 and before Abby is found, but I suppose it's just Coggeshall's mind polishing the memory three weeks on.
That said, Albert Chase collected it, and if you look at his input he does seem a very careful transcriber, so it seems probable Coggeshall actually said the words.
Last edited by InterestedReader on Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

Also Albert Chase, also in Witness Statements, is this breath-of-fresh-air observation about the front door. I've tried to follow labyrinthine arguments about the locks, and Machiavellian theories about these locks, where the locks alone incriminate one party or another - But why does no-one listen to Chase?

'Fall River, August 17, 1892. During the past thirteen days I have been on duty at the Borden house at the front door. During all this time the front door locked every time it was closed. No one has been ever admitted without first ringing the bell. Several times the people who were inside, have stepped out to speak to me, and the door would close, and lock them out, and they would have to ring to get in. I have tried the door a great many times, and always found it locked. Have seen a great many other people try to get in before ringing the bell, but the door was always locked. I have never seen anyone get in without being let in by someone from the inside.'
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by dalcanton »

NancyDrew wrote:Nevermore: I actually think the bloody rags could be very relevant to the crime; to whit: What happened to all the blood on the killer(s)? I cannot fathom in any way how anyone could deliver 18 blows, then 11, with gore on the walls, dripping wounds, etc, and NOT get blood on themselves?

IF LIzzie did it, she must have cleaned up. When Andrew came home at 11:40, and she greeted him, she has just disposed of her father's wife, cleaned herself up, composed her demeanor and spoke calmly enough to him that he was not alarmed (he was found in a position that indicated he was relaxed .) While upstairs, it would have been messy. Again supposing she is the killer...we have her straddling the body, perhaps even sitting on the generous backside of her step-mother and wailing away repetitively with the weapon. Blood was found on the rug, the bed, the walls. She would have had it, and perhaps even bits of bone and/or brain tissue flying in bits everywhere, sticking to her hair, her blouse, the generous folds of her skirt, her shoes.

So here is Lizzie, post-Abby-murder, probably flushed, out of breath, mussed up and contaminated. What does she need to do? Bridget is unlikely to come upstairs, Father & Uncle are out of the house. She has time on her side, and she MUST remove any physical evidence of her deed from her body.

Fetch water & rags and clean up. I'm assuming each bedroom had a water pitcher and towels. She uses a damp rag, wipes her face, her hair, her hands. Inspects her clothing and decides to 1. change into a new outfit or 2. take off her clothes (assuming she was wearing protective clothing over her house wrapper.) Here i wonder if she DID change into the Bengaline silk, as I always though that was an odd choice for her to be wearing on a random Thursday with no real plans to go anywhere or receive anyone. But I digress.

The cloths she used to wipe her hands, hair and face (and possibly shoes) will have blood on them. What to do with these? She could burn them in the stove, or she could put them in a pail normally reserved for menstrual rags. No one would touch that with a ten-foot pole (no man, anyways.)

The pail was downstairs. So Lizzie must go downstairs, alone, and toss the rags in the pail. She must then go BACK upstairs, if we are to believe Bridget's story that she was on the 2nd story when she let Andrew in the front door.

Phew! Okay...what do you think? I want to continue on this line of thinking....it seems a lot of attention is paid to LIzzie's clothes...specifically, the paint stained dress. But there would be bloody cloths, and I wonder about these just as much....
Wonderful post! Assuming Lizzie's guilt, the towels could very well have been used to clean the blood off herself, then thrown in the pail in an attempt to disguise them as menstrual rags. If that were the case, were they mixed in with existing menstrual rags already in the pail? Or was the pail empty & only filled with water to accommodate the "fake" menstrual towels that Lizzie had created?
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by KGDevil »

It's always been my assertion that those rags in the bucket were nothing but the bloody rags that Lizzie placed there after she had cleaned herself up. I think she wore the paint stained dress and changed afterward. I think she wore Andrew's jacket on backwards to shield her clothing somewhat for that murder. But I also believe the handkerchiefs she claims to have been ironing that morning also hid cloths she had on hand for further clean up after Andrew's murder. Handkerchiefs when being ironed were sprinkled with water and starch. Leave the starch off, and these damp cloths were already handy for clean up immediately afterward. I think this is why she clouded the issue of exactly when she started to iron.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. - Arthur Conan Doyle
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Scott Crowder »

NancyDrew wrote:LOL...this case has so many details to consider. The darned blood is one of the most confounding parts of this case. Whoever did this HAD to clean up, right? I'm so bothered by the absence of bloody footprints and any other blood trails...none on the stairs? If this was Lizzie, she did a fine job of erasing all visual evidence and getting rid of any physical signs. If it was someone else, THEY did a fine job, or had help. Sigh. So many loose ends.
Which is why I'm sure it was Bridget. She had the pail. She could clean up and dispose of the mess. She keeps trying to incriminate Lizzie, while Lizzie tries to incriminate no one. And Bridgets timeline doesn't hold up to scrutiny. She spent hours cleaning the outside windows and then finished up the inside windows in ten minutes? No. She's lying. No one thought to question her timeline and see the holes in it. She has too much unaccounted for time.

It then makes perfect sense that Bridget accidentally slipped up and said "both" Bordens were dead before Abby had even been found.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Scott,

When did Bridget slip up and say both Borden's were dead prior to finding Abby? Can you cite a source for that? Thanks!!!
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

It is a few posts above you. My question was answered by mbhenty.
The source is the Witness Statements.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by KGDevil »

Scott Crowder wrote:
NancyDrew wrote:LOL...this case has so many details to consider. The darned blood is one of the most confounding parts of this case. Whoever did this HAD to clean up, right? I'm so bothered by the absence of bloody footprints and any other blood trails...none on the stairs? If this was Lizzie, she did a fine job of erasing all visual evidence and getting rid of any physical signs. If it was someone else, THEY did a fine job, or had help. Sigh. So many loose ends.
Which is why I'm sure it was Bridget. She had the pail. She could clean up and dispose of the mess. She keeps trying to incriminate Lizzie, while Lizzie tries to incriminate no one. And Bridgets timeline doesn't hold up to scrutiny. She spent hours cleaning the outside windows and then finished up the inside windows in ten minutes? No. She's lying. No one thought to question her timeline and see the holes in it. She has too much unaccounted for time.

It then makes perfect sense that Bridget accidentally slipped up and said "both" Bordens were dead before Abby had even been found.
She skipped the kitchen and parlor windows on the inside. All she washed inside were four windows. She also had use of a step ladder inside, and a local water source via the sink inside. Outside she had no step ladder, and those windows are well above six feet off the ground at the sill. She washed and rinsed each window. She also had to run back and forth to the barn each time she needed fresh water. Add stopping to gossip with the Kelly maid over the fence.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. - Arthur Conan Doyle
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by NancyDrew »

Interested: Thank you; now I see.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

Nancy Drew:

I have wondered all the same things, hundreds of times!
It is nothing short of laughable that no one thought to check if Lizzie was menstruating,
those bloody cloths held the answer to this case, in my opinion.
All she had to do was clean herself up and toss the bloody rags into this pail.
And not even the doctor thought to check Lizzie!
Nowadays the entire pail would have been taken for examination as to whose blood was on
those rags, and Lizzie would have been examined from head to toe by someone qualified.

I also agree completely with you - anyone who sees a horrendous bloody scene (especially
a family member) does not act like Lizzie, and her (supposedly) beloved Father??
Hysteria is the usual behavior, I have never seen complete composure.

However, I have trouble believing that Lizzie did it - I believe that someone got into the house
after spending the nite in the barn, Abby came across him hiding upstairs & was murdered.
He was really after Andrew, who had many enemies, by all accounts.
The murderer then ran to the barn & washed up - there was running water out there.

Usually the simplest explanation is the truth.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

I also want to say that I have read and re-read all the books, internet arguments, testimony,
pre-trial hearings (whatever I could find), newspaper articles, claims of this one and that one, for years -
I am certainly no expert and it is only my opinion, but the contradictions by witness after
witness are just so ridiculous that it ends up being a maze with no clear answer.
These Victorian people were really not very precise, even the times that morning are in question,
they are not definite - and who knows about the clocks of that era and how correct they were.
It just comes down to Lizzie, someone she knew or a family member, or an enemy of Andrew's.
It bothers me also that people like Helen Leighton, who was a friend of Lizzie's later in life,
said she was positive of her innocence - Lizzie loved animals so much.
I just can't imagine a person who loves animals being able to use a hatchet like that.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

..
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

Interested Reader,

No, I don't work with the bereaved -
just my life experiences.
JMO that finding a family member passed on through natural causes is upsetting enough;
murder has to be a totally different reaction.
I understand what you mean, that there are various responses -
But do you remember the Pamela Smart murder case in NH, where Ms Smart was convicted of
asking 3 teenagers to murder her husband in 1990? Witnesses testified over and over as to
her lack of reaction to her husband's murder, her coldness.
I admit I don't know anything about shock as a reaction or how it affects one,
but I have seen plenty of reactions to death, and they seemed to be of an appropriate nature,
or what one would expect.
But it's true that none of us know Lizzie, or how she felt. In all fairness to her, I believe she
was overheard in jail telling Emma how she broke down at night when alone and no one could
see her. So perhaps she was the type of person who is unable to show emotions with others
present. It's possible.
In fact, now that I think about it, I do know one woman who is very composed, always.
Her husband passed away and she came back to work, just as if nothing had happened,
I couldn't believe it. After some time went by, she did tell me that she holds everything
inside, which is the reason for her skyrocketing blood pressure.
Getting back to Lizzie, I find her conflicting testimony and statements very difficult to
understand. And I don't know that I would have been able to pull myself together enough
to shout to Bridget to summon help -
Personally, my reaction would have been total horror and I would have run out of the house
and down the road, screaming that there was a murderer in the house.
But that's just my reaction! lol
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

Sorry, was editing that post and lost it. I didn't mean it to sound critical but it was reading that way.

I wouldn't myself take Lizzie's behaviour as evidence of her guilt. Officer Harrington did so within the first hour and I find it extraordinary - it probably tells us more about his hubris and ambition than her oddity.

If we were to give Lizzie the benefit of the doubt and for a moment suppose her not guilty then we should acknowledge that our behavior won't be 'normal' if we are confronted by a murder. Our perceptions work differently, as we try on some level to deny what we see. Our reasoning scarcely works at all. When we are badly shocked we have no sense of time and we are cut off from our 'usual' experience. Everything is abnormal. When we witness an atrocity our minds are not where we left them.

My own father was murdered and I found his body. I should think everyone reacts differently. As for me I tried to describe it a little on this thread. I wasn't hysterical - I went into a kind of trance the rest of that day. What amazes me is I don't think I behaved much differently from Lizzie, who is considered a psychopath and guilty as hell.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

What a dreadful experience, I am sorry you had to go through something like that!
True enough that we have no idea how we will react in shock - with fear, denial, horror,
catatonia, hysteria - who knows. A friend of mine lost her parents and found herself walking in
traffic outside - she was in deep shock.
And I don't believe Lizzie is guilty, I just find her actions and statements very difficult to understand.
Especially staying in that house with a murderer on the loose.
I am re-reading Victoria Lincoln's 'A Private Disgrace' right now, it has so much info on the Victorian
era and details on the case. Though I do not believe her theory that Lizzie suffered from some
type of 'epilepsy' which caused her to commit murder.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by InterestedReader »

I found the Lincoln so enjoyable because of her flair as a writer.
If you search for Lincoln on this forum you'll find masses of information as to how factually wrong it all is! And it's still a good read.

Was it temporal lobe epilepsy she picked for Lizzie? It's really daft isn't it. Epilepsy makes for a debilitating event. I just don't know how an epileptoid attack can be reconciled with the cunning, control and self-preservation required of Lizzie to disguise her guilt.
And then Lincoln bases an awful lot of her argument on the dresses - Lizzie walked free because a bunch of men were confused over the dresses. Well Lincoln left me just as confused over the dresses :smile: .

I'm not much of a fan of the incest explanation but there were one or two passages in the Lincoln where she goes right up to the incest then stops short this side of the door. It seemed as if she wanted to suggest that incest caused Lizzie to kill but she either didn't have the nerve - it being 50 years ago - or was persuaded against it.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

I have NEVER gotten over the dress confusion -
wrappers, blue stripe, light blue, navy blue, and on and on...
I do understand the bit about putting 2 dresses on 1 hanger,
one over the other, and how men would probably not look
for that -
I was not aware that Lincoln's book was factually incorrect,
I will have to take a look at that - it's just a beautifully written
story, and gives us a vision of the Victorian era.
The incest thing is just nonsense, my opinion only.
Makes for a good story and that's about it.
The trouble with all these books, magazine articles and newpaper
stories, is that there are seemingly thousands of details to this case
and they all state something different.
For instance - was the basement door unlocked or locked? I've read
both versions, just nothing is clear in this case.
I often wish Bridget Sullivan had told the story from HER viewpoint,
with every detail from the moment she started working for the Bordens.
And that's another detail that's not clear - I've read that Bridget was
paid money by Lizzie in gratitude, and also that she was not.
No wonder there's no clear answer, 125 years later..............
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

Haven't gotten to the part yet in Lincoln's book about the 'epilepsy'.
Her book is so interesting in the sense that she gives us a picture from
a neighbor's viewpoint, watching it all unfold.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Jersey »

One final thought on the Borden's murders:
It's always in the back of my mind that money is usually involved
in things like this.
Law enforcement should have looked into all of Andrew's business
dealings, personal dealings, searched for a Will, investigated any
illegitimate children (wonder if Andrew had a girlfriend on the side??),
and all associates, just everybody.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by Steveads2004 »

Arnold Brown sold a lot of books on a theory of Andrew having a son...there has never been anything solid on it though.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by gerontologist »

A very interesting thread, and posters making good points. I wish I knew more so that I could join in the comments. After years of reading and learning about this case I'm still exceedingly puzzled, have made no decision about "whodunit," but thoroughly enjoy reading others' views and continuing to learn about it. I'm also very fond of social histories, and late 19th century New England is one area in which I have done some research (including using data from the U S Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics survey "Cost of Living of Industrial Workers in the United States and Europe, 1888-1890") in my academic career. Bottom line: I appreciate this forum.
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Re: Just re-read all the Witness Statements

Post by phineas »

I think this thread is very interesting. Two things stood out for me, inspired by the things you said stood out for you, Nancy. You pondered why Dr. Bowen heavily medicated Lizzie:
"Why did Dr. Bowen think it necessary to sedate Lizzie, not one, but twice, then with a stronger sedative, then doubling the dose? She wasn't hysterical, didn't feel faint (by her own admission) and was perfectly able to answer all the questions the police had for her literally MINUTES after the tragedy."

Then you thought about the menstrual rags which Medley reported Bridget had only noticed that day.
"She had not noticed the pail until that day, and it could not have been there two days before, or she would have seen it, and put the
contents in the wash, as that was the day she had done the washing."

I started thinking what else beyond the menses might explain a bloody pail and the excess medication. And, oh, murder.

What if Dr. Bowen performed an abortion on Lizzie sometime in the two days leading up to the murder. (Say it was Andrew's.)

OK I'm agnostic on incest within the family but this thought experiment could provide a 1) really great motive for explosive overkill murder, 2) reason for Emma leaving the house on a trip which she'd never done before, 3) explanation for Abby's trip across the street to Bowen's, which we're told was because she thought she was "poisoned" but could have been emotional freak out and consultation instead, 4) alternative to "summer sickness" for the family's overall malaise and stomach upset, which could be overwhelming emotional stress, shame and fear, 5) reason for Lizzie's continued trips downstairs as very heavy post-surgery bleeding and 6) motive for the hovering by Bowen, clandestinely burning a note in someone else's stove (who knows what it was but who does that when there are two hatchet victims in the house), and administering lots of morphine due to fear about his own role in the affair. The goal would be to shut Lizzie up or make her so drugged out she made no sense.

Lizzie is already focused on her bleeding so the pail is an obvious place to dump clean up rags.

I too have obsessed about why there's no blood trail from the hatchet itself. It should have been dripping throughout the house as the murderer wandered around.
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