Discrepancies in Bridget Sullivan's testimonies

[swinell]

Or..rather...one discrepancy.

In her direct examination at the trial (Book 1, pg. 177), Moody asks:

"Have you ever known people to go to the front part by way of the back stairs, or to the back part by way of the front stairs?

A:Yes, sir.

Q: When?
A: Once in a while I used to see the girls, Miss Lizzie and Miss Emma, coming down the back stairs.

Q: So they must have gone through, of course, in order to have done that?
A: Yes, sir."

At the Preliminary Hearing (pg. 191), the issue of the same door (the one going from Lizzie's room into Mr. & Mrs. Borden's room) was discussed as follows:

"Q: Do you know how the arrangement of that house was, whether it was usual to go through - was there any way of going from the back stairs to the front part of the house?
A: I don't know anything about it; but there was a door there; I do not know whether it was kept locked or not.
Q: Where was that?
A: The door going from Mr. Borden's room into Miss Lizzie's.
Q: You had to go through that door?
A: The door was there. I went through the afternoon of the murder.
Q: After the murder, it was open then?
A: Yes, Sir.
Q: Did you ever see it open before?
A: No. I did not have any business there before.
...
Q: Did you ever know of anybody before the murder going up the back way into the front part, or going up the front way into the back part?
A: No Sir.
Q: Did Miss Lizzie ever use the back stairs to go to her room by?
A: I never knew her too.
Q: Did Mr. or Mrs. Borden ever use the front stairs to go to their room?
A: I never saw them."

Maybe I'm being a bit hasty here because Bridget still has several pages of testimony I haven't read yet so it might be addressed later on in her testimony but already that's quite a difference. Going back over the witness statements one of the officers says that the door between Lizzie's room and the Borden's room was locked on both sides and that it had to be forced open on the day of the murders. Perhaps Bridget was referring to that door being a...unlike the door between the guest bedroom and Lizzie's room ... a "practicable opening" before the 1891 robbery? If I'm not mistaken, Andrew's habit of keeping his bedroom door locked and the key on the mantle of the sitting room fireplace started after that incident though I can't recall where I picked that up so it could be apocryphal ... but let's assume Bridget is referring to the year before the robbery - why would she omit that rather important bit of information, that the door was kept locked after the robbery and thus the inside of the house was physically separated above the first floor after that point?

This discrepancy just opens up a whole slew of questions...chief among them for me are:
1. If Bridget was in on the murders, either as a participant or a passive accomplice, how would the door being locked help their case? How would the door being open help their case?
2. If Bridget was totally innocent and purely trying to relay the truth, why the omission in the Preliminary Hearing? Why the change in testimony during the Trial? What is the significance of the door being sometimes open if Lizzie was guilty as charged?

Anyone else have any thoughts about this?

[Reasonwhy]

Hi Swinell! Couple of thoughts: A while ago, I wrote that I’d read somewhere that Bridget saw Lizzie come down the back stairs sometime murder morning—alas, I cannot recall where. Have you come across such a reference?

Also, if Lizzie (and Bridget?) had access back and forth between the elders’ bedroom and Lizzie’s, that might have helped enable a contingency plan for Lizzie to murder Abby in their bedroom. For how could Lizzie be sure Abby would be in the guest room at just the right time, when Bridget, Morse, and Andrew were all out of the house?

Could work as a back-up plan for Andrew’s killing, as well. For what if Andrew went up to his room and saw Abby had been slain there? Lizzie would have to get in there and strike him down quickly to forestall his probable loud reaction. Would be possible if she could enter through that adjoining door.

All of this assumes Lizzie did planning beforehand, of course. I believe she did.

If Bridget helped Lizzie murder, such access would make everything easier in the same ways.

[camgarsky4]

Swinell - I really like the puzzles you bring to light!

Here is my initial reaction to your info and ideas:
When I've given testimony (trials & depositions), I've it found to be a surreal and exhausting experience. You feel like every question has a trap door on the other side of it and, even if you didn't do or know anything, you inherently feel like the attorney is going to catch you at something, anything. I tended to be very specific and targeted with my answers. Tried to keep them tightly within the range of the question.

If you reread the questions and the answers, they actually don't contradict each other (at least literally). In the trial Moody asked a more general question (going up, down, back and forward)....and Bridget mentions seeing them come DOWN the stairs.

In the prelim, the question is more specific...."did you ever see Lizzie go up the back way to her bedroom." Bridget may have never seen Lizzie walking UP the stairs and therefore answered accurately and without contradiction.

I don't have the time right now to find the PH testimony you reference above. Is it possible Bridget answered the PH question within the context of the morning 'before the murders? August 4th.
"Q. Did you ever know of anybody before the murder going up the back way into the front part, or going up the front way into the back part?"
"A. No Sir."

All that said, it is definitely in the realm of considerations that the access between front and back upstairs could have come into play that day. Would have made movement within the house quicker and more stealthy.

[Reasonwhy]

But to the broader question of why Bridget’s testimony is inconsistent in some significant instances, this has had me wondering for a long time. I think Bridget immediately saw that Lizzie’s actions did not make sense if Lizzie were innocent, and from there she quickly figured out Lizzie was lying/guilty.

In her earliest statements to police, I find that she tried to telegraph her suspicions without spelling them out clearly. I think she was afraid to do so, and that she also believed police would understand the full implications of her statements for Lizzie’s guilt. As time went on, when she saw police did not comprehend fully, I see she became more circumspect, more narrow in her testimony, and even made some changes, such as the one you point out, Swinell. As she saw she would have to be more forthright and specific to get police to connect her dots, she chose to protect herself, instead of risking bad/no references for future employment.

I do realize I need to back up this post with specifics and references to testimony, etc. Will work on it. But I did want to comment right away on your post, Swinell, because I certainly do see what you mean.

[swinell]

Swinell - I really like the puzzles you bring to light!

Here is my initial reaction to your info and ideas:
When I've given testimony (trials & depositions), I've it found to be a surreal and exhausting experience. You feel like every question has a trap door on the other side of it and, even if you didn't do or know anything, you inherently feel like the attorney is going to catch you at something, anything. I tended to be very specific and targeted with my answers. Tried to keep them tightly within the range of the question.

If you reread the questions and the answers, they actually don't contradict each other (at least literally). In the trial Moody asked a more general question (going up, down, back and forward)....and Bridget mentions seeing them come DOWN the stairs.

In the prelim, the question is more specific...."did you ever see Lizzie go up the back way to her bedroom." Bridget may have never seen Lizzie walking UP the stairs and therefore answered accurately and without contradiction.

I don't have the time right now to find the PH testimony you reference above. Is it possible Bridget answered the PH question within the context of the morning 'before the murders? August 4th.
"Q. Did you ever know of anybody before the murder going up the back way into the front part, or going up the front way into the back part?"
"A. No Sir."

All that said, it is definitely in the realm of considerations that the access between front and back upstairs could have come into play that day. Would have made movement within the house quicker and more stealthy.

Excellent point about the nervousness witnesses feel when testifying!

I see your point about the testimonies not being literally contradictory but I'm still unconvinced - certainly the questions are of the same spirit - namely, "Was the door between Lizzie and Andrew's room a 'practicable opening' used as such regularly?" And considering Bridget's character in testifying as well as the other instances where minutia like that are being examined, this instance is inconsistent as a point of contention. For example, when Moody (or Knowlton, or Jennings, or Robinson, or Adams), are examining Bridget, if they are after a certain piece of information, the exchanges tend to read like this (Trial, Book 1, page 196):

"Q: When after [when Mrs. Borden asked you to wash the windows] did you see Mrs. Borden?
A: I don't remember to see her; I don't remember to see Mrs. Borden before since she came down to into the kitchen [as in, the first time that morning]
Q: I don't think I made myself clear to you. You have told us that in the dining-room, after you had finished your dishes, that she gave you some directions about washing the windows?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: And at that time she was dusting between the dining-room and sitting-room?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Now I ask you when next after that event did you see Mrs. Borden alive?
A: I didn't see her any more until I found her dead upstairs."

So if this were at all new information to the attorneys, they would've certainly demanded more information. As in, if Moody had noticed the discrepancy, he would've mentioned it as a discrepancy or potentially a misunderstanding of the question as stated. So either nobody noticed this difference in her testimonies or they all noticed it and all decided it wasn't relevant enough to pursue.

[swinell]

But to the broader question of why Bridget’s testimony is inconsistent in some significant instances, this has had me wondering for a long time. I think Bridget immediately saw that Lizzie’s actions did not make sense if Lizzie were innocent, and from there she quickly figured out Lizzie was lying/guilty.

In her earliest statements to police, I find that she tried to telegraph her suspicions without spelling them out clearly. I think she was afraid to do so, and that she also believed police would understand the full implications of her statements for Lizzie’s guilt. As time went on, when she saw police did not comprehend fully, I see she became more circumspect, more narrow in her testimony, and even made some changes, such as the one you point out, Swinell. As she saw she would have to be more forthright and specific to get police to connect her dots, she chose to protect herself, instead of risking bad/no references for future employment.

I do realize I need to back up this post with specifics and references to testimony, etc. Will work on it. But I did want to comment right away on your post, Swinell, because I certainly do see what you mean.

Very interesting points! She is a lot more forthcoming in the witness statements than she is at the Prelim, and certainly moreso than she is at the trial. If only we had her Inquest testimony!

[Kat]

I'm not sure if I should put my observations here from JJ about Bridget: but since they fit the definition of inconsistencies or discrepancies, but not in testimony, but rather second hand, makes it questionable as to whether this is a correct topic area. Excuse me plz if not.

JJ pg 17, B. Buffinton talked to Bridget and he says "Bridget said she had been upstairs to wash windows.".???? Never heard that before!

JJ pg 261 where Sawyer is listening to Medley question Bridget while on the back stairs, he says Bridget told Medley : "She said she went to her room and sat at the window and then laid down. She said she went up to make her bed"

There are 3 inconsistencies here- upstairs to wash windows- to her room to lie down- to make her bed.

Then we have the statement that she sat at the window! I'm assuming she looked out the window, then she would be looking at the backyard while Lizzie was supposedly out in the yard and going to the barn.
But, if Lizzie ended up in the barn, looking out a window also, then Bridget would be witness to anyone entering or leaving the backyard at a similar time that Lizzie would have sightline from the barn window to the side door, driveway, and limited view of the street as well. That would only leave the front door unobserved.

Adding here if needed: access to Brudget Sullivan's Timeline at LABVM&L
https://lizzieandrewborden.com/chronolo ... meline.htm

[PossumPie]

I tend to think that there was some misunderstanding in the responses. Perhaps Bridget said "I was washing windows then went upstairs" which was twisted into washing windows upstairs. We've discussed previously that if one is forced to remember all of the mundane things one did on a particular day, facts can become muddled. I think it is reasonable that Bridget, tired from the chores, went upstairs, sat for a moment at the window, didn't see Lizzie during that short time, straightened her bed then laid down on it for a short nap. This wouldn't disprove Lizzie going out to the barn if it were during the moments before or after Bridget sitting there. Most of us don't believe Lizzie was out at the barn anyway

If Bridget suspected that Lizzie killed Abby and Andrew, think how scared she must be of Lizzie. It wouldn't surprise me that she would be vague about what she knew, better to let someone else's testimony put Lizzie away...If she were found not guilty she may come after Bridget.

[Kat]

She's starting to sound like she was told what to say...my opinion.

And Camgarsky remembered a bit of Bridget's testimony and asked me to post it. It's Knowlton asking a question of Bridget, and then answering it himself!
I don't know what Camgarsky's opinion is- I guess we'll find out!
Prelim
Bridget

[Kat]

Something that's always puzzled me, stuck in my mind, along the same idea of Bridget being told what to say...maybe...maybe not (she sounds dense, but shrewd)...but this questioning is by Adams:
Prelim
Bridget
Q. Was your story taken down in writing?
A. I think so
Q. Has any of it been read to you since then?
A. No sir
Q. Where did you go when you left the courtroom last night?
Then follows the rest:

[PossumPie]

Bridget was illiterate and frightened. She of course thought that she was in trouble for something and terrified of being deported. I think if she were more articulate, she would have said "Look, tell me what you want me to say and do and I'll do it I just want no trouble." She wasn't trying to lie or cover-up, she was confused, frightened, and people were asking her a million questions.

I think we ALL risk over-analyzing everyone's testimony saying "ah-ha!" they contradicted themselves on some small trivial point, it must be significant." I think the more ominous testimony would be the testimony that was exact, specific, never waivered, and unshakable. THAT is more likely to be a lie than testimony that contradicts itself in some small point.

Prosecutor: PossumPie, what did you do last Friday morning?
PossumPie: I got up, went downstairs and started the coffee pot. I think I fed my cats
Prosecutor: You didn't make a stop at the bathroom?
PossumPie: Certainly...I think I did. I always go to the bathroom when I get up.
Prosecutor: Before or after you set the coffee pot?
PossumPie: Before
Prosecutor: Yesterday you swore under oath that you fed the cats, THEN set the coffee pot. You failed to mention the bathroom
PossumPie: Well, I always go to the bathroom first. I may have fed my cats before making coffee if they were pestering me.
Prosecutor: Which is it? You did or didn't use the bathroom before feeding the cats?

That is far less suspicious than if I had a minute-by-minute account of my morning which never waivered. That makes it seem rehearsed and a lie.
Bridget when asked if she read her previous testimony said "no". While this is technically true, she was illiterate so even with a gun to her head, she COULDN'T have read it. She offered no more information than was asked-"no I didn't read it." That is the maddening nature of all of this testimony. Most witnesses are terrified and answer in one or two-word sentences offering no more information than is necessary. Even when they try to they are shot down. Many times in the testimonies I've seen "Did you see mr. XYZ? I don't want to know what he said, only if you saw him." As a scientific inquirer searching for the truth, I'd never prevent someone from adding more information.

[swinell]

Interesting to note the degree to which Robinson grills Bridget over way more minor inconsistencies in her testimony later on than the passage I'd previously cited- even quoting the now lost Inquest Testimony (talk about a tease!) - something about Bridget saying that she'd heard Lizzie and Abby discuss Christmas that morning. Also very intriguing is Bridget's repeated insistence that she'd never heard any "words" between members of the family or any discord - I certainly don't buy that. She says, "never a word in my presence", or rather, Robinson quotes her as having said that and she agrees with that. Perhaps a partial truth, at best - maybe she was in her room when "words" were being had.

Possum, I'd normally tend to agree if I didn't think this particular instance is a bit more suspect than, for example, the exchange Robinson has with Bridget on pgs. 228-229 of Book 1 of the Trial -

"Q: What do you say now you did when you came in from out in the yard when you went out and were sick and vomited?
A: I commenced to wash my dishes.
Q: Let me finish the question. What did you do to the screen door when you came in?
A: I hooked it.
Q: Did you say so before at the other examination?
A: I think so.
Q: Do you know so?
A: I am not sure.
Q: You are not sure?
A: No, sir."

The exchange over whether Bridget hooked the screen door after she came in from vomiting goes on for another page and a half after that. To me, this is way more trivial than the issue of the door between Lizzie and Andrew's room being regularly used. That said, Bridget was rather clear that her duties were mainly in the kitchen for cooking and in the cellar for laundry and that she did not have any business in any of the rooms on the second floor, so it's certainly possible that she was misremembering or maybe the consensus around that door is off - if I'm remembering correctly, that door was kept locked after the robbery of 1891, possibly beforehand too (Andrew started locking his bedroom door to the back stairs after that incident so maybe both doors began being locked after that?) I should note I say "consensus" not based on any testimonies about the nature of that door prior to the murders but based on the witness statements/testimonies of the officers who had to open that door later that day so..who knows?

It's also fascinating to read Kat's posts from JJ and also going back to the Prelim hearing about Bridget's activities in her room after washing the windows. If we're going back to Reasonwhy's earlier post about Bridget getting progressively clammier in her testimonies, it certainly adds credence to Sawyer's supposed overhearing of her conversation with Medley about her having sat at the window. And this clamminess either points to her growing frustration with the police for not putting the dots together in combination with her fear of leaving without any referrals (though by the time of the trial she was already employed by the keeper of the jail, a Mr. Hunt) or it could point to the often-touted rumor about her having conspired with the sisters and the defense in exchange for a sum (frequently said to be $5k) to keep mum and get out of FR after the trial. I'm more leaning towards the former at this point but I might change my mind by next week haha

[camgarsky4]

Swinell -- I'm pretty sure that we really don't know that the door locking intensified or changed after the burglaries. Andrew may have kept the house locked up like a drum internally their entire tenure there and that is currently my view on that issue.

You'll recall that supposedly the stairway door to Andrews room was picked with a 'nail', so it was locked already at that time.

But, I could very well be wrong. Do you have any sources on that? Would love to find out I'm wrong because that would create some new ideas.

[Kat]

Inquest
Lizzie
Q. Could you then get to your room from the back hall?
A. No sir.
Q. From the back stairs?
A. No sir.
Q. Why not? What would hinder?
A. Father's bedroom door was kept locked, and his door into my room was locked and hooked too I think, and I had no keys.
Q. That was the custom of the establishment?
A. It had always been so.

There was no rider on that answer: it was not stated that locking of doors was after the robbery.
We talked about the house starting out as a tenement which would need lots of separate keys to interior doors.
We talked about the 'girls' probably wanting privacy as adults.
We also talked about Andrew having occasional business dealings with men in the sitting room, and it would be prudent to keep the private rooms locked against the 'public.'
But I remember Lizzie's answer : It had always been so.

--BTW: was it noticed that earlier, in a post by moi, on a similar topic, that Emma was able to open the connecting door, so that Lizzie may be being literal when she said she had no key, but that didn't mean Emma didn't?

[Kat]

If one continues reading Adams questions about what that note might have alluded to, (and he is very specific), it becomes even more odd - like a duel. That's why I started thinking of Bridget as more shrewd than I imagined.
I'm seeing her in a different light.
I consider this topic as another route (Bridget) to a possible answer to the crime...with feedback from the group. For myself, after 20 years, it's a good thing to see a new angle...see how far it goes, or whether it goes at all.

[Kat]

Well, I won't tease anyone to look it up, since I have it here, I will post it.
This is cross-examination by Adams! The Defence wants to know what the prosecution has been doing with Bridget.
Notice the last part, also, where the fact is elicited that the attic rooms have been kept locked since Bridget has been there.
Prelim
Bridget
PS: any edit to my above posts was only to designate "Prelim" and "Bridget."

[PossumPie]

Kat, it may lead to a different perspective to look at the Bridget angle...

Bridget would have been careful about what she said during all of this. It seems that Bridget's answers are tailored to make Bridget not look inept or that she made a mistake. I don't think that running through her mind was "I must speak the truth so they can find the killer" or even "I must not incriminate miss Lizzie" but "I must not say anything that makes me look bad as a servant or I'll never work again"

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that Bridget heard or saw something that she believed pointed to Lizzie killing Andrew and Abby. Do we think that she would tell? Would she pretend that she hadn't seen/heard it? Not wanting to have Lizzie the ax murderess angry at her? My hypothesis is that Bridget DID hear something that she realized was Lizzie killing Andrew but lied and said that she didn't. Better to be done of that crazy family and not get involved.
Lastly, I think the most important thing that Bridget testified to was Lizzie telling her that she heard a groan. As I mentioned that small trivial contradictions may not hold meaning, LARGE contradictions do. Lizzie told various people that she was in the barn getting tin to fix her screen, she was getting lead for sinkers, she was getting iron, and she was in the yard. These are not "misremembering" by Lizzie, each entailed a specific task. The first statement about her presence moments after the killings was "in the yard and heard a groan" spoken to Bridget. This could be easily disproven as the attack was so brutal that no groan or scream could have occurred, or if it did, must have been after the first of 11 hits. Lizzie rushed in after hearing the groan, the killer finished with 10 more whacks, then made his escape before Lizzie got from the back door to the murder scene? No way. Lizzie knew she had to change that story but Bridget already had heard it.

[camgarsky4]

What do you make of Scanlan story (p. 34 says he is a tailor)? A good Irish name. Turn to page 167 and 168. Note the date: January 1892. Scanlon.

Is this Jennings trying to determine if Bridget was involved in the daylight robbery with her friend "Scanlon"?

This and the story of the daylight robbery scene on page 13 and 14, gives one pause.

As we take another sneak peak at Bridget, let's keep in mind the interesting soundbite from JJ page 167 & 168. It adds a new potential dimension to the 1891 Borden burglary. If the stolen list is all inclusive, then only taking a couple rings sounds pretty similar to breaking into a desk and taking a few random things. In both instances, there was not house-wide pilfering. The article suggests that Ready saw/heard the burglar and tried to snatch him. This might also match up with a daylight robbery MO.

The Jan '92 article also mentions that the burglary it describes resembles many recently reported burglaries. Would be fascinating if the June '91 Borden burglary is followed by a string of similar home break ins, that culminated with Scanlan's prosecution. The newspaper is the Fall River Daily Globe. I looked into how to read more of their earlier articles and I would have to subscribe to a website....I think I'm going to.

Is anyone else a subscriber to the newspaper archive site? Doesn't cost much.....is it a good spend?

If we can construct a connection between Scanlan and the Borden burglary, that might give us pause to consider they were two separate episodes. I still think Lizzie is the 'burglar' and the murderer, but I want to run down this lead.

[Kat]

The groan, the note, the laugh upstairs, saying things slowly-- these were the situations that the defense was obviously very interested in- I don't think they had much access to Bridget, and they are showing their hand, so to speak, in this line of questioning. They are defending Lizzie!
Bridget becomes a prosecution witness.
There are hints here, and not easily dismissed. This is sworn testimony in court.

As for Bridget worrying about ever working in this town again, I don't agree. This was a capital crime, she was involved, her reputation is already ruined- but she has family in the area who she has previously leaned on, she can leave the area after the trial, and even get married. I'm looking at her anew.

[Kat]

Oh, and Bridget not looking out the window...but that was the prosecution.

Slightly off topic but : Did anyone ever find proof in witness statements or testimony or Knowlton Papers that the interior house was kept locked up after the robbery, because of the robbery? And that Andrew only started putting the key to his room on the shelf in the sitting room after that event, also? (I believe there is testimony that the barn was kept locked after the barn break-in.)
I'm beginning to think we may be able to bust another myth if we work on this together.
That's worth going off- topic slightly, I think...
Carry on... (as Sheldon Cooper would say...)

[camgarsky4]

No one has produced documentation of when the Borden's began locking up the interior doors to the extent they were on August 4th. I think we have to assume it was always that way until we have a documented reason to change that view. In Kat's post above, Lizzie says the doors were locked that way, testifying at the Inquest..... "It had always been so."

It also appears the barn door was kept locked prior to the barn break-in. Page 188 in JJ, Southard Miller recalls Andrews telling him of the barn break-in. Phillips noted Miller's recollection, "2 or 3 mos ago a man or someone broke 2 locks & got into his barn & stole pigeons didn't notice anything else gone."

What I love about these new Miller insights is that it confirms what Alice Russell had supposed....the pigeons apparently were the target of the break-in. I find that quite odd. Someone would want some pigeons so bad, they broke into a locked structure next door to an occupied house. Seems like a risky proposition for a little pigeon meat.

This also seems to confirm (to me) that Andrew killed the pigeons to eliminate that potential reason to break-in again. Another small question maybe answered, if they actually noticed pigeons were gone, then they knew how many there were, which would indicate they were raising them, vs. just wild birds hanging around the barn.

Could the barn break-in actually have had some relationship with the ensuing murders? Could the pigeons (I presume some were missing) have just been a ruse, like the random things taken from the Andrew's desk the prior year? Maybe the pigeon episode did have some degree of connection to August 4th?

I'm starting to get a sense that the in-house burglary, the barn break-in and the murders were related. We've talked extensively about the burglary. How might the barn play into the broader Borden drama?

[swinell]

can't figure out how to delete the mistaken attachment so if a mod could delete this that'd be fantastic

[swinell]

Now that Camgarsky has mentioned it (before the most recent post about the break-ins and the door which I'll get to!!), it is certainly possible that Bridget was intending to come across as someone who wouldn't eavesdrop on her employers, but then again I went back and read the articles on Bridget in The Hatchet and I keep seeing a baseline assumption from those who knew her in Montana, including family, that she had indeed accepted $5000 from Jennings to return to Ireland.

I'll post links to the articles here:
https://lizzieandrewborden.com/HatchetO ... pbell.html - This one is a reprint of a few articles by Sally Campbell from the mid-1970's. On top of her own research, Campbell also fills in the gaps with Victoria Lincoln's A Private Disgrace...I have not read Lincoln's book primarily because I've heard on TLBP that it's only worthwhile for two reasons, namely a) getting insider gossip from Fall Riverites of the period and b) learning where a lot of people get their Borden myths (in the same way the McBain or Spiering are "useful"). Then there's the Minnie Green story, to my knowledge, first appearing in Lincoln's book. Basically, Lincoln says a librarian told her this story was told to them by Minnie Green who claimed to be a childhood friend of Bridget's. Lincoln claims the librarian claimed that Green claimed that Bridget got very ill and asked Minnie to come to Anaconda (Green was living in Butte at the time) because she had something to tell her. Upon this visit, Bridget told Green that she had worked for the Bordens, that she liked Lizzie, that she frequently took Lizzie's side in household squabbles, that she'd "helped Lizzie out at the trial," and that she'd been less than candid. Green didn't press Bridget on the matter and when she returned, Bridget had recovered and refused to discuss the matter beyond swearing Green to secrecy - a promise she kept until after Bridget's death in 1948. Again, I'm getting all of that from this article which says it's quoting Lincoln which, again, I've not read and don't have plans to purely because I've come to understand it's chalk-full of rather specious lies/gossip that is sloppily presented as fact. I might tackle it in like...a few years. It's so odd because every review I've read of the book, even the negative ones, say it's "thorough." I wonder what could be so thorough about a book whose own Publisher-written Amazon blurb says, "recently uncovered documents may indicate that some of the "facts" on which Miss Lincoln relied were, in fact, gossip."

That said, some things said in these articles are kinda sorta maybe confirmed in Dr. Koorey's article on the subject as well as in Jerry Ross's article on Bridget's life after FR, specifically that family members believed she accepted money in exchange for evasive testimony as well as whomever placed a plaque outside the house of her employer, George Winston.

https://lizzieandrewborden.com/HatchetO ... avels.html - Dr. Koorey's article. Here, Dr. Koorey* also reiterates that family members believed that she'd returned to Ireland and bought a farm with the $5000 given to her by Jennings on behalf of the sisters. Here, Dr. Koorey confirms that she did return to Ireland for about 9 months from 1895-1896, as well as that she returned to the U.S. through New York and went from there to Montana. Dr. Koorey's research indicates that Bridget legally could not have purchased a farm in Ireland at the time she went back - making another one of Lincoln's claims about Minnie Green's claims about her relationship with Bridget seem dubious - Lincoln says Green said that Bridget had written to her telling her she was not happy with the farm she'd purchased in Ireland because there were no prospective husbands...well if Dr. Koorey's research is correct, individuals were not permitted to purchase land until 1900, indeed 1903 with the passage of the Land Act of 1903, as the feudal system was still strong in Ireland at the time.

That said, the issue of land ownership in Ireland had been a point of great contention for close to a century by the time of the Borden murders in 1892. By 1896, there had been two separate Land Wars, first the so-called Land War, and then the Plan of Campaign. These wars resulted in major reforms, namely the Land Law of 1881, the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and the Balfour Land Act of 1887. All of these bills were extremely controversial and some of them were deliberately crafted with the intention of failing in order to weaken the Land League (1881 is that one). The first reform that would have officially and permanently granted tenant farmers the right to purchase land would have come in 1903 - but just note that it was hotly disputed all over the country so it's certainly not entirely impossible that she might have used (if we're going with this $5k thing) her recently acquired money to purchase a farm for herself (her parents had died by that time).** That said, Dr. Koorey's article also says that there is no record, at least none available to us U.S.-based folks, of a Bridget Sullivan or O'Sullivan having bought land in or near her hometown of Billeragh during the 9 months. She was able to find record of number of her relatives in the area however.

https://lizzieandrewborden.com/HatchetO ... river.html - Jerry Ross's article that set off Dr. Koorey's search and findings. A wonderful article about finding Bridget's final resting place, also the first place I read of the plaque outside George Winston's house that mentions the money given to Bridget.

* I'm being formal because I have a minor disagreement in findings that I want to investigate so I want to be sure to show all due respect :D
** Falconer, J. I. “Land Reform in Ireland.” Journal of Farm Economics 6, no. 4 (1924): 344–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/1230331 (message me with your email for the PDF of this, I accessed it through JSTOR)
pg. 347 "A little less than 400,000 or about four-fifths of all the holders in Ireland are now in this class [landowners] or are in the process of becoming owners. 731 of these became owners under the provisions of the Act of 1881, 25,367 under the Acts of 1885-1888, 46,834 by the Acts of 1891-1896, and the remainder by the Acts of 1903 and 1909."
Could Bridget have been one of the "46,834 by the Acts of 1891-1896"? If so, it is indeed very possible that there is truth to the claims made by Lincoln about Minnie Green, and the $5000 from the sisters via Jennings.

[PossumPie]

Investigations into Bridget's life after Bordens must be VERY carefully done. This forum is full of "facts" about her life after and most are incorrect. The name "Bridget Sullivan" is the Irish equivalent of "John Smith" and in any given town or city there were tens of them. Coupled with the fact that Bridget was illiterate and didn't even know her own birthday, mistakes have been made. If one does a search for threads here about her life, one will see the complexity (and mistakes) that have been passed as facts.

Lincoln's book is entertaining but as Kat said mostly gossip. The medical information about Lizzie having Epilepsy and that causing the murders is rubbish. There are so many juicy tidbits though from someone who lived during the Borden era that if one does the research, new leads can come from the book.

The Bordens lived on the edge of the seedy part of town, so locking the barn and exterior doors was almost certainly going on before the break-in. I had forgotten that the pigeon break-in in the barn had only been a few months prior to the murders. That reinforces my claim that nobody could have seen years of dust on the floor with no footprints. The pigeon thief and Andrew both would have been up there just weeks prior and made footprints themselves.

[camgarsky4]

Moved comment to "Barn Break-in & Pigeons" thread

[swinell]

Also while we're on the subject of Bridget - I may have missed it but do we have any testimony from Dr. Kelley's "girl" to whom Bridget spoke while washing windows?

[camgarsky4]

No testimony, but Mary Doolan does make the witness statements. There is an index with names & pages, so you can find her easily. Also JJ has Mary comments on page 92. Do you have a copy of JJ? If not, you'll love it...really adds more depth to what we know about the case.

Nothing in the WS or JJ would contradict Bridget's testimony regarding Ms. Doolan.

[Reasonwhy]

But to the broader question of why Bridget’s testimony is inconsistent in some significant instances, this has had me wondering for a long time. I think Bridget immediately saw that Lizzie’s actions did not make sense if Lizzie were innocent, and from there she quickly figured out Lizzie was lying/guilty.

In her earliest statements to police, I find that she tried to telegraph her suspicions without spelling them out clearly. I think she was afraid to do so, and that she also believed police would understand the full implications of her statements for Lizzie’s guilt. As time went on, when she saw police did not comprehend fully, I see she became more circumspect, more narrow in her testimony, and even made some changes, such as the one you point out, Swinell. As she saw she would have to be more forthright and specific to get police to connect her dots, she chose to protect herself, instead of risking bad/no references for future employment.

I do realize I need to back up this post with specifics and references to testimony, etc. Will work on it. But I did want to comment right away on your post, Swinell, because I certainly do see what you mean.

I wanted to better explain my thinking about Bridget’s motivation. I don’t think she was on a mission to convict Lizzie. Rather, Bridget needed for police to see that she herself had not been the murderer. As Bridget began to glean Lizzie’s guilt, that’s why Bridget was anxious for police to see that, too, rather than to suspect her. Bridget correctly perceived herself to be very vulnerable; as the immigrant Irish servant lowest on the social rung, she needed to clear herself while not so angering Lizzie that she would seek revenge. Lizzie could have given a bad reference/no reference, incriminated Bridget by lying to police, or even killed Bridget, too, for all Bridget knew.

Bridget’s increasingly narrowed testimony throughout the legal proceedings shows me that she is feeling less and less subject to prosecution herself, and so need not work as hard to help police see Lizzie’s guilt. Yes, I agree she starts to succumb to what Knowlton wants her to say. I see a shift toward more narrowed testimony as her goal shifts to just putting the whole mess behind her.

And as Kat saw her as at some points almost debating the defense’s attorneys, I agree. In her interview comments after the trial, she says she was bothered that some wrongly thought she was being held in jail (because her witness fees were being mailed there) rather than working at the jail. Additionally, I remember a niece of Bridget’s said about her In her old age that she was none too friendly.* The impression I gather of her personality is that she was proud, prickly, and stubborn—perhaps even tough. As a devout Catholic, she probably was also motivated by morality, but I see her as first of all a survivor. Maybe Lizzie would have tried to incriminate her but saw her as a formidable opponent!

*Went back and checked my source—“The Strange Story of Bridget Sullivan, by Sally Campbell,” The Hatchet, by Stefanie Koorey, July 16, 2018:

“Several relatives in Anaconda and Butte remember Bridget, including Tim “Sox” Sullivan of Anaconda and his sister, Agnes Holm of Butte. As a small girl, Mrs. Holm went to visit her Great Aunt Bridget in Anaconda and found her none too friendly. In the early 1940s when Bridget came to live with Tim and Agnes and their parents at 112 E. Woolman in Butte, Mrs. Holm was 15 and didn’t pay much attention to her elderly aunt…”
Excerpted from: John McNay, “Bordens’ Maid lived in Anaconda, Butte,” New Bedford Evening Standard, 1984.

[swinell]

No testimony, but Mary Doolan does make the witness statements. There is an index with names & pages, so you can find her easily. Also JJ has Mary comments on page 92. Do you have a copy of JJ? If not, you'll love it...really adds more depth to what we know about the case.

Nothing in the WS or JJ would contradict Bridget's testimony regarding Ms. Doolan.

Right! Just found her in Witness Statements, don't quite know how I forgot that ...

I do have a copy of JJ but I haven't cracked it open yet just because I'm working my way through the Trial transcript, then Knowlton, then JJ, then PL, then Knowlton-Pearson, then probably Pearson and Porter. So far I've gone through the Witness Statements, Inquest Testimony, & Preliminary Hearing.

[camgarsky4]

Impressed with your structured, disciplined approach. I can't control myself....when i read about 'so and so' in one book and my imagination gets tweaked, I immediately look thru my other books and sources on that person to better process what I read in the original source.

So needless to say, I keep myself spinning.

[Kat]

My past impressions, when Bridget said she had,"once in a while" seen the Borden girls coming down the back stairs, was that they were going to the attics for storage purposes. They kept stuff up there.🕸

[camgarsky4]

Kat -- I just reread the related testimony and the "once in a while' seems to be a directly in the context of them cutting thru the elder Borden bedroom.
But to your point, how would Bridget know if the sisters were coming from the attic or from cutting thru the bedrooms. Doubt she kept a GPS tracker on the girls movements (that was a funny :)).

But to the broader issue of whether there was 'short cutting' going on with the upstairs 'traffic flow', I don't think its odd whatsoever, that periodically and for whatever reasons, the connecting door was opened to allow access. A large piece of furniture was not blocking it like with the Lizzie/guest room door. If it was intended to be a doorway never to be used, I suspect it would have been treated like a wall by Abby and furniture would block it on the elder Borden side. A known example is when Emma mentions that AJB knocked on her door when he discovered the robbery and she went thru. So I think it did happen randomly when both parties felt it created some convenience at that moment.

p.s. I don't consider a single bed sitting diagonally in a corner, partially obstructing opening a door all the way as a 'large piece of furniture' intended to seal an opening.

Speculation:
I tend to lean into the theory the bed was moved closed to the doorway by Lizzie to improve her ability to eavesdrop.

[Reasonwhy]

—(Part of Kat’s post is omitted here)———————————————JJ pg 261 where Sawyer is listening to Medley question Bridget while on the back stairs, he says Bridget told Medley : "She said she went to her room and sat at the window and then laid down. She said she went up to make her bed"
—(Part of Kat’s post is omitted here)———————————————
Then we have the statement that she sat at the window! I'm assuming she looked out the window, then she would be looking at the backyard while Lizzie was supposedly out in the yard and going to the barn.

—partial post, by Kat

Could it be, if Bridget really was looking out her window, that she saw Lizzie throw the hatchet onto the Crowe barn roof? If she did, how first confusing then later terrifying that must have been for her…

[PossumPie]

Ugg...back to the infamous bedroom door. We've established beyond doubt through various testimonies that:
The door was habitually kept locked.
Lizzie's bed position made it inconvenient but not impossible to go through there.
The door had a key lock on both sides and possibly a hook-and-eye on Lizzie's side (Morse misremembers which side)
Lizzie had to go get a key the day of the murder, go downstairs, up the back stairs, and unlock Andrew's door to let the police in. She couldn't get straight through.
Andrew's side of the door took a key and possibly a bolt.
The only way anybody could go through from either side was if the bolt/hook were not fastened, and they had the key to their side.

LIZZIE PRELIM
A. Father’s bedroom door was kept locked, and his door into my room was locked and hooked too I think, and I had no keys.

MORSE PRELIM
Q. How was the other door between her room and her father’s room generally fastened?
A. I do not know; there is a hook on it on the side opposite from her, on the east room.
Q. Was the hook on her father’s side, or on her side?
A. On her father’s side.
Q. Sure about that?
A. I think I am correct about it.
Q. There was a hook there at any rate?
A. Yes.

FLEET PRELIM
A. We went up the back stairs to do that.
Q. Did you try the door between Lizzie’s room and Mrs. Borden’s?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. Which side did you try it from?
A. From Lizzie’s side.
Q. How was it fastened?
A. By a bolt I think from the other side, and I do not know but a
hook too.

LIZZIE INQUEST
A. Father's bedroom door was kept locked, and his door into my room was locked and hooked too
I think, and I had no keys.
Q. That was the custom of the establishment?
...
Q. There was no access, except one had a key, and one would have to have two keys?
A. They would have to have two keys if they went up the back way to get into my room. If they
were in my room, they would have to have a key to get into his room, and another to get into the
back stairs.

Not to beat a dead horse, but it's well established that for anyone to go through that door from either side, they would have to do a lot of walking up and downstairs. The lock and hook/bolt would have to be disengaged from the side you were trying to get into before you could get in! NOW...it is theoretically possible that if one wanted to go through for a nefarious purpose, one could sneak into the other room, unlock/disengage the hook/bolt, then go back to the first room and go through. That may have happened during the robbery. BUT for anybody to "habitually" go up/down the back stairs as a shortcut through Andrew/Lizzie's room seems highly unlikely. If Lizzie/Emma were seen going up/down the back stairs, they were in all probability coming from/going to the attic.

[camgarsky4]

Possum -- no one used the term "habitually".

So I think it did happen randomly when both parties felt it created some convenience at that moment.

[PossumPie]

Possum -- no one used the term "habitually".

So I think it did happen randomly when both parties felt it created some convenience at that moment.

I know...my frustration is showing. I'll delete "habitually" and replace it with your word-"periodically". I think Andrew was highly agitated about finding his room broken into and knocked on the door to Lizzie's room to gain immediate access. I don't agree that it ever happened for convenience as it would be the least convenient thing to do.
I DO think that Lizzie could have unlocked her side, gone downstairs, unlocked Andrew's room, stolen things, unlocked his side of the door, gone through, hidden the things, gone back through the door, re-locked Andrew's side, then gone downstairs. This would have been a pain but would have allowed her to not have to take the stolen things downstairs. No ingress/egress through that door could ever occur without already having access to the side you wish to go to...and you'd always have to make your last trip through the door on Andrew's side to replace the hook/bolt else it would be obvious that someone had been in there.
The Bordens DON'T seem like the type of people who accidentally left anything unlocked...which is why I also highly doubt the cellar door being unlocked statements Lizzie makes.

[camgarsky4]

Shifting gears a bit to make a quick note on why Bridget's testimony regarding family tensions was so understated in many of our opinions. Copied below is an extract from Nellie McHenry's report to Hilliard in the day or two before the Preliminary Hearing. I tend to read this report/letter as being well-intended by Ms. McHenry due to the timing before the PH and since the recently held inquest was held in tight secrecy. For example, McHenry letter for the first time documents the term Bridget used of "oh shaw" (as reported by McHenry) or "pshaw" as noted in testimony.
Most of the errors are explainable or understandable from my perspective.

My general opinion on the household dynamics was one of segregation, disregard and disdain. Open hostility was likely very minimal. I've mentioned before, I don't think Lizzie invested heavily in an intense emotional 'hatred' towards Abby. Abby barely registered on the Lizzie awareness scale if she wasn't also a potential threat to Lizzie's entitlements.

Knowlton Papers Pg. 35
"I asked Bridget if they quarelled she said she would not want to say anything about that of course they would not quarel in front of me. I pressured her upon this subject but she evidently did not want to talk about it."

"....the place was not pleasant for an girl on account of the odd habits of the family she said things were not very pleasant in the house. I asked how it was, well the girls kept so much to themselves their was no love for their stepmother."[/i]

[PossumPie]

Shifting gears a bit to make a quick note on why Bridget's testimony regarding family tensions was so understated in many of our opinions.

I Absolutely agree. Bridget downplays the quirks and tension, perhaps as I've said elsewhere, b/c a servant sees/hears everything and were paid in part to be discrete. My wife and I loved "Downton Abbey" and it was obvious that the servants saw and heard much that was compromising. Any servant who was too gossipy about the family would find themselves out of a job and difficult to find another family. The more I read about the lack of communication and the obsessive locking of everything, I would find life in that house unbearable. It indeed was like a boarding house full of strangers.

[Reasonwhy]

Shifting gears a bit to make a quick note on why Bridget's testimony regarding family tensions was so understated in many of our opinions. Copied below is an extract from Nellie McHenry's report to Hilliard in the day or two before the Preliminary Hearing. I tend to read this report/letter as being well-intended by Ms. McHenry due to the timing before the PH and since the recently held inquest was held in tight secrecy. For example, McHenry letter for the first time documents the term Bridget used of "oh shaw" (as reported by McHenry) or "pshaw" as noted in testimony.
Most of the errors are explainable or understandable from my perspective.

My general opinion on the household dynamics was one of segregation, disregard and disdain. Open hostility was likely very minimal. I've mentioned before, I don't think Lizzie invested heavily in an intense emotional 'hatred' towards Abby. Abby barely registered on the Lizzie awareness scale if she wasn't also a potential threat to Lizzie's entitlements.

Knowlton Papers Pg. 35
"I asked Bridget if they quarelled she said she would not want to say anything about that of course they would not quarel in front of me. I pressured her upon this subject but she evidently did not want to talk about it."

"....the place was not pleasant for an girl on account of the odd habits of the family she said things were not very pleasant in the house. I asked how it was, well the girls kept so much to themselves their was no love for their stepmother."[/i]

Camgarsky (and all who may be interested), I think you might enjoy the following article which explains the Bordens’ communication style from a White Anglo Saxon Protestant point of view. It goes to your point of how the frustrations in the house were expressed. I give the link below, then a copy of the whole article, because I think it’s that good. Please let me know your thoughts!

A Wasp Looks at Lizzie Borden https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/ ... ence-king/


CULTURE
A Wasp Looks at Lizzie Borden
By FLORENCE KING
January 11, 2016 9:00 AM


Editor’s Note: The following essay by Florence King is reprinted from the August 17, 1992, issue of National Review. It was inspired by her study of the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden on August 4, 1892. It is reprinted now to mark her recent passing.

If you want to understand Anglo-Saxon Americans, study the Lizzie Borden case. No ethnologist could ask for a better control group; except for Bridget Sullivan, the Bordens’ maid, the zany tragedy of August 4, 1892, had an all-Wasp cast.



Lizzie was born in Fall River, Mass., on July 19, 1860, and immediately given the Wasp family’s favorite substitute for open affection: a nickname. Thirty-two years later at her inquest she stated her full legal name: Lizzie Andrew Borden. “You were so christened?” asked the district attorney.

“I was so christened,” she replied.

Lizzie’s mother died in 1862. Left with two daughters to raise, her father, Andrew Borden, soon married a chubby spinster of 38 named Abby Durfee Gray. Three-year-old Lizzie obediently called the new wife Mother, but 12-year-old Emma called her Abby.

Andrew Borden was a prosperous but miserly undertaker whose sole interest in life was money. His operations expanded to include banking, cotton mills, and real estate, but no matter how rich he became he never stopped peddling eggs from his farms to his downtown business associates; wicker basket in hand, he would set out for corporate board meetings in anticipation of yet a few more pennies. Although he was worth $500,000 in pre-IRS, gold-standard dollars, he was so tightfisted that he refused to install running water in his home. There was a latrine in the cellar and a pump in the kitchen; the bedrooms were fitted out with water pitchers, wash bowls, chamber pots, and slop pails.

Marriage with this paragon of Yankee thrift evidently drove Abby to seek compensatory emotional satisfaction in eating. Only five feet tall, she ballooned up to more than two hundred pounds and seldom left the house except to visit her half-sister, Mrs. Whitehead.

Emma Borden, Lizzie’s older sister, was 42 at the time of the murders. Mouse-like in all respects, she was one of those spinsters who scurry. Other than doing the marketing, she rarely went anywhere except around the corner to visit her friend, another spinster named Alice Russell.

Compared to the rest of her family, Lizzie comes through as a prom queen. Never known to go out with men, at least she went out. A member of Central Congregational, she taught Sunday school, served as secretary-treasurer of the Christian Endeavor Society, and was a card-carrying member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

What did she look like? Like everyone else in that inbred Wasp town. New York Sun reporter Julian Ralph wrote during the trial:

By the way, the strangers who are here begin to notice that Lizzie Borden’s face is of a type quite common in New Bedford. They meet Lizzie Borden every day and everywhere about town. Some are fairer, some are younger, some are coarser, but all have the same general cast of features — heavy in the lower face, high in the cheekbones, wide at the eyes, and with heavy lips and a deep line on each side of the mouth.

Plump by our standards, she had what her self-confident era called a good figure. She also had blue eyes, and like all blue-eyed women she had a lot of blue dresses — handy for changing clothes without appearing to have done so. The case is a vortex of dark blue dresses, light blue dresses, blue summer dresses, blue winter dresses, clean blue dresses, paint-stained blue dresses, blood-stained blue dresses, and an all-male jury struggling to tell one from the other.

Now they were even-steven and everything was settled — except it wasn’t.

Five years before the murders, the Bordens had a family fight when Andrew put one of his rental houses in Abby’s name. Lizzie and Emma were furious, so they said politely: “What you do for her, you must do for us.” That’s the Wasp version of a conniption and Andrew knew it, so he took refuge in our cure-all fair play, buying his daughters houses of identical valuation ($1,500) to the one he had given his wife.

Now they were even-steven and everything was settled — except it wasn’t. Having failed to clear the air, everyone started smoldering and brooding. Emma and Lizzie stopped eating with the elder Bordens, requiring the maid to set and serve each meal twice. They never reached that pinnacle of Wasp rage called Not Speaking — “We always spoke,” Emma emphasized at the trial — but she and Lizzie eliminated “Abby” and “Mother” from their respective vocabularies and started calling their stepmother “Mrs. Borden.” What a cathartic release that must have been.

Lizzie ticked away for four years until 1891, when she committed a family robbery. Entering the master bedroom through a door in her own room (it was a “shotgun” house with no hallways), she stole her stepmother’s jewelry and her father’s loose cash.


Andrew and Abby knew that Lizzie was the culprit, and Lizzie knew that they knew, but rather than “have words,” Andrew called in the police and let them go through an investigation to catch the person the whole family carefully referred to as “the unknown thief.”

The robbery launched a field day of Silent Gestures. Everybody quietly bought lots of locks. To supplement the key locks, there were bolts, hooks, chains, and padlocks. Abby’s Silent Gesture consisted of locking and bolting her side of the door that led into Lizzie’s room. Lizzie responded with her Silent Gesture, putting a hook on her side of the door and shoving a huge clawlooted secretary in front of it.

The best Silent Gesture was Andrew’s. He put the strongest available lock on the master bedroom, but kept the key on the sitting-room mantelpiece in full view of everyone. Lizzie knew she was being tempted to touch it; she also knew that if the key disappeared, she would be suspect. In one fell swoop, Andrew made it clear that he was simultaneously trusting her and distrusting her, and warning her without saying a word. Wasps call this war of nerves the honor system.


Since Emma was a Silent Gesture, there was no need for her to do anything except keep on scurrying.

The Borden house must have been a peaceful place. There is nothing on record to show that the Bordens ever raised their voices to one another. “Never a word,” Bridget Sullivan testified at the trial, with obvious sincerity and not a little awe.

Bridget, 26 and pretty in a big-boned, countrified way, had been in the Bordens’ service for almost three years at the time of the murders. A recent immigrant, she had a brogue so thick that she referred to the Silent Gesture on the mantelpiece as the “kay.”

Bridget adored Lizzie. Victoria Lincoln, the late novelist, whose parents were neighbors of the Bordens, wrote in her study of the case: “De haut en bas, Lizzie was always kind.” Her habit of calling Bridget “Maggie” has been attributed to laziness (Maggie was the name of a former maid), but I think it was an extremity of tact. In that time and place, the name Bridget was synonymous with “Irish maid.” Like Rastus in minstrel-show jokes, it was derisory, so Lizzie substituted another.


Anyone who studies the Borden case grows to like Lizzie, or at least admire her, for her rigid sense of herself as a gentlewoman. It would have been so easy for her to cast suspicion on Bridget, or to accuse her outright. Bridget was the only other person in the house when Andrew and Abby were killed. The Irish were disliked in turn-of-the-century Massachusetts; a Yankee jury would have bought the idea of Bridget’s guilt. Yet Lizzie never once tried to shift the blame, and she never named Bridget as a suspect.

Scurrying Away

A week before the murders, Emma did something incredible: she went to Fairhaven. Fifteen miles is a long way to scurry but scurry she did, to visit an elderly friend and escape the heat wave that had descended on Fall River.

That same week, Lizzie shared a beach house on Buzzards Bay with five friends. At a press conference after the murders, they showered her with compliments. “She always was self-contained, self-reliant, and very composed. Her conduct since her arrest is exactly what I should have expected. Lizzie and her father were, without being demonstrative, very fond of each other.”

ALSO FROM
FLORENCE KING
The Misanthrope’s Turtle
Crashing Gore
Parodic Verses

They got so caught up in Wasp priorities that they inadvertently sowed a dangerous seed when the reporter asked them if they thought Lizzie was guilty. No, they said firmly, because she had pleaded not guilty: “It is more likely that Lizzie would commit a murder than that she would lie about it afterward.”

The most puzzling aspect of the case has always been Lizzie’s choice of weapons. Ladies don’t chop up difficult relatives, but they do poison them. A few days before she was due at the beach house, Lizzie tried to buy prussic acid in her neighborhood drugstore. The druggist’s testimony was excluded on a legal technicality, but it establishes her as, in the words of one of her friends, “a monument of straightforwardness.”

Picture it: In broad daylight in the middle of a heat wave, she marched into the drugstore carrying a fur cape, announced that there were moths in it, and asked for ten cents’ worth of prussic acid to kill them. The druggist was stunned. Even in the casual Nineties, when arsenic was sold over the counter, it was illegal to sell prussic acid. “But I’ve bought it many times before,” Lizzie protested.

Even in the casual Nineties, when arsenic was sold over the counter, it was illegal to sell prussic acid.

The druggist’s astonishment mounted in the face of this stouthearted lie. “Well, my good lady, it is something we don’t sell except by prescription, as it is a very dangerous thing to handle.”

Lizzie left, never dreaming that she might have called attention to herself.

At the beach, her friends noticed that she seemed despondent and preoccupied. They were puzzled when she suddenly cut short her vacation, giving as her excuse some church work, and returned to Fall River.

Back home in the stifling city heat, she sat in her room and brooded. Somehow she had found out that Abby was about to acquire some more real estate; Andrew was planning to put a farm in his wife’s name and install his brother-in-law, John Morse, as caretaker. This last was especially infuriating, for Lizzie and Emma were Not Speaking to Uncle John. He had been involved, so they thought, in that other real-estate transfer five years before. Now he was back, plotting to do her and Emma out of their rightful inheritance.

Something had to be done, but what? Lacking lady-like poison, Lizzie did what every overcivilized, understated Wasp is entirely capable of doing once we finally admit we’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more: She went from Anglo to Saxon in a trice.

Miss Borden Accepts

On the day before the murders, Lizzie joined Abby and Andrew for lunch for the first time in five years — an air-tight alibi, for who would do murder after doing lunch? That evening, she paid a call on Alice Russell and craftily planted some red herrings. If Machiavelli had witnessed this demonstration of the fine Wasp hand he would have gone into cardiac arrest.

“I have a feeling that something is going to happen,” she told Alice. “A feeling that somebody is going to do something.” She hammered the point home with stories about her father’s “enemies.” He was such a ruthless businessman, she said, that “they” all hated him, and she would not put it past “them” to burn down the house.

When she returned home, Uncle John had arrived with plans to spend the night. Since she was Not Speaking to him, she went directly to her room.

The next day, August 4, 1892, the temperature was already in the eighties at sunrise, but that didn’t change the Bordens’ breakfast menu. Destined to be the most famous breakfast in America, it was printed in newspapers everywhere and discussed by aficionados of the murders for years to come: Alexander Woollcott always claimed it was the motive.

If Lizzie had only waited, Abby and Andrew probably would have died anyway, for their breakfast consisted of mutton soup, sliced mutton, pancakes, bananas, pears, cookies, and coffee. Here we recognize the English concept of breakfast-as-weapon designed to overwhelm French tourists and other effete types.

Bridget was the first up, followed by Andrew, who came downstairs with the connubial slop pail and emptied it on the grass in the backyard. That done, he gathered the pears that had fallen to the ground.

After breakfast, Andrew saw Uncle John out and then brushed his teeth at the kitchen sink where Bridget was washing dishes. Moments later, she rushed out to the back yard and vomited. Whether it was the mutton or the toothbrushing or something she had seen clinging to a pear we shall never know, but when she returned to the house, Abby was waiting with an uncharacteristic order. She wanted the windows washed, all of them, inside and out, now.

Here is one of the strangest aspects of the case. Victoria Lincoln writes of Abby: “Encased in fat and self-pity, she was the kind who make indifferent housekeepers everywhere.” Additionally, the Wasp woman is too socially secure to need accolades like “You could eat off her floor.” Why then would Abby order a sick Bridget to wash the windows on a blistering hot day?

Around nine o’clock, Abby was tomahawked in the guest room while making Uncle John’s bed.

Because, says Miss Lincoln, she was getting ready to go to the bank to sign the deed for the farm, and she feared a scene with Lizzie, who, knowing Abby’s hermit-like ways, would immediately suspect the truth. The mere thought of “having words” in front of a servant struck horror in Abby’s heart, so she invented a task that would take Bridget outside.

That left Lizzie inside.

Around nine o’clock, Abby was tomahawked in the guest room while making Uncle John’s bed. Andrew was to meet the same fate around eleven. Lizzie’s behavior during that two-hour entr’acte was a model of Battle-of-Britain calm. She ironed handkerchiefs, sewed a button loop on a blouse, chatted with Bridget about a dress-goods sale, and read Harper’s Weekley.

Andrew came home at 10:30 and took a nap on the sitting-room sofa. Shortly before 11, Bridget went up to her attic room to rest. At 11:15 she heard Lizzie cry out: “Maggie! Come down quick! Father’s dead. Somebody came in and killed him.”

Somebody certainly had. The entire left side of his face and head was a bloody pulp; the eye had been severed and hung down his cheek, and one of the blows had bisected a tooth.

Lizzie sent Bridget for Alice Russell and Dr. Bowen, then sat on the back steps. The Bordens’ next-door neighbor, Mrs. Adelaide Churchill, called over to her and got a priceless reply: “Oh, Mrs. Churchill, do come over. Someone has killed Father.”

Mrs. Churchill came over, took a quick look at Andrew, and asked, “Where is your stepmother, Lizzie?”

The safe thing to say was “I don’t know,” but the people who invented the honor system are sticklers for the truth. “I don’t know but that she’s been killed, too, for I thought I heard her come in,” Lizzie blurted.

Bridget returned with Miss Russell and Dr. Bowen, who examined Andrew and asked for a sheet to cover the body. Lizzie told Bridget to get it. Whether she said anything else is in dispute; no one present testified to it, but the legend persists that our monument of straightforwardness added, “Better get two.”

Bridget and Mrs. Churchill decided to search the house for Abby. They were not gone long. When they returned, a white-faced but contained Mrs. Churchill nodded at Alice Russell.

“There is another?” asked Miss Russell.

“Yes, she is upstairs,” said Mrs. Churchill.

The only excited person present was Bridget.

By the Way. . .

By noon, when Uncle John returned for lunch, the cops had come, and a crowd had formed in the street. Knowing of the hatred between Lizzie and Abby, Uncle John must have guessed the truth, but he chose to exhibit so much nonchalance that he became the first suspect. Instead of rushing into the house yelling, “What’s the matter?” he ambled into the back yard, picked up some pears, and stood eating them in the shade of the tree.

Meanwhile, the police were questioning Lizzie, who claimed that she had gone to the barn and returned to find her father dead. What had she gone to the barn for? “To get a piece of lead for a fishing sinker.”

It was the first thing that popped into her head, less a conscious deception than an ink-blot association triggered by her seaside vacation. She was playing it by ear. It never occurred to her that she could have stalled for time by pretending to faint. Women often fainted in those tightly corseted days, but she even rejected the detective’s gallant offer to come back and question her later when she felt better. “No,” she said. “I can tell you all I know now as well as at any other time.”

A moment later, when the detective referred to Abby as her mother, she drew herself up and said stiffly, “She is not my mother, sir, she is my stepmother. My mother died when I was a child.” Before you start diagnosing “self-destructive tendencies,” remember that the English novelists’ favorite character is the plucky orphan, and she had just become one.

Miss Russell and Dr. Bowen took her upstairs to lie down. Lizzie asked the doctor to send a telegram to Emma in Fairhaven, adding, “Be sure to put it gently, as there is an old person there who might be disturbed.” It’s all right to disturb your sister as long as you don’t disturb strangers; Wasps haven’t kithed our kin since the Anglo-Saxon invaders wiped out the Celtic clan system.

Dr. Bowen must have sent the gentlest wire on record, because Emma did not catch the next train, nor the one after that, nor the one after that. She didn’t return until after seven that night.

When Dr. Bowen returned, Lizzie confided to him that she had torn up a certain note and put the pieces in the kitchen trash can. He hurried downstairs and found them; he was putting them together when a detective walked in. Seeing the name “Emma,” he asked Dr. Bowen what it was. “Oh, it is nothing,” Dr. Bowen said nonchalantly. “It is something, I think, about my daughter going through somewhere.”

Before the detective could react to this bizarre answer, Dr. Bowen, nonchalant as ever, tossed the pieces into the kitchen fire. As he lifted the stove lid, the detective saw a foot-long cylindrical stick lying in the flames. Later, in the cellar, he found a hatchet head that had been washed and rolled while wet in furnace ash to simulate the dust of long disuse.

Lizzie had been in the barn, but not to look for sinkers. The barn contained a vise, black-smithing tools, and a water pump. Blood can be washed from metal but not from porous wood. She knew she had to separate the hatchet head from the handle and burn the latter. She did all of this in a very brief time, and without giving way to panic. Victoria Lincoln believes that because she really had been in the barn, her compulsive honesty forced her to admit it to the police. Then she had to think of an innocent reason for going there, and came up with the story about looking for sinkers. “She lied about why and when she had done things, but she never denied having done them,” writes Miss Lincoln.

Alice Russell displayed the same tic: “Alice’s conscience forced her to mention things at the trial, but not to stress them.” The Wasp gift for making everything sound trivial, as when we introduce momentous subjects with “Oh, by the way,” enabled Alice to testify about a highly incriminating fact in such a way that the prosecution missed its significance entirely.

On one of Alice’s trips upstairs on the murder day, she saw Lizzie coming out of Emma’s room, and a bundled-up blanket on the floor of Emma’s closet. What was Lizzie doing in Emma’s room? What was in the blanket? Victoria Lincoln thinks it contained blood-stained stockings, but the prosecution never tried to find out because Alice made it all sound so matter-of-fact. The same technique worked for Dr. Bowen in the matter of the note; we happy few don’t destroy evidence, we just tut-tut it into oblivion.

Some students of the crime think she committed both murders in the nude, but Victoria Lincoln disagrees and so do I. Murder is one thing, but . . .

Everyone who saw Lizzie after the murders testified that there wasn’t a drop of blood on her. How did she wash the blood off her skin and hair in a house that had no running water? What trait is cherished by the people who distrust intellectuals? Common sense told her to sponge herself off with the diaper-like cloths Victorian women used for sanitary napkins and then put them in her slop pail, which was already full of bloody cloths because she was menstruating that week.

Now we come to the dress she wore when she murdered Abby. Where did she hide it after she changed? Some students of the crime think she committed both murders in the nude, but Victoria Lincoln disagrees and so do I. Murder is one thing, but . . .

Where would any honest Wasp hide a dress? In the dress closet, of course. Like most women, Lizzie had more clothes than hangers, so she knew how easy it is to “lose” a garment by hanging another one on top of it. Victoria Lincoln thinks she hung the blood-stained summer cotton underneath a heavy winter woolen, and then banked on the either-or male mind: the police were looking for a summer dress, and men never run out of hangers.

She got no blood at all on the second dress. Her tall father’s Prince Albert coat reached to her ankles, and common sense decrees that blood on a victim’s clothing is only to be expected.

Mistress of Herself

After her arrest Lizzie became America’s Wasp Princess. People couldn’t say enough nice things about her icy calm, even the Fall River police chief: “She is a remarkable woman and possessed of a wonderful power of fortitude.”

A Providence reporter and Civil War veteran: “Most women would faint at seeing her father dead, for I never saw a more horrible sight and I have walked over battlefields where thousands were dead and mangled. She is a woman of remarkable nerve and self-control.”

Julian Ralph, New York Sun: “It was plain to see that she had complete mastery of herself, and could make her sensations and emotions invisible to an impertinent public.”

To ward off a backlash, Lizzie gave an interview to the New York Recorder in which she managed to have her bona fides and eat them too: “They say I don’t show any grief. Certainly I don’t in public. I never did reveal my feelings and I cannot change my nature now.”

I find this very refreshing in an age that equates self-control with elitism. If Lizzie were around today she would be reviled as the Phantom of the Oprah.

Wasp emotional repression also gave us the marvelous fight between Lizzie and Emma in Lizzie’s jail cell while she was awaiting trial. Described by Mrs. Hannah Reagan, the police matron, it went like this:

“Emma, you have given me away, haven’t you?”

“No, Lizzie, I have not.”

“You have, and I will let you see I won’t give in one inch.”

‘Emma, you have given me away, haven’t you?’

Finis. Lizzie turned over on her cot and lay with her back to Emma, who remained in her chair. They stayed like that for two hours and twenty minutes, until visiting time was up and Emma left.

When Mrs. Reagan spilled this sensational colloquy to the press, Lizzie’s lawyers said it was a lie and demanded she sign a retraction. Doubts arose, but Victoria Lincoln believes Mrs. Reagan: “That terse exchange followed by a two-hour-and-twenty-minute sulking silence sounds more like a typical Borden family fight than the sort of quarrel an Irish police matron would dream up from her own experience.”

The Last Word

After her acquittal, Lizzie bought a mansion for herself and Emma in Fall River’s best neighborhood. Social acceptance was another matter. When she returned to Central Congregational, everyone was very polite, so she took the hint and stopped going.

She lived quietly until 1904, when she got pinched for shoplifting in Providence. This is what really made her an outcast. Murder is one thing, but. . .

In 1913, Emma suddenly moved out and never spoke to Lizzie again. Nobody knows what happened. Maybe Lizzie finally admitted to the murders, but I doubt it; the Protestant conscience is not programmed for pointless confession. It sounds more as if Emma found out that her sister had a sex life.

An enthusiastic theatergoer, Lizzie was a great fan of an actress named Nance O’Neill. They met in a hotel and developed an intense friendship; Lizzie threw lavish parties for Nance and her troupe and paid Nance’s legal expenses in contractual disputes with theater owners. Nance was probably the intended recipient of the unmailed letter Lizzie wrote beginning “Dear Friend,” and going on to juicier sentiments: “I dreamed of you the other night but I do not dare to put my dreams on paper.” If Emma discovered the two were lesbian lovers, it’s no wonder she moved out so precipitately. Murder is one thing, but. . .

Lizzie stayed in Fall River, living alone in her mansion, until she died of pneumonia in 1927.

Emma, living in New Hampshire, read of Lizzie’s death in the paper but did not attend the funeral or send flowers. Ten days later, Emma died from a bad fall. Both sisters left the bulk of their fortunes to the Animal Rescue League. Nothing could be Waspier, except the explanation little Victoria Lincoln got when she asked her elders why no one ever spoke to their neighbor, Miss Borden. “Well, dear, she was very unkind to her mother and father.”

[Reasonwhy]

The article certainly has some factual errors, and theories not all will subscribe to, but I posted it for the “WASP-speak”: intense emotion, but polite expression. I wonder if New England yankee folk agree with the author’s “translations”?

[camgarsky4]

Thanks Reason. The atmosphere it sets for the crime drama is a very good read.

To your point, it is fraught with errors, but pretty well written. Easy to read.

[PossumPie]

The article certainly has some factual errors, and theories not all will subscribe to, but I posted it for the “WASP-speak”: intense emotion, but polite expression. I wonder if New England yankee folk agree with the author’s “translations”?

It's amusing! Yes, we Bordonophiles may find quite a few "inaccuracies" but overall it was well-written and witty. I guess WASPs are the last racial/ethnic/religious group that's still socially appropriate to poke fun at.

[Reasonwhy]

I am glad you both enjoyed it. Isn’t life amazing that there is humor even in Lizzie’s story?

P.S. Possum, hope the bad weather left you and yours warm and dry!

[camgarsky4]

Hey! What about me and Kat? It has gotten a tad too chilly down here for my bad knee!

[PossumPie]

I am glad you both enjoyed it. Isn’t life amazing that there is humor even in Lizzie’s story?

P.S. Possum, hope the bad weather left you and yours warm and dry!

Thanks Reasonwhy for the concern. I live in South-Central PA and it barely skirted us. We got a half-inch of snow, some cold and wind, but otherwise missed the brunt. This winter has been colder than most with lows in the single digits/teens for all of January.

[camgarsky4]

Possum - my sons are planning a spring break going north. They are thinking DC to check out the museums and then Gettysburg. How much time should they plan at the battlefield? Is it more than a day?

[PossumPie]

Possum - my sons are planning a spring break going north. They are thinking DC to check out the museums and then Gettysburg. How much time should they plan at the battlefield? Is it more than a day?

Private Message Sent

[Reasonwhy]

Hey! What about me and Kat? It has gotten a tad too chilly down here for my bad knee!

Sorry to hear you have a bad knee, Camgarsky. Did an iguana fall on it?

[camgarsky4]

Sadly, it is a legacy from a football game 40 years ago. It has finally decided it doesn't want to be friendly to its owner anymore.

GO CHIEFS!!

[LABRhush]

In reference to your post Kat, can you, or anyone, tell me who the B. Buffinton is? I tracked down Edward Buffinton in Cara Robert's book -pg 129, but would love to know more about your reference. Thanks!

I'm not sure if I should put my observations here from JJ about Bridget: but since they fit the definition of inconsistencies or discrepancies, but not in testimony, but rather second hand, makes it questionable as to whether this is a correct topic area. Excuse me plz if not.

JJ pg 17, B. Buffinton talked to Bridget and he says "Bridget said she had been upstairs to wash windows.".???? Never heard that before!

JJ pg 261 where Sawyer is listening to Medley question Bridget while on the back stairs, he says Bridget told Medley : "She said she went to her room and sat at the window and then laid down. She said she went up to make her bed"

There are 3 inconsistencies here- upstairs to wash windows- to her room to lie down- to make her bed.

Then we have the statement that she sat at the window! I'm assuming she looked out the window, then she would be looking at the backyard while Lizzie was supposedly out in the yard and going to the barn.
But, if Lizzie ended up in the barn, looking out a window also, then Bridget would be witness to anyone entering or leaving the backyard at a similar time that Lizzie would have sightline from the barn window to the side door, driveway, and limited view of the street as well. That would only leave the front door unobserved.

Adding here if needed: access to Brudget Sullivan's Timeline at LABVM&L
https://lizzieandrewborden.com/chronolo ... meline.htm