How did we get involved in the case?

[swinell]

Hi all!

More of a social post than case-related but I'm curious to see how we all came to be interested in this case!

I guess I'll start:

Obviously, I knew the doggerel but hadn't really given it much thought. Then there were some YouTube shows that did some armchair detective "work" on the case that piqued my interest, but the clincher was honestly a whim. I was bored and between gigs last August when I was watching, of all things, an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" when out of the blue, a character said they were going down to Fall River, MA to turn it into a tourist spot, prompting Seth Hazlet to ask "Isn't that where Lizzie Borden took an ax...?" I googled how long the drive from Boston to FR was (about an hour), saw the house was open as a museum, and headed down there for a fun little day trip. The tour was intriguing enough for me to book a night in the now-infamous guest bedroom. That night, I got to chatting with another guest and we ran some sound experiments to try to see if Bridget would have heard anything in the attic. From our original round of tests, it's more likely than not that she heard quite a bit. I posted the details of the tests in another thread but I'll repost when I make a new thread in preparation to go back to the house this August and run the updated tests. The next day, I went to the historical society, took the tour (it's a beautiful building plus the meticulousness with which they care for everything, both case-related and not, is really quite stunning), got a beautifully discounted copy of Parallel Lives, and just kept on down the rabbit hole...and...well...here we are. Currently, I'm planning to finish going through the transcribed primary documents, then Parallel Lives, then the Sourcebook, and then I might either tackle some secondhand sources like the Rebello, the Spencer. the Robertson, the Miller or I might go straight into devising the scenario for the opera I'm tinkering with on the subject (all I've got on that front is that I want to focus on Abby as the protagonist because it's not an opera unless the sympathetic protagonist croaks at the end xD...also this helps me to avoid rehashing the same plot points as Jack Beeson).

I'm very curious to know how our regular posters got involved with the case and...maybe more pressingly...what keeps y'all motivated to keep on with it?

[camgarsky4]

Swinell, my interest and almost immediate obsession started August, 2020....so I'm on 18 months of addiction. What is amazing is that I really haven't taken time off it. Not doing as much deep reading as I did the first year and I really want to go back and read the PH and Trial transcripts again from start to finish. I think it will read so much differently now that I've got a pretty good handle on the case and its many storylines.

I've tried to remember how it started and I just can't remember. Bums me out because something made me find this forum and that is really what got me going. I'm lucky that I never read one of the 'creative writing' books (Radin, Lincoln, Brown, etc) until at least 6 months in. That allowed me to read those books and look for new verifiable intel (of which there is precious little) and ignore the rest. But I avoided having to deprogram myself if I had read them first with all their 'fiction'.

Forum participation has ebbed and flowed over the 18 months, but I really love our current small, but highly engaged and intelligent group. I hope your addiction is as deeply rooted as mine and we'll enjoy this big riddle for many more months!

As far as keep on with it....I think I've got a solid set of explanations of how and why August 4th went down. But what has me enthralled at this point are the plethora of fascinating side stories to 'beef out' and understand.

Anyway, typed more than I intended. So glad you are on board and you have one up on me since you've been to the house. Thought I was going in May, but COVID needs to chill a bit before I take that journey.

Go Chiefs!

[Reasonwhy]

I like this thread, Swinell. It goes to trying to identify the fascination of the case. For Lizzie Borden has been a powerful myth to legions beyond this active discussion. As a mystery, it offers questions about both “how” and “why.” How interests me. Why has lodged itself into my head seemingly permanently.

First saw the Elizabeth Montgomery movie when it aired in 1975; I was just 14. Had to know more, though it seemed a slightly forbidden topic, for when I went to my small-town library to research the case for a school report, I was ushered into the back room by the matronly librarian who wore a concerned look. Can’t quite remember, but I don’t think they had anything on the case that could be checked out.

So I read about evil in that little room. I chose another topic for that 8th grade report, sensing that here was a maelstrom I could not really comprehend.

I bought Lizzie books through the years when I saw them at used bookstores. I read magazine articles whenever I saw them, but did not actively hunt. Busy with adult life, I set the case on a curiosity shelf in my brain. Once the internet was available, I looked Lizzie up, and found the forum, maybe eleven years ago. I lurked, read all the posts from all the years, and my library grew. I now own almost all Borden books, and have re-read most. Have read all the primary sources. I’m about halfway through the Hatchet articles; next challenge is to read all the Lizzie Borden Quarterly articles. No wonder I have trouble remembering where I’ve read things, huh?

So why, why, this abiding fascination?

Lizzie played God. She claimed forbidden agency. She dared all; she risked all; she brutally hated, triumphed, gorged on the rewards of her acts. She acted as devil, outlaw beyond the civilized pale. To murder one’s parent—so rare an act because so unthinkably depraved. Might we all secretly desire to kill our parents? And we can’t believe she actually dared to? She usurped, claimed all that power for herself. Imagining the force of that will is terrifying.

I just can’t fathom that she did. And her acts frighten and repulse me. So I want to know what caused her to act. Both because she is not alone in so choosing, but also because her situation does seem unique. She doesn’t seem to have been psychotic; she is not certainly known to have been violent before or after; she had some yearnings for culture, for fineness, for what is “good”; she had other alternatives (Move out! Marry! Wait for the old people to die!)

Add the fascination of the aftermath: how she, and others, reacted, adjusted to this monstrous affront to their senses of regular reality.

That it happened in that peculiarly constructed house makes it seem like a stage-set in a play, that we can examine with our magnifying glasses. That it happened in the 19th century gives it a curious kind of nostalgic safety, as if it is too far in the past to really worry us. Periodically I put it away when the horror of the murders re-strikes! my mind. Time lapses, then I begin wondering anew, How on earth could she have done this?

[Father Jack]

I'm 75 now, but when I was 14 or 15 my father gave me a mass-market paperback copy of Radin's book, and the rest is......well, you know.

[Reasonwhy]

I'm 75 now, but when I was 14 or 15 my father gave me a mass-market paperback copy of Radin's book, and the rest is......well, you know.

Father Jack, I want to hear more about the “you know” part!

[Kat]

My sister Stefani and I are kind of like 2nd generation Lizzie Borden, in our family. Our parents were aware of the story and passed an interest on to us. We first shared the Sullivan book and that became dinner table conversation. By the 1970s, we were all reading true crime regularly. I think next came The Legend of Lizzie Borden movie, to renew interest, leading to collecting books and essays and magazine articles on the case, through the present day.

In my issue of Mystery Magazine, there was an offer of a subscription to The Lizzie Borden Quarterly, very near the inception date, and that's when Stef and I got really excited. We couldn't wait for each issue, and were able to back order the few we had missed; it came here and I'd read it and then send it over to Stef. I admit I used a pencil to mark passages of interest, so Stef did too. It would be funny to get it back and see both our comments. (We kinda wish we hadn't defaced them like that, but I have to use a "reading copy" and make notes).

It's hard to describe the fascination. I think the historical background, time and place, had a lot to do with it...we grew up with all the old family photos of great grandparents in the late 1800's, and turn of the century, with progeny, at picnics and such, the old cars, the mansion, the same era as Lizzie, that generated that mystique, an active interest in those times. And add to that, a famous and brutal, unsolved crime- a mystery, an enigma, something that stimulated the imagination and the wanting to know more.

By 1997, Stef called me from the Second Street house, saying guess where I am?! After her house visit (the crime scene still intact! how rare is that!?) we were hooked. And I couldn't wait for it to be my turn to experience the house where Lizzie Borden lived!
You probably know the rest ... dot dot dot

[Father Jack]

I'm 75 now, but when I was 14 or 15 my father gave me a mass-market paperback copy of Radin's book, and the rest is......well, you know.

Father Jack, I want to hear more about the “you know” part!

I was going to use the hackneyed phrase "and the rest is history", but stopped myself. As a result of having read Radin, I acquired and read everything that was worthwhile about the case. This includes all the FRHS offerings plus all the things the late Robert Flynn published and made available e.g Porter, Lunday and Phillips. Thanks to Parallel Lives I at last know who "Todd Lunday" was. That's pretty much the sum of it. The Borden case has been a perennial interest of mine since my first reading of Radin.

[Reasonwhy]

You’ve read a great deal! Sounds like we are similar in accepting our interest will be life-long. Still don’t know if that’s a good thing or not :) I appreciate your posting and would enjoy reading some of your opinions. Thanks for responding.

[PossumPie]

I am the kind of person who obsesses over something that I find interesting. Years ago I spent my energy on the Titanic tragedy, then it was Jack the Ripper. Back sometime in 2013, I Googled Lizzie Borden b/c I happened to see her name somewhere and became obsessed. I posted for a year or so then moved on to something else but I was drawn back in this past summer. The facts suggest that we should be able to solve this!!! SO much data and information, I usually obsess about a year then move on. I just recently rediscovered Lizzie and fell back into the posts. I'm trying desperately to finish my doctoral program by this summer, it's killing me but I'm hanging in. My only distraction I allow myself is this forum and the various books.

[PossumPie]

Swinell, my interest and almost immediate obsession started August, 2020....so I'm on 18 months of addiction. What is amazing is that I really haven't taken time off it. Not doing as much deep reading as I did the first year and I really want to go back and read the PH and Trial transcripts again from start to finish. I think it will read so much differently now that I've got a pretty good handle on the case and its many storylines.

I've tried to remember how it started and I just can't remember. Bums me out because something made me find this forum and that is really what got me going. I'm lucky that I never read one of the 'creative writing' books (Radin, Lincoln, Brown, etc) until at least 6 months in. That allowed me to read those books and look for new verifiable intel (of which there is precious little) and ignore the rest. But I avoided having to deprogram myself if I had read them first with all their 'fiction'.

Forum participation has ebbed and flowed over the 18 months, but I really love our current small, but highly engaged and intelligent group. I hope your addiction is as deeply rooted as mine and we'll enjoy this big riddle for many more months!

As far as keep on with it....I think I've got a solid set of explanations of how and why August 4th went down. But what has me enthralled at this point are the plethora of fascinating side stories to 'beef out' and understand.

Anyway, typed more than I intended. So glad you are on board and you have one up on me since you've been to the house. Thought I was going in May, but COVID needs to chill a bit before I take that journey.

Go Chiefs!

I highly respect your knowledge and engagement. I know sometimes I say things out of left field (often just to generate posts) but we both hold similar theories. Glad you joined!

[camgarsky4]

Possum - Thanks.

I was and am thrilled you decided to re-engage. I do wish Franz would pop back on (he was active for couple weeks back in April), because I enjoyed reading, in years gone by, you and him bantering back and forth with his "theory".

Totally agree on the massive amount of information that is available. I've read many prior posts that whined about how much info was missing. How I disagree with them and agree with you....there is so much to digest and imagine.

[Kat]

We love you guys But we also need girls...how do we get them

[camgarsky4]

Not sure. Based on the # of views, it seems there are dozens of folks that read the forum but don't post.

Question is....how do we get the 'non-posters' to jump into the pool and have some fun bantering back and forth all our crazy theories and ideas!!!

[rosiechap]

I was actually decided to take a break from studying ( this was when COVID first happen) so I got on YouTube and noticed a Sam and Colby video pop up and thought that Colby was cute so I click on the video. I set there and watch the whole thing then start looking into it. Then I had to quit because the school block a lot of the websites. But recently my friend was asking about Lizzie and I started back up

[mbhenty]

Yes Kat, I have the same problem. How do I get them?

[Tracie]

Way back in the day I found the town’s childrens library when I was 9 or 10. The librarian was an absolute pleasure to speak with and she read us stories and encouraged us to read. I found many books that were age appropriate but I found a book about Lizzie Borden. I read and reread that book many times. It had a sketch of the layout of the house and I knew I could figure it out. Well I didn’t solve the crime but I still had ideas. So years pass and my mom gives me a book by Brown about Lizzie Borden. I was probably in my twenties at the time. Once the www made it to the forefront I would search the web for and make notes and continue searching. I worked at a University and I was located in the schools library and the hunt. continued. Browsing the internet I found the lizzie borden society forum and how glorious was that; real facts, copies of the the trial, interviews of people in FR at the time. I was in heaven. Life happens and I drift in and out of the forum but please belive me when I say I have never lost interest. Thank you Kat, Stephanie, mb, fairhaven guy, augusta, Len for creating a much needed library and place to share ideas and thoughts. Tracie from Taunton

[jcurrie]

I haven't accessed this Board for quite a while and this seems a new subject. I first read about Lizzie Borden in the 1960s when I borrowed the Radin book from the library. This certainly peaked my interest. Since then I have bought every Borden book I can find - Sullivan, Victoria Lincoln, Pitman and now one by William Spencer, my latest acquisition. Frankly I was sceptical when I read the Radin book (he was the author who put the blame on Bridget). Since reading the others I think Radin was wrong. His opinion was that Bridget took so long to wash the windows that she had time to murder Abby. If so, why I'murder Andrew? She had no motive to murder either of them because she was treated well by the family. As for the time she took to wash the windows - she only had old fashioned tools for the task, and she chatted with the Kelly maid next door. Being both Irish they might have talked for a while! Also, of course, she wasn't feeling well and had been throwing up earlier on a boiling hot summer's day.

I first visited Fall River in the early 1970s when I was working in Boston. Unfortunately I couldn't find the address as I had forgotten it. The second time was in 1987 when I found not only 92 Second Street, but Maplecroft, where Lizzie and Emma moved to after the trial. The third time was in 2012 when I took a tour of the house, which was fascinating. The next step (maybe) is to spend a night at the house. As I live in the UK this might be quite a while.

It's great to read all the comments on this forum. I'm a real Lizzie Borden fanatic.

[Reasonwhy]

Hi jcurrie!
It’s certainly hard to shake the fascination, isn’t it? Mine’s been going on for 48 years now, since I saw the Elizabeth Montgomery movie as a teen. Each time my interest in the case is revived, I find it curiouser and curiouser