Dr. Bowen question

[AgathaBasset]

Can I just say, I love Dr. Bowen. I think he’s cute and has a great first name. But, I digress.
My question is….does anyone know what time Dr. Bowen got to John Morse’s nieces house that morning? I can’t wrap my head around John’s alibi. If John was leaving as Dr. Bowen was arriving, Dr Bowen had to see the sick family member, most likely prescribe something, talk a bit, leave, go home, talk to his wife and run across to view Andrew. He was at Andrew’s side shortly after 11. He said Lizzie or Bridget told him they had only found Andrew a few minutes before, and we know Andrew was killed around 11. So how the heck did John Morse leave his niece’s at 11:30?!

[Steve887788]

Do you mean John Morse's niece's house as in Lizzie Borden's house ? I have never heard it asked that way before. Or do you mean the family that lived across town ?

Sorry I really don't understand the question.

[camgarsky4]

Agatha -- I haven't posted in a while, so a little rusty, but excellent question and something to definitely poke on a bit.

As with most topics on this case, it is a slippery slope to use a single source to construct any theories. I believe the source for your Bowen's call to the Emery's on the 4th is the Fall River Herald, Pg. 9 in the Lizzie Borden Source Book.

To my knowledge this is the only time this doctor's call is mentioned in any documentation.

The recently released book, Jennings Journals page 186-187, contains some comments from James Leonard, Bowen's coachman, noting that they went back to 2nd Street from a location southwest of the Borden home. Jennings notation of Leonard's interview: "We left William St top of street when we left street clock was striking 11. Got to house about 11.5 or 10. Saw Allen policeman come out of house." The Emery's lived 'directionally' NW of 2nd St.

If we assumed that Bowen did indeed call on the Emery's that morning (which is possible since the niece was ill), the timing would make more sense if Bowen left the Emery's around 9:30a.m. and Morse arrived shortly afterwards. So this 'almost' intersection of two key players in this case happened as Morse arrived at the Emery's, not as he was leaving. If Ms. Emery was 'pouring out' all her recollections, I could see how the reporter would misunderstand/hear.

Remember that the Emery's downstairs neighbor (Mrs. Horace Kingsley) saw Morse as he left the Emery's. She knew the time because it was close to dinner time. Morse also was aware that priests were on the horse car and a passing conductor (Mr. Kennedy) saw the priests on the 11:22 car. Source for both of these sightings....Fall River Evening News August 5th.

In a nutshell, to take the position that Morse left the Emery home much before 11am would require that the neighbor, the car conductor, the niece, Mrs. Emery and Morse all were very confused or not telling the truth. Also not sure how Bowen doesn't end up ever mentioning his doctor call....at some point it must have come to his attention that Morse's alibi was to a house that he called on at roughly the same time.

Great question!! Push back if you are still unsettled.

[AgathaBasset]

Thank you for the great answer. I am making my way through the Jennings Journals which is where I read the testimony of Mrs. Emery about John leaving as the Dr was coming in. I haven’t read that far yet about the priests testimony. But it makes sense that she could have been wrong.
I have another odd question…..this is from Porter. During John Morse’s testimony he talks about the rooms everyone was in and it is confusing me. I have been to the house, and I thought John slept in the guest bedroom…then to the right facing that room was Lizzie’s, going into Lizzie’s room to the left was the small room Emma had then there was a locked door that went into Andrew and Abbie’s room, which they accessed through the back stairs.
John states:
“Her (Lizzie’s) room was at the head of the front stairs and I occupied the spare chamber. This room was not accessible at night from the stairs. M/M Borden slept in the East room next to Lizzie’s room. Miss Emma’s room was just north of Lizzie’s back of the spare room. Stairs lead from Lizzie’s room to the spare room” {Porter}
What the heck?! I don’t understand any of this. If anyone has any insight I would appreciate it. Maybe I am just reading it wrong?

[Steve887788]

Lizzie had 4 doors in her room - the door that she used to go inside of her room at the top of the stairs. Another door from Lizzies room to Emma's room ,that Emma used. A door that lead from the guest chamber (which was locked) and more importantly the back east door of Lizzies room that lead to Mr. Borden's room which was locked on both sides and stayed that way all of the time. I am assuming Mr. Borden put locks on the doors after the burglary. The only people that could use the back stairs were Mr and Mrs Borden to go into their room - and the maid because she took one more flight up. Lizzies room was never accessible day or night from the back stairs. And Mr and Mrs Borden plus the maid's rooms were never accessible from the front day or night. The guest chamber also had a door that can be accessed from the front without going through Lizzie's room.
I have never been there but looking at the floor plans that's how I understand it.

[AgathaBasset]

Huh. I will have to find some diagrams of what the house looked like then. When I was at the house, we stayed in the guest room and I don’t recall a door other than the door into the hallway…but maybe there was a door that was just locked? That door would have gone into Emma’s room then? Or directly into Lizzie’s?

[camgarsky4]

Lizzies. That particular door was kept locked and Lizzie had a large piece of furniture up against the door. There was no 'ready' coming and going thru that door.

If you google "Lizzie Borden house layout", you'll get numerous illustrations of the house floor plan.

[mbhenty]

Here is a picture of the guest room on the second floor, displaying the two doors. The one on the right is between the room and hall—formal entry. The one on the left is between the guest room and Lizzie's room, kept locked in Lizzie's day and today.

Keep in mind that the second floor of the house was a separate apartment at one time.... before the Bordens. Lizzie's bedroom would have been a reception room or sitting room. The guest room was a parlor. Both rooms had fireplaces. If you look carefully behind the bed in the photo below you can see the original fireplace mantle. An exact copy of this mantle was on the first floor also, but Borden moved the first floor parlor mantle into the sitting room, leaving the parlor on the first floor minus its fireplace.

When the second floor was a separate apartment, Emma's room was a bedroom. And Abby's dressing room was another bedroom. (this was true on the first floor also. Andrew took down the wall between the two rooms and converted them to one large dinning room.) Lizzie's room was the sitting room. And the guest bedroom was a parlor. Andrew and Abby's room was the kitchen. They all encompassed separate living quarters on the second floor before 1872 and before Borden purchased the house.

Many homes built in Victorian times had doors exclusively used between two bedrooms. The reason for this was probably heating and ventilation—air circulation. Also, people were probably more communal in Victorian times. Privacy was not guarded as it is today... unless you were the Bordens. When I lived on French street, in the 1879 Davenport house, there was a door, that was always kept locked, between the two bedrooms in the apartment. It was a two bedroom apartment.

Though there were doors between Lizzie's room and Emma's, between Lizzie's room and the guest bedroom, Between Lizzie's bedroom and Andrew's, they were not used for exclusive privacy or as a wall when 92 Second Street was built. Andrew made it that way.

[mbhenty]

One final note about the doors in the guest bedroom on the second floor.

The formal door, the one that is used as entry from the hall into the guest room, had been relocated in Borden's day. It is very likely that that door was closer to the front of the house. When Borden built the closet on the second floor hallway he had to relocated the door. So it was moved five feet or so closer to the other door to make room for that said closet. A fact that would have gone unnoticed by most Borden Historians.

Below is an illustration of the floor plan. The first floor has the parlor and the second floor the guest room. Notice the placement of the doors between these rooms and the hallway.

Many Victorian homes were built this way, where the first floor apartment was a twin to the second. It was highly unlikely that doors and windows were located differently. This was true of the many three decker homes in Fall River. I have worked in literally hundreds of them and such construction did not go unnoticed. Especially when you have to run wire between floors and measuring between windows and doors to do so. But there was that rare occasion where a contractor deviated from the norm. On three deckers with sloping roofs on the third level this rule did not apply, and rooms and walls were constructed to accommodate the sloping roof.

[leitskev]

It is strange that testimony connected Morse and Bown both visiting the Emery house the same morning. Even if Mrs. Emery's statement was confused, and Bowen had visited earlier that morning, before Morse came, that's an incredibly odd coincidence. I'm not sure what the population was of the town at the time, but it's a bustling industrial city, so it's substantial. What are the odds of Bowen visiting the same morning?

Perhaps the odds are shorter when we consider the Bordens were sick as well as Morse's niece. There seems to have been a virus of some sort hitting the city at that time.

Still, the coincidence strikes me as highly unlikely.

Is it meaningful? We should always look closely at any highly unlikely coincidence. Same with Morse arriving at the Bordens the night before the murder.

But there can sometimes be logical explanations. The fact Morse slept in the guest room gave Abby a reason to go up there, and it was the perfect place for Lizzie to kill Abby. That's just a possible explanation.

If Morse doesn't spend the night, and Lizzie still kills Abby that morning, where does she do it? Does she trick Abby into going upstairs? Does she attack Abby in her own room, which would force Lizzie to go up the side stairs, something that would make it hard for her to avoid guilt? Does she catch Abby in the cellar? If one of those things are easy to do, then Abby's being in the guest room presented no special opportunity.

But back to Bowen. There have always been perplexing questions:
- why did he not go to the police, or at least send someone for the police?
- why did he not send his driver to telegram Emma and call the police? He sent for his wife, so he was essentially leaving his wife, Bridget, Lizzie and Mrs. Churchill alone in the house with a killer on the loose. Then, after sending the telegram, he stopped at the store to tell a friend about the murder. All very strange to me.
- two cops testified Bowen said Abby must have fainted. One cop said Bowen said she died from fright. Bowen at trial denied this. He said he remarked she must have fainted before examining the body. Maybe it happened that way and the police misremembered. But those cops testified, I believe, that Bowen said this AFTER looking at Abby. Anyone taking even a quick look would have seen the puddle of blood, the destroyed skull. Maybe Bowen looked from the stairwell, made his remark, which the cops heard, and THEN he proceeded to look at her. Looking at Abby from the stairs, it probably seemed like she went to hide under the bed. In which case the idea of dying from fright could make sense.
- what did Bowen burn inside the stove? Should he have known better than to burn something at a crime scene?
- the murder weapon was not found. Someone had to bring it away from the house, and Lizzie remained on the property. Was that what Lizzie really sent Bowen to do, get rid of the hatchet? I'm not trying to accuse a seemingly good man with an impeccable reputation, but someone had to take that weapon out. That leaves Bridget and Bowen, unless you want to include Mrs. Churchill or Alice Russel. Morse was too closely watched.

[camgarsky4]

There are so many coincidences in this case, that some or most have to be incidental because it is difficult to get them all to connect back to the murders. To your point, there are common sense explanations for them, but it is challenging to believe they were all just coincidences.

1) Morse visit to farm to get eggs, kept farmer from dropping off eggs murder day at 11am. Same time AJB was being killed. (implicates Morse)
2) Lubinsky who corroborated Lizzie's barn alibi, rented the Borden home 20+ years later....from Lizzie/Emma via Charles Cook as Business Manager. (implicates the sisters)
3) Dr. Handy happens to be in front of the Borden house Aug 4th and see the 'wild man'. It was Handy's Marion cottage that Lizzie had visited the prior Saturday and was going to again on the upcoming Monday. (implicates Handy)
4) Emma away on her longest 'trip' that we are aware of since she went to boarding school 25 years before. (implicates everyone)
.....and so on.....

I don't think finding a rusted hatchet on the roof of a neighboring barn when a murder occurred next door with the likely murder weapon being a hatchet....and missing at that....to be a coincidence. I also don't think a handful of 12-14 year old boys concocted an elaborate hoax....following that thought process, nor would those same boys (who were interviewed) likely have been savvy enough to not give away an adult hoax agent if they were being told what to do and say. So if not a hoax nor a coincidence.....that leaves me with only one conclusion.

You do have me intrigued to dig into Bowen more and view him thru a critical lens.

[leitskev]

Can I trouble you for the sources on the 12-14 year old boys? I have not seen that.

[mbhenty]

The telling had been written in several newspapers across the country about the hatchet found on the roof of the Crowe Barn. One of the accounts was written in the Fall River Evening News. It mentions one of the boy's name and age.




.

[leitskev]

Thanks!

[mbhenty]

You are very welcomed, leitskev

As mentioned above, this story was all over when it occurred back in 1893.

Here's another which mentions the boy. This time in a New Bedford, MA newspaper. And as is common with news reporting—error and inaccuracy is common place, thus the reason that newspaper accounts should always be well investigated and never used as the undisputed truth. (true today more than ever)

Here they mention the same boy as being 13 instead of 14. What was the age of the boy? Does it make a difference? Did the boy give the papers different ages? Or did one of the reporters just get it wrong?

I lived next door to Maplecroft at one time. When I was fighting Maplecroft about some property dispute I was not alone. The resident behind Maplecroft was also fighting the same issue. When they reported what we said in the paper, they had me saying things that my neighbor said and things that I said were bestowed on his lips.

Here we can probably safely assume that the young boy's who were playing ball with the 13 year old were all probably around his age.

Keeping in mind that "assumption" holds no veracity in news reporting.

[leitskev]

Do you think this could have been the murder weapon?

It's intriguing. What I find hard to fathom is how such a thing could be lost to history if it was a good candidate for the murder weapon.

if the police found that the weapon matched what was needed to make it the murder weapon, but the prosecution had rested their case and Lizzie's defense team didn't find that it could help theirs, what then happens to the weapon? So, Lizzie is acquitted and can't be tried again. But that also means the case is unsolved, so I guess the police would be required to hold onto the weapon. I don't think they would be able to return it to the people who handed it in or the owners of the barn(Crowes?), because it could still be evidence in a future trial. But how long would they be required to hold onto it? And what would they eventually do with it? It seems to me that if they considered it the weapon, once enough time had gone by, they'd give it to the Historical Society. Who would want to throw out the most famous murder weapon in history?

If the police determined it did not match...whether because they found it must have been weathering for more than a year on the roof, or whether they found it was a hoax...it would just disappear from history. As it did.

[camgarsky4]

Several potentially key pieces of physical evidence for this case have 'vanished' and it seems around the actual time of the case.

The Crowe roof hatchet, AJB's Prince Albert coat, Bridget's inquest testimony.....

Frankly, based on the Knowlton's summoned witness lists and comparing to the known witness statements, we are obviously missing large quantities of police/prosecution notes for when these summoned witnesses were interviewed. If we are missing that documentation, I'm sure we are missing physical evidence beyond the Crowe roof hatchet or the Prince Albert coat. That is why I really have enjoyed the added depth provided by the Jennings Journals. Maybe there is more forthcoming from the Hilliard Papers or other releases of collections, but we only have what we have at this time to work with.

Regardless of what the police found out about the Crowe roof hatchet, it really doesn't prove Lizzie innocent or guilty. An escaping murderer could have very plausibly tossed it up there (at least that is what the defense would claim), and don't forget, Lizzie was a nice, wealthy Christian Victorian woman.....the idea of her heaving a hatchet several dozen feet is inconceivable!

Like so many aspects of this case, we can never know definitely if this was the murder weapon. Good news for us is that we are not hampered by the rules of trial and the judicial system. We can apply our independent analysis, contemplation and then come up with our personal deductions and conclusions.

In this instance, I don't believe the hatchet was part of a hoax. With that as my starting point, how likely do I think it is that a new, but weathered hatchet with a 3 1/2" blade would be found on the roof of a neighbors barn 10ish months after the murders? Buttressed by the fact that the murder weapon was believed to be a hatchet w/ a 3 1/2 " blade and had not been found.

How did it get on top of the roof?
1) If put there by an escaping killer, cutting thru the pear orchard and keeping close to the barn to minimize being seen is the best route to take from the Borden home. If you glanced over and saw Lucy Collett on the porch at the Chagnon's, it makes sense that you would toss the hatchet up on the roof and walk casually out onto 3rd street. Fortunate for the killer, Lucy didn't see anyone exiting the pear orchard during her watch. Of course, I think unlikely that an 18 year old would be unflinchingly staring at the exact spot that the orchard and 3rd street intersect.
2) If tossed on the roof by Lizzie, that would fit within the 7-10 minute timeframe she had to kill, cleanup, dispose of the hatchet and call down Bridget. How do I know? A little embarrassed to admit it, but I have marked off the distances and timed the entire scenario multiple times. Lastly, Lubinsky saw a woman coming towards the side steps from the backyard at the time of the murder.

For me the Crowe Roof hatchet answers the question on how an intruder killer wasn't seen with a bloody hatchet running away from the scene and, if Lizzie was the killer, what did she did with the hatchet.

[leitskev]

Actually, pretty cool that you marked off the distances. I have a youtube channel with scripted podcasts, and I do some true crime. I think there's a lot we can learn from the Borden case that can be applied to other crimes, so I think the more serious people like you make these kind of contributions the better.

Did Jennings mention the Crowe hatchet in his papers?

[camgarsky4]

No. It seems like the majority of Jennings journals notations are from early fall '92. That said, there are a number of notations that are clearly from just before the trial. Doesn't seem to be any notations from during or after trial.

Same applies to the Knowlton papers. No mention of the Crowe hatchet episode.

If you haven't gotten the Jennings Journals.....I'll kick off a thread about Lizzie's 'visit' to New Bedford. Jennings Journals at least doubles our knowledge of what Lizzie did those days. Some potentially fascinating little tidbits.

Stay tuned....I'll post something tomorrow evening.

[leitskev]

Looking forward to it! Thanks