Why invent a story about - THE NOTE ?

[Steve887788]

Hi

[camgarsky4]

What do you think happened that morning? If she did get a note, who sent it?

[Steve887788]

Hi

[camgarsky4]

Sorry, I'm not following.

I think you might be suggesting that there was a note or verbal message, which the police suppressed and told the messenger 'boy' to not talk about it? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding and that is not what you are saying.

I am being sincere in my questions...as you know, I have been a 'lizzie did it' poster, but am very willing to switch my opinion.

[Steve887788]

Hi

[camgarsky4]

Just to make sure we are tracking with the documentation available....(per Bridget's testimony) Lizzie mentioned the note first to Andrew upon his return home from downtown and just moments before his murder. This initial mention is the basis for why some of us think she 'fabricated' the note story....AJB likely asked where Abby was and Lizzie kept him from looking for her by explaining she had gone out on a mercy mission to help a sick person. There is a very good possibility that Lizzie came up with the note excuse 'on the spot'.

A few minutes later, Lizzie mentioned the note again to Bridget to help explain why no one would be home if Bridget went shopping that afternoon and to lock the doors. The note was mentioned again to Dr. Bowen and I believe Churchill in the chaos of the next hour or so to explain why Lizzie went calling for Bridget and not Abby upon finding her dad.

I can't find anywhere in the witness statements that Lizzie ever told the police about the note. I believe her initial mention of the note to law enforcement was at the inquest. As you know, during the inquest she answered many questions about Abby's movements that morning with Knowlton badgering her hard on how Abby could have moved around without Lizzie's awareness. After a relatively lengthy # of questions of not surfacing the note, Lizzie then states that perhaps Abby was not in the house at all because she got a note to go help a friend.

My view is that Lizzie needed to avoid her dad looking for her step-mom for a number of hours. My POV is that Lizzie's "plan" was to kill AJB in the afternoon, but learning that Morse was coming to dinner sped up her timeline. Lizzie then used the same excuse to explain to Bridget why Abby wouldn't be home that afternoon. At that point, I believe the Note story took on a whole life of its own and Lizzie was stuck with it. Her apparent trepidation of mentioning at the inquest seems to imply that she would have preferred that it not be discussed. But no such luck.

[mysterium]

Did Lizzie ever say that she had seen the note? Or did she just say that Abby had told her about the note?

[camgarsky4]

Abby 'told' her about note.

[mysterium]

Thanks! Possibly Abby made up the story of the note because she didn't want anyone to know where she was going or how long it would take. Possibly going to a different doctor since she was so convinced she was being poisoned and Dr Bowen was just brushing her off. If there had been a note, I can easily see Abby burning it after reading it. She seemed to be a fastidious housekeeper and it's unlikely that she would keep something no longer needed lying around. Could the note have been sent by mail and not by courier?

If Lizzie was making it up on the fly, I doubt that she would be adding detail. What I don't understand is, if she had been planning this, why would she continue with it once John Morse showed up unexpectedly. She had no way of knowing what his plans were, when he would be at the house and when he planned to be away. It appears she made no attempt to communicate with him to try to get that information. When you look at it there were a lot of things out of the norm for that household going on that day. Things that Lizzie couldn't control and had no way of predicting. The more the moving parts the greater the probability of a imperfect outcome. Why would she continue with the plan?
* John Morse shows up unexpectedly on Wednesday. Lizzie had no way of knowing what his comings and goings were going to be
* Everyone (except John Morse) was sick. I know some think Lizzie was making the household sick in some way, so may not apply
* Andrew came home for dinner earlier than usual
* Andrew decided to take a nap in the sitting room (I assume not normal since Lizzie was futzing around trying to help him)
* Bridgett went to her room for a lie-down before preparing the noon meal No way of predicting time that Bridgett would come down to prepare
the noon meal
* Bridgett decided not to go out on her afternoon off
One might say this "unpredictability" played in her favor if she is guilty, but there was no way to know that, so why go full steam ahead?

[camgarsky4]

Mysterium -- a little feedback in red below. It would be interesting to go thru the same process noting the degree of pure luck an outsider would require to have committed these murders and not be seen by Lizzie, Bridget or anyone else. I sure seems that Lizzie had the opportunity and means to exercise more control over the Borden home that day than anyone else in Fall River. We all find ourselves picking apart every nuance and word of this case, but a baseline fact remains.......someone killed the Borden's that morning.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The more the moving parts the greater the probability of a imperfect outcome. Why would she continue with the plan?
* John Morse shows up unexpectedly on Wednesday. Lizzie had no way of knowing what his comings and goings were going to be. You'll note that Lizzie didn't come downstairs that morning until mere moments after Morse left. Presumably she assumed he was not returning, which matched with his intentions until AJB invited him back for lunch. If she eavesdropped on Morse/AJB talks night before (or that morning), she would have gotten no signal that he would be returning.
* Everyone (except John Morse) was sick. I know some think Lizzie was making the household sick in some way, so may not apply.
* Andrew came home for dinner earlier than usual.
* Andrew decided to take a nap in the sitting room (I assume not normal since Lizzie was futzing around trying to help him). Morse mentioned that AJB was lying in that very position on the couch when he arrived on the 3rd. So it would seem this was AJB's place to relax. We only have Lizzie telling us that she helped AJB that morning. Bridget made no mention of it.
* Bridgett went to her room for a lie-down before preparing the noon meal No way of predicting time that Bridgett would come down to prepare the noon meal. Per Bridget's testimony, taking a break up in her room after morning chores and preparing noon meal was not unusual.
* Bridgett decided not to go out on her afternoon. The murders happened and changed everyone's afternoon plans. When Lizzie mentioned a sale, Bridget actually implied that she might go buy some fabric.

[leitskev]

Steve's question is reasonable. There was no need for a note story in order to explain why Abby wasn't home. All Lizzie had to say was that she went out. Lizzie could say she assumed Abby was visiting her sister or shopping. Why come up with the note story?

The most probably explanation for inventing the note story is that Lizzie is not a criminal master mind. She didn't think things through very carefully. She didn't take the basic step of leaving the front door open after killing Andrew, which would have opened the possibility of an intruder escaping.

Is it possible someone really did send for Abby? Of course. It's just that no one stepped forward to claim having done so.

Reading these transcripts, it's apparent and even undeniable that some kind of stomach bug was sweeping through the city. The daughter at the Emery house was sick. A woman walking along Second street stopped in the yard next to the Bordens to relieve an upset stomach. There's at least one other incidence, though it escapes me now. Bridget and Lizzie got sick a day after the parents, which shows an incubation time of 24 hours, typical for a stomach bug. So it's not at all implausible that a friend of Abby's was sick.

But why didn't they come forward? That's a harder thing to explain, and I think the Bordens had a reward out for that person too. But no one came forward.

Where is the note? Well, the way these people burn trash, it's likely Abby would chuck it in the stove. Or maybe someone came to the door, told Abby of the request for aid, and Lizzie thought there was a note, but in reality it was just a verbal message.

But why wouldn't that person come forward? Why wouldn't the messenger come forward? For example, maybe the person who needed help died from their illness, so couldn't help Lizzie at the trial. But that still leaves the messenger.

Which leaves the possibility that the killer(if it was not Lizzie) used this ruse to try to get Abby out of the house. Not impossible, but a stretch. Getting Abby out would still leave Bridget and Lizzie in the house.

At the end of the day, in my mind the note is one of the most damning things against Lizzie. There is no way an innocent Lizzie invents something like this. So if there was no note or message sent to Abby, Lizzie is either guilty or complicit.

It's not something you can convict her on, since there's no way to prove it didn't exist. And yet it's in many ways the only thing that can't be explained away.

For example, the prosecutor leaned heavily on the burned dress. But Emma testified the dress was covered in paint; the dressmaker also testified about the paint-covered dress; and the dress was right there in the open when the police inspected. Testimony revealed the police inspection was VERY vigorous. They turned inside out each dress. No blood was found, and they believed Lizzie was the killer, so they were determined to find it. So for me, the dress proves nothing.

Lizzies inconsistent statements at the inquest reveal nothing. Memory is malleable, and the things she misremembered were trivial. Ask me where I was when the mailman came yesterday and I might give you 3 different answers.

I can explain away everything in the case...except the note. That one sticks.

[camgarsky4]

What is your view on the Prussic Acid purchase efforts?

[leitskev]

Lizzie said she had never been in the store. The pharmacist testified he had never seen Lizzie before that day. So to me, this angle is a dead end, and one easily dismissed.

Dr. Bowen told people that Abby had been in the day before suspecting someone was trying to poison them. So that rumor would have found its way into every nook and cranny of Fall River by the end of the day. Dr. Dolan send the milk out, and the stomachs from the autopsy, to be analyzed for poison.

Where do you go for poison in 1892? The drug store. So every clerk and pharmacist would have been asking themselves if Lizzie had ever been in their store to buy poison. And it's human nature to want to insert oneself into a big case. We see this in every big case. Thousands of crazy letters came to the Fall River prosecutors from all over the country. Witnesses testified to things that almost certainly were not true.

So:
1) there's no credible evidence Lizzie tried to buy poison
2) it's not surprising that someone emerges saying she did because of the rumor that swept the town
3) and if she did try to buy poison, there's no reason to think she wasn't intending to use it on her sealskin coat.

I just don't find witness statements to be compelling unless they are backed by physical evidence

What is more likely: a) Lizzie was trying to acquire poison to kill her parents, or b) the rumor of poison, which began with Abby and Dr. Bowen, resulted in wild speculation...which led to a druggist thinking Lizzie came in his store?

[camgarsky4]

There are a number of relatively recent threads on this topic that you might want to read.

[leitskev]

I've read the transcripts, so if I'm missing something please point it out. What part of my reply did you disagree with?

[camgarsky4]

Leitskev -- we are not on the same page on this topic (or the note).

If we ignore witness statements and focus on physical evidence, then it would seem case closed since there really isn't any forensic evidence tying Lizzie or anyone else to the murders. Should we ignore Bridget or Churchill's testimony?

The three witnesses (Bence, Kilroy & Hart) did not see or talk to Lizzie in the distance, at night or in the shadows, nor did the eye witness event occur weeks previously. The interaction occurred the previous day, in a lighted store, face to face and included conversation.

If we disregard their testimony, are we are suggesting they consciously decided to join forces to conspire against Lizzie? Or was it a case of group mistake which these gentlemen were willing to then go under oath to confirm?

It seems that if Abby's concern about being poisoned had spread throughout Fall River, that would assume Dr. Bowen had violated his doctor/client privilege.

All of this sets astride the fact that the Borden's were killed with a hatchet, not poisoned, so why would the three 'story fabricators' imagine dreaming up a prussic acid story would be of much interest to police? Why not tell the police that she stopped them out on the sidewalk and asked if they knew where she could find a hatchet?

Other 'validating' pieces of their statements:
*They mention the sealskin cape. Lizzie happens to own such an item.
*They put the time at 10-11:30. Lizzie has no verifiable alibi.
*GR Smith pharmacy is a 4-6 minute walk from the Borden house.

If they were wrong with any of these (or other) reference points, their testimony could and should be tossed aside. But there are zero refutable pieces to their testimony.

None of this touches on the strong likelihood that Lizzie made a similar attempt to purchase prussic acid previously in New Bedford. This possibility has been covered in detail on the recent threads about poison and the New Bedford visit.

[leitskev]

If everyone was always on the same page here, there wouldn't be a forum. Friendly disagreements are where the fun is! :)

I didn't say anyone should "ignore" witness statements. I said that witness statements that aren't backed by physical evidence are not compelling. And this case really highlights that. Officer(Fleet?) took pride in how detailed and specific his observations were. He testified Andrew's shoes were untied. The defense showed him a photo of Andrew on the couch. His shoes had an elastic edge. They didn't even have shoelaces! How did Fleet respond? He told the jury the photo was wrong.

The case is filled with examples. One cop testified there was no handle in the tool box, another said there was one. Churchill said Lizzie was wearing one type of dress, everyone else said she was wearing a different type(the type she turned over to the cops). Two cops remembered Dr. Bowen, after examining Abby's corpse, saying that she must have died of fright. One neighbor testified Lizzie could never have been in the yard or she would have seen her. An ice cream peddler saw Lizzie in the yard coming from the barn at the time Lizzie said she was. Some witnesses saw no one outside the Borden house, while other witnesses provided detailed descriptions of strange figures outside the house. Miss Eagan was so frightened by one she partially fainted, it seems.

A cop gave exquisitely specific detail about how he closely inspected the loft in the barn, and there were no footprints. He said no one could have been up there recently. But the defense found 3 or 4 reporters and 2 boys who testified to being up in that loft before the cops went in. Did the cop lie? Did he misremember? Was he pressured?

Witness accounts are very useful, but we should not conclude too much from witness statements that aren't backed by physical evidence.

Memory is extremely malleable. People can sincerely remember things that never happened. This is very well established now in experiment over the last few decades.

And also in a famous case, people like to insert themselves into the case. The Fall River Police received thousands of letters, some confessing to the crime, others claiming to have witnessed something.

Within hours of the murders, a rumor sweeps the city that Lizzie had tried to poison her parents. This comes from Dr. Bowen explaining Abby's visit the day before. Imagine Fall River. This case was so big that it's reported the factories emptied and work stopped for days. Everyone in the town was obsessed with what happened. It was the central drama of their lives and they understood that. Everyone wanted to be connected to it in some way. If a dozen or a hundred people had seen Andrew that day, no doubt thousands were saying they did. So with the poison rumor sweeping through, not surprising that a druggist emerges to say Lizzie tried to buy poison. When you look at these big cases, like the JFK assassination, people always emerge with stories. There's always a gunman on the grassy knoll, or mysterious explosions in the World Trade Center before the buildings fall. How many witnesses have come out to testify about those mythical explosions? A lot. But they never happened.

How do we know which witness accounts will prove true? Because sometimes they are. Well, it has to be backed up by other evidence. If not, it might be true or might be imagined. We just can't tell.

So Bence makes a statement to the police very early on, when Lizzie is still at home. He eagerly inserts himself into the case. The cops take him to the Borden house to take a clandestine peek at Lizzie and to listen to her. All of this happens when the cops are eager to prove Lizzie's guilt. Bence is eager to be an important figure and he's eager to please the police. He's never met Lizzie other than the one time she may have come in his store. Is it really surprising that he says what the police are hoping he'll say, and what he's hoping he'll conclude, that Lizzie was the woman?

But eventually the reports come back: no poison. At some point in this process, Bence gets two friends in the store to say, "yeah, it was Lizzie!" Are they lying? Maybe. Maybe not. But often the truth is in between. People don't usually want to think of themselves as a liar or as mistaken. Officer Fleet concluded the photo of Andrew on the couch with shoes without laces must be wrong, because he couldn't be wrong. People under pressure often say what someone else wants to hear.

In big cases, there is a narrative, and people rush to solidify it. It's human nature. This is how witch hunts occur.

With Bence, I admit the sealskin cape has always grabbed my attention. Is that coincidence? I don't know. Maybe a lot of wealthy women had these capes and had a problem with moths. Things that are fashionable in a given time are widely owned. If this was 1990 in Fall River, thousands of kids would have owned Air Jordans. If Lizzie wanted a sealskin cape, maybe it's because all the rich girls were getting one. Or maybe the fact she owned one was circulated by the police, who were searching her clothes THAT DAY. Police talk.

When I look at this case and other big ones, I always find witness statements that are verified by other witnesses and yet somehow turn out to be false.

As for Dr. Bowen...yeah, he talked, there was no patient confidentiality privilege, and his patients were murdered. Dr. Dolan sent the milk from that day to the lab along with the stomachs of the Bordens. They were LOOKING for poison. The autopsy was done in a house filled with cops and reporters. I am as certain that the poison rumor swept the city as I am certain that the Bordens were murdered.

One always has to look for seeming coincidences that might in fact be connected and meaningful. On the one hand, we have the rumor of poisoning sweep the city. On the other hand, no poison was found, but a druggist emerges to say someone like Lizzie came into his store. I think there's a good chance those things are connected, the rumor leading to the emergence of the witness.

As far as Lizzie's lack of alibi, she was home all day, like she was for most of her life. Emma was away. Abby and Andrew could not bear witness. Which only leaves Brigit. Did Brigit testify that Lizzie left the house that morning? Not that I know of.

Another drug store worker testified that a woman came in to buy prussic acid, but he could not remember what she looked like. And he also said they sold a lot of prussic acid.

I believe Bence said that they never sold prussic acid. I forget the exact words. Then why did they stock it? He was clearly trying to color his testimony to make it seem he could not be confusing some other woman. And THIS is exactly the problem with witnesses. The distort things, even their own memories, depending on what's needed.

Sorry to be all Jennings-long-winded!

For me, the prussic acid is a dead end. It might be meaningful, it might be meaningless, and these kinds of things come up in these big cases.

The essential problem in the Lizzie case seems unsolvable. Andrew's murder could have occurred no sooner than 11:57 when Bridget went upstairs. The police were called at 11:15. So Bridget was probably called down by Lizzie around 11:08. Maybe we can stretch it to 11:10. Bridget ran to Dr. Bowen's house, ran back, then ran off to fetch Alice. After Bridget ran off the second time, Chruchill came over. Then she sent someone to call the police. 11:15.

Within that 10 minute window(at most 10), Lizzie had to change shoes, stockings and dress, wash her hands, face and hair, hide her clothing, and hide the murder weapon. The impossibility of doing all this is why the case is still so much fun to debate after more than a century! It's hard to imagine Lizzie doing it, it's hard to imagine anyone else getting in and out to do it.

[camgarsky4]

Sorry, dropping off this thread.

[leitskev]

You decided to just post that?

I went through a similar discussion years ago with Possumpie. Who I respected as bright and knowledgeable on the case. However, she had some conclusions that I didn't find relevant. I remember, for example, that it was very meaningful for her That Lizzie changed her answer several times when asked where she was when Andrew came home. I found...and find...that testimony completely meaningless. My dad pulled into the driveway three days ago to visit. I heard the car. Where was I when I heard it? In the bathroom? Living room? Kitchen? I have no idea.

To me, the importance of looking at this case is how we should view evidence, especially witnesses. Mrs. Churchill testified Lizzie was wearing a different dress, a light blue one. Everyone else testified she was wearing a dark blue one. But when Mrs. Churchill was asked to remember the dress, by then she had already been swept up by the Lizzie-did-it narrative, which almost certainly colored her memory of the dress.

We see that even a century later. Possum, convinced that Lizzie is guilty(and I am not saying she's wrong), now interprets a lot of facts as more meaningful than they otherwise would be. Should Lizzie remember exactly where she was when Andrew came home? Was she in her bedroom but moving toward the stairs? Was she on the stairs? Had she already come down the stairs? Why should she remember exactly?

Bridget's testimony that Lizzie was upstairs and laughing at Bridget's cuss...is that meaningful? To the Lizzie-did-it crowd, they see Lizzie upstairs, guarding the room where Abby lay dead, and psychotically waiting for her next kill, euphoric and giggling. To the Lizzie-didn't-do-it crowd, the laughing might reveal innocence, an indication of someone who has no idea someone has been killed. For me, it's just more witness testimony that doesn't really shed light one way or the other.

Lizzie was indicted because of Alice's testimony about the burning of the dress. But the defense rebuttal ended up being fairly convincing. Emma testified the burning came at her suggestion and she had first suggested it weeks ago. OK, maybe she's defending her sister. The dressmaker testified the dress was indeed paint covered. The police testified that they examined every dress and turned each one inside out looking for blood, but found none. Apparently that dress was hanging on a nail in the open. How do we interpret this? I don't know. On the surface, it seems weird that she burns a dress. But these people didn't use trash, they burned everything. Why burn it in broad daylight with cops hovering around? At the end of the day, it's hard to draw conclusions, because humans do odd things. Morse memorized the streetcar number and the badge number of the conductor. I don't recall that fact bothering Possum. It didn't fit her narrative, so she chalked it up to eccentricity. Couldn't the same logic apply to the dress burning? Just an odd and poor decision?

Witness testimony matters, of course, it just can't be relied on.

[Steve887788]

Hi

[camgarsky4]

Just a few thoughts, clarifications, questions.....

1) If Bence, Kilroy & Hart were just getting their 15 minutes, then we must believe they intentionally lied under oath (perjury) knowing that the outcome might be that the defendant would be executed. That doesn't seem like a stretch? But thinking they were telling the truth does?
2) Lizzie kept a dress w/ spots of paint around the hem for over 3 months...could have been burned or otherwise discarded anytime before Aug. 7th. However, she selects the very morning after being told she is a suspect in the murders to burn the dress in the kitchen. Bridget had moved out of the house the previous day for good, so that Sunday morning was the first day Bridget wasn't stationed in the kitchen. If a dress with dark spots (paint, blood, mud, whatever) was openly hanging in the closets during the search, it would have been taken to the police station for testing as were other articles like carpet, clothes, wood trim, axes. That is the purpose of a search for evidence. Lastly, what does broad daylight have to do with anything if the police are outside and you are inside? Lizzie may have just committed double murder, pretty sure she had the visual talents to be aware if a policeman is staring in the window as she put more of the dress in the fire. The police never said they saw her doing it. I personally think that the dress probably had little or no blood since she was covered by other items during both murders. However, when you now KNOW you are a suspect, paranoia would kick in and worrying about things like the dress would be very natural.
3) This issue has been covered ad nauseum, but there is ZERO contemporary documentation that Morse recalled any street car #'s or badge #'s. Folks mention they have read the transcripts and contemporary information, but then they toss this myth out and make declarative statements built upon it. Makes one think that perhaps they might consider going back and reread the case documentation more thoroughly.
4) If my dad was slaughtered in his home, while I'm inside the same home, I would have relived what happened that day, over and over and over again. Who or how did it happen(if innocent) or how to explain (if guilty). How close did I come to being killed..etc etc etc.
I'm totally on board that, innocent or guilty, recollections that occurred during the most frenetic and stressful time of your life might include errors of sequencing and accuracy of vague details (dress color).
5) I find Lizzie's inquest testimony exceedingly useful in efforts to reconstruct what happened inside that house that morning. It sheds a huge amount of light on what happened August 4th. If you are able to reconstruct what happened, then that would be a huge influence on an opinion regarding her innocence or guilt.
6) Possum Pie is of the male gender.

[camgarsky4]

Deleting duplicate post.

[Reasonwhy]

Just to add that the first floor windows were many feet off the ground. One could not, from directly outside them, see anything of what was happening inside them. If one were to go a further distance from the house, then perhaps something of the inside might be seen—but with a correspondingly smaller, less distinct view. Logically, then, Lizzie was safe from police seeing what she was doing; and, I believe, she knew it.
Alice’s remark referred to Alice herself seeing Lizzie’s incriminating action, and was Alice objecting to being put in that position of knowledge.
Camgarsky, such a pleasure to be reading your analyses again!

[camgarsky4]

Hi Reason! Thrilled to see you are still keeping an eye on the forum. I took a little break to do some deep dive research on lots of these characters. A number of them had really fascinating lives or at least episodes.

[Steve887788]

Hi

[camgarsky4]

Not sure what you are doing....

[Steve887788]

My question was answered -

[mbhenty]

This post has been removed.

[mbhenty]

The post above was removed since the recipient of it's content is no longer a member of the forum, thus, unable to defend him/herself.

[camgarsky4]

Ciao

[leitskev]

"1) If Bence, Kilroy & Hart were just getting their 15 minutes, then we must believe they intentionally lied under oath (perjury) knowing that the outcome might be that the defendant would be executed. That doesn't seem like a stretch? But thinking they were telling the truth does?"

Most of the time when witnesses are not telling the truth in these big cases they are not consciously lying. They THINK they are telling the truth. For example, the cop here that insisted Andrew's shoes were untied and was then shown a photo at trial which showed the shoes had no laces. He insisted the photo was wrong. I doubt that cop was lying. Another example would be the police testimony about the floor of the barn loft.

Just glancing at the witness statements here...or in the JFK murder...one quickly finds many discrepancies. And I'm not just talking about situations where someone misremembers, but examples where witnesses claim to have seen things that they really could not have. Are these people consciously lying? Not usually.

Human memory is not only prone to error, it is prone to manufacturing details that weren't even there, such as Andrew's shoelaces. There's been a lot of really interesting scientific work done over the last 30 years on this phenomena.

In the case of Bence, there are a lot of factors at play. This was the biggest event in the lives of the people of Fall River. There is a powerful need to be a part of events. There would have been all kinds of rumors about Lizzie, most of them false, most of them unknown to us now because they were not documented. That's just the nature of a big event. Everyone is playing the telephone game. As those rumors sweep the city, everyone is saying to themselves, "hey, maybe I saw something weird too!" So you get testimony about strange people hanging around outside the house. Maybe there were, maybe they weren't. It can't be given too much weight.

These two facts, side by side, are what make me highly skeptical of the Bence testimony.
1) Mrs. Borden reported a suspicion of the family being poisoned to Dr. Bowen the day before
2) no poison was found in the home or on the bodies.

So on the one hand you have a rumor of attempted poisoning sweeping the city(and I'm not sure why you would doubt that), and on the other hand no physical evidence of poison was ever found. That's exactly the conditions in which you would expect false witness testimony to emerge.

As far as reading the trial excerpts, you really should calm down, dude. The testimony from the inquest and the trials is a very large volume of material. For one to read every line, memorize it, take extensive notes...that's an enormous undertaking. Who...does...that? Last night I was looking for testimony that I was sure I'd read from one of the witnesses. It took me 2 hours to locate it back in the inquest testimony. It turned out my memory was completely accurate in this instance, but it isn't always, and this is very time consuming. I have not been reading forum threads for years, so there might be discussions I miss. And yes, I usually do search the forum for a thread, but that can be time consuming too. Lighten up. All the characters are dead. I've got things wrong, but so have you, though I respect your extensive knowledge here. You recently didn't know there was a sink room in the kitchen. I've since showed you the map of the house. Lizzie's not on trial any more, and neither am I.

[camgarsky4]

Leitskev -- it has been a couple weeks and I was thinking maybe things would cool off.....that is why I posted to your Coggeshall post with just the facts.

So it is clearly best that I avoid responding to your posts because we are wasting each others time. That is the best way I can "calm down" or "lighten up".

Best of luck with your podcast.