The Man From the Train

[leitskev]

Reading through an interesting book from statistician Bill James about a serial killer that hunted for years during the early 20th Century. He sifted through old news accounts and found many long-forgotten ax murder cases.

There's no reason to connect this to the Borden murders, but there are some interesting comparisons.

For example, the Calaway family murder in San Antonio in 1911. Husband, wife, 3 young children. One thing that puzzled everyone was why no one woke up. All were killed with the blunt end of a heavy ax. So police initially speculated the family had been poisoned so were unconscious when killed. No evidence of poison was found. But with this poison speculation sweeping through, a witness emerged. A saloonkeeper testified that Calaway had come into his saloon at 11PM that night and took a bucket of beer home. The newspapers started reporting this as a keep reveletion.

Of course the story makes no sense. Calway was not a drinker. His wife abstained. His children were 6, 3 and 5 months. It started pouring that night around 11pm. To buy into this witness account, you have to believe Calaway, who rarely drank, went out in the pouring rain, brought home a bucket of beer, along the way managing to let someone slip in poison, and then shared it with his abstaining wife and young children.

Bill James puts it this way: "People get very excited when an event such
as this occurs in their neighborhood, and they say all sorts of things that are not true."

It reminds us, of course, of the prussic acid.

There are numerous cases analyzed in James' book, and in almost every one there are witnesses like this. They report things that turn out to be impossible or extremely unlikely, but there reports fit a prevailing narrative, so they get believed, at least for a time. Sometimes these reports result in trials, and often those trials end up in acquittal since the evidence doesn't add up. Sometimes they even lead to someone innocent being executed.

It really does seem to be the norm in high profile cases that these types of witness emerge. Every case has its Eli Bence.

Some other interesting observations from these cases.

a) it's not at all unusual for a serial killer to demonstrate what looks like extreme anger and passion in destroying his victims. If the killer has time, he'll pulverize his victims, especially their faces, far beyond what is needed to kill. This might even be the norm, but certainly it is not at all unusual.

b) the man on the train was a very patient killer. He would lie in a barn watching the family for hours, in some cases all day(at least this is how James interprets the evidence). Once inside the house, he maintains his patience. He can kill and then wait for the next victim to enter the room, or if they are asleep he can calmly walk from one room to the next doing his work. His killings demonstrate both frenzy and calm patience at the same time.

I am not suggesting any of this means Lizzie didn't kill the Bordens. I've yet to find a case where a serial killer murders one person, waits around while leaving others in the home alone, murders again, while still leaving the other two alone.

Of course, there are also no examples that I know of where a woman with no history of violence, psychosis or substance abuse...a woman who was not poor or in extreme circumstances...kills in such a brutal way.

No matter what happened that day in Fall River, it was something extremely unusual, a case without parallel.

But I do think it's also instructive to look at these and other cases. Now, just as back then, we have a hard time processing evidence. As we start to buy into one narrative or another, this really colors how we interpret evidence and testimony. And we also are vulnerable to false witness testimony. It's because this is poorly understood. People lie, yes, but often a witness believes he's telling the truth, or they come to believe it.

[KGDevil]

There is one interesting case of a brutal female killer that is hardly ever mentioned today and that's the case of Maria Barbella. Maria was sentenced to die in the electric chair in 1895. The murder was born out of revenge and rage because her lover refused to marry her. She'd been born in Italy and her family came to the United States in 1892 to settle in New York. She became involved with a man named Domenico Cataldo who she passed every day on her way home from work. Maria was 23 years old at the time, but her parent's had forbidden her to see Domenico after she admitted that he had been pressuring her to be intimate with him. One night Dominico drugged Maria's drink and raped her. Maria was ashamed and afraid for her reputation. Dominico played on this by promising to marry her. He convinced her to move in with him but then he kept putting her off about marriage. They had been living together for three months by the day of the murder. That day the neighbors heard them fighting and Domenico stomped off to go to a saloon. He had told Maria that he was never going to marry her and that he was going to leave her for another woman. Maria followed him. She called him outside to confront him again about wanting him to marry her. He refused, saying something like "Only a pig would marry you", and then she slit his throat from ear to ear with a straight razor. The police were attracted to the scene by the commotion and people gathering to the spot. They found Maria talking to some women inside of a store and initially just took her as a witness. When they led her back to her apartment she threw some of her blood stained clothing out of the window. The police retrieved the clothing and put her under arrest for the murder. She had killed Dominico in front of everyone in sight in broad daylight. She was found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair after her first trial. There was an outcry over the outcome. Some were angry because they said he deserved it, others because she was a woman, and some because they thought there was an anti Italian sentiment in the verdict. Eventually, Maria was granted a second trial and declared epileptic and mentally ill due to what had happened to her. She was found not guilty. She married after, had one son named Frederick, and then her husband left her and went back to Italy.

[camgarsky4]

Good anecdotal example of the extremely unique nature and conditions for each of these hyper violent episodes.

[KGDevil]

Good anecdotal example of the extremely unique nature and conditions for each of these hyper violent episodes.

There are many stories of murderous women that are fascinating. Martha Place was another. She was the first woman to actually be executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in 1899. She murdered her step daughter Ida out of jealousy over the attention that her husband showed his daughter. She threw acid into Ida's eyes and then suffocated her with pillows. When her husband William came home she attempted to murder him with an axe but he managed to escape. Martha died in the electric chair on March 20, 1899. Her execution was pronounced "The best execution that ever occurred" at Sing Sing at the time. The contemporary accounts of some of these often forgotten murders are fascinating yet horrifying. The account of Martha's execution is pretty detailed. The axe murders that were referenced are also worth a read if anyone has access to them.