What a nuisance it must have been

[Harry]

That screen door.

Just think that when locked with that hook, everytime somebody wanted in somebody else would have to go and unhook it, and when anyone left by that door someone else would have to follow and rehook it.

At least the front door, when the locks were working properly, allowed a person with a key to enter without disturbing anyone else.

The screen door hook would not deter a determined thief from entering so I fail to see its use for that purpose.

Perhaps the screen door had a faulty catch or was hung improperly and would open by itself unless hooked. However, I have never heard of anything along that line.

[prussicacid]

Certainly Bridget had a lot of trouble opening it when Pa Borden returned after his morning walk, so it was definately locked rather than broken after a forced entry by a mythical intruder.

[Audrey]

That hooked screen door would have been a huge pain...

The locks must have been a nuisance to all who lived or had business at that house.

When my Alax was little we lived on a busy through street where the stoop of the house was directly connected to the sidewalk. There was no yard in front, only cement. To be extra cautious we chain locked the front door up high and what a pain it was.... Neither of us could come in without ringing the bell....

[Kat]

Yes, it sounds like the hooking meant that someone always knew about someone's business.
It's a way to always know if someone were in or out because you could always ask...

This is the side door, right?
There's no screen on the front door.

[theebmonique]

Yes, I believe so Kat. There was no screen door on the front door when I was there, nor have I have heard of one ever being there...only the side door.


Tracy...

[Audrey]

It has been my experience that in America it is far more common for even total strangers to ring or knock at a side or back door than the front door of a home. Has this always been the case? I still tend to knock/ring on a person's front door unless I know them well and know they prefer me to use the back door.

In Iowa, it is not unusual at all for someone to expect guests to enter their attached garage and knock on that door! (This secretly scandalizes me)

[john]

I think the point here is, why couldn't someone hear Andrew when he initially went to the side door and found it hooked. Bridget would have had to have been only one room away, and if washing inside windows, a 50-50 chance she even would have seen him coming. We can't be certain where Lizzie was.
What if Bridget was upstairs?
A new twist?

[Kat]

Lizzie said she was in the kitchen when her father came home. So, if she was, she was closest to let him in, which she didn't. He had to be directed to the front door for some reason.
I wonder if it was good or bad for *the plan* that he was seen by Mrs. Dr. Kelly? Maybe the plan was that he be witnessed trying to get in.

[john]

Ya, I forgot. According to Lizzie's altered testimony, she was right near the back door.
If she was in the kitchen then who laughed from upstairs?

[john]

Wo - Kat. If nobody noticed him coming home, then the times of death could have been misconstrued. I hope you see what I'm saying and I don't have to go into it.

[Kat]

Yes I was thinking that.
It was pretty hard for people to see Borden household people that day even tho there were people hanging out all over the place and Mrs. Dr. Bowen was checking out her window for her daughter occasionally that forenoon.

It's a fluke that Mrs. Dr. Kelly saw Andrew- does it help the plan? It would seem to help the plan if either girl was also seen outside or either girl was actually somewhere else- so it seems like it would hurt the plan- except that it seems as if Andrew was directed to the front door.

I had had a theory that Andrew never went upstairs that day after he arrived home and he was directed to the front door to keep him downstairs and away from the back hallway where his stairs to his room were.

Possibly someone was in his room searching it and stayed too long and thus was Bridget set at the sitting room window to keep an eye out for him under pretext of washing the inside of the window.

[john]

I'd think that the only things of value in the senior Borden's room would be in the safe. Not likely that anyone but andrew would know the combo, but who knows - he may have written it down for Abby and someone snatched it. The nail in their room keyhole was simply an appearance of breakin, so maybe something was then missing from the safe which Andrew couldn't say about, but then why leave his room key on the mantle if he knew someone could get into the safe?
It would make more sense to leave the key on the mantle as a warning, that saying, "if somebody goes into that safe again the pidgeons necks will look heavenly."
So Andrew not being abled to get into his house because he was using the wrong key or because of senility doesn't make sense. He probably had hundreds of keys because of all the property he owned, and seemed to be getting along just fine. Someone was trying to keep him out of his house for a time and they did.
The perfect crime meanders on.
Interesting you used the word "fluke." A guy won $ 1,250 the other night and told me it was just a "fluke."
Fluke or not he's twelve fifty up.

[Kat]

Yes the safe would be a good suspicious place for the perp to be fooling around. The nail in the keyhole earlier in 1891 could have been put there to try to prove to Andrew that there wasn't another key to his bedroom- but maybe there was.

That desk in there had been rifled in that same robbery. Maybe the perp was narrowing down where important papers might be kept.

The safe took at least 2 days I believe, to open after the murders.

I wouldn't say the safe was broken into in 1891 but a first attempt might have been made by someone really curious who had heard rumors? After all, the elder Bordens were in Swanea, out of town at the time.

Keeping Andrew from going upstairs always seemed to me likely- and the safe is the important thing up there that we know about. Andrew still had the contents of his pockets on him and I had figured when he came home if he had gone upstairs he would have put his pocket contents in his room.

[Audrey]

With A&A out of town a person who would not arouse suspicion being in the house could spend hours trying various combinations on that safe... (someone with a lot of patience) Or they might have found a slip of paper with the combination on it.

AND if there was a will there at the time and it was destroyed-- Would Andrew have noticed? Would he have checked all the contents from time to time or would he assume the will was in the envelope it always had been-- or that the sheets of folded paper was indeed the will he placed there? A cunning perp could have left the cash or other valuables intact to make it appear at first glance that all was "safe" in the safe.

[john]

Did anyone else besides Lizzie ever mention the nail in the keyhole? Was it on the police report of the incident, and was the nail found there the actual time the room was broken into?
It always seemed to me to be a ruse, and as said above, it would make sense if the room was entered by key, and the nail was stuck in afterword.
You couldn't get into any lock with one nail, possibly if the keyhole was large enough you could with two nails, but then why take one of the nails away, and leave one? Also, police are smart on things like this, and a quick look into the keyhole would tell if someone who knew what they were doing had opened the lock with pointed objects. Also, was the door found again locked after the event? It would be just as difficult to lock it again as it was to open it, so the whole nail thing seems pretty unlikely to me at least.
I always wondered how Lizzie, or perhaps her Father, thought that the thief could be caught by him or her using the railroad tickets. If the railroads kept such detailed records, were any of the stolen tickets ever used? It would seem the best they'd be abled to come up with would be what line they were used on.
I never understood if the tickets were for trollies, or city to city travel, or???

[Edisto]

The tickets stolen were actually free passes issued to Mr. Borden as a director of the streetcar company. They were for the local horse-car line. I've always assumed there was only one such line in Fall River, but maybe I shouldn't have. They were distinctive and different from ordinary tickets that were for sale and were thus easy to trace. This is from Rebello, pages 35-36. A newspaper article quoted by Rebello says several people presented the tickets and were asked how they came to have them. They reported that Lizzie Borden was the donor. (New Bedford Evening Standard, 11/22/92)

[Kat]

In The Knowlton Papers, #HK067, we find a letter to Pillsbury from Knowlton which states in part that the enclosed report has:
"...all the facts the police had in regard to the burglary."

"Enclosure":

"On or about the 24 of June 1891 I Was called into City Marshal's office.
'Marshal Hilliard said "Mr Desmond, Mr Borden says his house has been robbed. You go with him, and see what there is to it." Mr Borden and myself left the office and went direct to Mr Borden's house Second St. I found there Mrs Borden, Emma Borden Lizzie Borden & Bridget
Sullivan.

On 2nd floor in a small room on north side of house I found Mr Borden's desk. It had been broken open. Mr Borden said "$80.00 in money and 25 to 30 dollars in gold, and a large number of H car tickets had been taken. The tickets bore name or signature of Frank Brightman."
Brightman was a former treasurer of Globe St. railroad co.

Mrs. Borden said "her gold watch & chain, ladies chain, with slide & tassel attached, some other small trinkets of jewelry, and a red Russia leather pocket-book containing a lock of hair had been taken. I prize the watch very much,
and I wish & hope that you can get it; but I have a feeling that you never will." Nothing but the property of Mr & Mrs Borden reported as missing.

The family was at a loss to see how any person could get in, and out without somebody seeing them. Lizzie Borden said "the cellar door was open, and someone might have come in that way." I visited all the adjoining houses, including the Mrs Churchills house on the north, Dr Kelly's house on the south, Dr Gibbs house & Dr Chagnon's house on the east,
and made a thorough search of the neighborhood to find some person who might have seen someone going, or coming from Mr Borden's house; but I failed to find any trace.

I did get a 6 or 8 penny nail which "Lizzie Borden said she found in the Key hole of door," leading to a sleeping room on 2nd floor, east end of building. So far as I know this robbery has never been solved.

P .S. Mr Borden told me three times within two weeks after the robbery in these words "I am afraid the police will not be able to find the real thief."'"

"(Note: 'Capt. Desmonde' and 'Robbery Case' handwritten in lead and ink respectively on reverse side of document)."

[Kat]

More on the robbery, to collect it in one place:

The *information* about Lizzie and the tickets came around the time of the grand jury [Note Edisto's reference to the date Nov. 22) I think it was Marshal Hilliard who either leaked the information, had the info attributed to him, or it was made up by the press, because grand jury proceedings are secret always.

Later, when Alice told the State officially in letter form the story of Lizzie's visit to her on Wednesday evening, the story of the robbery came out. The letter is dated June 2nd, 1893.

Excerpt from #HK212, The Knowlton Papers, written by Alice Russell to Mr. Moody:

"She [Lizzie] added I expect nothing but that the house will be burned down over our heads. I don't know just what I said but she answered by saying 'Well they have broken into the barn twice anyhow.' I said yes, but of course they were after pigeons, it couldn't be they were after anything else. She answered, 'they have broken into the house in broad daylight with Emma Maggie & me in the house.' I said I never heard of that before. She said 'no father forbid our telling it.' I asked her about it and her story was this, as near as I can remember:

'Mrs. Borden's things in her dressing room were ransacked, and her gold watch & chain, money & cartickets were taken.' I think she told me there was something else taken but I can't remember just what. I think a pin or a charm. They also found a nail in the key hole. She told me her father reported it to the police but they didn't find anybody. She said 'father thought they might catch them by the tickets. Lizzie remarked 'just as if anybody would be foolish enough to use those tickets.' She also told me about seeing a man run around the house one night. I asked her if she didn't think it was Maggie's company, but she hardly thought so."