I read a very sad story today. Four people were killed and twelve were injured when a fire broke out yesterday at the Our Lady of Light community center at 218 County Street. Votive prayer candles, lit to celebrate a Portuguese religious feast, were the cause when they ignited crepe paper decorations.
Read the details and watch the TV news coverage of the catastrophe here.
Odd sales item. The auction title says it is A Visit with Lizzie Borden Evidence Bag. And it is rare. I’m intrigued. What could this mean? Oh, it says that it was a giveaway at a seance at the Lizzie Borden B&B. They give prizes at seances? What for? The most blood-curdling scream? The first one who sees the ghost of Abby? The person who can correctly guess who is making the most money off of this seance? At $15 and $5 shipping, I think the person selling this bag is the one who is trying to make the killing.
Ok, I have to admit I don’t play poker professionally or watch those poker shows on TV, except once in a while the Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo. But that is only because I like to see famous people compete with other famous people. And every once in a while you get to see some long-missed TV actor, someone who seemed to have disappeared and now reappears for an hour trying to win money for their charity du-jour.
I guess there is a market for Poker Chip Protectors (whatever that means) — so much so a guy is selling them on eBay! For only $3.99 you too can own one.
From the sale’s description: “Adhered to side A is the infamous photo of accused axe killer Lizzie Borden. On side B are the words I CHOP with blood dripping over the handle and blade of a short axe. Lizzie was acquited and the crime never solved so many think she had the ultimate POKER FACE. So protect your cards from the muck and scare off any would-be callers with this one of a kind card protector.”
My muck needs protecting? And this thing will do that? Sounds like voodoo to me.
Recently, a member of the Lizzie Borden Society Forum kindly shared with me that she had found a new forum on Lizzie Borden and was surprised to see that so much of the group’s content was copy/pasted from my web site LizzieAndrewBorden.com. I tried to contact the group’s owners but they didn’t reply to my query. I hate when that happens. And especially frustrating was the fact that most of the content lifted belonged to so many different authors. Here is a link to the discussion about it on our Lizzie Borden Society Forum.
What was extra bad about all this was the person who did all the cut and pasting was the group’s administrator! And this is the same gal who had posted in her rules section the following:
“4. No theft of ideas! Copyright infringement will be reported! This site and all of its content is legally copyrighted and this rule will be enforced! Get permission and give credit! ♥ Please respect copyrights and bandwidth - do not steal.”
I wrote MSNGroups about it asking that the content be removed, and linked to just those posts that were guilty. I fully anticipated that just those posts would be erased as there were other discussions that did not involve material from my site. However, after a few days, I went and took a look and the entire group was gone. I guess MSN does not take kindly to people who do such things.
Remember that Discovery Channel documentary about Lizzie Borden? The one that aired around Halloween in 2004 that had that fabulous to-scale dollhouse of 92 Second St? This was the show that used the Luminol testing, which was very controversial because it has been so long since the crimes. Well, while going through my Lizzie links I found that there is a site still online that shows pix from the filiming. 
That first image you see on their page one is of Professor of Criminology Tom Mauriello, the crime scene man from the University of Maryland who had the dollhouse built and uses it in the classroom. In fact, he is known for his dollhouse murder investigations! Former LA Detective and OJ case investigator Tom Lange is in the second image. This image is odd — it looks like the face to face meeting of two Andrews! Alternative universes converging?
Notice the director’s choice of positioning Lizzie as she carries out the killing in this one! Hmmm. I wonder where they got that idea!
As a shameless plug, this was the documentary that intereviewed both me and my sister Kat Koorey. If you look very closely, you might see the hives I had on my neck that day. Boy was I itchy in that sweater! My contribution to this documentary included my talking head and lots of long distance coversations with the producers regarding the case and who they should contact for which expertise. They already had Mauriello and Lange, but wanted to go into the incest theory, so I let them know who was who in that area. 
So they did indeed spray the cellar ceiling (and when you watch the movie you can see that the Luminol reacted to the wood, which was very cool). But they couldn’t pull up the carpet on the second floor so they didn’t do that. If you remember, they also sprayed the chimney area in the cellar and in the movie they got all excited at the amount of reaction they found there. 
When I saw that part of the film, I have to say I was not impressed. Luminol 
how many other families have lived in that house in the 114 years since the crimes? Plus, maybe the bowl’s use was in holding the slaughtered remains of chickens before dressed for dinner. There are simply too many variables in this old case to use Luminol after all these years to any degree of certainty. But I have to admit, it did make for good TV. 
