Mondo Lizzie Borden

I love plays about Lizzie Borden. There have been many, by the way. Now there is a new one to add to the oeuvre.

The East Lynne Theatre Company in Cape May, New Jersey is presenting a world premiere play about Lizzie Borden!

Lizzie Borden Live. Written and performed by award winning NYC actor Jill Dalton and directed by Fall River born Jack McCullough.

August 1 through September 1.

For ticket information, visit the East Lynn Theatre Company website.

Here is a lovely photo of Lizzie at Maplecroft from the production. Doesn’t Jill Dalton resemble Lizzie? I certainly think so.

If you have ever seen the Ghosthunters TV show on the Sci-Fi channel you know who TAPS are/is. TAPS stands for (I think) The Atlantic Paranormal Society. They have an office now in Fall River where they publish their print magazine TAPS Paramagazine.

The current issue, July 2007, has a Lizzie Borden article in it you might not want to miss.

LIZZIE BORDEN
On August 4, 1892 around 9:30 a.m., Mrs. Abby Borden received 18 blows to her head with an axe while changing the sheets in her guest bedroom. About an hour and a half later, her husband Andrew returned home and, unaware of his wife’s butchered body lying upstairs began to take a nap on his settee. Within minutes, he received 10 deadly strokes, also to the face and head. Rudy Simone takes us through the likely suspects, the trial, and the mystery still surrounding the Borden case today.

Very well done graphics!

Also, just learned from this issue that demonologist Ed Warren has passed away. They call him “the late Ed Warren” so I guess that is what it means. I am sad. I fondly remember reading the book about Ed and Lorraine Warren called The Demonologist and being scared to death. Really scared. Like I had never been scared before scared.

Just found the obit for Ed Warren:

Ghost hunter and self-styled “demonologist” Ed Warren, 79, died August 23, 2006, at his Monroe, Connecticut, home. Ed and his wife, alleged clairvoyant Lorraine, made a business of spirits–particularly sinister ones. The Warrens operated something they called the New England Society for Psychic Research with Ed as director. The pair were called many things, ranging from “passionate and religious people” to “scaremongerers” and “charlatans.” (See Jodi Duckett, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, November 5, 1991.)

Have you ever received an email from some Nigerian businessman or foreign government employee who requests your assistance in helping him to free up the millions he has tied up in red tape and when you do he will share the loot with you?

Of course you have. We all have.

Sometimes when people get these fraudulent solicitations they reply and turn the tables on the scammers. This is called scambaiting.

For one such exchange, the scambaiter used the identity of Lizzie Borden to ferret out the fraud. It is a remarkable read.

Take a peek here.

The August 2007 issue of The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies has been placed ONLINE.

This issue is JAM packed with interesting articles—and I really mean jam packed! The new issue runs a whopping 120 pages!

And it includes news, information, and images not published elsewhere on the newly discovered Emma Borden’s years at Wheaton Seminary School. Lizzie Borden Society Forum member and Borden historian Shelley Dziedzic and I spent two days doing research at Wheaton and found some really wonderful things you won’t want to miss.

Plus we have some fabulous pieces on Fall River History by Neilson Caplain, Bill Goncalo, and Michael Brimbau. Other pieces are included by Borden historians and forum members— Kat Koorey, Harry Widdows, Sherry Chapman, Richard Behrens, Denise Noe, Douglas Walters, and Melissa Allen.

Not a subscriber? It only costs $20 for a year’s worth of issues of The Hatchet, and you have access to that entire year’s issues no matter when you subscribe during that calendar year. So if you join us today, you can download all previous issues of 2007 immediately. Remember, there is one more issue to go this year!

Sound interesting? You can read more details about the August issue and subscribe here.

Subscribers, you can download your copy immediately and/or view a slideshow of the magazine here.

Happy reading!

Stefani Koorey
Editor and Publisher
The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies

I am not the first to blog about the mistake by the Fall River Herald News in this morning’s paper. That credit goes to Shelley Dziedzic (hear that Herald News, that’s S-H-E-L-L-E-Y) on her site Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts. However, I may just be the only one with the image and the solution as to just who this person is.

The Fall River Herald News had this as their front page this morning:

Notice anything funky? Yes, that photo on the left that says under it “Andrew Borden.” That isn’t Andrew Borden. How could they be so wrong? Don’t they proof the images they print? I see they took him off their online version of the story and replaced it with an image of Lizzie. How nice. Now what to do about the thousands of print copies that are all over town?

Apparently this is big news. Newspapers from as far away as Florida are calling Borden historian Len Rebello to ask him what he thinks of this “newly discovered image.” Of course, he told them it wasn’t Andrew. Anyone can see it isn’t Andrew.

So who is this guy and how did he make it into print?

The mystery as to who the man is has been solved by Michael Brimbau, who accurately remembered where he had seen that face before. Check out page 521 of Philip Silvia’s Victorian Vistas: Fall River, 1901-1911. There he is plain as day.

Who is that man? None other than the author Silvia’s grandfather, Frank M. Silvia, from a Fall River Daily Herald article from September 3, 1907.

Now ain’t that a kicker the day before the day before the murders in Fall River? Poor Andrew. Killed in life and now killed in the press.