Mondo Lizzie Borden

Here is a quick update regarding the Alice Russell house.

Alice Russell was Lizzie Borden’s friend. Alice was the first person Lizzie sent Bridget for after the doctor was not at home that fateful day in 1892. Alice stayed the night with Lizzie and Emma on August 4-5, and it was Alice who spoke out to the grand jury about Lizzie burning a dress a few days after the murders. It was Alice’s last minute testimony to the grand jury that prompted them to issue their indictments.

Now the Alice Russell house, the home she lived in for many years in her adulthood, is slated for demolition. Not for progress, but for a parking lot. The house is over 120 years old and dates from the 1880s.

Save Our Neighborhoods is meeting with SouthCoast Hospital group in early January to express our desire to see Charlton Hospital build their parking lots up instead of out, thereby avoiding the elimination of entire blocks of single and multiple family homes. The destruction of the neighborhoods is the prime focus of the meeting. It includes the Russell house because that house is on this block, slated for demolition.

Al Lima and I will be present at the meeting with SouthCoast’s VP of Marketing and Public Affairs. I will let you all know how it goes.

If any of you would like to submit letters of support in this regard, please mail them to me at : PearTree Press, P.O. Box 9585, Fall River, MA 02720. You can address the recipient in the letters as SouthCoast Health System.

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Join in the discussion on the Alice Russell house here.

While browsing through magazines at a bookstore recently I happened upon an article on the Lizzie Borden case. It appears in issue No. 70 of Murder Most Foul, “Britain’s No. 1 True Crime Quarterly.”

This sort of thing happens pretty frequently, as more and more magazines, journals, books, and online sources discover Miss Lizzie Borden and find her story worthy of telling.

This one appears on page 46. The short 13 paragraph, half-page summary of the case averages almost an error every paragraph, with some “new” facts presented as well. The most interesting reconfiguration is this:

“The trial received huge national publicity and became a landmark in media coverage of legal proceedings. One newspaper even made up an advertising jingle that entered popular culture as a playground rhyme: ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done she gave her father 41.’”

The doggerel was not created as an advertising jingle, but, instead, was invented by an unknown person after the murders and was supposedly sung or chanted outside the courthouse where Lizzie was on trial for the murders in 1893 in New Bedford, MA.

Link to the magazine’s site.

Here is another high production value short video on the Lizzie Borden case. This one is by Jaime Arvizu, a digital design student at Vancouver Film School.

He had eight hours to make the video and prove Lizzie Borden innocent.

During the last slam I had the opportunity to work with Iván Cruz, Ed Ferguson and Rae Aberdeen, our mission: to prove Lizzie Borden was innocent of the murder of her parents, to find the real murderer and finally to make a small piece to show the audience what really happened on the famous case of the Hatchet Murders, all this in only 8 hours…

at the end of the day we won the slam! both the audience and the judge’s choice awards. Enjoy!

Lizzie Borden was innocent from Jaime Arvizu on Vimeo.

Link.

In a short video by Max Wu posted on vimeo.com, Emma Borden confesses to murdering Andrew and Abby Borden.

It is really well done. You have to see it!

Lizzie Borden from max wu on Vimeo.

Link.

I had heard this was in the works a few months ago. It now seems certain. Kewl!

By Will Richmond
Herald News Staff Reporter

Fall River —

Despite immense pressures and at times suffering through controversies, the commonwealth’s Superior Court system has aged rather gracefully.

With thousands of cases heard and too many verdicts handed out to even count, Bristol County law officials announced plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Superior Court with a series of events planned for 2009.

With cases that have captured the attention of people beyond even the commonwealth’s borders, the county’s role in the state’s Superior Court system offers a full array of cases that will be brought back to the bench.

Events for the commemoration, which will continue throughout the year, include a mock trial that will re-examine the legendary case of Lizzie Borden, with the audience this time determining the outcome.

The Borden case, backed by its popular interest will be held at all three Bristol County Superior Court houses, with the first scheduled to take place Sept. 24 in New Bedford.

Other events include a series of symposiums based on past cases, including the last public hanging in Bristol County, cases related to the 1874 Fall River Great Mill Fire, the Big Dan trial and the Watuppa Water Rights cases from 1889.

The events, organizers said, will also pave the way for educational opportunities for students and the general public not traditionally available.

Link to the article in the FRHN.

Today’s Fall River Herald News. Emma and I made the front page!

Click the images for larger versions.

Turns out, facial hair styles have names. Andrew Borden’s facial hair, which remained pretty much the same throughout his life (as evidenced in his photographs), sported what was called a “Jawbristle.”

CLICK ON BEARD POSTER IMAGE TO SEE FULL SIZE.

Link.

There is a sucker born every minute. Evidence? The poor joes who fell for these recent ebay auctions.

The bloody clock sold for $550
The breadmaker/icepick/cup sold for $500
The jury photo sold for a whopping $1600

WOW!

Use the cursor to make her look up and down and side to side!

This is using my colorized Lizzie Borden (it took literally 10 hours to do this color image!). I think it works better than the black and white images below. What do you think?

Move the cursor to make her follow you!

Ok, now move the cursor and watch her follow it!

Creepy, huh?

A quick update on the Green Street house in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Emma Borden, Lizzie’s Borden’s sister, was visiting the Brownell family there on August 4, 1892, the day her father and stepmother were murdered in Fall River—-and thus had an iron-clad alibi as to her whereabouts that fateful day.

Fairhaven is 16.7 miles away from the Second Street house in Fall River.

The house has been in disrepair of late and was recently sold. The building is in really good shape, however, and the new owner is starting the restoration/renovation. These photos were taken on Monday, November, 24, 2008.

I will post further developments as they happen to the old gal. She deserves the best.

A few new auction items caught my eye today. They are being sold on eBay as a LiveAuction, which means you have to register for the sales through the auction house that is selling the items.

There is one really cool item and the rest are without provenance, and therefore probably hooey.

Up for your consideration:

1. The Bloody Clock. This item appeared for sale many years ago with the bold assertion that this ceramic timepiece was on the Borden mantle at 92 Second Street on that fateful day in August of 1892. The red stuff on the clock is the blood of Andrew Borden that spattered there as he was murdered. If you believe this, please, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Lizzie Borden: A Mantle Clock Purportedly from the Murder Room, with Red Spatters Said to be the Blood of the Victims. By oral tradition this clock was obtained from the Fall River Police Department many years ago. A label on the inside, which would appear to date from c. 1930-1950, carries the handwritten notation: “Clock from the famous Lizzie Borden estate after the trial in 1892. The blood spots never left.” To the consignor’s knowledge, the blood deposits have never been analyzed in a laboratory.

The clock itself is a hollow, glazed ceramic piece, height 13.5″, with no maker’s markings. However, the style appears consistent with that era. The sketchy provenance requires a bit of a leap of faith, but if it can be matched to a crime scene photo, or if a laboratory analysis confirms the blood spatter, the purchaser may claim a real coup!

Starting bid: $500

2. Lizzie’s Kitchen Stuff. This lot has also been up for sale previously. They state the items were from Maplecroft, Lizzie’s home on the hill. However, there is zero provenance on these pieces, and instead, some sort of surety that you can trust they are what they say they are. Buyer beware!

Lizzie Borden: Three Items Owned by Borden or her Family.
(1) A bucket-sized brass or copper dough maker which was found in Lizzie Borden’s home, Maplecroft, where she resided from 1893 through 1927.
(2) An ice pick found in the home during its 1995 renovation.
(3) A silver plated child’s cup engraved with the name “Emma.” Emma was Lizzie’s elder sister who lived with her from 1893 through 1905.

All three items were displayed in the now-closed Lizzie Borden Museum in her former home, and come with signed certificates of authenticity from George E. Quigley, president of the International Lizzie Borden Association and a former curator of the museum.

Starting bid: $500

3. The Jury. Now here we have something of true value and importance. A very large glass plate photograph of the Borden Jury! Very cool!

Lizzie Borden’s Jury of 1893: Mammoth Plate Photograph, image measures 16.50″ x 11.75″, in a period gilt frame 26.75″ x 22.50″. Lizzie Borden’s jurors posed in this photograph, taken by O’Neil, New Bedford (Ma.) bottom right lower corner. These are the twelve jurors that were chosen of the 145 polled. They tried and acquitted her for the axe murders of her farther and step-mother in 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Although Lizzie Borden was acquitted, she was widely believed to be guilty; no one else was ever arrested or tried for the murders. Borden died in 1927. These huge photos were reportedly distributed to the jurors and key trial participants, and of course, are quite rare. But the image itself is an iconic one, reproduced in many printed accounts of this bizarre affair.

Starting bid: $600

The Fall River History Club will be holding its regular every third Wednesday of the month meeting on November 19, 6:30PM at the Fall River Public Library. The meetings/lectures are free and open to the public!

Ken Champlin will speak on the development of the granite quarrying industry in Fall River.

See you there!