Lizzie Borden Had an Axe
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.
Great story: one day I was minding my own business working at home when the phone rang. It was Tim Evans, the producer, and he said that he was at 92 Second St. with Tom Lange and was calling to ask me where they should spray the Luminol! I was totally flattered and told them I would call them back after thinking about it. Kat and I decided that the ceiling of the cellar, directly under the sitting room, would be the best first place to experiment. Other than that, I think we suggested the doorways up stairs, especially if they could take up the carpet and investigate if there was any blood drip evidence in Lizzie’s room. Now wouldn’t have that been something if they had found those blood drops, coming from the guest room and trailing into Lizzie’s bedroom!
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 fluoresces on contact with blood but will also give a false positive when it comes in contact with all sorts of substances, including some metals, plant matter, paints, and cleaning products! And why would these crime scene experts think that the wall of the chimney has blood on it when no murders were supposed to have occurred there? It just didn’t make sense, but if you see their reactions, you would think it was simply the most amazing thing they ever saw. Pshaw I say.
Oh, and they also sprayed a metal bowl (remember about those false positive substances!) and were astonished to find Luminol reacting to its lip. Well, first of all we don’t know for sure if that bowl belonged to the Bordens, and secondly, 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.