Lots of questions...

[FactFinder]

Glad you were able to get a copy. There are two book I would like to get but they are expensive, you can at least look them up to see the content. 1. Asylum: A Mid Century Madhouse & It's Lessons by Dr. Enoch Callaway The cheapest copy I could find was over $40
2. Abandoned Asylums of New England by John Gray This book is only sold through Museum of Disability History. Again the cost was like $64

I don't know if they are available for download on Kindle or Nook. I don't have one, I guess I just like turning the pages!!!!

I will have to look for those titles as well. You seem to be interested in many of the same subjects as I am, so any other titles you might suggest would be very much appreciated.

[FactFinder]

Since this thread is titled "Lots of questions..." I have one. I found a George Lubinsky in an old Durfee Record Yearbook (Fall River High School) for 1915 and wondered if there was a relationship to Hyman Lusbinksy. Hyman was one of ten children. I did record searches and dug through the archives here for any leads. I came across a reference by smudgeman to him living in the Borden house sometime after the murders. So I did some checking of my own. He did indeed live at 230 Second Street after the murders from about 1917-1919, which was later renumbered to 92 Second Street. Before this time he was also listed as living on Ferry Street sometime in 1912. Interesting thing that the Borden's also owned rental property on Ferry Street. Lubinsky was about 16 years old at the time of the murders which is something I keep forgetting. Lubinsky was a very young witness. My question is how did he come to live at the Borden house? That's a very strange coincidence.

[Nadzieja]

I looked up Residents of 92 Second Street in the book Lizzie Borden Past & Present written by Leonard Rebello. It's on page 34 and a listing of owners of Second St. is listed on page 35.
According to this between 1899 to 1920 Marcus A. Townsend was listed as the resident. Did you find census records with different information?

[FactFinder]

I looked up Residents of 92 Second Street in the book Lizzie Borden Past & Present written by Leonard Rebello. It's on page 34 and a listing of owners of Second St. is listed on page 35.
According to this between 1899 to 1920 Marcus A. Townsend was listed as the resident. Did you find census records with different information?

I found a reference to Hyman Lubinsky in Lizzie Borden Past and Present that stated Hyman Lubinsky lived at 230 Second Street between 1917 and 1919, and Ferry Street about 1912. I did my own search and found several records for Lubinsky but none that confirmed or denied his residence at 92 Second. I usually like to find documentation to confirm but I will take Leonard Rebello's word for it.

[Indecisive]

To pick up on the original questions and their replies, if her dress was stained with blood how well would she have had to hide it? I can see how a murder weapon could be harder to hide since it's metal and wood. A dress, even a longer one, would have been easier to crumple up as it was made of fabric. Could there have been some place to put clothes stained with menstrual blood? If the bucket of menstrual rags wasn't searched then something where stained clothes would have been wouldn't be searched either. If the bucket was searched but this wasn't explicitly mentioned then maybe clothes like that could have been searched too but a dress wouldn't have stood out. I know the police searched the house but a dress could have been crumpled up, hidden easily.

I don't believe the handle would a brand new hatchet would break off easily unless it was defective. I believe hatchets would have had roughly the same dimensions, so another hatchet could have fit into the murder wounds as well.

I wonder too about why the murder weapon went missing given the lack of fingerprinting and DNA techniques. The fact that it was new (or relatively so) indicates to me that it would have been harder for someone to recognize it. If there were identifying marks, what could those have been? A piece of torn fabric could have been removed. A single hair or two could have been explained away if they were ever attributed to anyone. It doesn't sound like there was much of a fight involved in either murder so it would have been harder for anything identifying the killer to be on the hatchet.

I wonder if there was a palm print of blood on the handle of the murder weapon. People weren't using fingerprinting techniques but they would have been able to see that a palm print, even a partial one, was too big or too small to match the hands of different people. On the other hand, that could have been wiped off if the blood was fresh, so I don't see why dumping the weapon on the spot would have been so much trouble.

[Curryong]

I have often wondered, Indecisive, as to why, considering fingerprint techniques were not employed at the time, the hatchet or other weapon wasn't left beside Andrew's body, playing into scenario of nutty madman on the loose. As I wrote on another post (another thread?) that would only be a problem if there was a label, identifying mark, on the handle, allowing a possible tracking of the purchaser. Of course, we don't know how large the weapon was. Could have been tomahawk-sized, aiding its temporary concealment in the house before being, for instance, disposed of in a neighbour's well or cess-pit. Without their knowledge of course. It's been the contention of many on this forum that the bloodstained dress (if it was heavily bloodstained, which I doubt) could have been hung UNDERNEATH Lizzie's winter silk dresses, hung in the closet. Presupposing that Lizzie was the killer, of course. The police didn't examine these garments.

[NancyDrew]

Thanks guys...I have always wondered how in the world a solid wooden handle could be broken by Lizzie. I don't think it could.

There WAS fingerprint science emerging at the end of the 19th century, but many police departments considered it too new and uncorroborated to use it. I think they thought is was junk science; a fad. BUT. Blood could be tested to see if it were human or another animal. So if the murder weapon were found, it would have had Andrew and/or Abby's blood on it, and it would then, I think, it would have been microscopically examined.

Furthermore, IF the murder weapon had been found and IF it contained traces of human blood, I think the police would have been compelled to send it to a major university (as they did the heads) for further study. I know this is a bunch of "IF's" but stay with me a bit longer. Medical professors at Harvard would have looked for fingerprints on the murder weapon. I've thought and thought about this and I'm convinced this would have happened.

Now, would LIzzie have known this? Thought about it?

We have to contemplate whether or not the murders were planned out carefully by her. Victorians did a lot of reading. Maybe there was an article in Vanity Fair, or the Providence Journal, or one of the other periodicals/newspapers the Bordens regularly received and read that talked about the new science of finger-printing. If I were Lizzie, this would catch my attention.

What doesn't fit is the idea of careful, methodical planning, and the method of killing. The murderous rage it must have taken to crush someone's skull..someone she grew up with and the only women she EVER knew as a mother, doesn't jibe with pre-meditation. I"I'm going to kill them...Thursday, yes. Thursday. I'll get an ax and crush their skulls. That's what I'll do.) That doesn't sound plausible. Does anyone agree with me?

[Curryong]

You're right, there is a disconnect between a cool, methodical sort of killer and how Abby and Andrew were dispatched which shows, to me, a terrible rage that burst forth. I don't think Lizzie did plan it in any sort of long-term sense and certainly her lies and evasions afterwards, that have been discussed many times over in this forum,don't show a woman who knew how to stick to a believable story in any way. I just get a strong feeling that something happened in those last couple of weeks before the murders that turned an already bad situation in the home toxic (in her mind) and pushed her over the edge, causing her to cast her mind over poison and new hatchets.
You may be right about the fingerprints and I am sure Harvard professors would have looked the hatchet over. However 1892 is very early for fingerprint methods to have been accepted in a court of law in a case of murder. Scotland Yard, which introduced the system into Britain, were only just examining the process in the 1890's and it's first case was 1902 (against a burglar) and 1905 against a murdering pair of brothers. I believe the first case of murder in the U.S. which was reliant on fingerprint evidence was 1911. You could count on Lizzie's dream team of lawyers fighting like lions against such an untried system being used against her.

[PossumPie]

Perhaps Lizzie's thought was that a hatchet left on Andrew's chest could have been left by a killer who didn't leave the house (her) BUT a lack of hatchet may make the police believe the killer took it with him (not her)
Heck, a lack of hatchet has been mentioned many many times in this forum as partial reason for some people's belief in her innocence, so it worked well if that was the plan.

[FactFinder]

You're right, there is a disconnect between a cool, methodical sort of killer and how Abby and Andrew were dispatched which shows, to me, a terrible rage that burst forth. I don't think Lizzie did plan it in any sort of long-term sense and certainly her lies and evasions afterwards, that have been discussed many times over in this forum,don't show a woman who knew how to stick to a believable story in any way. I just get a strong feeling that something happened in those last couple of weeks before the murders that turned an already bad situation in the home toxic (in her mind) and pushed her over the edge, causing her to cast her mind over poison and new hatchets.
You may be right about the fingerprints and I am sure Harvard professors would have looked the hatchet over. However 1892 is very early for fingerprint methods to have been accepted in a court of law in a case of murder. Scotland Yard, which introduced the system into Britain, were only just examining the process in the 1890's and it's first case was 1902 (against a burglar) and 1905 against a murdering pair of brothers. I believe the first case of murder in the U.S. which was reliant on fingerprint evidence was 1911. You could count on Lizzie's dream team of lawyers fighting like lions against such an untried system being used against her.

Curryong all of this information about fingerprinting is indeed true. But that is also looking at it with a bit of hindsight. I also suggested that maybe (knowing Lizzie was an avid reader) she had come across information about the new science of fingerprinting. A book did come out in 1892, and the value of them was known at the time. I'm not even saying that I agree fingerprinting would have been used. I just suggested that a person with murder on their mind read that there is a science out there that allows people to be identified by their fingerprints. Crime stories in the United States were being written that involved criminals who were already being identified by their fingerprints. Such as the one written by Mark Twain in 1893. Lizzie would not have known all this information about the first case Scotland Yard ever used fingerprints in because it had not happened yet. But she could have been aware the science was out there. That was the point I attempted to make. Limited knowledge about the right kind of science is how I believe I phrased it.

Such as knowing the value of DNA to identify a person before it was actually admissible in court.

[Curryong]

Yes I do remember our previous posts discussing this and I am sure that you're right. I thought, however, that NancyDrew was heading towards a position in which professors at Harvard could examine any axe for fingerprints and help solve the case. Well, they may have and they may not, but there is certainly a big gap between knowing about fingerprint techniques as an academic and being able to formulate a working system and explain it in court to a reluctant judge and a disbelieving jury.
The question's academic anyway. If the killer was Lizzie, and I believe it was then she snaffled the axe/ hatchet and stored it somewhere so that it has never been found. She may not have been a methodical cool-headed killer, but my gosh, she was a successful one!

[twinsrwe]

Well, it doesn’t really matter, if a hatchet would have been left at the crime scene, hidden in the house or taken out the house. Fact is, the killer committed a perfect crime; whoever killed Andrew and Abby did get away with not one, but two murders!!!

[Curryong]

Yes! And we are still arguing, debating, formulating theories about it all 122 years later!

[Curryong]

I'd love to know whether public opinion about Lizzie's guilt or innocence was divided at the time of her trial, especially in the township of Fall River. I believe women's organisations spoke up for her, didn't they, and of course the Temperance Union and Church ministers supported her, which makes it odd, I think, that she was virtually ostracised when she returned after her trial by their congregations.
I'm wondering too, whether people in Fall River had reservations about Lizzie after longterm friends and neighbours like Alice Russell and Mrs Churchill became witnesses for the prosecution.

[NancyDrew]

Curryong: Could it have been that Lizzie's behavior after the acquittal was what turned them off? Not living in her fathers' house, buying that lavish mansion on the hill for just her and Emma, and then naming it?

She never fit into Fall River's elite, before OR after the trial...I am just not sure of why. Good questions; thanks!

[Curryong]

I'm sure that had something to do with the ostracism, NancyDrew. It's odd behaviour when you think about it, it's "Oh, well, I've got our father's money now, it doesn't matter how he died, and I'm as good as all of you !" It didn't work out, however. I read somewhere that her friend in later life, Helen Leighton, and Nance O' Neill both spoke of her depression and loneliness and how at times she would bitterly regret that she had stayed in her home town. I'm sure many of the locals would have been relieved if she had left after the murders and settled elsewhere.
It's just odd that she seemed to have support from some locals before the trial and it all just drained away. The local newspapers were anti-Lizzie I believe, in the lead up to the trial, or were they?

[NancyDrew]

That is what I believe; the local media made a circus out of the case, and suffragettes were protesting outside the courthouse. I have never seen any photographs of that, however, Maybe I'm wrong. Anyone?

[Mara]

I don't know about suffragists protesting outside the courthouse, but there was some interest in the case from within the women's suffrage movement. Have a look here, and be sure to check the footnotes 6 and 7, which contain contemporary references used by the author. http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... ntext=yjlh

[Curryong]

Didn't they have suffragists demonstrating with placards in the Elizabeth Montgomery TV movie of the Borden case? It was interesting to me too, from the Yale Journal link you've just cited to read of the author Anna Katherine Green stating that she thought Lizzie innocent. Her early detective novel The Leavenworth Case' sparked a debate in the Pennsylvania Senate as to whether it could have been written by a woman!

[Curryong]

Does anyone know if the files on the Borden case held in Springfield by the law firm founded by George D.Robinson (Lizzie's defence attorney) have ever been released into the public domain? Even in part? (Think of all the new threads we could get out of those!) Or do they intend to hold onto them until the end of days?
Incidentally, for a retainer fee of $25,000 it is a good job he did secure her acquittal. Think how much more he would have been able to hoover up representing her through the appeals process if the verdict had gone the other way!

[Catbooks]

The rage at Abby, I get. But bludgeoning her father in the face while he sleeps? Cutting his damned eyeball in half?

i've been thinking about this lately.

i tend to think lizzie did it, like so many of you. the overkill/rage speaks of it being personal, and i believe abby was the primary target, but andrew had to go too, because he'd have known or strongly suspected lizzie once he learned about her murder. he more than anyone else, except abby herself, and lizzie and emma, would have known all too well about the escalating animosity lizzie had for abby. there's no way he wouldn't have thought it was she, just as he suspected or knew lizzie was responsible for the daytime burglary.

he protected her then, but would he protect her for murdering his wife and her own step-mother? for murder at all? seems very unlikely. murder is a far cry from petty theft. as well, she and emma would not have gained the financial and other freedoms they apparently sought, if only abby were out of the way. so andrew had to go too.

about the actual murder of andrew and bludgeoning him so furiously in the face, i have a couple of thoughts.

one, while lizzie (and emma) did have built-up anger towards him, i tend to believe she also did love him. so a part of her wouldn't want him to know she was killing him, even for a split second of seeing her before he died. having him look at and recognize her as his murderer seems to me something she'd want to avoid, if possible. hence his face and eyes being the target.

also, i very much dislike killing anything, but when i've had to kill a large insect (one of those enormous tomato bugs comes to mind), i've done what could be considered overkill, because i want it DEAD, immediately! no lingering death (horrible), so i've done it as quickly and furiously as possible. might that not have been a part of what happened with andrew?

[FactFinder]

also, i very much dislike killing anything, but when i've had to kill a large insect (one of those enormous tomato bugs comes to mind), i've done what could be considered overkill, because i want it DEAD, immediately! no lingering death (horrible), so i've done it as quickly and furiously as possible. might that not have been a part of what happened with andrew?

I think that had a great deal to do with both of the murders. I've never bought into all that speculation about the reason Andrew's face was bashed in. For me it was always more straight forward. If you want to kill someone with an hatchet, go for the head. You want them dead with as little fight as possible, and with as little chance for them to linger before death. Go for the head. I think Andrew's face was the main target because the left side of his face is what was showing. All of the cuts were to the back of Abby's head with the exception of one. If she had not been laying face down, but had been on her back, I would say her face would have been the main target as well.

[Catbooks]

also, i very much dislike killing anything, but when i've had to kill a large insect (one of those enormous tomato bugs comes to mind), i've done what could be considered overkill, because i want it DEAD, immediately! no lingering death (horrible), so i've done it as quickly and furiously as possible. might that not have been a part of what happened with andrew?

I think that had a great deal to do with both of the murders. I've never bought into all that speculation about the reason Andrew's face was bashed in. For me it was always more straight forward. If you want to kill someone with an hatchet, go for the head. You want them dead with as little fight as possible, and with as little chance for them to linger before death. Go for the head. I think Andrew's face was the main target because the left side of his face is what was showing. All of the cuts were to the back of Abby's head with the exception of one. If she had not been laying face down, but had been on her back, I would say her face would have been the main target as well.

excellent point. if you want to quickly dispatch someone with a hatchet, where else would you strike? not the heart. it would have to be the head, and that's what was done in both of these murders. abby on the back of the head because that's the way she was facing, and lizzie (or the killer) needed the element of surprise.

[NancyDrew]

I supposed this is true; how would someone kill another person with an ax...by aiming for the chest?

Then again...consider that she hacked into the face of a man who she called Father all her life..a man who wore, as his only jewelry, a ring she had given him. Hacked his damned eyeball right in half. My God. It was an attorney, quoted very early in this thread, who referred to the "dogged brutality" of the crime. Very appropriate words.