New Member Commentary

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 3:38 pm

Hi-- lurker turned new member here.

I have been reviewing existing threads for about a week simply for amusement and to postpone constructive work I don't really want to do... Like many people here, I imagine, I have a background in murder mysteries, assorted types of puzzles, etc, and I have been acquainted with the historical Borden story as opposed to the nursery-rhyme version for some decades. In addition I once had the peculiar experience of assisting in clean up of a murder scene, and I trained and was certified as an arson investigator for a while.

In the review process I have wound up taking notes on this and that, and the note sheet filled up, so I thought I'd join and post some of it without wading through the 43 pages of threads I have yet to cover. Apologies if I raise something already discussed on thread(s) I just haven't reached as yet.

I also have partially developed three theories of the crime; the "Abby was really crazy" one I'll leave out, as I see that ms diablo has just expounded it far better than I could.

So, some bullet points, starting with little details:

1. There was a discussion of what could be meant by the word "smootch." "Smootch is an obsolete and rare variant of "smutch" which is itself either a variant or synonym of "smudge"-- I have seen some debate as to whether they are etymologically similar or whether one is rooted in Greek and the other north European in origin. Its use in describing the bedspread is probably only to indicate that there were some big globs of bloodstain on it as well as spatter or spray.

However, as I learned the word, "smutch" has an implication of sootiness, blackness. Not sure I'd rule out that they were suggesting that there was dirt of some sort as well as blood on the spread.

And just to get my helpfulness off with a dollop of insecurity-- it occurred to me that this wouldn't be all that strange a transcription error for "smock" which is or was sometimes used to differentiate a waist-apron from a full frontal covering. A blacksmith's leather apron which protects him from flying coals is still called a smock AFAIK. Which makes me wonder just a little bit about the extra apron-- could Abby have set one on the bed which then got spattered with blood and wound up adding an extra apron to the inventory?

I think I'll post these as individual posts in case anyone wants to quote anything...

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 3:44 pm

2. We know that Andrew was dosing himself with "Garfield Tea." I have the impression that the "tobacco" found in his pocket effects was loose in an envelope, rather than in a commercial pouch identifying it as tobacco.

Garfield Tea is a mix of senna leaves and "crushed couchgrass" with couchgrass making up the greater part. My understanding is that "crushed" in this context means dried and run through a coarse mortar and pestle or the like, to flake it. When couchgrass dries it takes on a color very like chewing tobacco. I suspect that the tobacco noted was just the remaining Garfield Tea.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:09 pm

TaosJohn, welcome! I'm going to veer this thread right into one of my favorite theories: that Lizzie foreshadowed her own crime with Alice the night before (common in domestic homicide) and that her real intent which she expressed as intent of "The Other" was to burn down the house with the bodies and Andrew and Abby inside. I think this is why she fiddled on and off with the kitchen stove all morning, why she tried to lure Bridget away to a fabric sale in the afternoon (why she chose Thursday to start with) and that Bridget's reluctance to leave compounded by Uncle John's unexpected appearance foiled her plans. But for some reason, quite possibly urgency we haven't yet identified or because Emma was still off premises) she pushed ahead with the crime using Plan B or maybe even Plan C. I'm curious as to your opinion about this as an arson investigator.

As for the aprons, I wonder if Abby was in the habit of wearing more than one. And the killer used an extra to cover herself for protection from blood spray and then tied it on the corpse before leaving. Neither of the Borden bodies look right to me although they could've been moved a lot before the photo session.

I'd love to hear your opinion on Abby's craziness in the other thread where I'm beating a dead horse...

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:14 pm

3. What with "uterine congestion" and hernias and what not, this household was surely well acquainted with laudanum (which by the way, is a mix of opium and alchohol-- someone referred to it here as a cocaine preparation.)

Lizzie and Emma's lifetime spanned right across the medical profession's procession from laudanum to morphine to heroin to cocaine. (Heroin when developed was, believe it or not initially marketed in part as a non-addictive alternative to morphine, and was attempted as a blocking agent for morphine addiction, much as methadone in our lifetimes. Then, when Freud started promoting cocaine as a miracle drug to relieve not only neuroses but anything else that was bothering you, it in turn was attempted to deflect both morphine and heroin dependencies.)

I mention all this because, well, somewhere in Massachusetts in the 1890s there was at least one otherwise respectable household which "modern medical practice" had succeeded in turning into a collection of raving junkies; and there's some reason to think the Borden's might have been it. They were not gregarious, they had a reputation for crankiness both with each other and outsiders, there's some indications that they had digestive and excretion issues among them, the servants mentioned some sort of disturbing practices, the household was robbed possibly by an insider, etc etc.

One wonders whether at some point Andrew or Abby or Andrew and Abby decided that the household needed to get by without their morphine and the summer sickness was actually withdrawal and the murders a product of the kind of panic anger withdrawal sometimes generates. They certainly would not have had anything like the respect for the withdrawal process that anyone would have today.

I'm not in love with notion, but I don't hate it either.

One could go on and postulate that Emma and Lizzie eventually fell out over the same issue, either in that they returned to use and then one of them decided to shut off their supply-- the coachman or whatever he was?-- or that Nance O'Neill brought cocaine into the house and Emma wasn't having any, or whatever. The 1905-1915 period was the first invasion of cocaine into fashionable society, through the entertainment industry and medical practitioners with a psychological bent, IIRC.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:18 pm

4. The brown stain in the sitting room. There is inevitably the sense that if we could only find the really significant fact in the bundle we have, that we could crack it like a whip and the whole story would be revealed before our eyes. That's what Holmes/Poirot/Wimsey/Ellery Queen would do. The upshot, I think, is that one tries desperately to attach more significance to every detail than it actually warrants.

The brown stain on the wall was in a household where everyone had been yakking up mutton broth for a couple of days. I'm prepared to assume that that detail is meaningless...

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:29 pm

5. The handleless hatchet--

That was a very standard model of hatchet for many many years-- I've been acquainted with several just like it. I am quite sure that what is shown in the photos-- there seem to be two very similar ones, one straight on and one at a very slight angle so that the full face of the "break" can be seen-- is not a break at all. It seems to be absolutely perpendicular to the grain, and:

1. As has been commented, that would take tremendous force for a short handle like a hatchet

2. I have broken an axe handle that way once; but it was very old and weathered, and it broke right along the line of the blade, not an inch below like on the exhibit. The edge of the head provided the fulcrum for the break as it were, not empty air.

3. The appearance of the face of the detachment in the photos looks like it was sawn to me-- a bow saw, or possibly a coarse and dull rip saw. The chips pulled out of the grain on the edges are typical of a dull or coarse saw's action.

Do we know if it was found with a splinter-spike on it which was later sawn off for safety in handling?

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:36 pm

6. I was kinda horrified that someone here regarded the Hauptman conviction for the Lindbergh kidnapping as possibly controversial; I know there are books to that effect, but the evidence against Hauptman is overwhelming as far as I can see-- if Hauptman wasn't guilty than no evidence could ever be adequate to convict anyone of anything IMO. :-P

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:51 pm

taosjohn wrote:2. We know that Andrew was dosing himself with "Garfield Tea." I have the impression that the "tobacco" found in his pocket effects was loose in an envelope, rather than in a commercial pouch identifying it as tobacco.

Garfield Tea is a mix of senna leaves and "crushed couchgrass" with couchgrass making up the greater part. My understanding is that "crushed" in this context means dried and run through a coarse mortar and pestle or the like, to flake it. When couchgrass dries it takes on a color very like chewing tobacco. I suspect that the tobacco noted was just the remaining Garfield Tea.

Welcome taosjohn!

If I remember well, it's the first time for me to read that the mysterious "tobacco" found in Andrew's pocket could have been "the remaining Garfield Tea". Thank you, taosjohn!

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:07 pm

7. The testimony of bystanders as to comings and goings that afternoon.

There's a terrible temptation to take the detailed build up of the collective accounts as a record of all the traffic that day; I fall into it myself. But in the ned this is not a record of everything that happened it is a record of everything that anyone noticed.

Long time ago in arson school a policeman told me about an investigation he had had a share in somewhere in the Midwest. On a Saturday a robbery and assault was committed against a merchant in his closed establishment late morning-- he was there doing books or sweeping up or something. There was no question how the perp escaped-- he broke a window and ran off down the street in plain sight of several people too far away to ID him.

The question was how he got in; there were several entrances possible, all supposedly locked, and all but one under observation of both humans and cameras. All the humans had seen nothing other than the arrival of the victim, and several cameras confirmed this. However one entrance had no camera and no human at it, and one had three guys who were on a break at the critical time, smoking cigarettes and talking sports, facing the door and maybe forty feet from it. They all swore no one had gone in or out, just look at the camera recording. The camera however stored on a drive which turned out to have failed after the incident; and the disc was submitted to a data recovery service.

That process, of course, takes several weeks, and in the interim the investigation focused on the uncovered door. They thought from MO and general streetsmarts they knew who the perp was, but they couldn't get him anywhere near that door, although he had been in the neighborhood.

Several weeks later the drive data was returned to them-- and there on the video were the three guys smoking their cigarettes, and the suspect walking right by them and in through the unlocked door. They simply hadn't, any of them, registered that he did, and were all prepared to swear he didn't.

If a witness says he saw someone it probably means something. If a witness says he didn't, it just means he didn't see it-- it may not mean that it didn't happen.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:10 pm

8. Hiding stuff--

Does anyone know if the outside shutters were ever checked? Easy enough to close one shutter, tie something to the back of it, and open it again. One would think that that would be unusual enough to register with the bystanders, but...

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:22 pm

9. The nature of the crime--

I'm not going to propose anything here that hasn't been hashed to death already, this is more like a vote.

I can't begin to imagine that this was premeditated. I have both a Lizzie and a not-Lizzie theory in development, but neither is based on premeditation. I think the only reason to think premeditation is the money motive, hanging there all gaudy and everything. But keep in mind that the prosecution has no obligation to present motive and fairly often does not. Motive means and opportunity are a starting place for investigation, but motive in particular can be a "blinding place" too.

I can accept that premeditated murders are committed by people stupid enough to not forsee the consequences; but I cannot accept that any of these people were that stupid; we have many samples of their writings, sentence structure etc, and premeditation in this case would seem to require a stupidity approaching livestock level.

In addition, while I can imagine "sane" premeditated murder using a hatchet, that would involve someone accustomed to instrument enough to kill coldly with one or two blows. These were committed in panic and or anger, certainly with a component of anger.

These were either impulse killings or "defensive" killings. Either a household member snapped or an intruder was cornered.

Much has been made of the unliklihood of an intruder moving about the house unseen. I submit that if it was an intruder they did not move about the house unseen, but were discovered at least once and probably twice-- by Abby and Andrew.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:43 pm

Which brings me to Incomplete Theory Number One:

There was a certain type of habitual criminal in the 19th century who made their living impersonating servants to invade households and walk off with anything not nailed down. I don't remember if I learned to call the type a "budgie" from "Gangs of New York" or picked up the term from that execrable movie, but the type occurs in both record and fiction of the era. My understanding is that both males and females studied this art and that female impersonation was semi-common in it.

Imagine for a moment the psychology required for such a career; I submit that it took serious brass, and a sort of belief in one's own superiority at a sociopathic/psychopathic level. One would be absolutely depending on the blindness of others to one's presence, however brief, in plain sight. To be suspected for an instant is to be caught.

I postulate that the "daylight robbery" was not an inside job, but was perpetrated by one such; and that, Fall River perhaps presenting limited opportunities, he or she returned for a second pass. Abby walked in on him searching the guest room, and he was outraged and angered at her effrontery in cornering his godlike self, and he beat her to death with the tomahawk or whatever he carried for self defense.

Then he had to cool down, perhaps clean his hand on the duvet, leaving "smootches," and figure out how to get out of there. He closed the door and waited for a period of calm in the house which didn't come for 90 minutes or so, until Bridget is upstairs lying down, Lizzie is out in the barn ingesting hoarded morphine tablets, etc. He opens the door creeps downstairs, hopes to circle through to the side door and escape-- and runs smack into Andrew half asleep on the sofa. He freaks out whacks him with the tomahawk, and--

What? I'm not clear-- is the route to the side door clear, here? The cellar, where there is at least some possibility the door was left open behind him? I'm not sure where he could go without running into the returning Lizzie...

Little help? Remember I'm assuming that he would not be noticed by the bystanders because he is successfully impersonating-from-a-distance Bridget (or Emma, or Abby or Andrew or someone whose comings and goings would not be of interest until after the alarum is raised.

All of this reminds me of another note:

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:55 pm

10. Abby's injuries:

Two things.
1. The nature of the back flap has been taken as probative that at least one of Abby's injuries was inflicted from the front and
2. The nature of the facial bruising has been taken as indicating that she fell unconscious or dead face first from a standing position.

I wonder if she were kneeling and were driven face first by the force of a blow to the back of her head whether that force might explain the same sort of bruising? And I'm semi-sure that you can inflict a blow from behind that actually strikes from the front.

You can try this at home kids.

Have someone (real or imaginary) kneel in front of you, and swing straight overhand at them with a hatchet (imaginary hatchet recommended) (no responsibility accepted for subsequent arrest if this recommendation is ignored.) Overshoot, or have them straighten up slightly as you swing, or both, so that the stroke overshoots a little and your wrist cocks all the way down before hitting them on the follow through rather than at the planned point of aim-- the blow now connects from the top and front, instead of top and back and the hinge will be to the back...

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:37 pm

And the other theory in development-- the Incest Theory.

1. Andrew was in fact incestuous.
2. The initial object of his attentions was Emma.
3. Emma-- protecting Lizzie, perhaps from what their mother fully knew on her deathbed was likely-- bargained with Andrew that she would submit without complaint but he must spare Lizzie.
4. Abby was aware, but complicit; perhaps she was from an incestuous home and thought it was just the nature of things or whatever.
5. Emma goes away for an extended stay, expecting Lizzie to be out of the house as well and therefore safe.
6. Lizzie comes home early, unsuspecting.
7. Andrew can't stand it and "initiates" Lizzie.
8. Lizzie, baffled and disturbed complains to Abby in the guest room the next morning. Abby is unsympathetic: "men are pigs and it is woman's burden to suffer their vile attentions and what makes you think you should be any better than the rest of us, you should be happy to provide some comfort to the man who puts a roof over your head and food on your plate, Miss High-and Mighty, etc."
9. Lizzie catches up or produces the hatchet -- I know, I don't really know where it came from yet-- and kills her with it in a (pretty justifiable) rage.
10. Closes the door, goes downstairs in something like a fugue states, goes through motions on autopilot but doesn't really know what she or anyone else does for an hour or so. She certainly doesn't iron at the usual speed, probably goes to the barn, whatever. When questioned later her answers are unclear because she really doesn't have much idea herself what she did.
11. Andrew comes home; she tries to behave normally. At some point he says something about wasn't last night fun, we'll have to do that again sometime and she loses it a second time. No I still don't know where the hatchet is or came from-- but I wonder if the flat iron couldn't actually have been the weapon this time? it is certainly heavy enough and has a pretty sharp edge. With the force of adrenalin behind it I'm not sure you couldn't "cut" an eyeball in half.

IYO how likely is it that the autopsy would miss the difference between a chopped wound and a crushed one from a clean oblique edge, Possum? Oh, and that was supposed to be another bullet point:

Bulletpoint 11, "Sad iron." A sad iron isn't actually sad in the emotional sense; "Sad" in Middle English means "heavy, gravid," and the object itself may be that old. Your sad iron is distinct from your flat iron in that it is much heavier, weight having been left on the back in the forging process...

Anyway, from there you can go where you will-- the weapon had to be hidden or cleaned or both, her hands cleaned, etc, but that can be explained away in theory at least. I did the hard work, you guys can figger out the little details of where the weapons came from and went to, I trust you with that much. ;-P

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:50 pm

12. Oh yeah-- I meant to mention about the Prussic acid. I'm reluctant to presume that we are all that much smarter than our forebearers; but this one I'm going to anyway. I'm quite sure that someone tried to buy prussic acid that day. But the details of how the clerk initially ID'd of Lizzie as the would-be purchaser are grotesque if true-- through the screen door and down the hall in the kitchen? Probably in motion and not facing the door, and not in any sort of crowd?

I'm on a jury and they bring me THAT, I'm apt to vote to acquit WHATEVER the other evidence is...

BTW Bullet point 12:

Prussic acid's legitimate use in days of old was to delouse clothing; today we have fancier and somewhat less dangerous molecules to do it, but that was the thing back then.

In fact that's just what Zyklon B came to the concentration camps for; some bright lad there decided to try it on "undesirables" and it worked just fine so they ordered 20 times as much...

One of the big "points" raised by Holocaust deniers is, why there is so hugely much more Zyklon B residue in the delousing huts than there is in the gas chambers? Superficially plausible-- but in about 45 seconds it should occur to you that it takes 20 minutes of the stuff to kill a person as opposed to 16-48 hours to kill a louse.

In some ways it sucks being a complex organism.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:51 pm

Hi, taojohn. Welcome to the Forum! Hope you will stick around and post lots! Very interesting information about the Garfield tea. I had no idea what the product consisted of. Chewing tobacco was regarded as a remedy for upset stomachs as well, of course, but Andrew didn't smoke so the Garfield tea is a much more likely candidate.

i've been thinking for some weeks about, IF we got enough new members to make it viable, suggesting a thread just for them so they could discuss their theories and post for a little while before going on to the general forum. Of course, some new members are fine and sail right into things but others might feel a bit shy. I'd love to hear from members who've joined in the last few months and not yet posted. What do you think, stupid idea or not? (I've seen it on one or two other forums.)

With regard to the outside shutters, I don't think I've ever heard it discussed. Shutters/blinds drawn on both sides of the house on the upper storeys, Bridget was of course washing the windows on the lower level so the shutters would be open there. The rooms were very dim, people accompanying Dr Bowen into the guest room remarked on it. Andrew had to get very near the windows to read papers he had. People then hated sunlight streaming into rooms. It not only heated the place up but supposedly faded furniture.

I am not medically trained. Possumpie, who used to post on the forum was, and several times he gave his professional opinion that the facial bruising was from Abby's face hitting the carpet without her arms being out to break her fall, a state of deep unconsciousness or death after a couple of blows. She does appear to be half-kneeling, I agree.

With regard to whether an intruder could get out without being spotted by Lizzie or not, it depends on whether you believe she was actually in the barn or not. I don't. Lizzie gave testimony at the inquest that she was lookng out of the window in the upper vaults of the barn, then left the barn and walked towards the house. She saw no-one.

I agree that many people took laudanum and cocaine-based products for their ills in the 19th century, both patent and otherwise. I don't know about the womenfolk, but Andrew had a reputation as a very sharp businessman and he was anti-doctor. I can't see Andrew as a regular drug-user.

irina · Post by **irina** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:53 pm

I don't know if I've posted or not. Everyone is posting at the same time and everything got jammed and it won't let me make a decision. If anything from me is here I fear it is horribly cropped. Later.

irina · Post by **irina** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:56 pm

So many are posting at once they are all coming through cropped and without avis. My longer one is lost I guess.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 7:18 pm

Curryong wrote: I don't know about the womenfolk, but Andrew had a reputation as a very sharp businessman and he was anti-doctor. I can't see Andrew as a regular drug-user.

My father was very anti-doctor for a while. They kept wanting him to quit drinking, you see.

In that case the egg came before the chicken as it were.

As a horse trader, Morse for example would probably have had access to both morphine and cocaine; the distinction between street and prescription drugs was actually much softer in the 19th century than later on, or such is my impression anyway. (I have a good grounding in military history specifically and American history in general, but occasionally I find out that generalities I learned at the edges of those fields is not as true as those who taught it to me thought.)

I doubt that Andrew would have had difficulty developing a nonmedical source anyway, especially in a seaport, and I do imagine that the servants would be scandalized by it anyway.

As I say, I'm not attached to the notion, but it did seem to suggest itself as a sort of explanation for the particular types of weirdness in the household (that we know about-- to some degree we know that the servants thought there was something weird and we try to see the things we know about in that light.)

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:06 pm

taosjohn wrote:And the other theory in development-- the Incest Theory.

1. Andrew was in fact incestuous.
2. The initial object of his attentions was Emma.
3. Emma-- protecting Lizzie, perhaps from what their mother fully knew on her deathbed was likely-- bargained with Andrew that she would submit without complaint but he must spare Lizzie.
4. Abby was aware, but complicit; perhaps she was from an incestuous home and thought it was just the nature of things or whatever.
5. Emma goes away for an extended stay, expecting Lizzie to be out of the house as well and therefore safe.
6. Lizzie comes home early, unsuspecting.
7. Andrew can't stand it and "initiates" Lizzie.
8. Lizzie, baffled and disturbed complains to Abby in the guest room the next morning. Abby is unsympathetic: "men are pigs and it is woman's burden to suffer their vile attentions and what makes you think you should be any better than the rest of us, you should be happy to provide some comfort to the man who puts a roof over your head and food on your plate, Miss High-and Mighty, etc."
9. Lizzie catches up or produces the hatchet -- I know, I don't really know where it came from yet-- and kills her with it in a (pretty justifiable) rage.
10. Closes the door, goes downstairs in something like a fugue states, goes through motions on autopilot but doesn't really know what she or anyone else does for an hour or so. She certainly doesn't iron at the usual speed, probably goes to the barn, whatever. When questioned later her answers are unclear because she really doesn't have much idea herself what she did.
11. Andrew comes home; she tries to behave normally. At some point he says something about wasn't last night fun, we'll have to do that again sometime and she loses it a second time. No I still don't know where the hatchet is or came from-- but I wonder if the flat iron couldn't actually have been the weapon this time? it is certainly heavy enough and has a pretty sharp edge. With the force of adrenalin behind it I'm not sure you couldn't "cut" an eyeball in half.

IYO how likely is it that the autopsy would miss the difference between a chopped wound and a crushed one from a clean oblique edge, Possum? Oh, and that was supposed to be another bullet point:

Bulletpoint 11, "Sad iron." A sad iron isn't actually sad in the emotional sense; "Sad" in Middle English means "heavy, gravid," and the object itself may be that old. Your sad iron is distinct from your flat iron in that it is much heavier, weight having been left on the back in the forging process...

Anyway, from there you can go where you will-- the weapon had to be hidden or cleaned or both, her hands cleaned, etc, but that can be explained away in theory at least. I did the hard work, you guys can figger out the little details of where the weapons came from and went to, I trust you with that much. ;-P

You've just tread into the territory of my incest theory so here's a differentiated version:

1. Andrew is in fact incestuous and probably narcissistic, perhaps sociopathic. He views wife and children as chattel to be used as he sees fit.
2. The initial object of his attentions is indeed Emma. This started during Sarah's final illness.
3. Emma-- protecting Lizzie, perhaps from what their mother fully knew on her deathbed was already happening-- bargains with Andrew that she would submit without complaint but he must spare Lizzie. Thus the bedroom arrangement when the girls are young.
4. Abby is aware, but complicit --chosen by Andrew because she is mentally unstable and not always in touch with reality...and not believable even when she is. So not only do we have incest, we have a sometimes insane step-mother who may try to protect the girls when she is well and totally doesn't notice when she's seriously ill. Or even pushes Andrew in their direction.
5. Lizzie grows up with borderline personality disorder; no surprise there. She recognizes how much Andrew wants what he can't have and tantalizingly uses this to bargain for trips to Europe and a Titanium MasterCard aka shoplifting. She and her father are very much alike; in an odd and twisted way they do love each other.
6. The girls change rooms after the trip to Europe. (Maybe this is the price.) Emma is no longer the target, and Lizzie learns to negotiate for whatever she wants.
7. Dr. Bowen is the family abortionist...at least once. (Maybe Lizzie does get involved with David Anthony which infuriates Andrew.)
8. Lizzie errantly thinks she has Andrew at her beck and call, that Abby is out of the picture - both mentally and financially.
9. Then Andrew surprises everyone by purchasing a house for Abby's sister!!! He wants her taken care once he's dead and recognizes that neither of the girls will do so.
9. Lizzie is enraged as only someone with BPD can be...it's all Abby's fault and she needs to die. In fact, even Andrew's death is Abby's fault because if Abby didn't need killing then neither would Andrew.
10. She and Emma plan the murder for the period when Emma is out of town. Lizzie plans to poison them and then burn down the house. But the poison can't be obtained, Uncle John shows up out of the blue and Bridget, the clothes horse of the family, won't go to the fabric sale. So Lizzie punts...in this case with a hatchet.
11. By this time Lizzie is lividly furious with Abby for all the aforementioned points plus not being available for surreptitious killing, for running across the street wailing that the family is being poisoned (not that Bowen hasn't heard this dozens of time before) and for sharing even a tiny bit of Andrew's perverted affections. She takes great pleasure in smashing Abby's skull over and over and over.
12. Andrew comes home; Lizzie knows he must die for his betrayal of her (and Emma to a lesser degree) so she gets him into position for the coup de grace. Plus she no longer trusts him to cover for her: a murder is different than stolen bric-a-brac from a local store.
13. Lizzie has nothing but fond memories of killing Abby; she will never forget the absolute terror and totally sane acknowledgement of impending death on Abby's face. But she regrets her father's death even though he deserved it. After all, she loved him as much as she could love anyone...including herself.

That a servant would be privy to all of this is highly improbable; but she would recognize that something is seriously wrong in that house...a house of woes where things are seen that shouldn't be. Where doors are locked and floors are off limits. A place where work is minimal and pay is damn good. And where the entire cast of players are only a few steps from Bedlam and, later, from the gallows.

The idea that Victorian women were clueless about incest or that it wasn't a societal problem is fairly disingenuous. This was a time when children shared bedrooms and beds until far past an age that would warrant a Human Services visit in this day. Poor families slept in the same room --all of them. And men saw their wives and children and servants as being property to be used and disposed of or matched to the highest (or lowest) bidder. Exactly what is a dowry if not the selling of a daughter to the lowest bidder?

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:12 pm

What am I up to, 13?

Burning the dress:

It has been suggested several times here that Lizzie wouldn't have disposed of the dress by burning because Andrew wouldn't have tolerated the wasting of the rags.

This seems to me to be backwards-- Andrew was dead; Lizzie didn't have to worry about satisfying his requirements any more. If the damaged dress offended her she could burn it to her hearts' content. I almost like thinking of it as a little epiphany and moment of triumph.

Only, of course, she wound up getting punished for it anyway...

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:24 pm

14. the barn loft.

It wasn't particularly uncommon in the 19th century --and later-- for police who were trying to acquire a confession from someone they were convinced had something to confess, to simply outright lie in the effort to shake a story.

Hell it isn't even uncommon today; but it is more sophisticated now-- they don't usually tell the lie for publication, which was not uncommon then.

I submit that the police here did this at least once, as regards the loft. The police contended that Lizzie's story about going to the loft of the barn could not be true because the dust in the loft was undisturbed when they examined it.

However they did not examine the loft until after the two kids had spent much of the afternoon in it observing the goings on IIUC. So the dust couldn't have been undisturbed? Or was that some other barn?

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:31 pm

Welcome, taosjohn! WOW, what intriguing and informative information you have provided us with! I'm going to have to take some time and absorb your posts before responding to the posts you've submitted.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:46 pm

15. Much has been made of the horrific risk Lizzie, if she did it, took of Morse's returning earlier than he did. I submit that this difficulty can be dealt with rather simply by assuming she had no idea he was coming back.

A lot is made of the alleged improbability of Lee Harvey Oswald getting two hits in three shots in that little time-- but this is looking at it from the wrong side of time. If he didn't know he wasn't supposed to be able to do it, or if all he was hoping for was one hit, then it is simply a sad accident of history that he managed two.

Likewise if Lizzie didn't know about the Morse-risk, she had no reason to avoid it did she? It just happened to work out for her despite her failure to protect herself here.

Someone else posted this same point on some thread I read, but I got the impression that it mostly went unnoticed, so I thought I'd bring it up again.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:59 pm

16. Emma

Not very likely for many reasons, but I don't think distance particularly eliminates any Emma theory; studying a map it looks like it was about 20 miles to Fall River from Fair Haven back then-- I'm guessing that "Old Bedford Road" was the main thoroughfare still in 1892, and the current road was the rail line. Anyone happen to know? Anyway that and back would be a doable distance by horse or buggy, though not convenient. You'd have to get by without sleep for a night.

If a train happened to run at the right time and you could figure out how to take it without being traced that would be simple and easy; but even I can't picture Emma riding the blinds...

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:10 pm

taosjohn wrote:15. Much has been made of the horrific risk Lizzie, if she did it, took of Morse's returning earlier than he did. I submit that this difficulty can be dealt with rather simply by assuming she had no idea he was coming back.

A lot is made of the alleged improbability of Lee Harvey Oswald getting two hits in three shots in that little time-- but this is looking at it from the wrong side of time. If he didn't know he wasn't supposed to be able to do it, or if all he was hoping for was one hit, then it is simply a sad accident of history that he managed two.

Likewise if Lizzie didn't know about the Morse-risk, she had no reason to avoid it did she? It just happened to work out for her despite her failure to protect herself here.

Someone else posted this same point on some thread I read, but I got the impression that it mostly went unnoticed, so I thought I'd bring it up again.

OFF TOPIC:
Have you read One Second in Dallas by Josiah Thompson?

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:10 pm

Coupla details I left out of the "Bordens as junkies hypothesis."

a. It would mesh with the doctor doubling the dose on Lizzie-- if she already had some tolerance built up, he wouldn't get any result from the normal dose.
b. I think, though without much conviction, that I have seen someplace a stiff paper tube that morphine tablets were once marketed in. Something like 1" by 10", like a longer narrower "Flicks" tube if anyone here is old enough to remember those. I wondered if that might have been what was burned in the stove. My ghost memory is that what I think I saw was WWI era, but the packaging may not have changed...

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:16 pm

taosjohn wrote:16. Emma

Not very likely for many reasons, but I don't think distance particularly eliminates any Emma theory; studying a map it looks like it was about 20 miles to Fall River from Fair Haven back then-- I'm guessing that "Old Bedford Road" was the main thoroughfare still in 1892, and the current road was the rail line. Anyone happen to know? Anyway that and back would be a doable distance by horse or buggy, though not convenient. You'd have to get by without sleep for a night.

If a train happened to run at the right time and you could figure out how to take it without being traced that would be simple and easy; but even I can't picture Emma riding the blinds...

I'm not convinced Emma was directly involved but I've long entertained that if an outsider was present in that house then he-she could well have come in with Lizzie when she returned from Alice's. The best hidey-hole in the house was Emma's bedroom.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:42 pm

debbiediablo wrote:[OFF TOPIC:
Have you read One Second in Dallas by Josiah Thompson?

No, not to my memory; I "did" the Kennedy thing in some depth one unemployed year when I had access to two good libraries, and I do not now remember everything I read.

I do give some credence to the Hickey theory, but basically my go to on the case is Posner's "Case Closed."

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 10:00 pm

17. Maggie/Bridget

Much is made, especially on tv, of the use of Maggie to mean Bridget, and that it implies disrespect.

Within the context of the times I'm not convinced it did; that is not unusual disrespect for the time and place.

Irishmen of the day were commonly called "Paddy" or "Mick" regardless of their actual names, much as black men were called "Jim" or "Sam." "Paddy" was supposed to be used for a Protestant and "Mick" for a Catholic; not sure how one was supposed to know. Perhaps it was actually Black Irish vs Redhaired. Also not sure everybody was on board with making the distinctions...

At any rate, Irish women were similarly dubbed "Biddy." That much you can look up, and you will also discover if you put some time into it, that "Biddy" was also a synonym for the word "maid." I was struck that several times in the testimony dialogues one or another of the officials referred to her as "the Maggie." I wonder if this was not like the option between calling someone "Cook" and calling them "the cook;" that is, that "Maggie" was generic for a maid of one Irish creed and "Biddy" of the other, or something of that nature.

The dialogues do not read to me as though the sisters meant anything by it beyond what an even-more-prejudiced-than-ours culture meant as a whole. In an era when Cap Anson, manager of the Chicago Cubs, kept a black child as a team mascot and fed him table scraps and scrubbed him periodically like a dog, with hose and brush, this may not have been too terribly offensive to contemporaries...

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 10:06 pm

taosjohn wrote:Coupla details I left out of the "Bordens as junkies hypothesis."

a. It would mesh with the doctor doubling the dose on Lizzie-- if she already had some tolerance built up, he wouldn't get any result from the normal dose.
b. I think, though without much conviction, that I have seen someplace a stiff paper tube that morphine tablets were once marketed in. Something like 1" by 10", like a longer narrower "Flicks" tube if anyone here is old enough to remember those. I wondered if that might have been what was burned in the stove. My ghost memory is that what I think I saw was WWI era, but the packaging may not have changed...

Even doubled that was a fairly minimal dose...I've taken more...

or maybe that should be

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 10:10 pm

taosjohn wrote:17. Maggie/Bridget

Much is made, especially on tv, of the use of Maggie to mean Bridget, and that it implies disrespect.

Within the context of the times I'm not convinced it did; that is not unusual disrespect for the time and place.

Irishmen of the day were commonly called "Paddy" or "Mick" regardless of their actual names, much as black men were called "Jim" or "Sam." "Paddy" was supposed to be used for a Protestant and "Mick" for a Catholic; not sure how one was supposed to know. Perhaps it was actually Black Irish vs Redhaired. Also not sure everybody was on board with making the distinctions...

At any rate, Irish women were similarly dubbed "Biddy." That much you can look up, and you will also discover if you put some time into it, that "Biddy" was also a synonym for the word "maid." I was struck that several times in the testimony dialogues one or another of the officials referred to her as "the Maggie." I wonder if this was not like the option between calling someone "Cook" and calling them "the cook;" that is, that "Maggie" was generic for a maid of one Irish creed and "Biddy" of the other, or something of that nature.

The dialogues do not read to me as though the sisters meant anything by it beyond what an even-more-prejudiced-than-ours culture meant as a whole. In an era when Cap Anson, manager of the Chicago Cubs, kept a black child as a team mascot and fed him table scraps and scrubbed him periodically like a dog, with hose and brush, this may not have been too terribly offensive to contemporaries...

Then again, consider that slaves in the Deep South were given and referred to by first names.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 10:50 pm

debbiediablo wrote:Then again, consider that slaves in the Deep South were given and referred to by first names.

But the generic "Boy" was also used and continues to this day (surfaced in public in the just concluded 2014 World Series;) and by 1892 the "Jim" and "Sam" thing was underway. Within a decade or so, if not already, those who were perceived as German were being called "Fritz" or "Jerry"...

I'm not suggesting that I approve of the behavior; only that Emma and Lizzie probably didn't mean it to be offensive, and that while Andrew and Abby probably disapproved of the informality of it, I doubt they regarded it as offensive either. Bridget, of course, didn't have the luxury of an opinion, so even if she "should have" resented it I doubt she did... she had bigger things to resent probably.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 11:10 pm

I agree that this was (and is) a way of lumping people unlike "us" (whoever us may be) under one name. If this were a reference to a maid from another home or someone new to the household, I would be inclined to agree with you. But Bridget had been there long enough to be "Bridget" not Maggie. I don't see it as demeaning by either of the sisters, but more like they just didn't give a damn. I don' think people were high on either Lizzie or Emma's Big List of Important Stuff.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 11:39 pm

Just a quick reply to an earlier post of yours, TJ. Lizzie did know that John was coming back for dinner as Andrew would undoubtedly have told her when he arrived home. She had expected, I believe, to have had a couple of hours after lunch to dispose of Papa, once Bridget went off for the afternoon. It must have been a nasty shock, and gave her little time really. John had been gone for most of the morning. Who knew when he would arrive back!

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 12:04 am

Curryong wrote:Just a quick reply to an earlier post of yours, TJ. Lizzie did know that John was coming back for dinner as Andrew would undoubtedly have told her when he arrived home.

I agree that he might have: not sure what makes you say "undoubtedly."

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 2:19 am

With Abby away, perhaps for the morning, Andrew would have expected Lizzie to play hostess when John returned. This would be especially so during lunch, especially considering she'd been absent for the previous meals.

irina · Post by **irina** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 8:49 am

There's a lot of fascinating commentary here. It's about 6:30 am here and I'll take a chance on posting, although it's probably wide awake time in Australia.

I love etymology and I'm the one that questioned "smooch". Thanks for the edification, Taos John. I too mentioned sad irons. I do remember the term has to do with the smelting process though my mother who used them in the 1920s also tied "sad" into the difficulty of laundry day. She used them to iron my grandad's "red flannel" underwear among other things. The red flannel gave her headaches, a clue to the pernicious and destructive migraine she and I both had/have.

I had not thought of prussic acid for de-lousing. I wonder if we could put more thought into Lizzie having "flea bites". The Borden case is the only time I have heard "flea bites" as a term for menses as there have always been many other useful terms such as curse, moon time, monthly sickness, etc. Even the word "friend" was in use in Lizzie's time. Lawyers at trial preferred the "sickness" angle. Anyway Lizzie was involved with charity in her church, and she had been travelling. Who knows if she could have picked up lice. (I have done a lot of charity work and did once contract lice~which I quickly got rid of~by sitting on a couch in a filthy trailer while wearing a dress.) Had Lizzie gotten lice it would be preferable to call them fleas and certainly upscale to demand prussic acid for seal skin capes rather than de-lousing/fleaing more common clothing.

On the other hand if we wish to further pursue the Abby was crazy idea, perhaps Abby demanded prussic acid to kill imaginary bugs.

I fully agree that the murders were not premeditated for who premeditated axe murder? Though in legal terminology such axe murder as Vilisca is premeditated in that the perpetrator grabbed the family axe off the back steps prior to entering the home and doing the deed. In strict legal definition it does not take much to define premeditation but in the sense we lay people consider the term it takes a bit more. Legally if Lizzie, for example, was hellaciously mad and she went to the cellar for a hatchet, and upstairs to the guest room, it is premeditation. Also for example, the kind of burglar herein mentioned, going to the scene of the crime to be perpetrated with a tomahawk possibly, has premeditated murder.

I absolutely reject that Lizzie~or anyone~decided Mr. and Mrs. Borden would be killed August fourth and that an axe/hatchet would be the weapon.

My belief is that Lizzie was in the cellar when her father was killed. From that subterranean vantage point she thought she heard a groan, a distressing noise, a scraping noise and maybe Abby coming in. When she went back upstairs to investigate and found her father horribly killed, she went into shock and had a bad case of survivor's guilt that she hadn't helped her father. For mental self preservation she had to imagine herself as far away as possible on the family home property, which was the farthest corner of the barn, peacefully eating pears.

Of all her muddles accounts I have noted the barn story is remarkably detailed, though for many reasons I believe it is untrue. Especially I note that witnesses reported Lizzie's hands were very clean. Plus they failed to note dirt and smudges on her, presumably light blue wrapper. It is unlikely she would have appeared so clean had she been rummaging around in the barn. Far more likely she was in the cellar~down cellar~using the WC and rinsing the small towels soaking in a pail.

From the cellar I believe she heard the killer coming down from the guest room where he had been hiding. (I have found in my house I cannot tell if someone is going up or down on stairs until they make definitive footsteps on whichever floor they go to.) So anyway, Lizzie heard footsteps on stairs and across floors and gave it not much thought. Mrs. Borden must be home, lightly registered. In the aftermath of shock it was all muddled. Mrs. Borden is out, no I think I might have heard her come in. Who else would have walked about the house for the murderer was unseen and intangible to memory.

One keeping tally on Abby's possibly mentally ill state could possible add the mysterious note. If Abby was mentally unwell, could she have imagined a note or told a muddled story of her own that Lizzie scarce paid attention to?

On the other hand one must consider Abby Potter's reminiscence~Little Abby who was named for her aunt~ that she was to have been babysat at 92 Second that day but that the plans had changed for reasons unknown. Was Aunt Abby having a spell, perhaps? On the other hand if Big Abby was seriously mentally ill, would she have been a choice for a baby sitter? Little Abby remembered her fondly whereas a child would likely remember mental illness with fear. (Is it possible Little Abby didn't go to 92 Second that day because her mother had gotten wind that Lizzie was back from her trip early. Perhaps Mrs. Whitehead murmured, "Oh sh*t, I don't want my baby around that nutso Lizzie.")

Considering Abby's mental health, she baked delicious mince pies which I find to be a lovely thing. But she used rosewater instead of rum. I looked up mince pie with rosewater and don't think I would like it, indeed I think it's crazy to put rosewater in mince pies. It is largely an Amish thing in this day.

There are a great many more things to consider but I hope I can get this much posted. You are an interesting fellow, Taos John. Welcome! You are a great writer and we will have a lot of fun.

One thing you have not yet addressed is the thread where several of us discussed a white artifact near Abby's waist in the face down/bed removed guest room picture. It appears to be a white blob on her right. When it is enlarged it appears to be a crumpled piece of paper with definite edges. We had fun chortling about it being THE NOTE that nobody ever found, but we know it is not. Do you TJ, have any opinion on this find?

Very best wishes, and again, WELCOME!

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 1:38 pm

Curryong wrote:With Abby away, perhaps for the morning, Andrew would have expected Lizzie to play hostess when John returned. This would be especially so during lunch, especially considering she'd been absent for the previous meals.

Curryong, I don't understand well. Do you mean that Andrew could have thought that Abby might be absent even for lunch?

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 3:25 pm

irina wrote:I too mentioned sad irons. I do remember the term has to do with the smelting process though my mother who used them in the 1920s also tied "sad" into the difficulty of laundry day.

I believe she heard the killer coming down from the guest room where he had been hiding.

One keeping tally on Abby's possibly mentally ill state could possible add the mysterious note. If Abby was mentally unwell, could she have imagined a note or told a muddled story of her own that Lizzie scarce paid attention to?

One thing you have not yet addressed is the thread where several of us discussed a white artifact near Abby's waist in the face down/bed removed guest room picture. It appears to be a white blob on her right. When it is enlarged it appears to be a crumpled piece of paper with definite edges. We had fun chortling about it being THE NOTE that nobody ever found, but we know it is not. Do you TJ, have any opinion on this find?

Very best wishes, and again, WELCOME!

Sad irons-- There was a style of them, I think from a bit later than 1892, with an arched handle and a humped back, so that the space one's fingers curled in looked like a cartoon frown from the side view. My mother had one when we lived in a wood stove house for a year around my 3rd birthday. I thought then that the flat iron wasa flat iron because it was, flat, and so the sad iron actually sad-- it was only in college that I discovered the ME meaning of the morpheme...

I meant to point out in my Intruder Theory that Lizzie's claim to think she heard Abby coming in actually meshes with it for exactly the reason you cite-- it suggests she heard someone on the stairs or opening a door or both.

My Crazy Abby proto-theory was mostly along Ms diablo's lines-- Severe Bipolar issues or the like resulting in freakish mood swings, and the kind of non-hallucinatory paranoia that might produce the poisoning worries; I wasn't imagining out and out psychosis. But the baby-sitting plan does counter that a bit; one would think if the household were experiencing enough of this to lock extra doors they would not have allowed babysitting dates without someone else constantly present.

I did wonder if the boundaries and barriers might have been because someone started sleepwalking a lot...

I have a thought on the blob, but I don't take it too seriously. My great aunt, when housekeeping, supposedly kept a hank of raw, unwashed sheep's wool in her apron pocket to rub her hands on periodically (for lanolin to keep them from cracking.)

It actually looks more like a hunk of raw cotton, though; and it doesn't look as though anything could fall out of Abby's apron pocket no matter how hard she was hit, given her physique. I suppose she could have had it in her hand when hit, or dropped it under the edge of the bed or something... It doesn't look like fabric or paper to me at all.

Maybe Morse left ampoules of morphine wrapped in cotton batting under the bed, and that was what the killer was after...

But that brings up another question?

There's been a lot of discussion of how tight a space it was in which to swing a hatchet at a reclining person. Is there any chance that the killer moved the bed toward Abby after she was dead? That would explain the "foot or so " she was under it without requiring her to try to shelter under it when she obviously could not. Not sure why X would do that-- maybe to look for something dropped or hidden under the opposite edge?

irina · Post by **irina** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 7:55 pm

Franz: I think we all think Andrew thought Abby would be gone through dinner and that was the result of or the purpose of the note, however one takes it. I would digress from the idea Andrew would expect Lizzie to be hostess during dinner though. I think Lizzie did what she wished and I doubt she would want to be hostess for dinner with Uncle John. If such was an order from Andrew, I would suggest it could be a motive for murder and perhaps I would need to rethink my Lizzie didn't do it position.

In thinking about mental illness I think it is important to consider physical illnesses that could not be treated in those days, that affected the nervous system and mental health. We have wondered if Lizzie and her mother were hyperthyroid because both had kind of popped looking eyes. Abby, fairly obese at over 200 pounds, could have had Addison's disease or something. Asylums were once full of folks with these and similar conditions. Most of these inmates were female. Simple treatments and developments in physiology and biochemistry were eventually able to release many inmates from lock up, though untold thousands previously suffered and died.

Even in our knowledgeable age, I have had an odd kind of tachycardia for years, which causes panic disorder and I can seem hysterical. In middle age severe migraine set in and I lost my ability to speak clearly. The doctors quickly wrote me off as mental until my heart almost wore out. At that point a cheap, old fashioned beta blocker was prescribed and I had a tremendous improvement. My mind was always absolutely clear and stable, but agony sometimes caused me to seem unstable. In Lizzie's day very common issues of metabolism and the nervous system were incurable. This state of affairs also feeds into the idea that women are hysterics and mentally unstable. Women are more prone to have many such conditions.

Concerning the locking in the Borden house, it impresses me that this was a kind of voluntary locking. For example Lizzie said she "always" locked her door, "unless" it was very warm and she wanted a cross draft. If she feared a family member or the likelihood of an intruder I think she would have ALWAYS locked her door or if it was too hot, she could have gone away or something. Andrew locked his bedroom door when he came down for breakfast and unlocked it again when he went up with a pitcher of water. Entrance doors were latched, hooked, even triple locked, but Bridget & Lizzie decided between them that the screen door could remain unlocked that morning. (Remember that Bridget walked right in and got her dipper. This is another reason I lean toward Lizzie's non-involvement. Unlike some authors would have us believe she didn't insist/arrange that all doors were tightly locked while "she" killed Abby and cleaned up.)** Bridget's key was hung on a wall under a shelf in the kitchen. Someone took Abby's key away from her. No system.

**TJ, be sure to check out the threads I started awhile back. One is titled "Consciousness of Innocence" and one is titled "Consciousness of Guilt".

I will make one final comment about Bridget being called Maggie and whether or not she minded. Writers have said Lizzie & Emma never bothered to learn Bridget's name and so they called her by the name of a past servant. On this forum there is all the research about Maggies and Bidis, and now Micks and Paddys. Plus we have some indication that past servants were named Sarah and Mary. So far no one has turned up a Maggie, Magdalena or Margaret. I will throw out here once again that Bridget's mother's name was Margaret and she may have enjoyed being called by her mother's name. Just an idea. Possible but not proven.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:16 pm

[quote="taosjohn
My Crazy Abby proto-theory was mostly along Ms diablo's lines-- Severe Bipolar issues or the like resulting in freakish mood swings, and the kind of non-hallucinatory paranoia that might produce the poisoning worries; I wasn't imagining out and out psychosis. But the baby-sitting plan does counter that a bit; one would think if the household were experiencing enough of this to lock extra doors they would not have allowed babysitting dates without someone else constantly present. [/quote]
I see Abby's not babysitting that day for no reason ever ascertained as supportive of a mental illness argument. People with bipolar are functional some of the time, but we know at this time Abby thought the family was being poisoned...which could point to her cycling. That Andrew was so huffy with Dr. Bowen's inquiry might speak to Andrew's being unwilling to pay for medical care for psychosis.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:55 am

Abby might have just postponed the babysitting (and thought she was being poisoned by adulterated baker's bread) because she and Andrew had vomited throughout Tuesday night. Andrew was not feeling well on the Wednesday and was still feeling a bit off on the Thursday morning. Remember, Andrew was semi-retired and might not have appreciated having a youngster around, even a well-behaved one. He didn't even feel like going out that Thursday morning. Tradesmen and people at the bank noticed that he was looking peaky.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 1:23 am

Sorry Franz, I didnt answer your question.

Yes I believe that Andrew might have believed that Abby might have been detained somehow over the lunch period. I do think that Andrew informed Lizzie that Uncle John was coming back. Andrew wouldn't have given Lizzie orders but may have said something like "You haven't seen your Uncle John yet. Why not catch up at lunch?" (Though remember Alice Russell said that Andrew had his fixed ideas and the household had to take notice of his wishes.) That doesn't matter as much as Lizzie realising that she had to go to Plan B.

irina · Post by **irina** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 10:13 am

Considering Abby's fear of poisoning we have to keep it all in balance. She and Andrew had been horribly, acutely ill. Though they were probably familiar with "summer complaint" perhaps this time was the worst. Today we think of germs. In those days it wasn't crazy to think of poisoning via adulteration. Where Abby perhaps takes it farther is to suggest someone is deliberately poisoning their milk. We might also consider that Abby could to an extent, have been gaslighted by someone like Lizzie in the household? Perhaps someone worked on Abby's mind about the daylight robbery and anything else possible.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 4:07 pm

irina wrote:**TJ, be sure to check out the threads I started awhile back. One is titled "Consciousness of Innocence" and one is titled "Consciousness of Guilt".

Thanks. Those were among the threads I reviewed last week.

Forgive me but I am not altogether supportive of the concepts?

I mean, it is clear to me that Olwald's shooting of Officer Tippett was done in consciousness of guilt. But there we know pretty much Oswald's whole story. In any true mystery, one cannot safely draw such inferences until the mystery is mostly dispelled, I think. To do so is to risk making your theory of the case from a circular argument. Innocent actions can look otherwise, simply because of Finagle's Law*; and even guilty consciousness may not be consciousness of the guilt under investigation. There was a case recently, I think, in which an alibi failed utterly, and turned out to have been cobbled up because the real alibi was that the suspect was committing a completely different crime several miles away.

Lizzie's barn trip story/stories may not add up not because she was a murderess, but because she had a flask or a racy novel or morphine tablets stashed out there. Or perhaps she just went out there to conceal terrible flatulence and didn't know quite how to explain that and was making up a story in complete consciousness of innocence, assuming that she would not be imperiling herself thereby.

Here, let me make up a scenario strictly to make the point:

Consider Morse' pear feast. Let me hypothesize just for the sake of argument that the murders weren't connected at all, and that Morse hired someone to kill Abby while he was out establishing that he was somewhere else absolutely. Extremely unlikely, but we already know something unlikely happened. We know we are missing something about the case-- whether in the sense of overlooking something or in the sense that it wasn't discovered and/or preserved in our box of puzzle pieces. We can pretty much figure that two related people have been murdered in separate crimes but close proximity sometime in history-- why shouldn't this be it?

So; Morse leaves the house after letting his confederate in or arranging entrance for him anyway, and goes about his business.
At some point the confederate passes him on the street and tells him it all went according to plan. Now he heads back to 92, and finds the not unexpected small crowd around-- but they tell him ANDREW has been murdered!

He would surely already have had some idea what to do and say if told Abby was killed; but this is a whole different fettle of kish. Did his agent misunderstand instructions and Abby is alive? Did he exceed them and both are dead but Abby's body undiscovered? Were Andrew and Abby's fears justified, and his accomplice' escape allowed entry for tongs, embezzlers, mutineers and illegitimate sons? And mainly, will his alibi stand up for Andrew's murder also?

Of course Morse stands in the yard eating pears-- he has to recast his entire immediate future in light of the wholly unexpected--figure out what to do and say. In this scenario his peculiar behavior and midday snack are both consciousness of guilt, and in a sense, consciousness of innocence!

Now forget all that.

Consider Morse coming back to 92, utterly innocent, but having breakfasted insufficiently. He is greeted with the news that Andrew is murdered. He is man of the world enough to forsee that the lunch he was counting on is not likely to develop, and that he will be answering all sorts of questions for several hours.

He will want to assist the investigation as much as possible, but not air any more dirty laundry than he must; this is basically his final duty to his friend, to protect Andrew and his families' reputation. And he will need to perform it starting on an emptyish stomach-- but there are pears available to him. In this light, Morse' behavior no longer seems peculiar? He is not expressing consciousness of guilt or innocence, but consciousness of low blood sugar, mostly.

One cannot really tell which way to interpret most actions until one knows the full chain of events. As Dorothy Sayers wrote "When you know how, you know who."

The problem here is that we know how only on a "with a hatchet in the guest room" level. We're only guessing at entry and exit, disposal of weapon and blood evidence, and so forth.

Any help we are going to get from motivations we already have, and it seems not to be enough-- and we wouldn't know what to make of it if it were...

* "The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum."

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 7:30 pm

IMO any help we are going to get from facts we already have. The Dread God Finagle appeared to be looking the other way on that August morning, or perhaps not at all, depending on whose perspective. The major problem I have with consciousness of either guilt or innocence is I'm unsure the murderer was emotionally capable of experiencing either so does that lead to a process of elimination? I understand your point about falling into a circular argument....which is not the same as concentric thinking. There's not much linear about the Borden murders except the timeline and even that is open to debate.

Unlike almost everyone else on this forum, I am without a theory or perhaps with tooooo many. I can see it a multitude of different ways. Thus I'm in continual contradiction with myself.

irina · Post by **irina** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 7:54 pm

I also made similar points in "Consciousness of Innocence". Lizzie burned the dress because it was blood stained and she was guilty. Lizzie burned the dress because she knew she was innocent, she didn't take ultimate precautions for privacy, and why should she wince she was innocent.

Consciousness of innocence and guilt are real points to consider in US law. Vincent Bugliosi decided whether or not to defend a woman based on his opinion of her consciousness of innocence. I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Bugliosi.

As I noted in another thread I have always been fascinated by things like polling where a relatively small or diverse sampling can be mathematically accurate. It has been noted that if a fair going crowd is asked to guess the weight of a prize winning bull on display, when all the guesses are averages they come out almost accurate. So I have wondered if similar ideas can be applied to old mysteries and since I have great difficulty going to sleep at night, I play all kinds of mind games till unconsciousness arrives. (Now everyone knows I'm nuts that I think about Lizzie Borden~or Jack the Ripper~in order to sleep art night.)

So I was curious about a preponderance of anything in the Borden case. I feel there is a preponderance of consciousness of innocence, but a preponderance is far from beyond a doubt. By encouraging everyone to join the search, our collective wisdom might shake loose some ideas which might aid further research. We have learned a great deal from each other but we have not yet found the answer.

As with anything in the Borden case, for every point one can make there is a corresponding "yeah, but". Fortunately none of us argue for any perspective to the point of ruining the forum, as I have seen happen on some forums.

As for Uncle John and the pears I like the idea that he knew lunch was likely not forthcoming so he had an early dinner. He couldn't very well microwave a left over johnny cake to dip in a reheated cup of mutton broth. And there are some of us, including me, who can't pass a ripe pear without devouring it.

irina · Post by **irina** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 7:58 pm

There is a place in the witness statements, I think Fleet's statement, where Lizzie is heard to ask Bridget on the morning of the fifth, "Are you sure the cellar door was locked?" Bridget replied, "Yes Marm." I've been thinking of adding this to consciousness of innocence. On the other hand since a police officer was present we could say consciousness of guilt in that she asked the question to make herself look innocent before the police. I personally don't think Lizzie thought that deeply but it is an interesting thought.

phineas · Post by **phineas** » Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:45 pm

I really like the incest theory TaosJohn....that Emma was gone and Lizzie alone in the house for once, giving Andrew his chance...and that the fatal Abby event was the product of a disoriented molested woman probably in complete shock at the night before and provoked by a few words by Abby. Then, it makes utter sense that having killed Abby, she wanders around in a fugue state and suddenly there's Andrew and it's all just too much. Murder #2. This storyline handles some of my problems with the case - that of the killer staying in a rage state to carry out both killings. Here you have two separate rage events stemming from one colossal triggering event - the uncaring stepmother and the perpetrator in the order in which she encountered them that morning. I also buy the fugue state in this scenario as having lost her virginity the night before and been betrayed by her father, Lizzie would be disconnected to say the least. Her lies would be a combination of a) honestly being confused after trauma and b) wanting to conceal molestation out of shame c) having snapped, knowing she had to save her skin, but being again, probably dissociated from incest. I've always felt there was something critical about Emma being gone that week that related to the crime; now this is a plausible answer: Lizzie was left unprotected and raped. This is a twist on prior incest theories because I don't believe anyone has suggested that incest might have happened for the first time the night before the murders (or perhaps the Monday or Tuesday before, at any rate, sometime when Emma was gone to Fairhaven).