114 years ago today
From The Boston Globe, August 4, 1892:
114 years ago today Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were murdered by person or persons unknown in their own home. It was a Thursday. It was not as hot as writers have mythologized, with temperatures barely reaching 80 by noon. The horrible heat wave was over in the days before the crimes were committed.
This is not a day to celebrate or enjoy. This is a day to mourn the lives of two innocent victims of this gruesome slaying. It is a day to remember the crimes and contemplate the ferocity of the attacks. Imagine, if you will, the startling nature of two daylight murders on a busy street in an era just before fingerprinting and blood analysis would become the norm in police investigations. So many people, journalists, police officers, neighbors, interested parties, walked all about the crime scenes, disturbing evidence and leaving traces of their presence as they examined the premises.
It was a case that didn’t stand a chance of being solved. The main suspect had no blood on her, and time was too short from the murder of Andrew to the discovery of his dead body for Lizzie Borden to have cleaned herself up. No provable murder weapon was found.
Suspects were questioned, motives were examined, investigations were carried out, searches were repeated. And, as it turned out a year later, the State could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Even a retrial in the 90s at Stanford University, presided over by Sandra Day O’Connor and William Rehnquist, came to the same conclusion. Not guilty.
