Lost in Translation?

On July 10, 2006, The Countess penned a blog entry about her stay at the Lizzie Borden B&B. I found it quite interesting not only because it is heartfelt, but because it is also a study of how a story evolves and changes in its passing from one person to another. Now I wouldn’t expect this author to cite sources or use reference works to back up her claims as that is not the point of her entry—hers is a personal tale of her impressions after visiting the house.

That house is an experience, and I always say that you can’t truly know the case until you visit that house. However, I find it particularly fascinating how the circumstances of the crimes have changed in this telling. We have to assume that either the tour guide told The Countess parts of the story incorrectly, or the writer embellished the tale told with her own feelings and impressions. Either way, what we have here is a very well written experiential essay that gets a lot of the facts wrong. I know I am nitpicking. I realize that unless you study it by reading all the primary sources that you might not know what’s really what with this case. But I see it all the time. I see the story of the case misrepresented in a factual nature.

The most amazing thing, however, is that this might not make a darn bit of difference in the long run. I mean, John Douglas, in his The Cases that Hunt Us, gets it ALL wrong, but his analysis portion feels spot on. He draws a picture of the possible killer that seems right in my gut, even though he bases all this on completely inaccurate information. It is almost as if the thing was written by two people.

Which brings me back to The Countess. She gets many parts of the story wrong (the maid coming down stairs, the switching of the bedrooms, the timing of the locking of the door between the parent’s room and Lizzie’s room, Lizzie’s size based on that dress at the house, the number of blows, the theft being of Andrew’s items, Lizzie being “stoned” at the moment before the murders, Morse being there last seven years ago, the idea that the bodies were rotting in the dining room for two days, to name a few), but she still has this overriding feeling about her experience there that makes her see the guilt of Lizzie the way she does.

She tries to tie her conclusions of Lizzie’s guilt to the facts, but since they are not totally accurate, I have to dismiss this part of her analysis. But I can’t dismiss her gut reaction after her visit that it had to be an inside job. That house will do that to you.

So if you are reading my blog about your blog, Countess, I just want you to know that I appreciate your instinctual reactions to what you saw and how it made you feel about this case. For that reason, I recommend it my readers.