Professor James Starrs from 1992
Here is a little clip from TV6 in Fall River on Professor James Starrs talk about Lizzie. He claims that there is no evidence she did it. You might remember Starrs as the go-to guy for exhuming the bodies—wanted to use modern forensic medicine to help solve the case. He was denied the exhumation by family.
November 15, 2006 at 6:09 pm
What would have been the point of exhuming the bodies? What evidence would the skulls (I assume that was what he was after) provide at this late date?
In other words– to what other evidence would exhumation evidence be compared?
Aside from perhaps proving that the crime was committed by a right-handed person as opposed to a left-handed one (and I’m not certain even THAT could be accomplished), I cannot figure whom Prof. Starrs would eliminate through further scientific investigation.
Lizzie had the most to gain from the murders (aside from Emma). She had ample motive, means, and opportunity. She hated her stepmother (“She is NOT my mother”). She wanted to entertain. She was tired of living below her means. And she simply would not have tolerated her father leaving the bulk of his estate to her stepmother.
I agree with one of the statements made by a commentator in the hatchet clip, from the History Channel. That is, would you have spent the night in the house in which your parents had been murdered, IF you had no idea who had committed the murders? Would you have returned to live in Fall River, knowing some fiend who had killed your parents was lurking about, and you might be next?
It would have been pretty creepy to stay in the house under any circumstance, but perhaps Lizzie had some loose ends to tie up, by way of incriminating evidence.
I have attempted every which way to excuse Lizzie from any involvement in the murders. However, she could not have walked past that blood-splattered guest bedroom in which Abby’s body was sprawled– which Lizzie most certainly did, at least once– and not have noticed. The smell of all that blood in that close room on a warm morning would have been attention-grabbing in and of itself.
SO– if she chose to overlook that murder scene, and not to alert her father to it, she was in on something.
AND, if someone else committed the murders, why didn’t Lizzie get out of that house and establish an alibi? She could have easily admitted the murderer through, say, the cellar before she left. A brawny male could have easily overcome Abby and Andrew (and Bridget, if necessary).
As many have noted before, the crime scene was hopelessly compromised. ANYONE could have planted anything, a defense attorney could argue. Even if a blood-soaked garment had been found, how could it have been successfully tied to Lizzie? Short of taking hair samples from Lizzie on the day of the murders and testing them for traces of the victims’ blood (which would have required modern-day technology), how could forensics tie her conclusively to the crime?
Only if the house had been sealed immediately and searched thoroughly could any evidence USEFUL AT TRIAL have been obtained. The moment, as they say, has passed.
Heck, she lived in that house– her fingerprints would have been everywhere, and on practically everything! That’s one of the grand advantages of an inside job.
Now, to reference the Simpson case– in both instances, there was anemic prosecution and the best defense that money could buy. There was enormous publicity in both instances, and enormous support for the defendants via vocal groups pointing up sensitive issues. In O.J.’s instance– racial mistreatment by a distrusted police force. In Lizzie’s instance– mistreatment of females by drunken and/or (often corporeally) authoritative males. (In the state in which I live, it was legal, at the turn of the 20th century, for a husband to beat his wife with a stick, if said stick did not exceed a certain width. Such was the power of men, bestowed by all-male governments, at the time.) Plus, similar questions were raised– How could O.J. be a murderer? He’s a beloved sports star, movie star, and T.V. star. After all, he saved the kittycat and all those people in “The Towering Inferno.”
As for Lizzie– she was a “proper” lady from a good family who taught Sunday School. How could she have possibly chopped up her father and stepmother?
There would have been enormous “fallout” from guilty verdicts in either instance, too. I’m guessing more race riots in L.A., among other places. No telling what the suffragettes and temperance leaders and other women’s rights advocates would have done on behalf of Lizzie. Besides which, Massachusetts still bore (and bears) the shame of the Salem witch trials. Surely, no one there was overanxious to hang another woman.
As an attorney friend of mine once commented, “No one with a million dollars in the United States has ever been executed.”
Tragically, “justice” has been, and continues to be, for sale. Let’s not confuse a “not guilty” verdict with a defendant’s innocence, or lack thereof.