Dangerous Substances?

[Kat]

I just finished The Devil In The White City, by Erik Larson, which tells the story of the conception and building of the Chicago Fair, The Columbian Exposition. It was open for 6 months in 1893.

Within the story, I noticed two interesting references which affect our Borden subject.

One was a reference to "mood altering drugs called bromides." (375)
The other equated the color "Turkey Red" with arsenic. (132)

"Olmsted became ill- severely so. He attributed his condition to poisoning from an arsenic-based pigment called Turkey Red in the wallpaper of his Brookline home."
(It goes on to say that it could have been another bout of his depression to which he was prone.).

This sounds like the color was well-known to contain arsenic. I recall the OUIJA board discussion from The Knowlton Papers which mentioned Turkey Red and it was a possibility that such a color was used to make the drab color with which the Borden house was painted.

The other reference to bromides as a mood-altering drug surprised me, but if it is, it makes sense that Bowen would start with that with Lizzie and then switch to morphine. I always wondered why that seemed such a big switch in medication.

Does anone know about the "mood-altering" effects of bromides? I thought we had covered this but this sounds stronger than I ever thought.
And the Turkey Red which contained arsenic makes it sound like a side-effect of arsenical poisoning could cause or mimic depression.

[Allen]

We are going by information provided by a OUIJA board?

[Kat]

LizzieAndrewBorden.com
Diversions
Psychic File
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/Diversion/PsychicFile.htm

A group of people (or person) sent their OUIJA board transcription to the prosecution and it was kept for some reason by someone involved with the case and made it into The Knowlton Papers, which is a collection of letters between the principals of defense, prosecution, experts and notes and suggestions from citizens.

For some reason the OUIJA thing was published with these letters by the Historical Society and I compiled this with other letters from psychics and we put it on the website.

In the past, we had a discussion about the phrase "Turkey Red" and Susan, our member artiste looked it up and found, I believe, that it was an ingredient , or could be, in the color "drab" which Lizzie picked to paint the house. There were stories at the time that Lizzie had bought red paint in the newspapers. This Turkey Red now, if I believe the author Larson, was known to contain arsenic. I believe Susan had informed us that arsenic was used in some paints of the time, I know especially whitewash. Also lead- but that is more common knowledge.

Actually, I believe the OUIJA transcription (probably from 1893) was sent in that format either as a joke, or was designed to be unique enough to get a message across from an interested party.

[Kat]

The book by Larson also mentions The Columbia Cook Book, by Adelaide Hollingsworth in his text on the fair, and I found some of it transcribed here:

http://members.fortunecity.com/research ... ryear.html

"As soon as the ironing is done for the day the flatirons should be taken off the stove. To leave them on without using takes the temper out of them."

[Kat]

It seems as if this famous landscape designer (he designed Central Park for 40 years into the future) could believe he was poisoned by his wallpaper, it seems like it is possible but how would that come about?

[doug65oh]

I did a bit of reading on this just the last while, and weird as it might seem it does appear to be at least theoretically possible, altho it would depend on the composition of the wallpaper pigments, and perhaps the wallpaper itself (tho pigments are the best bet at this point.)

Apparently, there's a theory floating about - one among many I'd suspect - concerning the death of Napoleon Bonaparte; that his death was hastened (if not caused outright) by arsenic poisoning. The arsenic, says this theory, was absorbed from a pigment in the wallpaper in the room where he took what are described as "steaming baths." Presumably the steam/humidity somehow leeched out the arsenic in the pigments.

http://www.napoleon-series.org/research ... senic.html provides some insight.

How credible is that theory? Hard to say; but it does seem to make sense on its face, although there are variables (of course) which could impact the validity of that theory in the Emperor's case.

[Susan]

Kat, I did a search on Turkey red, I couldn't find any reference to arsenic with the color, though thats not to say that it wasn't added to the paint itself for some reason.

For dyes:
Madder - Reds from roots. Native to Middle East, spread to northern Europe before 1066. Very fast dye; has been identified in many Medieval and Renaissance textiles. England was famous for it's madder reds in the 14th C., Turkey red was also madder-based.

Apparently calcium was added to the mix to get the Turkey red color.

For paints:
Red Iron Oxides:
Natural Red Iron Oxides: (PR 102) Light Red (Antwerp Red), Red Ochre, Spanish Red, Persian Gulf Oxide, Pompeian Red, Prussian Red, Turkey Red. The Romans referred to it as Sinopia, sinope, or sinoper where it was used to create the red preliminary outline painted on fresco plaster before applying the intonaco. Natural Red Oxides develop into hard, fairly flexible films in oil, but are of better quality in the synthetic forms.

Toxicity: not toxic, do not breathe dust

From this site:

http://www.sanders-studios.com/instruct ... esent.html

I did find that there was an orange color associated with arsenic; Arsenic orange or Realgar.

This is an ancient pigment which is also a nice poison. (It contains arsenic.) The pigment produced a reddish-orange. Sources list it as a pigment that does not fade, but also that it reacts with other pigments. What this latter statement means, I don't know as this pigment hasn't been available for most of the 20th century. I do know that it was not reactive to air as it was used in medieval illuminations and the orange is still bright. The pigment was replaced in the mid-19th century by cadmium orange, in large part due to the dangers associated with handling dry arsenic compounds.

Which sounds like it wasn't in use by the 1890s. The only other instance I could find was with wallpaper in the 1800s which featured the color Paris green which contained arsenic.


I did find this which I thought was interesting, looks like arsenic was a major component in wallpaper and carpets:

SELECTED PRE-1930 HAZARDOUS WASTE GENERATORS

Carpets and wallpaper arsenic 1880-1900

Electroplating acid, cyanide, arsenic 1880--

Pesticides arsenic 1890s--

From this site:

http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/im910219.html

[Allen]

Links on the history of arsenic and its uses

http://chemeducator.org/sbibs/s0007002/ ... 0051rb.htm

http://www.popularscience.co.uk/features/feat17.htm

[Kat]

Thanks you guys!
From "Killer Wallpapers" (Allen, and what Susan found about colours):
"The arsenic pigments Scheele’s green and Emerald green, the mercurial vermilion, green lead chromate, cadmium yellow, arsenical Naples ’s yellow, the cyanide salt Prussian blue, were the staple colours used to brighten up the Georgian and Victorian home. Whites were often lead white or arsenic trioxide."

We've got green, yellow, blue and white, but no Turkey Red.
Hmm.
This site implies it could be an inhaled fungi,, or the gas thereof- the byproduct of the arsenic inspired dye in the wallpaper.
It's interesting to note that a house can thus be dated by the components in its wallpaper- which is sort of what Susan found. If Olmsted lived in a pre-1890's house, he could have that wallpaper.
Maybe he was misinformed about the arsenic content in that particular colour and the author took his word for it?

Well, anyway, we've found other causes of illness in a family here other than deliberate ingestion.

[Susan]

Does anone know about the "mood-altering" effects of bromides? I thought we had covered this but this sounds stronger than I ever thought.

BROMIDE-any of the salts of hydrobromic acid; used as a sedative or a sedative in the form of sodium or potassium bromide

HALLUCINOGENS

There is no sharp line that divides the psychedelics from other psychoactive drugs that cause hallucinations. Anticholinergics, bromides, antimalarials, opioid antagonists, cocaine, amphetamines, and corticosteroids can produce illusions and hallucinations, delusions, paranoid ideation, and other alterations in mood and thought similar to psychosis.

DRUGS REPORTED TO CAUSE CONFUSION, DELIRIUM, OR DISORIENTATION

Acetazolamide Cortisonelike Drugs Levodopa
Aminophylline Cycloserine Meprobamate
Antidepressants Digitalis Para-aminosalicylic Acid
Antihistamines Digitoxin Phenelyzine
Atropinelike drugs Disulfiram Phenothiazines
Barbiturates Digoxin Phenytoin
Benzodiazepines Ethchlorvynol Piperazine
Bromides Ethinamate Primidone
Carbamazepine Fenfluramine Propranolol
Chloroquine Glutethimide Reserpine
Cimetidine Isoniazid Scopolamine

DRUGS REPORTED TO CAUSE PARANOID THINKING

Bromides Diphenhydramine Isoniazid
Cortisonelike drugs Disulfiram Levodopa

From this site: http://www.talkaboutsupport.com/group/a ... 29366.html

Barbiturates And Amphetamines
Gradually, barbiturates and amphetamines became a part of American life.

During the nineteenth century, opiates had been used frequently for their sedative benefits. However, these were soon found to be addictive and physicians often prescribed bromide salts as an alternative.

Bromides, however, never gained great popularity, largely due to the risk of chronic bromide poisoning. Until the first years of the twentieth century, physicians continued to prescribe alcohol (against all threats from temperance unions) as the most common sedative (Brecher, 1972).


I also stumbled across this page by accident and upon reading thought that there were symptoms of Manic-Depressive Illness that sounded like Lizzie. Heres the link to the page if interested: http://www.mentalhealth.com/book/p40-ma01.html

[Kat]

Whew! Thanks again! I despaired of getting any bromide input. Dolan's concoction was caffeine-based I guess. That sounds like an upper rather than a downer.

Trial
326
Bowen
Q. What did you give?
A. I gave a preparation called bromo caffeine.

Q. For what purpose?
A. For quieting nervous excitement and headache.

Q. To bring on quiet. to allay nervous excitement?
A. Yes, sir.

[Susan]

You're welcome, Kat. Hmmm, I think the caffeine was possibly to speed the bromides into the taker's system. I found this:

Author: Keasbey and Mattison Company
Title: Pamphlets and handbills, ca.1877-1920.
Description: 41 items
Notes: Pamphlets and handbills advertising
pharmaceuticals, including Alkalithia (a treatment foruric
acidemia containing lithium and caffeine), Aquatone (a
carbonated mineral water containing lithium),Bromo-Caffeine
(a headache and hangover remedy containing bromides and
caffeine), malt extracts, pepsin, and Salaperient (amineral
laxative); also, advertisements for infant formula andfor
asbestos as a surgical dressing and as a buildingmaterial
for sanitoria.

In 1873, Henry G. Keasbey, a wealthy financier, and Dr. Richard V. Mattison, a chemist, founded The Keasbey & Mattison Company, a producer of pharmaceuticals and asbestos products. Dr. Mattison made his first fortune in patent medicines such as Bromo Caffeine, made to soothe the anxieties of "the neurasthenic woman or the congestive or anaemic headaches of the fin de siecle man", Alkalithia for rheumatism and Cafetonique for dyspepsia.

Hmmm, sounds like it was made for women on the verge of breakdown!
But, it doesn't say what kind of bromides went into it, there are so many of them.

[Kat]

I think you're right that the caffeine was to speed up and enhance the bromides effects. I can think of modern Goody's powders, which now, I believe contain caffeine to enhance delivery of aspirin.

[Pippi]

considering how well caffeine treats headaches as well as speeding other substances into the body it also seems reasonable that she had a headache or migraine (which can also make ones thinking confused and or irrational explaining behavior right after the events), hence the use of the bromide, if that didn't work switching to morphine is a natural progression for the medicines of the day. If she was near her menstrual cycle that could induce migraines as well as killing someone or finding someone slain.

[lydiapinkham]

Hello, everyone! Here's my 2 cents worth on bromides and wallpaper.

First, bromides. My daughter suffers from nasty migraines, but because of potential interactions with her other meds is unable to get any of the new migraine clobberers. Her pediatrician suggested ibuprofin, maximum dose, and caffeinated soda ( a remedy that works better than anything else). He mentioned the old bromo-caffeine solution, saying that bromides were found to be habit-forming and dangerous. As Pippi mentioned, many now believe that the caffeine was what worked on headaches and that the bromides did no good at all! According to him, there was a recent study done on the subject. (Don't ask me where!) Come to think of it, going off caffeine cold turkey can cause blinding headaches (been there, done that!).

Now, wallpaper. I recently did some research on Paris Green, used as both ratkiller and wallpaper pigment. I found a website, whose address I no longer remember, that mentioned a rash of child poisonings towards the end of the nineteenth century. They occurred in all social levels and locales. The one common denominator they found was Paris Green wallpaper, which was taken off the market as soon as the connection was made--much as was to be done to lead paint years later. The reason the poison struck children was not that children ingested it as they did lead paint chips. Instead, the poison (an arsenical) was released into the air as gas, which remained at floor level, where the children played. How sad to think that a family's pride and joy--the brilliantly colored new wallpaper meant to improve their way of life--might end by destroying the family's true pride and joy, its children. Sort of a Pied Piper deal.

--Lyddie

[lydiapinkham]

I was just thinking about Doug's story about Napoleon. He, too, would have been at a low level in the room if reclining full length in the tub. If he like to doze off in the tub, who knows what kinds of gases he'd have inhaled. (Of course, poor Napoleon was never much above gas level even when standing. . . )

--Lyddie

[Kat]

Thanks Lyddie!
I'm so sorry about your daughter.
Migraines must be horrible!
Today they are doing a nerve blocking operation here in Florida which was just on the news tonight!
...
Lizzie's period was over Wednesday night- but I guess all the stuff going on could cause Lizzie to have a bad headache. We have no proof of migraines though. I guess Ms. Lincoln ruled that out maybe, because sufferers are so debillitated they cannot kill?

[lydiapinkham]

A cluster headache might prompt a killing. That's the rare kind that hits behind one eye and causes sufferers to beat their heats against the walls (I have seen video footage) from the pain. I suppose the pain could be externalized instead, but it doesn't fit the surrounding evidence.

I think the bromo-caffeine would be prescribed for the shock, which could well bring on a throbbing of the head. It also might be a doctor's response to his own feeling of helplessness. He could tell himself he'd done something for the poor girl.

--Lyddie

[theebmonique]

As a former sufferer of both migraine and cluster headaches, I know about the head-banging. I also know that 'during' either one of these headaches, I could not have had clear thoughts enough to pick up an axe, whack my step-mother...then wait a while and whack my father. Banging my own head against the wall was hard enough to think about. I am so glad that these headaches are non-existent now.


Tracy...

[lydiapinkham]

I think I'm with you there, Tracy! Definitely not an axe. A fist, maybe, or some other handy object. And of course the repeat performance would make no sense at all. Glad yours are gone now. I still get them, but not so bad as I used too,

--Lyddie

[bullet43]

Lizzie needed something to calm her down because she was nervous having to testify.She didn't want her guilt to show through.Like taking a drink of alcohol-it makes it easier to lie.J
*Just my opinion.

[john]

Poor Napoleon. Getting more than he bargained for in his sauna. I always wondered why anyone would want to kill him at that time anyway.

[wintressanna]

Yeah and I have been a sufferer of mean migraines, and though I can not say its true with every migraine you would experience, but many is the time I could not do anything but lie down on the floor, at the lowest point possible in the room, and getting up from there made me so nauseated and weak that i dont think murder would be within the range of possibility.

Thank Goodness I dont suffer from them anymore either!

[Lorcan]

Resurfacing this - I have been thinking about Lizzie's choice of color, her waking up early, and making the painter add the toxic ingredient to change the color (assumption based on this...)

Chromium (Chrome Green): To achieve darker, more subdued "drab" or olive tones, paint makers often mixed Chrome Yellow (lead chromate) with Prussian Blue (iron ferrocyanide). Toxic heavy metals like hexavalent chromium were common in these pigments, posing significant respiratory and health hazards.

Here is some testimony about Lizzie's love of blue and her actions around the painting.

Emma L. Borden’s direct examination, Trial, Vol. II, p. 1531:
Q. Well, how many dresses were there in there?
A. I can't tell you without looking at this paper.
Q. Well, can you tell us about how many?
A. Somewhere about eighteen or nineteen.
Q. And whose were those dresses?
A. All of them belonged to my sister and I except one that belonged to Mrs. Borden.
Q. How many of those dresses were blue dresses or dresses in which blue was a marked color?
A. Ten.
Q. To whom did those belong?
A. Two of them to me and eight to my sister.

John W. Grouard, house painter — Trial pp. 1348–1350
Grouard establishes when the painting occurred, Lizzie's involvement in choosing the color, and the color itself:
Q. When did you see her, if at all, after you got the paint up there?
A. Next morning early.
Q. Where was that?
A. In the back yard, near the barn.
Q. Where was your paint?
A. In the barn.
Q. What was it in?
A. Tubs, pots, etc.
Q. Now won't you tell what was done by you and she at that time in regard to paint?
A. The color was not satisfactory that we had mixed in the tub, and so I made the color to suit,---to suit her.
Then:
Q. Did you paint the house?
A. We did.
Q. How soon after that?
A. The next morning, of the 10th.
Q. Was that outside or inside?
A. Outside.
Q. What was the color of the paint?
A. Kind of dark drab.
Q. The same that is now upon it?
A. The same color, yes, sir.
Q. Was that the last time it was painted, so far as you know?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What was the trimmings? Was there any difference in the color of the trimmings?
A. A little darker.
Grouard is then cross-examined about the paint containers:
Q. Where were the paints in the barn, near the door or in the stall?
A. Well, probably partially---there was two tubs, one dark and one light color.
Q. Well, you don't remember whether they were in the stall or not?
A. Well, one color may have been, but one color was near the door.
Q. You did all the mixing?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who else besides you did it?
A. Well, I directed the mixing of it.
Q. Well, either you or some of your men did all of the mixing?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, she looked on and saw it done?
A. Yes, sir.
And then Jennings asks the key location questions:
Q. (By Mr. Jennings.) After it was mixed did you take it out and try it on the house?
A. Yes, sir, on the corner of the house near the back steps.
Q. In consultation with her?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. So as to show how it appeared on the house?
A. Yes, sir.

[Inspector]

I’ve never understood why the answer of drab and dark was acceptable.
The question was answered incorrectly, and only gives a clue as to the shade, but not the actual color itself.

[camgarsky4]

I think this is another example of terminology evolving over the decades. I googled drab definition in 1890 and it is 'dull light brown'.

I found hundreds of clothing advertisements that mention drab as if its a recognizable color. two examples below.

Screenshot 2026-08-14 224817.png

Screenshot 2026-08-14 225124.png

[Lorcan]

What I was getting at is Andrew gave the painter instructions that Lizzie must approve the color. Lizzie then apparently does things that could be totally innocent, but set off alarm bells for me:

1. Lizzie loved blue, as evidenced by having so many blue dresses.

2. Andrew told the painter he was to not paint the house until Lizzie approved the color.

3. Lizzie doesn't pick a shade of blue, white, grey but one of the ugliest shades of green I have seen on a house but that's not what sets of the air raid siren in my mind, it's the next item.

Remember this part: Chromium (Chrome Green): To achieve darker, more subdued "drab" or olive tones, paint makers often mixed Chrome Yellow (lead chromate) with Prussian Blue (iron ferrocyanide).

4. To make the more common emerald green or brighter green into drab, a toxic chemical is added and mixed in. Lizzie gets up early to personally watch how the paints are mixed and instructs the painter to go from a shade of green the professional painter started with to darker drab, the painter has to show Lizzie which container the toxic substance is in. She now knows which one is the poison. Will she have an opportunity to steal some? Who knows? If she did, it wasn't used as the murder weapon, but for a woman with such taste in clothes and such a fine eye for shades of blue, that dark drab green just doesn't sit well with me. Green, specifically, was known to have poisonous chemicals back then and women would get poisoned from sweating in their green dresses sometimes and absorbing the toxins through their skin.

I know this is speculation, but the exact circumstances which would allow Lizzie to see and have access to poison happened via that choice to not only paint the house green but to alter the shade of green to drab.

Lizzie actually went to the painter's house and then got up at 6AM the next day to supervise the mixing.

Q. Do you remember whether or not any tests were made from time to time by you and her in regard to the appearance of the paint when you were mixing it?
A. Well, the paint was carried there on the afternoon of the 9th and her father said that she was to select the color, and I better not go on with it until the color was determined, and she not being present, it was delayed until the next morning. That evening she came to my house and said the color was not just what she wanted.

MR. KNOWLTON. You are not to state the conversation.

Q. She came to your house. In consequence of what she said to you was an appointment made for the next morning?
A. The next morning early before the men came to go to work, that was about six o’clock in the morning—

Q. That is the time that you have told us about?
A. Yes, sir,—and I mixed the colors then satisfactorily.

Q. She was there at that time?
A. Yes, sir.

[camgarsky4]

Nice call out on Lizzie being in the backyard at 6am to inspect the paint. I had not noticed that detail previously.
To Lorcan's point, she certainly took this paint selection assignment very seriously.

A meaningless, but still interesting address factoid. Grouard's home was at 670 High Street (house # post 1895), which was barely a block from Lizzie and Emma's Maplecroft home. The current home at the address isn't obviously over 130 years old, so not sure if it is Grouard's home that we see today.
Anyway, per Grouard, Lizzie walked to his home the previous evening. Per Google, the sunset at 7:30 on May 9, 1892.

Lorcan, if we play out your working theory, Lizzie had decided to do the elder Borden's harm at least 3 months before the actual killings? My instincts would tell me that a 'upper middle class Victorian lady' would have no clue what chemicals or materials created paint or the colors in paint. I think we need to develop that aspect a bit more to pursue this idea.

By the way, to Kat's opening post (2 decades ago), I also recently read "The Devil in the White City" and it was a unique and very readable way to present a set of dual (or tri) narratives which occurred over a common timeline and metro location.

Another side note....Lizzie tells us she had repeated experiences of seeing strangers sneaking around her home at night, we have several examples of her not seeming concerned during her walks to various locations in the later hours of the day.

[Lorcan]

I checked Harper's to see if there were any mentions of the green dyes and dresses. No luck. Here are some photos of various construction and restoration. I don't know if any of it is the 1892 paint.

[Lorcan]

I thought the Hatchet accidentally horizontally flipped that image, but look at the roofline of the white house in the background - looks like there was another door added to the south side of the kitchen for use when the printing press was attached.

[camgarsky4]

This might be what you are saying, but the bottom photo is flipped. The camera is looking east on the south side of the house, but the image above suggests camera is on south side and looking west or on the north side looking east.

Cool photos.....where do you find these goodies? I've not seen these before. The view of the paint on the north side sure looks like drab brown to me!!

[Lorcan]

I flipped it (you can see with the text being backwards) - The Hatchet got it correct - there was a kitchen door added on the south side of the kitchen that connected the printing press office that was added on. When I first saw the picture I thought it was showing the northside screen door, but it wasn't. Maybe flipping the photo and pointing out the roof of the white house to show it wasn't flipped wasn't the best idea for clarity.

I saw the closeup photos of the scraping on flickr, I think, the ones labelled from The Hatchett were from there, and I think the bus era photos might have been from one of the government archives. If you ever want to trace a photo back you can go to Google and click the camera icon to the right of the microphone in the search bar and do an image search. It will show you all the places it found that image online (and similar images) and you can try to do some detective work.

[Lorcan]

We may need a wide variety of people to view the scraping image - the large chunk of paint above the glove to get an idea. Everyone's computer monitor was a different color palette and white point, plus there are wide variety of color perception even among people without any amount of color blindness. My largest color anomaly is I have a very narrow definition of yellow. I see green contamination very early compared to most.

To give you an example, I blacked out what I consider yellow and everything to the right I consider green and everything to the left I consider orange blending out to red. Some people will see yellow on either side of the black line left to right along the top of the image.

To avoid any human perception issues, here is the exact color values the computer captures from the center of the paint above the glove. The color map shows the surrounding colors - definitely in the green range.

Let's ask around and see what people think. Everyone's perception of color is individual to them. I have a feeling Lizzie had better color vision than I do.

HTML/Hex Notation: #596A63
RGB Values:
R (Red): 89 (34.9%)
G (Green): 106 (41.6%)
B (Blue): 99 (38.8%)

HSL / LCh Values:
Lightness (L): 43.2
Chroma / Saturation (C): 8.0
Hue (h): 167.8° (placing it distinctly in the cool green/teal hue family)

Based on the spectrum image provided in your screenshot, your perceived yellow band is significantly narrower than the standard 25 nm span:
Wavelength Comparison
Standard Yellow Range: 590 nm to 565 nm (a 25 nm span).
Your Marked Yellow Range: The black bar you placed extends roughly from 580 nm down to 570 nm.
Your Perceived Span: Approximately 10 nm wide.

Key Findings
60% Narrower Than Average: Your personal threshold for pure yellow spans roughly 10 nm, which is less than half of the standard 25 nm physical spectrum band.

Early Shift to Green/Orange: Because your "pure yellow" window is tuned so tightly around ~575 nm, wavelengths above ~580 nm transition into orange/red for you, while wavelengths below ~570 nm are registered immediately as having a noticeable green tint.

[Inspector]

Wow. Cool photos of the paint layers.
Here’s my perception for what it’s worth.

Just above the blue gloved hand I can see a drab green on top of a grey ( possibly primer), then a white below that.

Then to the right of the gloved hand there appears to be a first layer below the white. It appears to be a drab bluish grey.
It appears darker than the possible primer grey .
Could this be Lizzie’s color?

Thanks Lorcan, pretty good stuff.

[camgarsky4]

Lorcan - please go ahead and 'play out' this possibility of Lizzie activating her plans as early as 3 months prior to August 4. Might she have taken actions prior to week of August 1? Or even prior to her trip to New Bedford?

[Lorcan]

I don’t have any evidence whatsoever. This is just an interesting chain of thought.

It was relatively common knowledge that certain green dyes and paints were toxic. Newspapers had been reporting on it since the 1850s, including cases of women becoming ill from their green dresses.

If poisoning was Lizzie’s first plan (as it often was for women of that era), she may not have started with prussic acid.

When she heard (or suggested) that Andrew was going to have the house painted, there was suddenly an opportunity for large quantities of poison to be delivered to the house with no suspicion attached. If Lizzie could steer the choice toward the most notoriously toxic color, green, it would have looked like a perfect plan.

This is the point where any competent investigator or defense attorney would yell at me: “You’re taking something completely innocent and twisting it to fit your presumption that Lizzie is guilty.” And they’d normally be right. But consider the following:


1. What time of day did Lizzie normally wake up?

2. How enthusiastic was she about any kind of manual labor?

3. Does it fit her normal pattern of behavior to walk almost a mile to meet the painter at his house?

4. Does it fit her normal pattern to be awake and supervising the paint mixing at 6AM.?

Making the standard green more drab involved adding the most toxic substance into the paint. That means Lizzie, while watching them mix it, would have seen the container of the arsenic-based chemical.

I think Lizzie would have still been in the fantasy stage. She may have simply been playing the scenario out in her head and never actually taken any of the poison. It’s more of a gut feeling that something about the paint mattered to Lizzie.

If it had only been about the color, she could have said, “I love the color of 202 Main Street, make ours like that,” or “Look at this dress,” or “See this flower in the vase? I want that shade.”

I don’t really believe Lizzie stole the paint chemicals and poisoned the family. But I have a feeling she may already have been fantasizing about poison.

[camgarsky4]

Interesting. Is Paris Green poison any relation to this paint poison?

There were some highly publicized deaths involving paris green the summer of 1892.

I think to give this idea some traction we need to come up with how someone like Lizzie would be aware that green paint contained arsenic. I just tried looking for articles the first half of 1892 that might have informed the read of this tidbit, but so far striking out.

It is fascinating that the 'power' of the paint decision inspired Lizzie to get up hours earlier than usual (at least per Bridget) and walk a healthy distance to look at a paint mix choice.

[Lorcan]

The cartoon was in Punch Magazine accusing the dressmakers of killing people with their arsenic-based green dye. The paint cans might have been a source of knowledge, but I don't know what year these are from.

[Lorcan]

This gives a bit of an overview:

Not all Victorian-era greens were based on copper and arsenic, but the most popular and vibrant synthetic greens of the 19th century were heavily reliant on this toxic combination. Before the advent of synthetic pigments, greens were traditionally made using natural organic dyes or copper-based compounds like verdigris (copper acetate) and malachite (copper carbonate), which possessed mild-to-moderate copper toxicity causing severe gastrointestinal upset if ingested.

The Victorian green craze was truly sparked by Scheele’s Green (copper hydrogen arsenite, invented in 1775) and its brighter, more durable successor Paris Green / Emerald Green (copper aceto-arsenite, invented in 1814).

These two hues contained lethal concentrations of arsenic and copper; they flaked as toxic dust from wallpapers, off-gassed poisonous trimethylarsine in damp environments, and severely poisoned textile workers and wearers through dermal contact and inhalation.

While non-toxic alternatives like Chrome Green (chromium oxide) and Hooker’s Green (a blend of Prussian blue and gamboge) existed, arsenic greens dominated consumer goods (clothing, wallpaper, paint, and pest poisons) due to their brilliant hue and cheap production.