Ice Man Interview

[augusta]

Last nite on A & E they had an hour show of the "Ice Man" being interviewed. I didn't know who he was. I thought of that mummy they found in the ice that was 5,000 years old, but thought he couldn't talk (anymore).

Turned out it was this hit man. The cops called him "Ice Man" because he kept one body in a freezer for two years before dumping him in a river. This incident helped to finally catch him after he was in business for 30 years.

Anyway, it talked about him growing up and it showed a picture of his parents. His father was gorgeous - like a young JFK. It turned out, tho, that the father beat that son all the time, then eventually abandoned his family.

The guy was passive as a young teen, but everybody would pick on him and beat him up. So he started to fight back and, well, nobody picked on him anymore.

As he talked about his deeds, on some he had a little emotion - but generally he felt nothing to kill someone.

I know - not everyone who was abused as a kid killed people. But it is a common thread.

A good friend of mine surprised me by telling me that he hit his little boy when the boy would wake up and come into the parents' bedroom at night saying he was scared and wanting to sleep with them. The kid was little - like 6 or so. I said, "Why don't you just lock your bedroom door?" (Tho that wouldn't be the way I'd handle it - I thought it was better than hittin' his kid.) He didn't see a thing wrong in hitting him, as well as his other kids.

My son would do that when he was little. I always had a cot in our room, so he could just come in if he needed to and sleep there if he was scared.
I never locked my kids out of my room. I thought that'd be pretty scary, if they were scared and then couldn't have access to mom and dad. We'd lock our door during "certain" times, but unlocked it all the rest. If someone was sick, or scared, I made it clear they could always come to us.

I grew up when hitting was the accepted punishment for kids. As I grew older, I asked myself, "What is this accomplishing?" Fear of parents. Anger in the child. Parents teaching the kids violence.

They say, of criminal children who say they were abused that it's the old "abuse excuse". And yeah, too many of them use it when it doesn't apply. And yeah, not everyone who's abused ends up killing people. But it's often the start.

This "Ice Man" - I would think he would have turned out differently had his childhood been free from abuse.

I wonder if Lizzie and Emma were physically abused?

[Elizabelle]

I wonder if they were physically abused too. I have formed the opinion that perhaps they were mentally and emotionally abused, but am still unsure of the physical abuse.

They obviously had severe hostility toward poor Abby. Their contempt for her was quite obvious. But with Andrew, perhaps it was a more internal contempt that could never be expressed or spoken of. Maybe all of their problems and anguish were with Andrew, but he was a force to be recckoned with. He was their source for food, shelter, and money. They couldn't lash out at him...but they could take it out on Abby. They could always lash out with the anger and hostility toward her. Poor Abby was probably very vulnerable, and this made her weak, and suseptible to Emma & Lizzie's abuse.

Maybe Andrew did ABUSE all the women in the house, in all ways possible, and the girls directed their hatred toward Abby. Maybe Andrew didn't start abusing the girls until Abby entered the picture, and they equated the abuse with her. And when the clock struck KILLING TIME, she was the first to get it...but dear old dad was not forgotten either.

[Kat]

I recently finished reading Midnight Assassin about a woman arrested and put on trial for axing her husband while he was sleeping in bed with her. They claimed she got up, got the axe and whacked him twice, then left the bedroom muttering about hearing someone in the house and hearing the door to the outside click shut. Then she called out softly for her kids. And the dog didn't bark.

She had a long history of abuse from her husband, where she would try not to talk about it in this small farming community, but at times she was so distraught she would go to a neighbor and ask the man there for help with her husband- to come over and cajole him out of his *mood.* I think only once she asked someone to please kill her husband as she coudn't take it any more.

The weird things are two-fold:
1. When deposed at inquest, she denied there was any abuse, which left her neighbors stupified.
2. The neighbor men wished she would shut up and quit talking about the abuse and they preached at her to keep her own family troubles at home.

There was this unspoken agreement that people didn't broadcast their family troubles. Maybe because no one felt equipted to help.
This was in 1900.

We heard that Abby never talked about her home life. She was supposedly very close-mouthed about that and it seemed from the people questioned that that was kind of like a virtue.

The life of a farm wife was brutal back then tho- and many women (and men) went insane. That didn't mean they didn't *recover*- but that's what they called it. It sounds like they needed a break, and being committted for a period of time helped some.
Others just withered away once the workload was removed.

[Allen]

Midnight Assassin sounds like something I want to put on my list of things to read Kat. It was common for people to deny abuse back then. I've read about things like this many times. I've read in many sources that abuse isn't getting more prevalent in our times, it's just getting reported more often than it was in the past.

This case as you describe it shows a woman that was in a really tragic situation. Yet she denied it to the authorities although it appeared to be common knowledge. I wonder if that same type of situation, or a similar one, could've been playing out in the Borden house?

[Kat]

That's what I was wondering when this topic evolved.
Maybe Abby was quiet about *those girls* abuse towards her- or maybe she was also quiet about abuse by Andrew?
Usually the man drinks and then abuses, right?
We don't have any case of drinking in the Borden home, I don't think.
I suppose some husbands are just mean that way?

[RayS]

I recently finished reading Midnight Assassin about a woman arrested and put on trial for axing her husband while he was sleeping in bed with her. They claimed she got up, got the axe and whacked him twice, then left the bedroom muttering about hearing someone in the house and hearing the door to the outside click shut. Then she called out softly for her kids. And the dog didn't bark.
(...)
The weird things are two-fold:
1. When deposed at inquest, she denied there was any abuse, which left her neighbors stupified.
2. The neighbor men wished she would shut up and quit talking about the abuse and they preached at her to keep her own family troubles at home.

There was this unspoken agreement that people didn't broadcast their family troubles. Maybe because no one felt equipted to help.
This was in 1900.

We heard that Abby never talked about her home life. She was supposedly very close-mouthed about that and it seemed from the people questioned that that was kind of like a virtue.

The life of a farm wife was brutal back then tho- and many women (and men) went insane. That didn't mean they didn't *recover*- but that's what they called it. It sounds like they needed a break, and being committted for a period of time helped some.
Others just withered away once the workload was removed.

I guess it just shows that you never really know if you can trust trial testimony. People tell the truth as they see it, and others have varying viewpoints.
Remember this when reading about our favorite Unsolved Mystery.
Does it recall Arnold Brown's book about the treatment of children in those days? "Unless a child was killed, it wasn't abuse."

[RayS]

That's what I was wondering when this topic evolved.
Maybe Abby was quiet about *those girls* abuse towards her- or maybe she was also quiet about abuse by Andrew?
Usually the man drinks and then abuses, right?
We don't have any case of drinking in the Borden home, I don't think.
I suppose some husbands are just mean that way?

I am not going to mention names. I have a distant relative who never drank, saved and invested his money, and probably didn't beat his children any more than was necessary (not meant as humor).
He is alleged to be worth over a million when he retired 15+ yrs ago.
One daughter ran wild, one son was killed in drug deal, another went to prison, one son did OK but moved away when in his 20s.

Drinking (as per Prohibitionists) often was the result of factory life and oppression, not per se. There are plenty of rich (drunk as a lord) who seemingly have happy lives.

[RayS]

Last nite on A & E they had an hour show of the "Ice Man" being interviewed. I didn't know who he was. I thought of that mummy they found in the ice that was 5,000 years old, but thought he couldn't talk (anymore).

Turned out it was this hit man. The cops called him "Ice Man" because he kept one body in a freezer for two years before dumping him in a river. This incident helped to finally catch him after he was in business for 30 years.

Anyway, it talked about him growing up and it showed a picture of his parents. His father was gorgeous - like a young JFK. It turned out, tho, that the father beat that son all the time, then eventually abandoned his family.

The guy was passive as a young teen, but everybody would pick on him and beat him up. So he started to fight back and, well, nobody picked on him anymore.

As he talked about his deeds, on some he had a little emotion - but generally he felt nothing to kill someone.

I know - not everyone who was abused as a kid killed people. But it is a common thread.

A good friend of mine surprised me by telling me that he hit his little boy when the boy would wake up and come into the parents' bedroom at night saying he was scared and wanting to sleep with them. The kid was little - like 6 or so. I said, "Why don't you just lock your bedroom door?" (Tho that wouldn't be the way I'd handle it - I thought it was better than hittin' his kid.) He didn't see a thing wrong in hitting him, as well as his other kids.

My son would do that when he was little. I always had a cot in our room, so he could just come in if he needed to and sleep there if he was scared.
I never locked my kids out of my room. I thought that'd be pretty scary, if they were scared and then couldn't have access to mom and dad. We'd lock our door during "certain" times, but unlocked it all the rest. If someone was sick, or scared, I made it clear they could always come to us.

I grew up when hitting was the accepted punishment for kids. As I grew older, I asked myself, "What is this accomplishing?" Fear of parents. Anger in the child. Parents teaching the kids violence.

They say, of criminal children who say they were abused that it's the old "abuse excuse". And yeah, too many of them use it when it doesn't apply. And yeah, not everyone who's abused ends up killing people. But it's often the start.

This "Ice Man" - I would think he would have turned out differently had his childhood been free from abuse.

I wonder if Lizzie and Emma were physically abused?

Is he the one from north Jersey who was in the paper circa 1982? The police were wiretapping him and others, and found out about what he did. The only reason he confessed was that the MOB knew what he had done and were supposed to put out a contract (euphemisms!) on him. He was safer in jail, so he confessed to it all. He did it for the money, and, perhaps, because he could do it. Pride?