Does anyone think Dr. Bowen did it?

[Uozumi]

I have long had this suspicion that Dr. Bowen had a part in the murders. Lizzie seemed to have known him for quite a bit. He spent time with her after to give her medicine. He seemed to be directing others away from Lizzie after the murders and if I am not mistaken didn't he burn some papers in the fire at the Borden's house? Also, Lizzie sent Bridget for him. Perhaps he was mad about Andrew not paying the doctor bill? :D Just kidding. But would it have been so hard for him to have taken the ax with him? I assume he had a bag of bloody implements. Maybe it is one of those things where people naturally trust him because he is in a lab coat.

Steph f.

[bob_m_ryan]

Steph --
While I agree that Dr. Bowen's actions that day were a bit off, I am not able to think that he was involved in the murders. It seems like he is trying to be sympathic and protective of his patient, Lizzie.

[Shelley]

Well, Bowen was sure friendly with the family due to his marrying of Southard Miller's daughter no doubt. And he seemed very protective of Lizzie and he did have a great opportunity to carry away anything he may have seen which was incriminating. If Lizzie had suffered some sort of neurological condition and he knew this, he may have wished to protect her from the gallows. Otherwise, he has an alibi for the times of the murders and no motive as killer or accomplice.

[ddnoe]

I have long had this suspicion that Dr. Bowen had a part in the murders. Lizzie seemed to have known him for quite a bit. He spent time with her after to give her medicine. He seemed to be directing others away from Lizzie after the murders and if I am not mistaken didn't he burn some papers in the fire at the Borden's house? Also, Lizzie sent Bridget for him. Perhaps he was mad about Andrew not paying the doctor bill? :D Just kidding. But would it have been so hard for him to have taken the ax with him? I assume he had a bag of bloody implements. Maybe it is one of those things where people naturally trust him because he is in a lab coat.

Steph f.

(Denise) Owen Haskell wrote a novel called (IIRC) "Sherlock Holmes and the Fall River Murders" in which Lizzie and Dr. Bowen are indeed in cahoots. Dr. Bowen spirits weapons and bloodied clothes away in his medical bag. The book is fiction but the scenario has a certain plausibility.

[Shelley]

There was also some talk once when the family was away that Dr. Bowen took Lizzie to church unchaperoned. Am trying to think where I read this. Who knows? Maybe Seabury had a little crush on Miss Lizzie-that would sure make a twist and a great made-for-tv-movie.

[Uozumi]

Was Dr. Bowen the one who told Abby that she wasn't "poisoned" if Lizzie indeed did get a hold of something do you think he was covering?

Steph F.

[Allen]

I remember reading somewhere that Dr. Bowen attended church with Lizzie at least once after the murders as well. But I do not remember where I read this. I'll have to do some digging.

[Nadzieja]

I remember reading that about Dr. Bowen taking Lizzie to church. I think that was in one of the previous issues of The Hatchet. If I come across it I'll send the volumn number.

[Shelley]

I am not sure what Bowen meant that morning when Abby ran over. She said she thought they were poisoned, but does not make it clear if it was food-poisoning or deliberate tampering with the food. She thought it was the baker's bread, but Bowen said if that were so, more people would have been coming to him sick as they also would have eaten the baker's bread. Somewhere I remember Abby hearing of people who were food-poisoned from creamcake that had gone off in the heat. Andrew clearly thought he had summer complaint for he was taking Garfield Tea and did not seem to think he was suffering from something dangerous.
Lizzie, however makes her poison tale quite clear when she tells Alice Wednesday night that someone was tampering with the milk can.

[snokkums]

I think Dr. Bowen knew more than he was telling. I thinik maybe that Lizzie told him what happened and he might be protecting her. Not sure about burning papers. Something for me to look into. Time to go to the archives! Cool.

[Tina-Kate]

Afraid I can't remember the source---but there is also the story of Dr Bowen supposedly showing up on Aug 4th at the house on Weybosset St where JVM was visiting his neice.

[DJ]

If I'd encountered someone, much less a parent, with their face hacked to a bloody pulp-- and I managed not to pass out cold at the sight-- I would have run out in the street hollering, "Police! Police!" (In the absence of a phone and 911 service.)
Lizzie sends Bridget to fetch the doctor-- yes, he's close by, but to what end? Her father's face is gone.
The Doctor was obviously someone she trusted, neighbor or not. Perhaps she had sought him out as a confidant in preceding years, at the very least. After all, he was familiar with Andrew, and he would have therefore lent a sympathetic ear to her complaints regarding him.
Yes, what particulars did he know of Lizzie's medical history? If Andrew held back on Lizzie's health needs because of cost, it would have cast him in a very dim light in the eyes of the MD, and his sympthies toward her would be understandable.
Maybe Lizzie sought fatherly affection from him, and he returned her with daughterly affection.

[augusta]

Yes, Dr. Bowen did burn a paper in the stove of the Borden kitchen after the bodies were found. He tore it up first and put it in the stove. One of the cops - I want to say Philip Harrington but don't quote me - was there and caught the word "Emma" written in pencil. He asked Bowen what he was burning and Bowen said it was nothing - he gave something that sounded pretty lame and I don't think he mentioned Emma. That was very suspicious.

Uozumi - I don't think Bowen covered for Lizzie poisoning the Bordens. I personally think she used arsenic on Tuesday nite's supper but didn't know how much to use. If given a small dose, they excreted most of it with their illness, and I don't believe it would have showed in any tests. Giving them just a little, they would have gotten sick just liike they did but they'd be okay in a day or two. If someone had continued giving them little doses, it would have built up and killed them. But I think the lab at Harvard was looking for one big dose, as they did a visual test for arsenic, to see if the stomach was corroded and it was not.

Dr. Bowen laughed at Abby saying she was poisoned on Wednesday. Then he walked over to their house to see how Andrew was doing.

Dr. Bowen was a very respected physician in FR. He wasn't just some slob with a medical degree.

I don't think Dr. Bowen had anything to do with the murders. If you read his testimony, and that of a couple others who had seen him that morning, you'll see that Dr. Bowen became pretty unglued when he saw Andrew, then after that Abby. He pretty much lost it.

When looking at Andrew before many others arrived, he called to Mrs. Churchill in the other room and said, "Addie, come see!" (She didn't.) Some policeman said he was crying, which he denied. When he learned of Abby's murder, he said that she just fainted from fright. (He denied he said this too, but if he was so rattled I don't know if he'd remember what he said.)

Yes, Tina-Kate - there is that morsel of information that says Dr. Bowen showed up at the Weybosset Street house. And that someone had called John Morse at the house. It may be in the Witness Statements, where a person living there said Bowen came to see a sick child who lived there. Then you heard nothing else about it. That's a piece of the case that drives me nutz. The woman at that house said it, but (I think) Dr. Bowen denied it and that was that. I don't recall him being asked it on the stand.

I would think that Dr. Bowen cleaned his instruments off before he put them back in his medical bag. It's a possibility he ran off with the hatchet, but personally I would be really surprised if we knew for sure he did.

Dr. and Mrs. Bowen were friends with the Bordens. He was not only their personal physician, but he was their friend as well. It tells in a newspaper account of that day that Phoebe (Mrs.) Bowen was upset over Abby's death. They had a genuine affection for each other. I would think that Dr. Bowen was only giving Lizzie the support he thought she needed.

DJ - I totally agree with you in Lizzie firstly wanting a doctor. "I've got to have a doctor," she said. And then she stayed in the house, with her back to the house interior at the screen door. She testified that she didn't get a real good look at Andrew. That gives her some wiggle room in having a doctor called for at first, acting like he was alive, for all she knew. She barred Bridget from going into the sitting room. If she didn't get a good look at Andrew, I'd think she would want Bridget to go ahead and look if she wanted to and tell Lizzie just what condition he was in.

Maybe people didn't call the police for stuff like they do now. Lizzie never did send someone to call the police. Others did it.

[Allen]

I've always found it really odd that the woman who lived above Dr. Bowen refused to give a statement to police about what she might have seen that day.

[1bigsteve]

Possible but I highly doubt any involvement in the murders themselves. More likely in the cover-up but not in the swinging of the hatchet.

-1bigsteve (o:

[augusta]

Allen - I think that was Mrs. Wyatt, who boarded there. (That house was huge.) Even Southard Miller refused to go over to the Borden house with all that commotion going on. Some people just don't wanna get involved.

Please give to the Edwin Porter Grave Fund.

[Allen]

You are correct augusta. I looked in the Witness Statements and found this on page 20.

From the notes of Doherty and Harrington:

Mrs. Mary Wyatt, No. 91 Second street. This woman lives over Dr. Bowen. It is she who first told Mr. M. Chace, L. Winslow, and several others who were standing in front of Wade's, about the crime. She dodged us for a week or more; and when finally seen, positively refused to be interviewed.

[diana]

Here's the bit of gossip about Dr. Bowen and Lizzie attending church together.

Mrs. Jane Grey, 215 Second Street. "Dr. Bowen's character is at least suspicious. Four years ago, while the Borden family was summering over the river on the farm, Lizzie remained at home. One Sunday evening during this time, she and Dr. Bowen came to church together, and sat in the Borden seat. I myself saw them this evening. At the time, and since, there was much comment on this act. Some remarked how courageous she was to remain in the house alone; but others replied in a knowing way, perhaps she has very acceptable company. About the robbery, I think Mrs. Fish, or her daughter in law of Hartford knows more or less about it, if they wish to tell." (Witness Statements September 25, 1892. Harrington & Doherty)

This is not Abby’s stepmother, Jane Gray, of course. I tried to find another reference to the quoted Jane Grey and came across this in Hoffman (p.142): ( But he spells ‘Grey” differently and has a different address than the one in the Witness Statements, so it may not be the same person.)

Gray, Jane B. (Negus) (1829-1917)
Jane B. Gray had known Lizzie Borden for many years and gave a statement to the police about incidents in Lizzie’s life before the murders that Gray personally remembered. Mrs. Gray lived at 188 ½ Second Street in 1892. She was summoned to appear in court at the trial but was not asked to testify.

Jane B. Gray was born in Massachusetts to Benjamin and Betsey Negus. She married Ellery Gray, a Fall River mariner and was widowed in 1865. She died in Fall River in her eighty-eighth year.

Note, if this is the same woman, she was over 30 years older than Lizzie.

[augusta]

Diana - I wonder what was meant by Lizzie being courageous for staying at home alone?

Hoffman's "Yesterday in Fall River" is good to look up a quick reference, if you want to know what the person had to do with the case. But I've found too many errors in it to be relied on.

I think the problem with Hoffman's book is that he may not have been a hard core Bordenite. I always got the feeling that he wasn't ready to do a Lizzie book.

I didn't know, Allen, that Mrs. Wyatt was blabbing the Borden story to people but clammed up for the cops. If they remake the Lizzie movie, I hope they add her in there. It's funny. She sounds like a good comic relief character.

[Angel]

Can you imagine living in those times when women would actually find it scandalous to sit in church with a neighbor? Sort of reminds me of that scene in "The Music Man" with all the Victorian ladies scurrying about like chickens singing "Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little, pick pick pick, talk a lot, pick a little bit."

[augusta]

I'm starting to study sexuality in Victorian America. Everybody wasn't shocked by such things. Sexuality was closer to the surface than you'd think.

There was a show on the History Channel recently that covered sex in the Civil War era. They showed nudie cards of women that men took into war. Somebody said that when a soldier died, they'd take away the nasty card/s and send the rest of what was on him to the family.

They showed pictures of whorehouses. I hope someone else saw this show, because I must have mis-heard. When they were showing photos of buildings in Washington DC, some of the famous ones I thought they said contained rooms/floors with prostitutes in them.

I am especially interested in homosexuality in Victorian America. I think Lizzie was one. As someone pointed out a while back, she sure hung around with women who never married. Almost every female friend she had never married.

It could be because when you're married and have children and take care of the household, you don't have time for such things as visiting Dr. Handy's cottage or taking a sudden trip. But I don't think that was the case with Lizzie and some of her friends.

[diana]

Diana - I wonder what was meant by Lizzie being courageous for staying at home alone?

Hoffman's "Yesterday in Fall River" is good to look up a quick reference, if you want to know what the person had to do with the case. But I've found too many errors in it to be relied on.

Yes, Augusta -- I wondered about that, too. Maybe she really did feel Lizzie was taking a risk staying alone in a neighborhood bordering so many commercial enterprises. Or perhaps the phrase was simply to set up her insinuation that Lizzie was not alone -- but rather entertaining the good doctor? I know Bridget wasn't employed by the Bordens at that time -- but wouldn't another live-in maid have been on the premises? Or would the Bordens have taken the maid to Swansea?

You're right, of course, about Hoffman. He is a good quick reference but people should always be cautioned to check other sources. That little bio on Jane Gray also appears in the Knowlton glossary on page 436 (which is probably where Hoffman got it).

I also agree with Angel. It's hard to imagine a time when the act of sitting with a neighbor in church would be considered risque behavior. But I'm very weak in the area of social mores of that era. There was over 30 years difference in the ages of the two women -- would Lizzie's contemporaries have considered this behavior as scandalous as Mrs. Gray's generation did, I wonder?

[augusta]

Oh - I forgot to post this earlier. Dr. Bowen was a member of the First Baptist Church in Fall River. So he really was "accompanying" Lizzie to church.

You're right, Diana. Hoffman did get a LOT of his information from "The Knowlton Papers". I think you're sharp to have picked that up. (Someone told me, that's how I came to realize it.)

I would call his book more of a "list" than a "book".

I don't think I've seen one error in 'The Knowlton Papers' - even when it comes to dates, which are sometimes very easy to be off on.

I've seen a few in Rebello's fabulous book - minor stuff. Some dates. The source for Joseph Carpenter's obituary is for his father - "Joseph Carpenter, Sr." Certainly not enough to where you really need to check another source, like Hoffman's. But it is a "must have" in a Lizzie library. I use it all the time.