"She's not my mother ..."

[Harry]

One of the statements made by Lizzie that painted a negative image of her was when she answered Asst. Marshal Fleet's question with that reply.

Fleet testified at the Trial (p464):

"Q. Anything else?
A. I then asked her if she had any idea who could have killed her father and mother. Then she said, "She is not my mother, sir; she is my stepmother; my mother died when I was a child. ..."

The critical thing to me would be the tone of voice in which it was said. But I can't find any mention by Fleet that the reply was in anything but a normal voice. Perhaps the lack of emotion was the problem. But it wasn't the first question in the conversation asked by Fleet. He had been asking questions about Morse and Bridget. He didn't know Bridget's name nor who Morse was at that time.

IMO, I always thought too much was made of it and I might have even answered the question the same way myself if a person in authority was asking me. I would assume they would want facts.

[Stefani]

We were just discussing this at Karen Chaney's talk in Salem. The problem with all of Lizzie's testimony is that we don't know what her answers sounded like. As an actress, I can say that line any of a dozen different ways and have a dozen different intentions. If only we knew her voice---if someone had recorded Lizbeth before her passing. THAT I would pay big bucks to hear!

[doug65oh]

I’ve often wondered that myself – whether there might be some small snippet of Lizzie’s voice squirreled away somewhere in an archive. Even if it was recorded in the 20s we’d still have some idea (however small) about accents, inflections, etc.

I agree, Harry. There’s a critical follow-up question missing there – something along the lines of “During your conversation, Mr. Fleet, what was Miss Borden’s attitude generally? Did she seem agitated at all, at any point? Did anything in her way of speaking (within the scope of your own knowledge and experience) indicate that she was distressed by your questions?"

[Cemetery Hunter]

She was telling the truth, Abby was not her mother so I do not see how she said it made any difference?

[Yooper]

Maybe it was the idea that she focused on the mother/stepmother point and blew right past the question; whether she had any idea who killed her parents. The error seems rather trivial, whether mother or stepmother, the real question is quite clear. It does strike me as an odd time to make the correction, almost as though the real issue is taking a back seat to what Lizzie considered more important.

[twinsrwe]

I was just thinking the same thing, Jeff. Lizzie didn't answer the question!

[Susan]

I do recall in the past someone had posted info on the sound of Lizzie's voice as being "harsh and guttural", possibly a news article? Lizzie with a raspy, croaky voice? The singer Kim Carnes (Bette Davis Eyes) came to my mind. Maybe Fleet didn't like the sound of her voice?

[Harry]

Lizzie tried to explain her answer when she gave an interview while in the Taunton jail in September 1892 to a Mrs. McGuirk. In that interview, which was published in the N.Y. Recorder on September 20th, she says (From Kent, p69+):

"I have tried very hard to be brave and womanly through it all......it is a little thing, I suppose, but it hurt me when they said I was not willing to have my room searched. Why, I had seen so many different men that day and had been questioned about everything till my head was confused and in such a whirl that I could not think. I was lying down and Dr. Bowen was just preparing some medicine for me when a man came to my room and began to question me. I knew he was a policeman because he had brass buttons on his clothes. I asked the doctor:
"Must I see all these people now? It seems as if I cannot think a moment longer, my head pains me so."
He went out. When he returned he said I must see them, and then the policeman came back with another man. They spoke about my mother, and that was the time I said, "She is not my mother, but my stepmother." I supposed, if it was necessary that I must talk to them just then, I must tell as near as I could what was right.... "

A curious thing is that Fleet does not mention the statement in his Witness notes. It first surfaces in his Preliminary testimony.

Also Lizzie seems to indicate it was not the visit referred to by Fleet. No mention by Fleet of Dr. Bowen in his Trial testimony. He specifically states it was on his first visit when only Rev. Buck and Alice Russell were present.

[DJ]

Harry-- at least Lizzie corroborated the statement, so we can accept that as truth.
I'm sure that Jennings & Co. wouldn't have let her give interviews to the press w/o coaching (think: a certain Alaskan gov.). I believe she was trying to do damage control, and Jennings may have well advised her to establish the confusion factor as a reason for slipping out with such a statement.
Yes, if only her tone of voice were known!
Still, I agree with Yooper-- it's a horribly callous statement. A woman is brutally murdered, and you're splitting hairs over your biological connection to her?
She was the only mother that Lizzie probably remembered.
************************************************************
Lizzie did a lot to almost hang herself in the hours and days following the murders. This statement is a prime example, along with the dress burning. Then, of course, there was what she didn't do: Shed tears, act bereaved, perhaps even faint a time or two.
Back to the coaching: I firmly believe Lizzie was instructed to faint when she saw those skulls in court.
*************************************************************
Really, if you think about it, there's no kind way of saying what Lizzie did. It was a real Freudian slip. My follow-up would have been: "Did you love her less because she was your stepmother?"

[doug65oh]

It's somewhat ironic I think that one of the last remaining true contemporaries of virtually all those involved (who might well have answered at least a few of the questions we wonder about today) was the young Abbie Potter - or at that point Whitehead. She may not have known much as a child, but at the very least probably knew what they all sounded like. I wonder if anyone ever asked her that?

[Harry]

I do recall in the past someone had posted info on the sound of Lizzie's voice as being "harsh and guttural", possibly a news article? Lizzie with a raspy, croaky voice? The singer Kim Carnes (Bette Davis Eyes) came to my mind. Maybe Fleet didn't like the sound of her voice?

Yes, Susan, your right about the guttural sound,. I originally posted this back in 2005:

"The "guttural voice" reference is in a New York Herald newspaper article dated Aug. 7, 1892, in Kent's Sourcebook, page 32."

It may have made her words sound harsher than what she meant.

[kssunflower]

The critical thing to me would be the tone of voice in which it was said.

I'm betting she uttered this statement with some degree of animosity or detachment. Either way, it would have been a red flag to the police.

[snokkums]

I guess it makes a person think before they say anything.

[Stefani]

Yet, when she was describing the event in the article Harry quoted, I read it as a perfect explanation. She was distracted and upset, and her head hurt, and she was being careful to be clear. Perhaps if she was merely correcting the record, instead of being impolite, it would read as helpful instead of insensitive.

Like everything else in this case, I go back and forth, back and forth---never quite settling on a true reading. Drives me crazy while at the same time keeps me coming back for more!

[Kat]

You know, if I had tried to look up this statement by Lizzie, from memory, I would first have thought to look in Philip Harrington's testimony or statements.
I seem to couple this with his *I don't like that girl* utterance, where he describes her manner as being *strange.*

Witness Statements, pgs. 6-7:
"...I then went to the Borden barn, where the Marshal gave orders to several officers to search the barn thoroughly, and took part in the work down stairs. It was at this time I made known my suspicions of Miss Lizzie. To the Marshal I said “I don't like that girl”. He said “what is that?” I repeated, and further said “under the circumstances she does not act in a manner to suit me; it is strange, to say the least.”

[Kat]

As for coaching Lizzie, I don't think she was in the court room when the skulls were displayed. She had left the room. But, if you like, you can look up the situation and find out the particulars for us, DJ.

[Kat]

Harry, so the newspaper story has the timing wrong?

If so, some who believe the statements in the paper as coming directly from Lizzie, might change their mind that anything in that *interview* was recorded and reported with accuracy.

Or if they believe the statements reported were made, then Lizzie was doing damage control and contorting the timing?

[Kat]

Perception is everything. If Fleet did not think of it as odd at the time, after discussion amongst the other officers who talked to Lizzie and after Knowlton came on board to prosecute, the perception as shown in Knowlton's summing up for the jury was that Lizzie repudiated Abbie as her family. It might be a case of the aggregate opinion of Lizzie's manner towards her stepmother after the killing.

Trial
Knowlton
1779-81

. . .When Mrs. Gifford spoke to her, talking about her mother, she said, "don't say mother to me,---" that mother who had reared her and was her father's companion, under the roof with whom she was then living, whose household she shared, to whom every debt of gratitude was due and whom she had repudiated as her mother, she could not find the heart to say to this dressmaker was her mother, for I believe that you believe this story is true,---"she is a mean, good for nothing old thing." Nay, that is not all--- "we do not have much to do with her. I stay in my room most of the time."

Is not that so? Uncle John Morse came to visit them. Stayed over night and during the afternoon and evening and next morning and never saw Lizzie at all,---her own uncle. "Why you come down to your meals?" said Mrs. Gifford, and Lizzie said, "yes, but we don't eat with them if we can help it."

I heard what Miss Emma said Friday and I could but admire the loyalty and fidelity of that unfortunate girl to her still more unfortunate sister. I could not find it in my heart to ask her many questions. She was in the most desperate strait that an innocent woman could be in, her next of kin, her only sister stood in peril and she must come to the rescue. She faintly tells us the relations in the family were peaceful, but we sadly know they were not. But you will say, you will fairly say, Mr. Foreman,---let me not under rate this thing one atom,---you will fairly say what is that? I don't know. I don't know how deep this cancer had eaten in. It makes but little show on the surface. A woman can preserve her appearance of health and strength even when the roots of this foul disease have gone and wound clear around her heart and vital organs. This was a cancer. It was an interruption of what should have been the natural agreeable relations between mother and daughter, a quarrel about property, not her property but her fathers, and property that he alone had the right to dispose of.

A man does not surrender his rights to his own until he is dead, and not even then if he chooses to make a will. She could not brook that that woman should have influence enough over her father to let him procure the little remnant of her own property that had fallen to her from her own folks. She had repudiated the title of mother. She had lived with her in hatred. She had gone on increasing in that hatred until we do not know, we can only guess how far that sore had festered, how far the blood in that family had been poisoned by the misfortune of these unfortunate relations between them.

I come back to that poor woman lying prone, as has been described, in the parlor. It is wicked to have to say it, it is wicked to have to say it, but gentlemen there is no escape from the truth. Had she an enemy in all the world? She had one. Was anybody in the world to be benefited by her taking away? There was one. There was one. . . .

[Fargo]

Since Fleet never said that Lizzie spoke with a harsh tone when she said "She's not my mother, she's my stepmother " I believe that Lizzie did not say it in a harsh tone.

Since Fleet was a Prosecution Witness, if Lizzie had said it harshly I am pretty sure Fleet would have mentioned that in order to make Lizzie look more guilty.

[Yooper]

DJ made the point earlier that Abby was probably the only mother Lizzie remembered, and this is important. Lizzie was the person least qualified to make the mother/stepmother comparison, and should have been the person least likely to point out the error. She would have had little, if any, first hand recollection of her mother. Any comparison made would have been the result of second hand information.

While it would be helpful if the police elaborated on the information as to tone of voice, etc., it would also detract from the validity of the notes as a simple record of facts. Maybe the place for elaboration is in the courtroom, if it is allowed. The net result might tend to be perceived as a lack of objectivity.

[Yooper]

Another point to be made where Lizzie's distraction and apparent upset are concerned: she commented on the mother/stepmother error in spite of this, apparently it was that important to her. She was well enough to make an unimportant correction, but not well enough to address the real question set forth? If she wasn't well, why not say so, and why answer any part of the question?

[DJ]

Kat,
Going back-- sorry about the skulls and the timing of the swooning.
When she did swoon in court, it may have been au naturel. Still and all, it wouldn't have hurt her case.

As for the "She is not my Mother"-- it sounded bad for Lizzie in the public forum, no matter the tone of voice in its delivery, no matter how overwhelmed she was at the time by fatigue, confusion, the influx of the crowds and police, etc.
Obviously, the defense felt it looked bad for Lizzie, too; hence, the need to make a gloss over it in the newspaper interview.