Maybe Lizzie did do it

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:20 pm

I was reading thru some old posts and came across one that I thought was interesting.

The post was called "No love lost" post on June 9 2004, posted by Harry. There was an essay sited in the post written by a crimology student and the title of the essay is called "Not love a conjecture on Lizzie Borden".

In this essay it states, "Lizzie Borden was portrayed as a cool, calculatin woman who killed her father and stepmother for financial gain and because she harbored a well-hatred for the woman chosen to replace a mother she never knew. For over one hundred years, people have speculated as to her guilt or innocence. There have beeen arguments on both sides of the fence, some citing the fact that Lizzie never cried or showed any emotion over the death of her father, whom she supposedly looked up to and her stepmother."

Is that just the eastern, yankee trait not show emotion? Or was she really just as cold and calculating as the essay states?

After reading that portrait of Lizzie, if I am to believe that statement, it would be hard for me not to believe that she didn't do it.

If you read and believe that, then she did it, and didn't think twice about it.

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:02 pm

Many people in Lizzie's day kept their feelings to themselves and felt it was a sign of weakness to show emotion in public. Stiff upper lip and all that. Lizzie's appearant lack of emotion doesn't mean that she was a killer. My grandmother, who was born at the turn of the century, seldom showed any emotion but she never hurt a fly.

Personally I feel Lizzie either killed her parents or helped an outside killer do the deed. If the skulls were brought up and it was positively determined that the hatchet head did make the cuts then I would be almost certain that Lizzie was the killer. That would all but clinch it for me. I feel that money was the reason for the murders. Bridget would not have benefited but Lizzie would have. Emma was away at the time.

-1bigsteve (o:

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:37 pm

1bigsteve @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:02 pm wrote:Many people in Lizzie's day kept their feelings to themselves and felt it was a sign of weakness to show emotion in public. Stiff upper lip and all that. Lizzie's appearant lack of emotion doesn't mean that she was a killer. My grandmother, who was born at the turn of the century, seldom showed any emotion but she never hurt a fly.

Personally I feel Lizzie either killed her parents or helped an outside killer do the deed. If the skulls were brought up and it was positively determined that the hatchet head did make the cuts then I would be almost certain that Lizzie was the killer. That would all but clinch it for me. I feel that money was the reason for the murders. Bridget would not have benefited but Lizzie would have. Emma was away at the time.

-1bigsteve (o:

I guess it's all in how you would percieve the not showing emotion thing. It could be taken as cold hearted, or you were just brought up that you don't show any kind of emtion no matter what. My parents are like that that; don't talk about any thing, don't react to anything no nothing.

I do think she did it, or at best helped the person who did. As for Emma, she could have had a hand in it somehow; just because she wasn't there doesn't mean she didn't have any thing to do with it. She could have given Lizzie the idea or helped plan the deed.

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:54 pm

I agree, Snokks. I find it strange that Emma would be away from the house, which was rare for her, at the time of the murders and uncle John would show up, which he rarely did, at the time of the murders. Either the comings and goings of John and Emma was part of the murder plan or Lizzie just took advantage of Emma's trip away from the house, and John's morning absence, to commit the murders. With just Lizzie in the house and Bridget outside and upstairs there were no eyewitnesses. Emma was not there to muddle things up. All Lizzie had to do was to keep an eye on Bridget.

Here's an idea I've had floating in my brain. What if Lizzie took off her dress and did the killings in her slip or corset or whatever the undergarments were called and put her dress back on after each killing. All she would have to cover during the killings would be her head. Any blood on her body would be covered by her dress. Lizzie could have been talking with police all that day with blood on her under garments. However, I feel that Lizzie may have put that paint-stained dress over her blue dress, perhaps slit up the back so she could get in and out of it easier, for the killings and then burned it later. I don't know. Something to think about anyway.

-1bigsteve (o:

kssunflower · Post by **kssunflower** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:20 pm

I've read somewhere that Lizzie defended her apparent lack of emotion by saying she never revealed her feelings in public and wasn't about to change that. But she had to be agitated to some extent because Dr. Bowen gave her both bromo caffeine and later morphine for her nerves.

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:13 pm

I think that Emma was more involved than we give her credit for. I mean I don't think she was as innocent as she was made out to be.

She always struck me as passvive aggressive.

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:13 pm

When do you think it first crossed Emma's mind that Lizzie might be behind it, assuming she wasn't aware of it beforehand?

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:12 am

The Hiram Harrington *Interview* has him stating about Lizzie:
'Last evening I had a long interview with Lizzie Borden, who has refused to see anyone else. I questioned her very carefully as to her story of the crime. She was very composed, showed no signs of any emotion or were there any traces of grief upon her countenance. That did not surprise me, as she is not naturally emotional.
-- Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890's, edited by Williams, Smithburn, and Peterson, 1980, pg. 42-44. "Fall River Daily Herald, Aug. 6, 1892: CLOSE IN MONEY MATTERS

In Lizzie's jail *Interview* (again, The Casebook ), her emotions are the topic:

Chapter III-"Lizzie Goes To Trial", subsection: Lizzie In Jail-New York RECORDER Interview, pg.130:

"New York Recorder Interview
September 20, 1892
IN A NEW LIGHT
Lizzie Borden in Jail Awaiting Trial
How She Appeared to a Recent Visitor in Her Cell
Feels Badly Over the Talk that She Shows no Grief

'I know that I am innocent, and I have made up my mind that, no matter what happens, I will try to bear it bravely and make the best of it.'

The speaker was a woman. The words came slowly, and her eyes filled with tears that did not fall before they were wiped away. The woman was Lizzie Borden, who had been accused of the murder of her father, and personally has been made to appear in the eyes of the public as a monster, lacking in respect for the law, and stolid in her demeanor to such an extent that she never showed emotion at any stage of the tragedy, inquest or trial, and, as far as the government would allow they knew, had never shown any womanly or human emotion of any sort since the public first crossed the threshold of the Borden house.

I was anxious to see if this girl, with whom I was associated several years ago in the work of the Fall River Fruit and Flower Mission, had changed her character and become a monster since the days when she used to load up the plates of vigorous young newsboys and poor children at the annual turkey dinner provided during the holidays for them and take delight in their healthy appetites.

I sought her in the Taunton Jail and found her unchanged, except that she showed traces of the great trial she has just been through. Her face was thinner, her mouth had a patient look, as if she had been schooling herself to expect and to bear any treatment, however unpleasant, and her eyes were red from the long nights of weeping. A dark shade now protects them from the glaring white light reflected from the walls of her cell.

'How do you get along here, Miss Borden?' I asked her as soon as extra chairs had been secured for the two visitors.

'To tell the truth, I am afraid it is beginning to to tell on my health. This lack of fresh air and exercise is hard for me. I have always been out of doors a great deal, and that makes it harder. I cannot sleep nights now, and nothing they give me will produce sleep. If it were not for my friends I should break down, but as long as they stand by me I can bear it. They have been, with few exceptions, true to me all through it, and I appreciate it. If they had not, I don't know how I could have gone through with it. I certainly should have broken down. Some things have been unpleasant, but while everyone had been so kind to me i ought not to think of those. Marshal Hilliard has been very gentlemanly and kind to me in every way possible.

'The hardest thing for me to stand here is in the night, when there is no light. They will not allow me to have even a candle to read by, and to sit in the dark all evening is very hard; but I do not want any favors that are against the rules. Mr. Wright and his wife are very kind to me, and try to make it easier to bear, but of course, they must do their duty.

'There is one thing that hurts me very much. They say I don't show any grief. Certainly I don't in public. I never did reveal my feelings, and I cannot change my nature now. They say I don't cry. They should see me when I am alone, or sometimes with my friends. It hurts me to think people say so about me. I have tried hard'--and Miss Borden raised her eyes to mine--'to be brave and womanly through it all. I know I am innocent, and I have made up my mind that no matter what comes to me I will try to bear it bravely and make the best of it. ----partial

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 5:44 pm

Yooper @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:13 pm wrote:When do you think it first crossed Emma's mind that Lizzie might be behind it, assuming she wasn't aware of it beforehand?

If Emma knew nothing about the killings beforehand I feel she probably suspected Lizzie first crack off the bat. Emma may have lived with Lizzie to keep up appearances of an "innocent and united family" but knew she was living on "blood money." Maybe the guilt was too much for Emma and she left Lizzie. Perhaps Emma did ask Lizzie the question, as she did in the movie: "Lizzie, did you kill father?"

-1bigsteve (o:

Yooper · Post by **Yooper** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 5:58 pm

I'm also inclined to think Emma would have zeroed in on Lizzie early on. I'm not sure what the telegram contained, it would depend on Dr. Bowen's wording. If he tried to be discreet, maybe Emma wouldn't have thought of it on the train. It could be that she didn't realize the gravity until she arrived in Fall River. That wouldn't give her much time to collect her thoughts. I've always wondered what her face might have showed when she first encountered Lizzie after arriving home.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 9:07 pm

In the 1913 *Interview* with Emma Borden, in the Boston Post, there was this excerpt:

April 13, 1913

'GUILTY -- NO! NO!'

Lizzie Borden's Sister Breaks
20- Year Silence

Tells the Sunday Post of Past and Present
Relations With Lizzie

By Edwin J. Maguire
. . . . . . .

. . .Like A Frightful Dream

"The tragedy seems but yesterday and many times I catch myself wondering whether it is not some frightful dream, after all," said Miss Borden in beginning her talk with the Post man.

"Often it had occurred to me how strange is the fact that no one save Lizzie was ever brought to trial for the killing of our father and our mother-in-law [sic].

"Some persons have stated that for years they considered Lizzie's actions decidedly queer.”

"But what if she did act queerly? Don't we all do something peculiar at some time or other?

"Queer? Yes Lizzie is queer. But as for her being guilty, I say 'No,' and decidedly 'No!'

"The day the crime took place I was at Fairhaven on a visit to friends. I hurried home in response to a telegram, and one of the first persons I met was Lizzie. She was very much affected.”

"Later, when veiled accusations began to be made, she came to me and said:
" 'Emma, it is awful for them to say that I killed poor father and our stepmother. You know that I would not dream of such an awful thing, Emma'

"Later, after her arrest and during her trial, Lizzie many times reiterated her protest of innocence to me.
"And after acquittal she declared her guiltlessness during conversations that we had at the French street mansion.

Proof of Innocence

"Here is the strongest thing that has impressed me of Lizzie's innocence. The authorities never found the axe or whatever implement it was that figured in the killing.

"Lizzie, if she had done that deed could never have hidden the instrument of death so that the police could not find it. Why, there was no hiding place in the old house that would serve for effectual concealment. Neither did she have the time.

"Another thing to be remembered is Lizzie's affection for dumb animals. She fairly dotes on the dogs, cats and squirrels that are at the French street mansion. She always was fond of pets. Now, any person with a heart like that could never have committed the awful act for which Lizzie was tried and of which she was acquitted.

"I did my duty at the trial when I sat with Lizzie day after day and then testified for her. And despite our estrangement, I am going to do my duty in answering the cruel slanders that have been made against her both in public print and by gossiping persons who seem to take delight in saying cruel things about her.

"The happenings at French street that caused me to leave I must refuse to talk about. I did not go until conditions became absolutely unbearable. Then, before taking action, I consulted the Rev. A. E. Buck who for years had been the family spiritual advisor.

"After carefully listening to my story he said it was imperative that I should make my home elsewhere.
"Before going, I had an agreement drawn up by our lawyer so that no trouble could arise regarding the French street house." . . .
etc.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 9:09 pm

To quote bigsteve:

Perhaps Emma did ask Lizzie the question, as she did in the movie: "Lizzie, did you kill father?"

While you were posting this response I was watching the movie on my computer!!

serendipity · Post by **serendipity** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:03 am

Here is the strongest thing that has impressed me of Lizzie's innocence. The authorities never found the axe or whatever implement it was that figured in the killing.

According to this logic, nobody was guilty.

Lindy Chamberlain didn't cry when tried for murder and this convinced many people she was the killer.

I turned out the dingo did it,

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:55 pm

That's weird that you brought that up! I was just looking at that book on my shelf!
Again- trying to decide if the mother killed the baby- I have never been satisfied either way, but it is a fascinating case!

After Andrea Yates, I can believe almost anything of a postpartum depressed mother (who has other complications to her mental health as well).