The Handkerchief

[augusta]

I was weeding out some old stuff on my hard drive and came across this interesting piece of info I had saved. Thought I would post it and share it.

This is an excerpt from a newspaper. Unfortunately I did not jot down from whence it came or if it was supposed to have come from the Prelim or the Trial. Sorry but my CD-Rom drive is busted.

"Bridget Sullivan was recalled to the stand. Mr. Moody took up the old blood-stained handkerchief that had been found beside Mrs. Borden and held it up before Bridget.

"Whose handkerchief was that?" asked Mr. Moody.

"That," answered Bridget, "is what Mrs. Borden used as a duster."

So maybe it wasn't on the killer's head. She had a feather duster while dusting before she went upstairs, and I thought she took it with her. Maybe she used this for dusting upstairs.

But wasn't it silk? I never used silk to dust with before. I don't think dust would stick to it. And it's so huge!

There does show in at least one of Abby's death photos like a wadded piece of white paper next to her that is hard to make out because of the big white flowers on the carpet. Maybe they are talking about that?

[kssunflower]

In another post, I remember that Kat clarified that the white object in the photo was not the bloodied handkerchief found near Abby.

[Kat]

Hi Augusta!

Yes indeed, I wrote about the handkerchief in The Hatchet issue Aug/Sept 2008.
My conclusions were mixed: the handkerchief from Abbie's crime scene was clean when we inspected it at the FRHS, altho it was in the same state as when it came into the collection there. All the descriptions said it was bloody. (Testimonies recounted and news items all given source in my article.)

I talked to the Prof who was in our video (Lizzie Borden Had An Axe) who handled it, and he was pretty sure there was no blood on it either. Where the blood went, no one knows.

As for what it was, and whose, my article only guesses, but the explanation as to how it came to be thought Abbie's, is pretty clear as I followed it's progress thru the case.

That was the most interesting research I've done so far. In fact, it's still fascinating to me.

[irina]

We have recently discussed the handkerchief. I just ran across this tid bit and thought it a good one to bring up to 2014.

[Curryong]

Excellent, Irina. Thank you for bringing this up. Fascinating! It's hard to know what to say. Is the cloth in the possession of the FRHS just a hanky which was mistakenly handed over to the FRHS and has nothing to do with the case at all? Is it silk? Has the bloodied object handled at the trial disappeared? I wish we had Kat's article to hand!

[irina]

Then on TV they had a drab, patterned, silk thing I'd call a neck scarf for a woman, that is in the FRHS. It is shredded I presume from age as silk will do but a TV program took the handleless hatchet head and put it by the "cut" places and said it matched, etc. They claimed Abby had worn the scarf around her neck and that there was blood on it. I can't find anything suporting any of this. I have looked all over online for a picture of THAT scarf/handkerchief and can't find any pictures. I found this posting I refreshed to be valuable because there is first hand info.

[augusta]

The silk-like patterned piece of material that was featured on the documentary "Lizzie Borden Had an Axe" is a puzzler. I had never seen it before. Thanks for your post, Kat. I am going to go back to that Hatchet and read Kat's article. If she says it is fascinating to her, I can't wait to read. All her articles are veddy good.

[irina]

Kat's article was fantastic. I found it online. It was one of the best articles ever, in LBQ. Neither from her article nor from other research do I see anything that says the item in FRHS is THE "handkerchief" found with Abby. On the other hand I wonder if the police who say the handkerchief by Abby was "wet with blood", were exaggerating or otherwise inaccurate.

[Curryong]

Which volume of The Hatchet was it in, Irina, or year, link, please?

It's OK, found it, and it is indeed fascinating, especially the inference by the Fall River newspaper that the prosecution would have dearly loved to have linked the handkerchief to Lizzie if they could. So, the object now in the care of the FRHS has always been referred to as 'a handkerchief'.

It is obviously not bloodied, and the kind donor must have given it a clean-up (dry-clean) before presenting it to the Society! Most considerate!

The mystery remains for me anyway, as that scarf/hanky bears no resemblance to what Kat refers to as the whitish wad lying near Abby's body in the photo. I don't think the scarf was over her head. I think that Abby took it up to the guest room to quickly dust over a few of the objects on the dressing table and it was tucked in her waistband or pocket. It came out when Abby's skirts were disarranged, and was discovered, in a pool of blood, when her body was slightly moved.

The white thing, (whatever it was is lost to history) may have been her white hanky, and unaccountably was never listed. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the photographer at 3pm may very well have placed the white object there to signify where the 'scarf' had been found. The scarf, dark, patterned and covered with blood, wouldn't have shown up on photographs.

Police in those days didn't place an awful lot of emphasis on bodies and objects around it remaining strictly in situ. Near enough was good enough much of the time, unfortunately.

[irina]

The dark handkerchief is very carefully located through testimony to be between Abby's head and the wall. As for blood stains, one bit of testimony said it was at the edge of the blood pool and there is implication it soaked up the blood. Perhaps it was near the pool of blood and someone assumed it was "wet with blood". I'm not convinced the FRHS scarf/handkerchief is THE handkerchief from the crime scene. It was in the hip bath collection apparently with Abby's hair piece. I don't see any more provenance than that. The idea that she simply had it with her to dust is a good idea and I like my idea that she was flicking down a cob web. (Perhaps Lizzie believed in kindness to spiders and she simply couldn't bear to see Abby kill yet another innocent arachnid; thus Abby was struck first as she was in mid swing with the "handkerchief", at a spider web on the ceiling. See, it's easier to say Lizzie is innocent. )

The white blob near Abby's waist looks to me like something stiff with definite edges~~like paper. Possibly heavily starched fabric. There's lots I can't do worth a darn on the computer but I do pretty good enlarging and enhancing photos. Maybe we will figure it out someday. In the meantime it's fun to say it's THE NOTE~undiscovered until the 21st Century.

[debbiediablo]

The white blob near Abby's waist looks to me like something stiff with definite edges~~like paper.

Oh my God! It's the sick note!! ... Just kidding. I've looked at that picture and wondered if Abby was wearing an apron on her front and another on her back. Thus, two aprons. Except I'd think and anomaly like this would be mentioned somewhere.

[Curryong]

LOL. I said on another thread to irina's suggestion that it was the note that the police would have been onto the white object if it had been paper like terriers with a rat!

Unfortunately, unlike today's crime scenes, nothing near the body was listed, numbered, marked as to position. Equally unfortunately, whatever the white blob is we shall probably never know. When I first saw the photo years ago I wondered whether it was a dinner napkin and Abby had been doing some sewing. I now know she was near the bed and couldn't have been.

I also wondered whether it was one of those white crocheted doily things the Victorians inevitably placed under objects on dressing tables etc. I now think it may have been a white hanky which just wasn't listed.

[irina]

It's the missing note, obviously! We finally found it.

[Curryong]

No, because Dr Bowen came back, snaffled it and burned it in his stove at home! The police never found it again!

[debbiediablo]

Top 10 Possibilities of What Really Happened to the Note?

#10 - Abby stuck it in the back of her skirt and no one happened to notice...not ever! Or...

#9 - Abby stuck it in the back of her skirt and the murderer, who had sent it to her, crumpled it and threw it on top of Crowe's barn.

#8 - Dr. Bowen came back, snaffled it and burned it in his stove at home!

#7 - John V. Morse reused it to write down everything he supposedly did that morning so he could actually remember it.

#6 - Abby tore it in two and stuffed it in the toes of her boots so they would fit better. The pieces are still there.

#5 - Bridget, who was really a Celtic witch educated at Hogwarts School, accidentally shouted "Evanesco" at it, and the note disappeared forever. That was right before she shouted "Evanesco" at her real target - the hatchet.

#4 - It was fed to a goat jointly owned by Edwin H. Porter and the Fall River Police Department.

#3 - A more careful autopsy would have found pieces of the note in the throats of both Abby and Andrew along with a death's-head moth. (Arnold Brown got it wrong. The murderer wasn't Billy Borden; it was Buffalo Bill.)

#2 - An anonymous person mailed the note to the museum curator at a University in Rome where Franz discovered it more than a century later!

And the #1 possibility of what really happened to the note is...

#1 - The note? What note?

[Curryong]

Surely, offered some money by the Borden sisters, Bridget (remembering her Hogwarts training) would shout 'Evanesco' at Abby, then Andrew, preferably before breakfast, thus avoiding blood, police and other complications?

[Curryong]

I like #2. Although Franz obviously hasn't discovered it yet or we would all have read about it!

[irina]

I'll go for #5 though it seems that Avada Kedavra could have taken the place of the hatchet.

I'm not sure Franz is in Rome. Possibly that's why he hasn't found the note yet.

Fantastic list, Debbie! Real creativity there! Thanks for a laugh!

[Franz]

I love your post, Debbie.