Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Partial quote:

eprattlbg @ Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:42 pm wrote:AND, I said it before, IMO if Lizzie did it, she didn't have time to change her clothes. Andrew's jugular was cut, there would have been a lot of blood.

There is no record of Andrew's jugular being cut. Per the autopsy report all the 10 blows were to his head.

Oops. MyBad! Sorry.

Allen, partial quote--

Why burn the clothing worn the day of the murders?

We don't have a witness placing that Bedford cord on Lizzie Thursday, so it is at least an assumption that she wore the outfit because it was burned.

Also, I did not know the Pinkertons were that good.
Do you think Lizzie was scared and burned the outfit in a panic? I can't picture Lizzie in a panic (my word- my description.) Emma yes, but I see Lizzie moving slowly and determinedly.

Thanks Yooper for the further elucidation.

I don't know if the Pinkerton Agency was that good, or just that unscrupulous. They were strikebreakers at one time, and were responsible for killing the half brother of Jesse James and the loss of his mother's arm during a search for the outlaw.

It may have taken more than paint stains to instill fear and/or panic with respect to Lizzie's dress. I think the fear that someone might have identified the dress as the one she wore the day of the murders gave rise to the burning. There didn't need to be blood on the dress, only the fear that there might be and that it might be discovered. Lizzie did not know who saw what at the time, any number of people might have taken note of her dress.

Lizzie may have moved deliberately rather than frantically, but she may have been taking a calculated risk by burning the dress. She would have had to appear calm and collected rather than raise a red flag with haphazard panic-stricken actions. To appear frantic would imply that she knew what she was doing was wrong.

It might be argued that she really didn't know it was wrong to burn the dress and she was genuinely deliberate in her actions because of that. The problem still remains that it made absolutely no sense to burn or destroy any article of her wardrobe at that time for any reason. On the contrary, there were many good reasons for the wardrobe to remain intact until the investigation was over.

What were others doing while Lizzie was indulging in the triviality of burning the dress? Were they occupied with more immediate considerations, like who killed the Bordens? Who should have been more concerned with this than Lizzie after finding out she was suspected? Come to think of it, maybe she was, and that's why the dress was burned!