Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Has there been offered any "modern" interesting psychological profiles on the killer/killings? I guess these things wasn't carried out back in the 1890's.

Why was there an overkill? They say the very first blow was enough to kill both the mother and father. Did the axe actually brake off into Andrews face? Do you think the murders turned out to be that brutal because:

a. the killer has never done a murder before and need to be sure victims are dead.

b. The killer was 100% psychotic.

nishmat @ Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:36 pm wrote:Has there been offered any "modern" interesting psychological profiles on the killer/killings? I guess these things wasn't carried out back in the 1890's.

You may want to read "The Cases That Haunt Us," by legendary FBI profiler John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, published in 2000. There is a chapter on the Borden murders. Although some have been somewhat critical, I found it interesting - not particularly in depth, but a start.

Anyone else aware of published "profiling" with regards to the Border murders? Perhaps in periodicals?

It's the only one I can think of other than what one might consider a *profile* of the victims, and Lizzie-as-victim- re: the incest theories that came out in the 1990's. See Proceedings. I think there are 3 articles in there on that topic.
Also, around here somewhere is a topic on the Douglas article- quite extensive comments as I recall.

Just don't lose it when Douglas gives you his opinion that the killer must have been straddling Abby as he/she struck, looking directly into her eyes!

Len Rebello looked over the chapter for Douglas, but the author didn't use all of Len's corrections. In his version, Abby has "Linda Blair neck" and is able to face the floor and yet twist her head completely around to gaze into the eyes of her murderer!

Yes, there are always mistakes in books, just as in trials.
The big mistake in that book is Douglas' thinking he can just talk her into confessing.
Does he hypnotize a person, then plant memories that can be "recovered" lately? That's an old trick overused in some molestation cases in the 1970s-1980s (I think?).

viewtopic.php?t=506&start=0

I found the link to our discussion!
I think there is another one too.

nishmat @ Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:36 pm wrote:Has there been offered any "modern" interesting psychological profiles on the killer/killings? I guess these things wasn't carried out back in the 1890's.

Why was there an overkill? They say the very first blow was enough to kill both the mother and father. Did the axe actually brake off into Andrews face? Do you think the murders turned out to be that brutal because:

a. the killer has never done a murder before and need to be sure victims are dead.

b. The killer was 100% psychotic.

All you have to do is to find another such hatchet killing of a man and wife. [Hint: Mark Felt's book tells of such a case.]
Or other cases where a daughter used a hatchet to kill her parents.

I believe the use of a hatchet is most likely for a man.
Using a firearm is sexually neutral ever since Frankie and Johnny. IMO

I believe the use of a hatchet is most likely for a man.

You are quite incredible, Ray.

Your post say more about your opinions of women in general than about the case.

Please don't let him distract you.
Did you read the link on Douglas?

I think I have another thread where we tried to profile Lizzie!

Shall I look? It's about Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Or was it Borderlne?
Someone else discussed a personality disorder also in a thread.

Yes, Kat...I've checked on the Douglas link and I will print it. Really enjoy when people make references to books.
I'll also try search for some more "Lizzie profile related" stuff in the forum.
I don't know if crimelibrary had any more on this, I doubt it.

I'm currently swept away by a PMS -related murder theoryand would like to make a new post on it. I need more facts, though.

Can anyone confirm if it's been written about Lizzie getting small epileptic-related fits during period? I know I've heard about somewhere...but the "diagnoze" itself seem very fuzzy.

Yes Victoria Lincoln wrote about that in her book "A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight"

Thanks bobart!!
(I also noticed the PMS-theory indeed have been discussed in the forum.)

nishmat @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:00 am wrote:

I believe the use of a hatchet is most likely for a man.

You are quite incredible, Ray.

Your post say more about your opinions of women in general than about the case.

Mark Felt's "The FBI Pyramid" tells of solving a hatchet murder of an old man and his wife. You can read it for yourself.

Lizzie was not in a Pre-menstrual state the day of the killings. It was stipulated in court that her period ended Wednesday before the murders.
Maybe you can look for another killer with PMS?

, yes maybe...

They are talking on the health news on TV lately that there has been identified a new term for a PMS-related problem- and that it is more extreme than PMS. Does anyone know what this new designation is? I think it's initials.

PMDD - Premenstral Dysphoric Disorder

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pmdd/AN01372





Tracy...

edit

Thank you Tracy! That was it.


I figure just because it is just recently been made public doesn't mean women did not suffer from it 100 years ago, so upon reading that link, it sounds sort of what Lizzie described when gettng together with her girlfriends- how she just seemed to zone out. It also describes a depression that is a symptom during the PMS, but goes away. Which might imply that it comes and goes.

Too bad she wasn't in that stage during the murders, but was she in that state when she saw her friends?

Psychological profiling is an attempt to derive the motive and method of an unknown killer. Most serial killers have no prior connection to their victims, and this is what makes catching them so difficult. Or someone in organized crime who has been "rubbed oujt".

One of Ann Rule's collections of magazine stories tells about a few cases like this.

So are you implying that the Bordens' murder was by a serial killer?

Otherwise: Duh!

Anyway, the FBI Profiling done up to now has not been too impressive, after looking back over time.

RayS @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:45 pm wrote:Psychological profiling is an attempt to derive the motive and method of an unknown killer. Most serial killers have no prior connection to their victims, and this is what makes catching them so difficult.

Actually that's not completely accurate RayS. Many times the first victim of a serial killer does have a prior connection to the killer, albeit it can be minute (except in the killer's mind!). It's the victims that follow "that first kill" who often have no discernable prior connection with their killer. In fact, many times a serial killer's "first kill" will reveal the most about him/her. They're new to killing, more apt to blunder somewhere, and the initial impulse that compells them to commit the crime is very often at its most "raw" - which certainly aids in the profiling!

But I think we all agree that in the case of the Bordens, we're not dealing with a serial killer...

I've read no books on psychological profiling, except what I picked up from TV programs, drama and true crime.

I know about that "railroad killer" in Texas whose victims lived close to railroad tracks. They surmised it was a drifter who bummed rides.

They never caught the Zodiac killer and never will (absence for 30 yrs tells me he is dead). I don't remember how they came to suspect Ted Bundy other than finding him where he shouldn't have been and working backward from that. Was he caught in the early morning at a mall? One rookie cop got lucky and didn't pass off on his unusual behavior?

Some of the serial killers they caught was because the guy practically turned himself in!
BTK, Bundy, Dahmer, one-half of the Hillside Stranglers.
Ng and Lake.
Berkowitz was caught because of a parking ticket. Of course that was around the time Profiling began.

Bundy, when caught acting suspiciously in his stolen vehicle, ran, and was chased, and caught and said he had wanted to be shot while running. (Death by cop)
Then he asked them if they knew who they had caught!

BTK started back up craving attention and sending that computer disc did him in. He believed it when police told him they could not trace a computer disc so he left it for them. And Voila!

Green River Killer lasted so long killing they might as well not ever have Profiled him, in my opinion.

Lake shoplifted something and when caught he took cyanide. This action led them to look futher and found Ng.

Kenneth Bianchi moved to Bellingham Washington and committed murders there on his own and was quickly caught and that led to his cousin, Buono.

Dahmer just went into overkill until he made a mistake and a captive escaped and when investigated the smell from his apartment was noticed.

I do feel sorry for these Profilers, tho. I certainly feel they have a very rough job.

RayS @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 3:16 pm wrote:They never caught the Zodiac killer and never will (absence for 30 yrs tells me he is dead). I don't remember how they came to suspect Ted Bundy other than finding him where he shouldn't have been and working backward from that. Was he caught in the early morning at a mall? One rookie cop got lucky and didn't pass off on his unusual behavior?

One theory on the Zodiac killer (which has recently come out as a well-done movie, I might add) is that the primary target of his first kill was a woman who lived less than 50 yards from his door, a woman who knew him and had rebuffed him and his attempts to become closer to her. (Btw, the suspect identified in that theory is indeed dead.)

As for Bundy, some investigators now strongly believe that his first kill was a young girl who lived near him while he was growing up - on the very same block I believe.

As Kat noted, numerous serial killers and other heinous criminals eventually get caught because they get, well, "sloppy." Sometimes this is caused by the frenzied impulses which feed their blood lust and demand ever more victims, sometimes it's because the criminal has gotten away with his/her crimes for such a period of time that s/he feels superior to the authorities charged with bringing him/her to justice and just can't resist rubbing their collective noses in it...and of course, sometimes a combination of the two.

Has anyone heard of an actual case where an illegitimate son has killed his father and step-mother?

What about this example in fiction? (Which must emulate facts to be successful.)

Well, they thought of it in August 1892 because we have the "Hotel Kenmore" letter from Phillip Gordon Reed. Which Brown probably read.

RayS @ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:24 am wrote:Has anyone heard of an actual case where an illegitimate son has killed his father and step-mother?

What about this example in fiction? (Which must emulate facts to be successful.)

So what's your point, RayS? Yes, there surely have been instances where this has occurred, but that doesn't mean that it was true in this case?!?

Kat, I too was struck when I read the "Hotel Kenmore" letter, and how nicely it fit with Brown's theory. Surely he was aware of it, and perhaps borrowed from it to further his own ideas?

Was this letter in specific reference to the theory of a illegitimate brother? Or did Brown apply it from elsewhere?

It's a surmise that Brown read this letter, as it was in the Knowlton Papers which was not yet published. But I do believe (and I think it was surmised in a Lizzie video) that Brown had some access to these papers while researching at the FRHS.

In Part, letter HK012:
...But They were put out of the way By an illgitimate
Son whom Bordon refused to recognize after the Mother of his off-spring died a number of years ago in a certain Mass. Insane Asylum of a Broken heart. That son is now twenty five years of age. He was not known to any
member of the family save the old man and woman....
... And the illigitimate who took the revenge is the Writer of this confession. No use to track me for it will be an utter impossibilty to do so. At the hour this letter is mailed I shall take a train for hundreds of miles away.
Yours Truly
Phillip Gordon Reed
_____

Here's a timeline I just cobbled together:

1988- Arnold Brown advertised for info on the Borden case and asked for already published sources as his preference.

1989- D.A. Knowlton's papers were donated to the FRHS.

1991- Brown's book was published

1994- The FRHS published the volume entitled The Knowlton Papers that includes the letter.

Arnold Brown's 'Acknowledgments' mentioned the people who helped him. He certainly mentioned the Librarian in FR. But he said his info came from Lewis Peterson, who showed him hand written memoirs and notes.
I believe him. Brown was not a professional writer, but knew of the importance of this document.
Did he write that Henry Hathaway had mentioned this years earlier in the FR newspapers? And it was rejected as going against the Lizzie Legend.

My surmise is that Brown's conversation with Peterson was circa 1986 about the time of that lady who claimed to know the killer.

sguthmann @ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:16 pm wrote:...
So what's your point, RayS? Yes, there surely have been instances where this has occurred, but that doesn't mean that it was true in this case?!?

Kat, I too was struck when I read the "Hotel Kenmore" letter, and how nicely it fit with Brown's theory. Surely he was aware of it, and perhaps borrowed from it to further his own ideas?

William F. Nolan wrote "Sharks Never Sleep" about ten years ago.
PS
[If you read this novel you'd know what I was talking about, instead of making a cheap nasty crack.] I've considered the source.

And Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland" in 1865, please connect the dots.................

Smudgeman @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 6:03 pm wrote:And Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland" in 1865, please connect the dots.................

If you read this novel you'd know what I was talking about, instead of making a cheap nasty crack.
I've considered the source.

RayS @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:44 pm wrote:

sguthmann @ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:16 pm wrote:...
So what's your point, RayS? Yes, there surely have been instances where this has occurred, but that doesn't mean that it was true in this case?!?

William F. Nolan wrote "Sharks Never Sleep" about ten years ago.
PS
[If you read this novel you'd know what I was talking about, instead of making a cheap nasty crack.] I've considered the source.

RayS, it wasn't a "crack," it was meant as a legitimate question. I wasn't sure what you were trying to get by your posting. In fact, I'm not sure I even do now. In any case, you might do well to explain yourself a little more thoroughly (i.e. your reference to the "Sharks Never Sleep" novel..no I haven't read it, and there again, I have no idea what you mean or how it relates to the Borden case/Brown's theories).

He really loves those Acknowledgements! They get mentioned several times a year.
I once transcribed them to the Forum. I doubt Ray kept a copy or ever thanked me.
They are nothing unusual, tho they have taken on legendary status in his mind.

sguthmann @ Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:33 am wrote:

RayS @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:44 pm wrote:

sguthmann @ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:16 pm wrote:...
So what's your point, RayS? Yes, there surely have been instances where this has occurred, but that doesn't mean that it was true in this case?!?

William F. Nolan wrote "Sharks Never Sleep" about ten years ago.
PS
[If you read this novel you'd know what I was talking about, instead of making a cheap nasty crack.] I've considered the source.

RayS, it wasn't a "crack," it was meant as a legitimate question. I wasn't sure what you were trying to get by your posting. In fact, I'm not sure I even do now. In any case, you might do well to explain yourself a little more thoroughly (i.e. your reference to the "Sharks Never Sleep" novel..no I haven't read it, and there again, I have no idea what you mean or how it relates to the Borden case/Brown's theories).

I have heard about this book, and plan to read it.
Because of its use of some of my favorite authors as character.

Chandler's first name was Ray.
Hammett's first initial was S.
But this is just a coincidence. I would never copy an author's name.

Kat @ Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:33 am wrote:He really loves those Acknowledgements! They get mentioned several times a year.
I once transcribed them to the Forum. I doubt Ray kept a copy or ever thanked me.
They are nothing unusual, tho they have taken on legendary status in his mind.

FYI about Arnold Brown's book. I first read a review in the local Sunday newspaper but had other things to do.
In 1997 I found a copy in a Library sale, browsed it, and just knew it was worth reading. The only other book I read was Pearson't Trial in 1965.

Being retired has given much more time, but not as much as I would like.
I really need a 40-hour day for what I would want to read.