Lizzie Borden Society Forum

What about Henry Palmer or someone that Andrew knew at the Bank?
Do you think it is possible they could of killed Andrew & Abby?

Do you have a little more info on your suspect, Henry Palmer?
Thanks!

henry Palmer was a embexxler who worked at the falls river national bank. He Embezled for 14 months, half way throught when andrew was killed was during the time he was embezzling money.Maybe andrew figured out what he was doing. Henry went to jail Later, his lawyer was andrew jennings.

Or what about Joseph Carpenter? He was a bookeeper at Borden & Almy where andrew sold furniture & Coffins,He embezzled as well $6,000.Andrew had him arrested but dropped the charges but the two parted angrily.

Or what about Johnathan Clegg? One of the last people to talk to Andrew before he died trying to rent a store from him?Lizzie overheard her father yelling with a man about someone trying to rent a store a week earlier with a english accent. Johnathan has a english accent. Johnathan had about 5 conversations with Andrew within the week.

opps, spelled embezzler wrong typing to fast, sorry.


My Dear Husband,

Lizzie has been acquitted and I don't think they can do anything with you now. I want you to come home to spend the fourth.The papers give a description of the man seen over the fence the morning of the murder. Can you prove where you were the morning of the murder?

Annie

A letter written by Joseph Carpenters wife .Anybody think anything is strange about this letter?

Is that from the newspapers?

*Suspect* Carpenter is referred to in The Knowlton Papers on pages 99, 100, 153 & 154, and Glossary A for a bio.

Also (for readers here wanting more info) see link to suspects at:
http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com/Crime ... tsList.htm

And LBQ, Duniho, Terence. "Friends From Boyhood: A Police Officer and an Embezzler." Lizzie Borden Quarterly VIII.3 (July 2001): 7, 17-20.
"Duniho follows the trail of Joseph W. Carpenter, Jr., an employee of Andrew J. Borden who had embezzled $6,700 from Borden & Almy as a possible suspect in the murder of Andrew and Abby Borden."--annotation from:
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/Resources ... Auth.htm#d

PS: I'm always typing *Lixxie* instead of Lizzie!

From what I remember about Carpenter, Andrew was fully reimbursed and that appears in Radin's book (page 34, paperback edition).

"... When he [Andrew] was fifty-five years old he decided to sell his interest in Borden & Almy, and an auditor was brought in to make a fair appraisal. While examining the records, the accountant discovered that the firm's bookkeeper, Joseph W. Carpenter had embezzled some $6,000 over a period of years. The man was arrested but later, when Borden refused to prosecute, the charge was dropped. A report was soon current in Fall River that Borden let him get away with it because Carpenter threatened to reveal that Borden had substituted cheap coffins although he was paid for more costly ones. The former bookkeeper transferred $3,000 worth of property to Borden and raised an additional sum of money among friends, so the story about substituting coffins appears to be false. It was more in character, for Andrew Borden to work out a private deal to get his money back rather than take a stand on any such abstract matter as justice."

Probably Carpenter was grateful to Andrew for not prosecuting.

Masterton also deals with Carpenter's embezzling, but he claims that -- although Carpenter paid back some of the money he'd embezzled from Andrew's firm -- much of it was paid back in the form of mill stock which became worthless when the mill failed. I think we tried to pin down Masterton's source at one point, but were unsuccessful.

It is interesting that Joseph Carpenter, a one-time suspect in the murders, Philip Harrington, the police officer who was sent to investigate Carpenter's alibi, and Hiram Harrington, who Emma and Lizzie both named publicly as someone having "bad feelings" toward their father, all worked at Andrew's business (Borden and Almy) at around the same time. Carpenter was a bookkeeper from 1874 -1878, Phil Harrington was a cabinet maker there from 1874-1877 and Hiram Harrington was listed in the FR City Directories as a clerk at the firm in 1876 and 1878. (Source: Duniho: LBQ Vol. VIII No. 3)

Knowing Andrew's shrewdness in business matters, the stock at the time it was turned over to him was probably a sound investment.

In any case it seems that Andrew would have been the one that was mad if he got burnt (again!) by Carpenter.

Maybe Andrew Borden had a lot of personal enemies because of his job. However, I can't see why someone who wanted Andrew dead go for his wife first. Doesn't make any sense.

No, none of those suspects did it. Because they presumably all had alibis, like William Brayton (?).

None of them were a family relation whose identity would be withheld by Lizzie. According to "Part 2" of Proof of Arnold Brown's theory.

William of Ockham ("Occam's Razor") said the simplest explanation was likely to be the truth. "Do not multiply dependencies needlessly."

But I'll bet some will disagree with this msg.

PS Wasn't "Harry Palmer" a character in a 1965 novel?

No, All I know about them I read in the book "Lizzie didn't do it". I finished the book last night. Now I need a new book to read on the Borden case.

It does seam like Andrew had a few people who did not like him. Maybe it just comes with the line of work he was in.

"It was more in character, for Andrew Borden to work out a private deal to get his money back rather than take a stand on any such abstract matter as justice."

--Harry quoting Radin.

This is interesting in light of what may have happened to call off the hunt for the burglar who broke into the desk in Abbie's dressing room and stole money and horsecar tickets, late June, 1891.
If Andrew preferred to settle a dispute out of the courts, he just may have called off the search for the culprit and handled it privately

I wonder if there is any merit in what Radin wrote in this quote?

Kat @ Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:34 pm wrote:

"It was more in character, for Andrew Borden to work out a private deal to get his money back rather than take a stand on any such abstract matter as justice."

--Harry quoting Radin.

This is interesting in light of what may have happened to call off the hunt for the burglar who broke into the desk in Abbie's dressing room and stole money and horsecar tickets, late June, 1891.
If Andrew preferred to settle a dispute out of the courts, he just may have called off the search for the culprit and handled it privately

I wonder if there is any merit in what Radin wrote in this quote?

Could the meeting set for 11am on 8/4/1892 been about some deal that went wrong? THAT could explain a murderous rage too?

Oh that mythical meeting? It was about pear trees and pansies and sinkers and pigeons. You can look it up.

I double-checked the Desmond letter where he tells about his investigation of the Borden robbery. There was a line that had not ever really sunk in before:

HK067
...Mrs. Borden said "her gold watch & chain, ladies chain, with slide & tassel attached, some other small trinkets of jewelry, and a red Russia leather pocket-book containing a lock of hair had been taken. I prize the watch very much, and I wish & hope that you can get it; but I have a feeling that you never will."

We are used to the ending comment:
...P .S. Mr Borden told me three times within two weeks after the robbery in these words "I am afraid the police will not be able to find the real thief."