Lizzie Borden Society Forum

While reading Bridget's trial testimony I ran across this exchange (page 271):

"Q. Have you any recollection at all what dress she had on any part of Thursday?
A. No, sir, excepting the afternoon I went to her room and she had on a pink wrapper.
Q. A pink wrapper in the afternoon?
A. Yes, sir."

I don't remember her being in Lizzie's room or that being mentioned anywhere. It might have been something as simple as Bridget being asked to bring something up to the room.

However, it was also an opportunity to pass something else to Bridget to take away. No mention of who else was there at the time.

Good one Harry! Maybe that was when the Bowen tea and toast made a trip upstairs to sustain Lizzie. That would have been Bridget's job, not the elderly Mrs. Bowen to climb those steep stairs, and Emma had not arrived yet.

It would seem logical that Bridget would be the one to do that. This is from Dr. Bowen's inquest testimony (page 123+):

"Q. Did Miss Lizzie have her meals sent up? You say she went up to her room and stayed there?
A. Yes, they got some toast. I think they went over to my house, across the street and toasted some white bread for her. I dont think she ate it, I dont know about that though; perhaps they got some tea."

But then later on at the bottom of the page he thinks it was Alice Russell that went:

Q. I got a rumor that some comment was passed between you and him about the size or quantity of the amount of food that was sent up to her.
A. Between Dr. Abbott and I? Never a word, I would swear to that, not a word. I did not know anything about it. Never anybody, except my wife, has mentioned the fact. I knew Alice, I think, came over and got some tea and white bread toast. Then I think my wife said she did not eat any of it, or something to that effect. I accidentally heard of it, that is all."

She must not have had much appetite after all those pears in the loft. . .

Cores, seeds, stems and all.

Harry @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:50 am wrote: Cores, seeds, stems and all.

Good one, Harry!

Really, what did become of the pear cores from the pears Lizzie ate? If I was her i'd have definitely showed where I disposed of them as evidence in my defense.

I may be wrong, but, it is my understanding that there was no evidence, what so ever, that Lizzie ate the pears she claimed she ate.

Quite right. No evidence. Hard to know just what is in anyone's tummy just by looking at it lying down on the fainting couch in a pink and white striped wrapper. The absence of cores and stems and seeds anywhere has always been a puzzle. She could have said she threw them under the trees coming in from the barn. The ground was littered with fruit in various stages of decomposition. I daresay all of us could have come up with a better story than Lizzie, even on the spur of the moment. I would have even taken the extra couple of minutes to really run up the hayloft, scuffle about in the dust and look the part for people arriving later after Andrew's discovery.

Shelley @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:20 pm wrote:Quite right. No evidence. Hard to know just what is in anyone's tummy just by looking at it lying down on the fainting couch in a pink and white striped wrapper. The absence of cores and stems and seeds anywhere has always been a puzzle. She could have said she threw them under the trees coming in from the barn. The ground was littered with fruit in various stages of decomposition. I daresay all of us could have come up with a better story than Lizzie, even on the spur of the moment. I would have even taken the extra couple of minutes to really run up the hayloft, scuffle about in the dust and look the part for people arriving later after Andrew's discovery.

Given her emotional upset at finding her father's body just a few minutes after she left the house, I think she was quite upset.
Some people seem to assume there were no remains from pears in the barn. But a neat lady would not mess up the inside of the barn.

Lizzie's story works for me - she was outside in the back yard eating pears. No one questioned that, or even the state of ripeness.
Edward Radin quotes a young boy from that time saying they used to pick them up to eat. Those who have done so can best judge, if unbiased.

Only after Uncle John returned did her story change to being in the barn, then up in the barn. How much time did she spend talking to Uncle John?

Getting back to Bridget going to Lizzie's room, I thought possibly it was to bring up some medicine, the bromo caffeine, from Dr. Bowen.

But Dr. Bowen in his testimony says he administered the first dose himself and left a second for later use. He also says he personally brought over a bottle later in the day.

Perhaps she went to tell Lizzie she was going to be staying at the Miller house that night.

What happened to the rest of the pears that Lizzie was eating? Maybe a bunch of squirrells ran off with them. We have a peach tree and the squirrells take everything they can & run off with them.

Shelley @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:46 am wrote:She must not have had much appetite after all those pears in the loft. . .

ROFLMAO!!!

May I ask what a pink wrapper is? Some sort of dress? Or house coat of sorts? And I am like you are I dont ever remember it being mentioned anywhere that Bridget was in lizzies room.

Wrappers were a catch-all word for a sort of "undress" and could be a plain calico housedress for working around the house in the morning, and in some cases loose but fancy for boudoir wear- more like a housecoat. A woman would not be seen on the street in her wrapper, put if you were an invalid or a new mother, you might receive visitors in a wrapper. The wonderful thing about wrappers is that you could loosen your corsets, or even remove them in such a garment.

The wrapper morphed into a garment called the "prairie dress" when the westward expansion began as women could not hitch up the mule and heave ho all trussed up like a fashion plate. Here is a fairly representative generic wrapper. Lizzie's was very fancy, and was probably more for bedroom wear. Somehow I do not get the impression that Lizzie did much real manual labor!

Harry @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:02 pm wrote:Getting back to Bridget going to Lizzie's room, I thought possibly it was to bring up some medicine, the bromo caffeine, from Dr. Bowen.

But Dr. Bowen in his testimony says he administered the first dose himself and left a second for later use. He also says he personally brought over a bottle later in the day.

Perhaps she went to tell Lizzie she was going to be staying at the Miller house that night.

It might have been an opportune time to play pass-the-hatchet, too. It didn't have to be hidden in any one place, only kept a step or two ahead of those searching for it until it could be disposed of.

I wonder if anyone searched Bridget when she trundled off to the Miller house that evening? Probably not. If Lizzie had passed the weapon on to Bridget, how easy it would have been to smuggle it out of the house. Of course Bowen could have hiddey-hoed it away in his bag too when he went to telegram. I think Alice or Addy would have blown the whistle if they had been approached.

I don't recall that anyone was physically searched. A hatchet head, without the handle, might be easily concealed. The handleless hatchet thought to be the murder weapon might have been the result of a trial run to see how easily or quickly a handle could be snapped, or it could be a red herring. I haven't seen it to examine it, but from the photographs it looks as though it was partially sawn or cut before it was broken, the break is almost too clean and perpendicular to be just a random break.

No one that I recall made any evidence that the handle had been sawn off. They didn't even refer to it that way- they called it a "break" I believe.
Can anyone show any testimony that says or implies a purposely sawn-off handle?

Har, I was just reading about Bridget's visit to Lizzie's room in the Preliminary Hearing last week- back when I had time!
That is so weird you brought that up!


For those who don't have the Prelim, here is Bridget:
Q. Do you know how the arrangement of that house was, whether it was usual to go through— was there any way of going from the back stairs to the front part of the house?
A. I dont know anything about it; but there was a door there; I do not know whether it was kept locked or not.
Q. Where was that?
A. The door going from Mr. Borden’s room into Miss Lizzie’s.
Page 176 (5)
Q. You had to go through that door?
A. The door was there. I went through the afternoon of the murder.
Q. After the murder, it was open then?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. Did you ever see it open before?
A. No. I did not have any business there before.
Q. You did not have any occasion to go up there?
A. No Sir.
Q. Did you ever know of anybody before the murder going up the back way into the front part, or going up the front way into the back part?
A. No Sir.
Q. Did Miss Lizzie ever use the back stairs to go to her room by?
A. I never knew her too.
Q. Did Mr. or Mrs. Borden ever use the front stairs to go to their room?
A. I never saw them.
______

How do we know Emma was not home when Lizzie was given the tea and toast?

I also don't recall that anyone testified that they checked for pear remains. I don't think they did check - but if they did, the answer was never given us. We just don't know.
Was it not until the Tuesday after the murders that Lizzie gave the info about eating pears up in the loft? Is there any statement made about that activity prior to the Tuesday at the inquest? If not, it was probably too late to check the loft. I certainly agree about the yard pear debris!

Shelley @ Thu Mar 29, 2007 9:54 am wrote:I wonder if anyone searched Bridget when she trundled off to the Miller house that evening? Probably not. If Lizzie had passed the weapon on to Bridget, how easy it would have been to smuggle it out of the house. Of course Bowen could have hiddey-hoed it away in his bag too when he went to telegram. I think Alice or Addy would have blown the whistle if they had been approached.

Here again we have people creating assumptions because there are no facts of guilt for either girl.

I believe that someone created an assumption last year about this. The only time for bloody clothes or hatchet to be removed was right after the murders when Lizzie sent Bridget to Alice. (Why would she send Bridget away if she was afraid of being alone???)

These are good, informed and interesting *assumptions.* No lacking in imagination.
Of course we understand that it is a supposed scenario, Ray- we don't need it pointed out to us.
Dr. Bowen, as Lizzie's physician, might very well have helped her and claimed doctor/ patient privledge. It's a way to advance the story that is not unreasonable.