Lizzie Borden Society Forum

We have talked about the possibility that weapons other than a hatchet could have been used by the killer. I was curious to know what weapon we lean more toward. What do you think ?

-1bigsteve (o:

I think a hatchet fit the wounds very well. There may not have been room for an axe to be swung indoors and there would likely have been greater damage if it was somehow used. A meat cleaver would have to be a good deal smaller than the ones I'm used to, I don't know if they make 4 inch models. Cleavers are not designed to cut bone, it bends the blade like a ribbon. I think an ice axe might have left an exit wound as well as an entrance wound!

If the murders had occurred in the dead of winter...imagine an icicle as a weapon!

I like this question, I think it's a good one to ask. I voted for a hatchet as well. To me it just seems to fit better. It doesn't seem quite as cumbersome a weapon as an axe, yet would still be handy to find around the house. I agree with Yooper about the meat cleaver. An ice axe seems like the least likely weapon on the list for me. I'm sticking with the good old hatchet.

I voted for a hatchet as well, at least where Abby is concerned, but I think some other weapon could have been used on Andrew. Maybe the killer (Lizzie) disposed of the hatchet after killing Abby, and a kitchen utensil or sharp instrument was used to dispatch Andrew. If he was really sleeping, a few blows of a sharp instrument to the head would have done the trick.

I know what a Hatchet, an Axe and a Meat Cleaver are, but what is an Ice axe? What does it look like?

This is a pic that was posted a while back

I voted for a hatchet, as well. I think the wounds would have been much deeper and there would have been more blood spatter if an axe were used; an axe would be a lot more inconvenient to use. I agree with Yooper regarding a meat cleaver. Did the Bordens even own an ice axe? There were several hatchets in the Borden house, but I don't recall reading anything about the Bordens having an ice axe.

Tony, here are a couple of links for ice axes...

History of the Ice Axe: http://www.grivel.com/Storia/Storia_Det.asp?Cat=P

Also, see: http://members.tripod.com/tomahawks-r-tatca/id19.htm

I looked up Meat Cleaver on Google and the American and European cleavers (the heavy ones) are made to cut through bone. The lighter ones like the thin Chinese types (although they also make the heavier bone-cutting types) are mainly for cutting and dicing meat and vegies and shoveling food around. When I was a kid I remember seeing the local butchers chopping up animal carcasses with a huge meat cleaver. One whack and off comes a leg. Now days they use saws. I just wonder if the Bordens had one of those big bone-cutters. I saw an old one recently at a yard sale and it was huge. It brought back some vivid memories. The ones I see in the average store are so wimpy by comparison, although they are for meat and vegie cutting, not bone.

-1bigsteve (o:

I'm with Smudge! I think that Lizzie used the hatchet for the semi-unplanned killing of Abby, and then the kitchen cleaver for the second, planned murder of Andrew (the one with the neatly sliced eyeball - try doing THAT with a hatchet).

My sentiments exactly!

So far, I've bowed to the experts of the day. I think they were probably more conversant with ax and hatchet wounds than we are today.
I've looked at the photo of Andrew's skull and he does have major damage - as in bone caved-in - more around the side of his face towards the back than one might think. It's almost another optical illusion in the photo to think the damage was mostly forward on his face.
I think we get stuck on that eye-to-chin cutting marks because it's so horrific to see a face demolished like that. But the other, and majority, of wounds are crushing blows that basically put a big hole in his head- the hole extends at least to his left ear, if not further back. I don't know what else might have made this combination of wounds, other than something sharp with some heft to it. I think all the wounds shoud be considered as a whole when determining the weapon.
Andrew's skull is on the right. The pic came from The Strange Museum website.

Consider the fact that Andrew's head was cushioned to an extent by an afghan, a pillow, and possibly by his coat. He was asleep and relaxed, so there was probably no muscle tension to offer resistance, at least for the first blow. The murder weapon needed momentum to overcome the cushioning, momentum is simply mass (weight for our purposes) multiplied by velocity. A hatchet or axe puts a relatively large amount of weight behind the cutting edge when compared to a meat cleaver. A hatchet handle is relatively long compared to a cleaver which increases the radius of the swing, which increases velocity. Consider the difference in usage between a machete and an axe, we don't chop down many trees with machetes and we don't clear a lot of brush with an axe. A hatchet also tends to separate or split whatever it is chopping because the head widens behind the cutting edge. A cleaver tends to have a fairly narrow head behind the cutting edge compared to a hatchet. Unless the cleaver fractures or crushes the bone on either side of the wound, it might be difficult to extract from the wound, the bone and other tissue might tend to grip the instrument to a degree.

While a flat iron or some other similarly massive instrument could have caused the crushing wounds to the skulls, it would probably not have split Andrew's eyeball. I can see no reason why a sharp hatchet would not split an eyeball which is held in place by the skull and surrounding tissue.

Another minor point; there was less energy necessary per blow in Abby's murder than Andrew's, given the difference in cushioning beneath the head. Andrew was cushioned to a much greater degree. However, a frenzied murderer would be hard pressed to notice the difference! If the same amount of energy was expended by the murderer in both cases, Abby's wounds would have been deeper than Andrew's.

Hmm! Very interesting. So it's apparent you do think a hatchet could've split the eyeball, and that it would've been easier to pull a hatchet out of a head than a cleaver. Food for thought!