Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I was looking at the Ed McBain series on Youtube today and when they showed the back of Abby's shaved head something struck me (no pun intended). If she had been struck with a hatchet it would seem to me that most of the cuts would be more uniform in size and going in one direction. Instead, there are not only vertical, but horizontal cuts. Not only that, but on the lower part of the skull it looks more like there are puncture wounds rather than cuts one would see from a hatchet. Something that would be better able to make so many different kinds of cuts it would seem to me would be like an ice chipper or something. How could a hatchet make those smaller puncture-like marks?

(And, I know I've brought this up before, but it still doesn't seem to me that something like a hatchet could cleanly swipe through an eyeball so easily without squishing it, in Andrew's case. It would seem that the weapon would have to be a lot sharper and thinner.)

Yes, I had to do some experimenting myself to duplicate those wounds (on a watermelon). You get a clean vertical slice mark if you grip the hatchet firmly and impact with force holding the the blade parallel to the skull. If for any reason the blade of the hatchet impacts at an angle, the holder of the weapon twists or pivots the wrist, sometimes only part of the blade cuts into the surface. If the hand arches back at any point, a deep dig is achieved. Frenzied hacking produces more random patterns, and if the spherical object rolls or moves or gives any resistance, all manner of marks can be made from a gouge to a slice and flap. Gruesome- yes indeed. I found that with a steady, two-handed grip on the weapon, with a completely steady target, and not having to adjust my position, a more regular and consistant series of marks is achieved. This I did by placing a melon which was secured, at a comfortable and convenient height (countertop). Naturally a victim is not going to be so obliging and a would-be killer (especially in a frenzied attack of rapid blows) might be contending with a lot of negatives from spacial issues, a moving target, impeded swing radius, etc. I am convinced that the weapon had a very sharp edge and enough steel head behind it to crush bone. Sharp but dense and heavy sure seems like a hatchet or something very like a hatchet.

That's true- something like an ice chipper or cleaver wouldn't have much weight to it.

Altho that picture is gross---to say the least---I always thought it was pretty amazing they were able to shave the damaged head so cleanly as to show the wounds.

It's never been determined (nor can it be) as to which of the blows actually killed Abby or Andrew. If Abby was effectively dead after the first 3 or 4 blows she would not have moved after that.

There is the theory that the killer sat on, or squatted over, the prone Abby raining down blows. That would lead me to believe that most of these blows should have been fairly accurate due to the proximity of the killer.

It is hard to explain the horizontal cuts in the skull. Could the killer have moved to the side, between the body and the bed, to rain down a few blows? There doesn't seem much room for that. I believe that there was some speculation on the forum before about the killer lying on the bed and striking a few blows.

Perhaps the killer was using a different weapon in each hand? Perhaps one was dropped so that a better grip could be put on the more effective one?

Just thinking out loud (so to speak).

From what it says in Abby's autopsy report:

These wounds on the right side were parallel, the direction being mostly from in front backwards.

Yet looking at the picture of Abby's shaved head, we don't see parallel wounds, there were 11 on the right side of her head making that huge hole in her skull. Which leads me to believe that once the blood was washed off, these wounds didn't stand out as much as the ones we do see in the photo. Perhaps there is not enough contrast?

Which makes me think that those possibly are not all hatchet wounds we are looking at, but, holes made by the jagged edges of bone around the hole in Abby's skull. Eleven strikes of the hatchet in that area repeatedly would push in on the scalp covering that hole which would come in contact with the jagged and possibly sharp edges of skull. I think if we could superimpose an image of Abby's skull from the same angle as the shaved head pic, we might see that those horizontal wounds line up with the edges of the hole.

Please see this link in Privy:

viewtopic.php?p=60327#60327

Kat -- I'd like to, but I am apparently not allowed to.

That's the Privy. I think members need a certain post count total to get in. One can always ask the Admin for the privilege ahead of time, I guess?

Bob, Kat is right in that members need a certain post count total in order to get into the Privy. Members need at least 126 post in order to move into the next usergroup level along with meeting the criteria indicated in the following link:

viewtopic.php?t=2235

Hang in there, Bob, you are doing great with your post count. You'll find that the 126 post count will be obtained quicker than what you might think.