Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Plattsburg New York

The Plattsburg Sentinel May 26, 1893 page 5.

I thought this was interesting. Not sure if you all have read this before, but if this conversation really did take place between Lizzie and Mrs. Livermore I think it's pretty intriguing.

Allen, thanks for posting this fascinating piece, and a belated Happy Birthday to you!
It's nice to know that Mrs. Livermore believed Lizzie to be innocent, and that that's included in the article, as it clearly delineates her prejudice in the matter.
It's difficult to believe, however, that she would concoct a falsehood about visiting Lizzie in prison. Surely, she did. However, did she sit with a steno pad and get every word down correctly? If so--
Seems to me that it would have been more difficult to take on Abby and Andrew at the same time, even if they were accosted while sleeping, to not make a noise going up the back steps-- and assuming that the bedroom door would be unlocked. That Bridget might not hear the noise of a possible struggle, and come down to investigate.
Lizzie might have been able to execute such a task swiftly, but either A or A could have rolled off the bed, grabbed the heavy stick from under the bed, or--
*** screamed her name. Or, just screamed.***
It sounds like a terrible plan, and that Lizzie would voice it causes me to wonder if she--
*** ever considered it, then rejected it, because of the risk.***
It's somewhat self-damning that she remarks on her knowing every foot of her house-- that was her advantage.
Also, that Bridget could have come in for water-- when? She wouldn't have come to the guest room for it, and she was finished when Andrew was murdered.
As for Uncle John coming in upon Lizzie-- assuming he was on the "up and up," all Lizzie had to do was ask her Father or Stepmother what he was planning to do that a.m. in order to know that he wouldn't be barging in on her.
Thanks for sharing the piece. If it's completely accurate, it hints at a fear on Lizzie's part, the need to assert "damage control."

Is this the journalist and women's rights advocate Mary Livermore? DJ, I had the same impression you did after reading Lizzie's comments about committing the crime at night. It may not have been a very good plan, but it does seem premeditated somehow.

I agree, the crime was pretty far fetched, for Lizzie or for anyone else. The only thing more far fetched than Lizzie having done all that is for anyone else to have done all that!

Good assessment, DJ.
Thanks Missy for posting the original format.

It's intriguing that Lizzie is saying it was a *mystery.*
She says this in her inquest testimony and that thought has always sounded so real to me...

64(21)

Q. What explanation can you suggest as to the whereabouts of your mother from the first time you saw her in the dining room, and she said her work in the spare room was all done, untill 11 o'clock?
A. I don't know. I think she went back into the spare room, and whether she came back again or not I don't know; that has always been a mystery.

Last night, mulling this over, had the disturbing thought that Lizzie's offering is suggestive of a miniversion of Simpson's "If I Did It." (Or whatever the title was.)

I was thinking the same thing too DJ!

Lizzie's perspective does not seem to be that the crime was too abhorrent for her to have committed it, but that the manner in which it was committed was beneath her level of intelligence. Stolidity indeed! No need for morality if intellectuality will do! Not a sign of either moral or intellectual indignation about the real offender not being pursued or brought to justice, either. Only poor Lizzie with her "How dumb do you think I am?" attitude. To me, this only underscores the observations made by the police about Lizzie seeming either removed from the events or perhaps rather indifferent on the day of the murders.

As for her character of 30 years, according to Sullivan, p. 173, Goodbye Lizzie Borden, quoting Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw (in Commonwealth v. Webster, Massachusetts Reports, 5 Cushing): "But where it is a question of a great and atrocious crime, it is so unusual, so out of the ordinary course of things, that the evidence of character may be considered as far inferior to what it is in the case of smaller crimes. Against facts strongly proved, character cannot avail." Her character of 30 years standing would not have counted for much in light of the seriousness of the crimes.

Uncle John is quoted as giving a similar plan. Rebello on page 135+ has the following:

"Uncle John Morse Talks," New Bedford Evening Journal, Friday, June 23, 1893: 3.

Uncle Morse offered his theory to a journalist two days after the trial. "I would give $2,000 to know who committed those murders ... My idea is that he went into that house for the purpose of killing Mr. Borden, but not finding Mr. Borden in, he went upstairs in the front chamber to wait and watch for him. While in there, I think Mrs. Borden came in ___?___ after making the bed, and he was forced to kill her ... as not to be found out, with that hatchet about his person." (Morse made no mention of Mr. Borden's murder.)

"Now they say that Lizzie Borden did that and I [John Morse] planned it all out. If I'd been planning it, is it likely I'd have planned in that way? Wouldn't it have been easier to have smothered them with chloroform in the night and in the morning said they had committed suicide?"

I have to agree with both Lizzie and Uncle John, the murders would have been much easier for either of them to have committed if done at night. For someone familiar with the room layout and room occupant(s), it would have been much easier. But what happens to the intruder concept if Andrew and Abby were murdered in the middle of the night? Who would know where they slept, and how to get to their room while avoiding the disturbance of others?

Oh yeah, Harry-- I immediately thought of the choloroform story, discussed several times elsewhere in The Forum. Both Lizzie and Uncle John could have helped their causes/cases if they had displayed remorse, w/o trying to look at the case coldly and "intelligently," as Yooper remarks. That's for the detectives. The victims' surviving loved ones are naturally expected to mourn their loss (losses).
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Since we're on the subject of Lizzie's murder plans, I've wondered before why Lizzie (okay-- if she was guilty) just didn't burn down No. 92. At night. Gosh knows, it would have gone up like a tinderbox in August, and it was one heckuva firetrap for anyone above the first floor.
Lincoln, in her account of the evening of Aug. 3rd, 1892, has Lizzie telling Alice Russell, among other dire imprecations, "It's a wonder they [her Father's alleged enemies] haven't burned the house down around us."
Which got me wondering-- could anyone pull up a source on that?
If Lizzie said that, she may have well pondered it. It would have been perfect, with Emma gone, except that Bridget probably would have died, and I don't believe Lizzie ever wished Bridget any harm.

Alice relates this bit of information in her trial testimony concerning what she and Lizzie talked about when Lizzie came to visit her just prior to the murders.

Trial testimony of Alice Russell page 378-379:

Q. Yes. Is there anything else that you recall? Anything about burning the house?
A. She said,"I feel as if I want to sleep with my eyes half open--with one eye open half the time-- for fear they will burn the house down around us."

Q. Anything else in that connection?
A. She said that before this other.

Q. What had she said just before the burning of the house?
A. I think it was the beginning of her telling me about her fears of somebody breaking in, before she told of the breaking into the barn, I think.

Q. Is there anything else that occurs to you in the conversation?
A. I don't think of anything.

Q. Anything about doing anything to any member of the household; not herself, but anyone else; anything to her father; she was afraid that someone would do anything?
A. Oh, she said, " I am afraid somebody will do something. I don't know but what somebody will do something." I think that was the beginning.

It seems that these questions are so leading as to almost be an answer in themselves sometimes.

Allen,
Thanks for looking this up! I was thinking it was in the Preliminary Hearing testimony, to which I do not have ready access.

I just can't decide how much of this is Livermore and how much is Lizzie. One thing, though - Lizzie must've learned that "It remains a mystery to me" works a lot better than "Look, Officer, a ten-penny nail! They must have used that to get in the house!"

One of the things you can count on in an episode of "Columbo" is the rumpled detective goading the snotty, upper-class murderer into trying to solve the crime, for Columbo, without implicating him/herself. Of course, there would be no show if the killer simply answered one of Columbo's queries with "Gosh, how would you expect ME to know?"

Quote from article: "I spke of the comments on her stolid indifference. Lizze: "What would they have me do? She asked sadly. How? Go into hysterica? I am wrongly accused of two horrible crimes. I know it's useless to cey out in indignation at the outrage, so I am trying hard to keep calm and self controlled until I am proven innnocent."

I think that statement gives an insight to Lizzie. I think for years people thought Lizzie did it just based on her persona in and out of the court room. She just seemed to cool; she had to have done it. She wasn't showing any emotion. And she was giving something to calm her nerves.

I think she did feel someting she just wasn't showing it.

Quote from article: "I spke of the comments on her stolid indifference. Lizze: "What would they have me do? She asked sadly. How? Go into hysterica? I am wrongly accused of two horrible crimes. I know it's useless to cey out in indignation at the outrage, so I am trying hard to keep calm and self controlled until I am proven innnocent."

I think that statement gives an insight to Lizzie. I think for years people thought Lizzie did it just based on her persona in and out of the court room. She just seemed to cool; she had to have done it. She wasn't showing any emotion. And she was giving something to calm her nerves.

I think she did feel someting she just wasn't showing it.

When I first read this news item sometime ago, I wondered if Ms. Livermore took shorthand or perhaps was endowed with perfect recall. It was just too pat and too cultured, which led me to believe the words may have been Ms. Livermore's or the reporter's - not Lizzie's.

I was just thinking that people were thinking on the lines of her that maybe she did do this crime. She wasn't showing any emotion at all, but now I can see why. What good is it going to do if I start bawling and going nuts?

It wasn't until she met Governor Robinson that she learned how to swoon.

william @ Sat Dec 20, 2008 6:32 am wrote:When I first read this news item sometime ago, I wondered if Ms. Livermore took shorthand or perhaps was endowed with perfect recall. It was just too pat and too cultured, which led me to believe the words may have been Ms. Livermore's or the reporter's - not Lizzie's.

Yes, I wonder how much of what Ms. Livermore reported was word-for-word accurate and how much may have been embellished. She may have had a soft spot for Lizzie and decided to shed the "proper" light on Lizzie's comments. I agree, Lizzie's comments seem to be a little too "polished."

-1bigsteve (o: