Lizzie Borden Society Forum

How does the amount of the blood spatter in the Borden murders compare to other axe murders?

Was there blood spatter on the ceiling?

Would forensics today be able to tell from these murders how much spatter could have gotten on the murderer?

We don't read about blood on the ceilings. There's like 1 or 2 spots documented.

Actually, the blood descriptions sound so tame, but I've lately been trying to picture a pretty bloody scene, as it probably was.

It seems to me that there is remarkably little blood spatter described, given the number of hatchet blows. The existing blood spatter was described in good detail as to size of the droplets and direction of impact as well as location. There seems to be a directional component to the location of the droplets in each case, too.

I imagine one important question is how much of the spatter described was the result of swinging the hatchet as opposed to gushing from a wound. I doubt that an arterial wound would produce much in the way of droplets, that would require air with the blood, kind of like a paint sprayer. I'm guessing an artery would produce large amounts of blood intermittently, varying with the heartbeat. Another question is; how far will an arterial wound spurt blood?

If the blood spatter described can be shown to be the result of swinging the hatchet, then there may be relatively little blood on the hatchet user.