Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I was reading thru some old posts and I got to thinking. with all the search for blood on Lizzie, and the police didn't find any, did they think about checking Andrew's suit for blood? I don't ever recall them doing that.

Sorry, Snokkums. I'm not clear on what you mean. Do you mean the Prince Albert that he wore into town and took off when he got home, and it was found under his head when he was killed? Or do you mean the clothing he had on when he was murdered? I don't understand how examining that would help the case one way or another.

Today it would be examined, to see if the murderer's blood might have gotten on it. But I don't think they had the technology to figure out much beyond being able to tell if blood was human or animal blood.

The clothing Andrew wore when he was found was clearly bloodstained. If you mean Andrew's other clothing, I don't recall anything about the authorities examining that. The murderer might have worn something else of Andrew's other than the Prince Albert coat, for instance.

Well, all of his clothing. I am just saying that the police really werent doing a very good job into looking into alll the evidence. And that they were just looking at lizzie and noone else.

I don't recall any testimony one way or the other about Andrew's other clothing, so I can't say they did a good or a bad job based on that. If Lizzie's story seemed shaky to them, they certainly would have zeroed in on her. We weren't there to witness the tone of voice, mannerisms, body language, etc. Something made them suspect her right off the bat, but I don't know what it was other than a shaky story.

All we have is court and police records, all of that is two dimensional and long after the fact. We lack the third dimension which eyewitnesses realize. The police know what they saw, and it didn't add up to them at the time.

Sometimes testimony is introduced which calls the police observations to question, like the "me and Brownie" testimony which tends to refute the undisturbed dust on the floor of the hayloft. That's fine if it's true, but if it isn't, then that's not what the police saw, and they knew good and well the dust was undisturbed, in spite of a couple of kids. All we get from the records is a choice of who to believe.

Regarding the clothing of Andrew, (and Abby) Morse paid someone a couple of bucks to bury them in the yard in a box as soon as possible. The police had them dug back up when they learned of it.

I am pretty sure I read that the clothing was in the police station's evidence locker during the trial. I don't recall it being mentioned in any testimony, except for the contents of Andrew's pocket(s).

Now those clothes would have been something to display today.

Lizzie was acquitted because there was no evidence against her. After the trial Knowlton's team said there was no sense trying Bridget, because the result would just come out the same, as there was no direct evidence against her either.

The police did run down clues on other suspects they heard about - in fact, quite a few. I was reading that the police never had a crime of this magnitude happen in Spindle City before, and there was no protocol for handling something like this. So everybody who wanted to it seems walked all over the house and grounds. They, and the policemen, were really shocked. Maybe policemen in the future learned what not to do from this case.