Lizzie Borden Society Forum

As any Lizzie Borden buff knows, on the day of the murders most of the police force was attending an annual event at Rocky Point, Rhode Island. While doing research on this location I discovered that it was an amusement park, which stood abandoned and falling apart for many years until demolition began in 2007. Below are descriptions of the park taken from two sites which are Web Urbanist, and the Rocky Point Amusement Park Site. The pictures are from Web Urbanist. There are several pictures you can view on the Rocky Point Amusement Park site as well.

http://www.opacity.us/site58_rocky_poin ... t_park.htm

"The history of Rocky Point begins back in the late 1800's, where amusements and dinners were offered along the scenic shoreline of Rhode Island. The profitable business eventually grew to become a large amusement park, featuring a multitude of rides and attractions. The park had hosted a number or various rollercoasters over the years, inculding a Russian Tobbogan, Looff, Tumble-Bug, The Wildcat, Cyclone, The Saltwater Flume, and The Corkscrew.

The park filed for bankruptcy in 1996, when it then autioned off most of the rides. The property was bought by a developer in 2003 for $8.5 million, plans are to redevelop the park into a gated community. It is patrolled by a security company.

Check out these old photos, stories, and auction prices to see what the place looked like before all the rides were auctioned off, and the Art in Ruins page, which has photos, history, and anecdotes from the amusement park. In 2007, the film You Must be This Tall was released, documenting the history of Rocky Point Amusement Park. Below is a commercial for the park (exact date unknown)."



http://weburbanist.com/2009/03/13/aband ... ent-parks/


"Play Dead: 6 Creepy Abandoned Amusement Parks -Rocky Point

Amusement parks are like playgrounds for the entire family. While in operation, the amusement park procures smiles from wide eyed children, adventurous teenagers and nostalgic adults alike. However, should an amusement park close and become abandoned, the atmosphere takes on an entirely different vibe. Creepy and delightfully twisted, these vast steel wastelands draw out curious photographers by day and kids looking for a cheap thrill by night. Below are photographed explorations of six of the most haunting abandoned amusement parks.

Hailing all the way back to the 1840′s, Rocky Point amusement park was once one of America’s premier parks. It’s most famous rides included the classic “Corkscrew Loop Coaster,” and the now common “Log Flume” water ride. The park was closed and abandoned in 1995 due to financial difficulties. The story of Rocky Point is quite famous, being the subject of a documentary entitled, “You Must Be At Least This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park.” Sadly, the park is frequently hit with vandalism, the worst of which being a fire started in the main building. It is a shame, as Rocky Point is truly a small piece of American history."

WOW, Allen... those are great links and the information in your post is awesome! Thanks for posting!

I love old amusement parks. Youtube has a couple of brave trespassing cameramen who take me vicariously and safely around to see old ruins. I used to go to Glen Echo park. There were a lot of eerie things about it. The Amplitheatre, for one. Aside from safety concerns, I would like to see admission to the dead parks for tourists, and photographers. They could go in small safe groups. The vandalism gets me riled. They are basically living dead museums. My favorite ride was the Laff In The dark pretzel ride.

Interesting Allen........

Yes, nice to see people posting again.

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It is noteworthy to mention that the investigation of the Borden crime was not hindered by the Rocky Point picnic. Though this is the popular belief it's probably not true. Though many police were at Rocky Point, and it is probably true that the city was covered by a skeleton police crew, from everything you read it appeared that most of them were at the Borden House, including ample representation by city detectives.

The excuse that most of the police were at Rocky Point was most likely just an excuse for the failure of fall river police (small f and small r) to solve the case. Remember. This assumption was made by Edwin Porter, who was an attache for the Globe newspaper, the Globe hated Lizzie. And keep in mind that Porter was the police reporter for the Globe and the rep for the fall river keystone cops.

The attendance of the police at the picnic at Rocky point, though an inconvenience, did not and should have not hindered the investigation.

Below is an excerpt from Edwin Porter's book.

Almost all of the night patrolmen and many of the day men were absent from the city on the day of the killing, on the annual excursion of the Fall River Police Association to Rocky Point, a shore resort near Providence, R. I., and this unusual condition served greatly to handicap the efforts of Marshal Hilliard in his attempt to get possession of a tangible clue to the perpetration of the crimes. The city was but poorly protected by members of the day force, who were doing double duty.

Writer such as Lincoln and Spearing like to play up the fact that Hillard was so short manpower that he sent an inexperience officer to investigate the crime, making no mention that no proof that a crime was committed until an officer verified it as so.

Even Pearson, who was the second writer of note to write about the crime, claimed that the police picnic made little difference, though he is vague in his declaration.

Thanks for sharing, Allen.

Even though police officers were, of course, available and able to investigate, I'm wondering whether Lizzie believed the picnic would have worked to her advantage, even if it ultimately didn't. We know she read the papers enough to know about the sale at Sargent's.

Anyway, I still believe she was planning to strike that week, be it with prussic acid or hatchet. I believe she was well aware of the picnic, and that ***She Thought*** that it would work to her advantage, one way or another.

One thing we do know: She didn't run from the house, calling for the police. Nor did she ask Bridget to fetch the police.

I tend to agree with you DJ. I think Lizzie might have taken that into account at some point. A murder occurring on a day when the police were scheduled to be attending an annual event in Rhode Island seems too much of a coincidence, in my opinion.

If we accept Lizzie taking the policemen's picnic into consideration-- her thinking that it would give her a leg-up (arm up?) in getting away with homicide-- then we are accepting that the murder of Abby, at least, was premeditated.

I believe she returned from New Bedford with the full intent of killing Abby, at least, one way or another.

I think she debated about Andrew, but ultimately decided (maybe as late as the morning of the 4th) that he would absolutely believe her guilty and therefore disinherit her.

In any event, she must have had her mind made up to kill him during the minutes following Abby's murder. Otherwise, it would have behooved her to clean up herself more quickly and slip out of the house, in order to establish an alibi.

I think she had planned ahead a great deal for this event. There are too many elements that fell together to make it seem planned for me. Even if she couldn't have planned on Uncle John being there for a visit, she could plan that he probably would go out making rounds to see other people once he was there. It seems to be have been his habit. It might seem a little risky committing murder with such a wild card as Uncle John floating around, but then committing murder at all is a risky proposition. There had already been failed attempts. She was in too deep already. She had to push forward before Abby talked anymore than she already had.

I have a feeling that the murders were committed in order to prevent Abby and her family from sharing any of Andrew's estate. The one certain way to accomplish that was to kill Abby. Killing Andrew may have been a calculated risk, whether the chances of getting away with it were better with his being alive or dead. Clearly, if Lizzie was the murderer, she was better off with Andrew dead because he was almost certain to suspect her. This may also imply that Lizzie believed he would throw her to the wolves rather than try to protect her, for some reason.

Something, like the possibility of Andrew writing a will favoring Abby over Lizzie and Emma, made it imperative that the murder of Abby take place immediately. Maybe some ultimatum was issued when Andrew bought the Ferry Street house back from Lizzie and Emma the previous month.

Abby went to Dr. Bowen with the fear that someone (nameless, at least according to Bowen) was trying to poison them. Why would she fear that rather than assume it was "summer complaint", which she would have been familiar with? Lizzie repeated that information to Alice Russell the night before the murders, so Lizzie was aware of the fact. If Lizzie was the cause of the food poisoning, she may have feared Abby would start naming names. Furthermore, if Abby had not named anyone to Bowen, now would be the time to kill her since the hint was dropped that her life and possibly other family members were in jeopardy. The lights came on for Bowen when he said he was "satisfied something was wrong" because of Abby's visit the previous morning. You don't logically progress from food poisoning to hatchet murder with any degree of satisfaction! Abby must have expressed a fear for her life in order for Bowen to draw the conclusion he did.

Something had happened to make Abby fear for her life. Something had to be done before Abby implicated Lizzie. If time was of the essence, then it didn't really matter if Morse was present, or if the police were on holiday. It had to take place right now, in spite of all that!