Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I was reading on Wikipedia about Lizzie, and got to the "other theories" section. It made a mention of that maybe Lizzie might have committed the murders when she was in a fugue state. It is a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity , including the memories, personality and other charcteristics of individuality. The stat is usually short lived ranging from hours to days, but sometimes can last longer. I was just thinking maybe she had some sort of mental problem.

That is very interesting. I've never heard of it at all, would this be considered the same thing as temporary insantity?

It seems to be a temporary dissociative disorder, but it may not be technically the same as temporary insanity. Still, it is a temporary condition under which the individual may or may not be responsible for their actions. It really is an interesting concept, certainly a possibility. Nothing much was made of mental health during the proceedings, and I think the prevailing attitude at the time was more toward that of a familial condition rather than an individual one. There were a few questions asked and the response was usually given with reference to the family in general rather than the individual specifically.

I expect the reason for the lack of mental health questions was the result of Lizzie's defense team not pursuing the matter. Any claim of mental instability would necessarily include an admission of guilt which they wanted to avoid. If she didn't commit the crime, the question of mental stability is moot. One thing the defense had in their favor was the belief that upper class, church going women simply didn't commit murder. If Lizzie admitted guilt, that concept went right down the tubes. Then it would boil down to whose expert was more believable, the defense's or the prosecution's when it came to Lizzie's temporary condition or the lack of it. If Lizzie was found not guilty due to a mental disorder, she would likely have been committed to a mental hospital for who knows how long, and I don't know if she could have inherited any of the estate under those conditions. I think the defense did the right thing under the circumstances, go for broke without disturbing any of the prevailing societal myths.

It sounded like it was a temporary dissociative disorder, but it might explain why she couldn't really remember exactly where she was at at the time of the murders. You know, every time she was asked where she was at, she gave a different stories as to what she was doing, temporary insanity, I guess. Just a thought.

I was also surprised to learn that she was given morphine almost everyday to calm down. I'm sure being on that drug didn't help her to think clearly especially when everyone is staring at you & throwing out questions.

A bit of further information about fugue, it is a form of amnesia. I don't know offhand if it would be a viable defense like insanity.

Morphine was prescribed as a sedative in 1892 in addition to use as a pain killer. Lizzie was prescribed 1/8 grain, the minimum effective dose for about 120 lbs. body mass. This was later increased to 1/4 grain, the maximum dose for the same weight person. She was never prescribed a double dose, which would have been twice the maximum, 1/2 grain. If the problem was nerves and if sulfate of morphine was a sedative in common use, then it may well have helped Lizzie calm down enough to answer questions correctly. She may well have been better off with it than without it.

Yup, part of the information I got was that in the fugue state, it is a form of amnesia. So I have always wondered about maybe she did do the murders, and just couldn't remember.

Interesting thing I saw on T.V. back about a month ago. I was watching a show that I've seen about a dozen times. It was called "Lizzie to an Axe". Most of the information is wrong, but one statement I found was interesting. A shrink said that women kill for a reason, we just don't haul off and kill someone, especially as gruesome as the way the Bordens' were killed; there's a reason. Something like sexual abuse. He indicted the in a case of sexual abuse, the victim blames both parents. And even though Andrew got the worst of it, Abby got hacked up to. That would indicate some kind of abuse.

Just spit balling here, but thinking, even though there is no proof of it, maybe there was some abuse going on and Lizzie just had enough, and "lost it", went into a fugue state and hacked the parents to death?

Just a thought.

We need to be careful with assumptions, sexual abuse may at times involve blaming both parents and killing them as a result, but not to the exclusion of all other possibilities in this case. In other words, just because both parents were murdered, it doesn't automatically indicate sexual abuse or necessarily abuse of any kind. Another possibility involving both parents is wanting Abby dead for whatever reason, then killing Andrew to prevent answering for the crime. I'm sure there are other scenarios involving both parents to the exclusion of various forms of abuse. However, it does remain one possibility out of several, we can't simply dismiss it.

That is interesting information about the tendency of women in general needing a reason for committing murder. From the opposite viewpoint, I think most men would be confident enough in wielding a hatchet to strike just one blow rather than several, assuming they were proficient in the use of a hatchet.

Snokkums: This is pretty much was Lincoln said in her book "Private Disgrace" isn't it?

There is a condition called TLE: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy that produces psyochomotor (not convulsive) seizures. Without revealing too much personal information, let me only say that I am very closely associated with this condition. Seizures can be "fugue-like' with the victim staring off into space, or performing a mundane task repetitively (like drawing circles on a piece of paper). Afterwards (in what is known as the "post-ictal" state) the person can be tired, nauseous, and have no memory of the past few minutes.

In between episodes--which is called "inter-ictal" states, it is common for sufferers of TLE to be fearful, even paranoid. I'm thinking that would jibe with Lizzie's conversation with Alice Russell the night before the murders, in which she expresses a sense of foreboding and fright.\

I have a question about the morphine given to LIzzie, and that question is: WHY? She told people reassuring her right after she found Andrew "I am not faint." She most certainly was NOT hysterical...she didn't break down sobbing, had no trouble answering questions (even insisting at one point that "I can answer questions as well now as I could later." ---not an exact quote, but words to that affect. She was calm, quiet, composed...so much so that her complete LACK of affect was noted by police.

And so I ask..WHY did Dr. Bowen see fit to give her morphine??? Quite simply, it didn't seem as if she needed it.

Why the morphine? Good question! My best guess is that at some time after Lizzie retired to her room a sedative became necessary. It went from bromo caffeine to 1/8 grain sulfate of morphine to 1/4 grain sulfate of morphine. I don't know if it was a delayed case of nerves or a game being played.

Dr. Bowen knew Lizzie well, and probably wanted to "put her out" so as to "shut her up."

IOW: He most probably knew that she shouldn't be awake and attempting to explain herself, and giving herself away, quite possibly, in the process.

Furthermore, it was the sort of thing that was simply "just done" in that era and beyond. Fetch the brandy, fetch the smelling salts, fetch the "nerve pills" in the event of situations much less dire than the one in which Lizzie was center stage.

I'm just surprised that he took so long to dose her. If he had had his wits about him, he ought've done so before she uttered WORD ONE to the police, or anyone else for that matter.

No, Lizzie is sitting downstairs with the neighbor ladies, with her mutilated father on the sitting-room couch, carrying on about Mrs. Borden coming in by the front door and going upstairs.

Lizzie giving a handy-dandy explanation for the scenario, instead of acting faint or in shock.

(This is how she behaved following The Daylight Robbery: Explaining to police how the B&E could have been accomplished, instead of at least acting mortified that an intruder could have gotten upstairs and rifled through her Father's and Stepmother's things, while she and Emma were in residence.)

Good point, DJ. Lizzie was good at explaining things. Look at Lizzie's inquest testimony, specifically the part where Knowlton questions how someone could miss hearing or seeing someone else in the house. There were six or eight opportunities for an innocent person to answer with the story about the note rather than intellectually banter about the possibilities, assuming the note story was true. If the note story was true, an innocent person would have answered to the effect that the reason for her lack of concern about not hearing or seeing Abby was because Abby was out of the house. Simple.

I have a Master's Degree in Psychology, so can shed some light here. Technically Fugue is amnesia coupled with flight. People often end up hundreds of miles away, with a new family, not knowing anything about their prior life. This is not the proper term in this case. She could have suffered repressed memories or amnesia from the trauma, as we often see in PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) where the brain decides that sanity is in jeopardy so "forgets" the details of the trauma to protect itself.

Just a quick question, when you say amnesia coupled with flight. I understand the flight part, however the amnesia--would this be because of something very traumatic & this would happen right away?

I really don't buy into the theory that Lizzie was "insane" or on drugs, or just snapped. She did some pre-planning on the murders and was just fine afterwards. She lived her life out and was not committed to Nunnery or hospital. Money changes everything.

Nadzieja wrote:Just a quick question, when you say amnesia coupled with flight. I understand the flight part, however the amnesia--would this be because of something very traumatic & this would happen right away?

Right...Let's say you were at the World Trade Center during the attacks on 911. You saw horrific things, and your brain quickly/immediately says to itself- If I keep thinking about this horrible event I will "go crazy" To protect our thought processes, our brain locks up in the back the event...either forever or for a period of time. This sometimes occurs when rape, incest, other really bad things, the brain locks out the event. FUGUE has a component of ending up far away physically, perhaps another state, with the amnesia.