Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I haven't been able to post much because I've had trouble logging on but I have been keeping up with the discussions as best I can. I would like to address the timeline issue. It seems to be an accepted fact amongst this Forum that there was about 90 minutes between the murders of Abby and Andrew. This has been the basis for much discussion and theories. I understand that the time of death of Andrew is well established but what about Abby? How do we really know at what time she was killed? If memory serves me, she was definitely killed some time before Andrew due to the nature of the blood. But why is it supposed to be 90 minutes?

Hi, you can find the answer if you read through some of the source documents. Abby had undigested food from breakfast still in her stomach, and her bood had clotted and cooled by the time they found her. It's a rough estimate to say 90 minutes, but she definitely died before Andrew. The last time anyone saw her was around 9:30 when she went upstairs to put some slips on the pillows on the bed in the guest room. Andrew was found at 11, so that is where the 90 minute estimate is from.

NancyDrew wrote:Hi, you can find the answer if you read through some of the source documents. Abby had undigested food from breakfast still in her stomach, and her bood had clotted and cooled by the time they found her. It's a rough estimate to say 90 minutes, but she definitely died before Andrew. The last time anyone saw her was around 9:30 when she went upstairs to put some slips on the pillows on the bed in the guest room. Andrew was found at 11, so that is where the 90 minute estimate is from.

Nancy Drew said it very well. The coagulation of blood in the larger pools happened much earlier in Mrs. Borden. The chemical process of fibrinogen converting to fibrin and clotting in large pools can be roughly calculated based on time since spilled, amount of blood, and temperature. The blood in a dead body ceases to be able to coagulate due to the release of fibrinolysins, That is why we can tell if a body has been moved post mortem- Livor Mortis is the pooling of un-cloted blood in the lower areas of the body due to gravity. The back, arms and legs of a body laying on it's back will be purple, while the belly and chest will be white. BUT, the blood that has pooled around a body will harden and clot at a given rate because there is no fibrinolysis outside the body. There was extensive clotting/drying of the blood around the body, pointing to a much earlier time of death than Mr. Borden.
Also, they ate about the same time but the peristalsis through the upper GI tract of Mrs. Borden shows much less digestion than Mr. Borden, pointing to death of Mrs. Borden very soon after ingestion of the food. If she had been killed much later than 9:30 the stomach acid and pancreatic enzymes would have digested her food to a greater extent than was seen in autopsy.
Taken along with the blood coagulation, about an hour and a half longer time to live. They didn't do Liver temps on cadavers back then, that would have put an even more accurate frame of reference.
Abby left to go upstairs about 9:30am with some slip covers for the bed in the room she was found dead in. She more than likely was putting on those covers when she met her death. No one else saw or heard from her after that period. We know T.O.D. of Mr. Borden was about 11:00-11:10am, working backwards, Mrs. Borden was likely killed about 9:30-9:45am.