Lizzie Borden Society Forum

There's testimony that Lizzie's dress on the day of the murders was loose-fitting enough to be worth the witness's notice, even granting that it was not intended for any occasion more formal than hanging out at home. I understand she liked her more formal "out and about" clothing to fit on the tight side. On the theory that anything out of the ordinary has significance in a criminal investigation, does anyone think there's something worth pondering in this tidbit?

Are we talking about the Bedford cord that was so unfortunately consigned to the flames later on? I suppose if I'm being facetious I could say that Lizzie, anticipating the amount of exercise she would be undertaking during the day, left her 'stays' off that morning for greater freedom. That would result in a less sculpted look than was usual. I don't think she'd be hiding an axe head or anything in the garment. What is odder to me is the dress was seemingly completely clear of cobwebs, straw, dust and other grubbiness from Lizzie's supposed long visit to the barn on a hot day. (If we are referring to the striped 'wrapper' later on wasn't that a tea-gown sort of dress, designed for relaxation.)

There is so much confusion and contradiction with her dresses that day that it is hard to speculate. I don't believe anyone stated that they saw her in the dress that unfortunately got paint on it and was later burned. The striped wrapper was put on after the police arrived. She did not have many dresses to begin with, so the confusion is even more....confusing.

None of her friends/acquaintances could remember exactly what dress she was wearing on the day of the murders. But the Bedford cord she later burned has been suspected by some of being THE one!

Curryong wrote:None of her friends/acquaintances could remember exactly what dress she was wearing on the day of the murders. But the Bedford cord she later burned has been suspected by some of being THE one!

THere are multiple references in different testimonies by the police who state that during the initial search dresses were moved out of the way, but not examined for blood. Officers went out of their way to say things like "I searched the closet, but did NOT look at any of the dresses closely" I doubt Lizzie would hang a bloody dress in the closet, As Allen once suggested if she put Mr. Borden's coat on backwards, killed him then put it under his head where the blood would saturate it, she would have stayed clean...Sounds far fetched but who knows.

Is the theory behind the loose-fitting dress that Lizzie would be able to conceal the hatchet (or other murder weapon) by holding it in the skirt's loose folds before getting close to her unsuspecting victims? Possibly, but didn't dresses of the early 1890's have simple, plain skirts, A-line, smooth over the hips and with a few pleats. Nothing voluminous with deep frills, or like a crinoline. Lizzie could have glided in concealing any number of hatchets wearing those! I tend to believe that Lizzie may have hidden her newly acquired hatchet in a pile of linen when approaching Abby and relied on her poor old dad continuing to snore gently away when she came near on the second occasion.

Curryong wrote:Is the theory behind the loose-fitting dress that Lizzie would be able to conceal the hatchet (or other murder weapon) by holding it in the skirt's loose folds before getting close to her unsuspecting victims? Possibly, but didn't dresses of the early 1890's have simple, plain skirts, A-line, smooth over the hips and with a few pleats. Nothing voluminous with deep frills, or like a crinoline. Lizzie could have glided in concealing any number of hatchets wearing those! I tend to believe that Lizzie may have hidden her newly acquired hatchet in a pile of linen when approaching Abby and relied on her poor old dad continuing to snore gently away when she came near on the second occasion.

Yes, I think too much emphasis is given to hiding the hatchet. It is small, and held behind the back you can hide a hatchet even if only wearing a swimsuit. The point you made about Mr. Borden sleeping is a good one. A stranger upstairs would have no idea what Andrew was doing after coming home. Remember, a stranger would have to creep downstairs unseen, find what room Mr. Borden was in, sneak up on him, and kill him. Lizzie didn't need to do any of that b/c her presence in the house would not raise alarm. A stranger with an ax approaching Mr. Borden would certainly raise an alarm! I always wondered how people who believe it was an outsider explain how the stranger upstairs in Abby's room had the ability to wait just long enough for Mr. Borden to lay down and close his eyes. He could have done any number of other things before his nap, yet the killer knew just when to creep downstairs???

Yes, and didn't Lizzie [if she was the killer, of course] have the luck of the devil when killing her father. Something may have come up when he was out to delay Andrew for an hour or so on that day, a chance meeting with some business associates perhaps, a decision to have a cool drink and a sit in the shade for a while downtown, Uncle John coming home early, Bridget feeling so ill that she remained downstairs, Andrew deciding to have a nap in his own room behind a locked door, a thousand possibilities...

If Lizzie had left off her "stays", or corset, that morning, it's quite likely she could not have gotten into her dress! Those corsets pulled a women into an unnatural shape that deformed her body by prolonged use of them. Dresses were made to fit a woman while wearing a tightly pulled corset...and dresses were tight fitting then.

The wrapper was a more casual dress...worn at home...but still presentable to guests, which means the corset was laced normally. Dresses were made of two pieces...the bodice (or top) and the skirt. I believe the wrapper was one piece. Dresses were made by a dressmaker (for the well off) or sewed at home (for the less well off). The skirts of the 1890's were tight in the front, pulled to a bustle or fullness in the back.

I'm not sure what was meant by her "loose" dress that morning...I'm not even recalling ever reading that. Who testified to that?

I did say 'if I was being facetious' in my post! I agree that most women were tightly laced. Of course, although Lizzie looks slightly sturdy in photos of the time, we don't know exactly how much she weighed in 1892. When the Aesthetic movement was at its height in the 1880's female followers, including Oscar Wilde's wife, often didn't wear 'stays'. People considered it shocking, and the women concerned were often described as looking 'limp'!

Curryong wrote:Yes, and didn't Lizzie [if she was the killer, of course] have the luck of the devil when killing her father. Something may have come up when he was out to delay Andrew for an hour or so on that day, a chance meeting with some business associates perhaps, a decision to have a cool drink and a sit in the shade for a while downtown, Uncle John coming home early, Bridget feeling so ill that she remained downstairs, Andrew deciding to have a nap in his own room behind a locked door, a thousand possibilities...

Luck of the Devil?? If it were NOT Lizzie but a stranger...Luck of the devil is an understatement. What if Andrew came home hours later than usual? what if he brought some police buddies home who weren't at the picnic? Lizzie could wing it but a stranger sitting for an hour and a half in the spare room with Abby couldn't know where or when Andrew was coming back, or where he was in the house...HOW the bloody heck did a stranger (or Morse co-conspirator) know just how long to wait until just the right moment when Andrew was reclined on the couch???Poppycock I say. It would have taken ALL of Satan's luck to pull that off!!!
Sorry, that aspect of the case is the clincher for me. NO stranger could randomly hide that long then come down just at the PRECISE moment that no one was around and his eyes were closed.

Yes, I agree. How an intruder could get in and out of that house of locks safely, not knowing the layout or who exactly was home or due home is the clincher for me.

Bit of an addition to my above post on women's fashions. I'm sorry SallyG but I just don't agree that women's skirts by 1892 were 'tight in the front and pulled into a bustle or fullness in the back.' At that time tailored outfits suitable for sports like golf were just coming in, but even in smart walking-out outfits there were no bustles, or the like. The skirts of such outfits were much plainer than in the late 1880's and usually featured just pleats. (I have an old book of my grandmother' dealing with 1890's fashion, English, but I doubt it was much different in the U.S.). 'The bustle had disappeared for good by 1890, and skirts became slim in front, full behind but without poufs or lifts'. By 1892 sleeves were puffed, boned down to the elbow (the beginning of the massive 'leg of mutton' sleeve) and skirt hems were padded and held out in an A-line with petticoats.

Thank God I wasn't born then! Having to traipse around in all that heavy, awkward & ridiculous clothing - especially during the summer months - would have been too much.

Me too! The Cuirasse line of the very late 1870's would have been the worst I think. It had an elongated line to the bodice which required savage corseting and went down to the lower thighs so that going up stairs or even walking properly would have been very difficult. It must have felt like being encased in very tight armour. These dresses also had a small train flapping on the ground behind.

I thought the whole idea of the looseness of Lizzie's blouse was that, in raising her hands to bring a hatchet down, it would pull the blouse out of the skirt? Am I wrong about this?

In regards to Andrew, I can't see him palling around with the cops...or really anyone, except his brother-in-law, and even then...they would go monts/years without seeing each other.

Yes, Andrew doesn't appear to be the sort of fellow that would invite acquaintances back for lunch or drinks. Still you never know. If we only knew for certain what dress Lizzie wore on that day. We know it had a sort of blouse-like bodice. Didnt her friends try to loosen it further, when they thought Lizzie was having an attack of the vapours and she snapped that she didn't feel faint?

Curryong wrote:Yes, Andrew doesn't appear to be the sort of fellow that would invite acquaintances back for lunch or drinks. Still you never know. If we only knew for certain what dress Lizzie wore on that day. We know it had a sort of blouse-like bodice. Didnt her friends try to loosen it further, when they thought Lizzie was having an attack of the vapours and she snapped that she didn't feel faint?

I agree, what I meant was a stranger, or angry business associate, (or co-conspirator of Morse for that matter) would not have any idea if Andrew would come home and lie down for a nap, or go down the cellar, or sit up in the kitchen, or bring a business associate home to work on paper-work, etc. It is WAY too much to chance to sneak down from the spare room and just happen to find the old guy ALONE, with eyes closed on the couch. EVEN if Andrew were sitting upright in a chair downstairs reading a paper and a total stranger came in the room with a hatchet, there would be yelling, running, etc. HOW the heck would a total stranger know he would be lying down? Lizzie on the other hand knew exactly where he was, what he was doing, and her presence would raise no alarm at all...We are 'monday-morning quarterbacking' to know ahead of time the old guy laid down and closed his eyes...A stranger wouldn't have any idea where, when, or if he would do that.

Curryong wrote:Bit of an addition to my above post on women's fashions. I'm sorry SallyG but I just don't agree that women's skirts by 1892 were 'tight in the front and pulled into a bustle or fullness in the back.' At that time tailored outfits suitable for sports like golf were just coming in, but even in smart walking-out outfits there were no bustles, or the like. The skirts of such outfits were much plainer than in the late 1880's and usually featured just pleats. (I have an old book of my grandmother' dealing with 1890's fashion, English, but I doubt it was much different in the U.S.). 'The bustle had disappeared for good by 1890, and skirts became slim in front, full behind but without poufs or lifts'. By 1892 sleeves were puffed, boned down to the elbow (the beginning of the massive 'leg of mutton' sleeve) and skirt hems were padded and held out in an A-line with petticoats.

LOL...you are probably correct Curryong....and I'm sure Lizzie was up to date on fashions. I'd have to go back and check the fashion changes...they did change very quickly. I was thinking that her skirts were rather tight in front so she would have had a hard time hiding a hatchet in the folds of her skirts...

She certainly had no trouble swinging that axe (I believe) whether her skirts were tight or bulging!

NancyDrew wrote:I thought the whole idea of the looseness of Lizzie's blouse was that, in raising her hands to bring a hatchet down, it would pull the blouse out of the skirt? Am I wrong about this?

Ah yes, NancyDrew, that's a good surmise. I was thinking more that her dress was so noticeably loose because she'd chosen that style as useful for hiding something on her way to wherever she disposed of it. But if it were a skirt and waist (blouse) rather than a dress, it would have drawn notice that it was "untucked." Lizzie was apparently very prim about her clothing and wore her outfits on the tight side. I note that some attention was paid in testimony as to whether what Lizzie wore that morning was a single dress or a skirt with separate top. Maybe the prosecution was thinking along these lines. As in so many things it seems they skirted (!) around clues without going in for the kill, so to speak.

The Evening Standard—Saturday, Sept. 3, 1892: 6.

THAT DRESS PATTERN.

Was It Possible For Defence to Have
Duplicated the Goods?

Fall River, Sept. 3, 1892 - The day after the Borden murder City Marshal Hilliard put two New Bedford officers at work in that city with orders to trace Lizzie Borden’s actions during the two weeks previous. They found that she had purchased a dress pattern of cheap material in a dry goods store in that city, and it was to this pattern that reference was made at the trial. Some importance was attached to the matter at the time of the discovery of the purchase. The police failed to find the dress pattern or any dress of it in their search at the Borden house. They made demand on the members of the family to produce the piece of goods or the made-up dress. If they could not do this the police wanted to know what had become of it. The family refused to move in the matter and the police at New Bedford searched the store to get a sample of the goods bought by Lizzie.

The last day of the trial the defence surrendered the piece of dress goods which Lizzie had purchased and it was still intact. The question has arisen in the minds of some people who believe as the prosecution does whether or not it was possible for the friends of the prisoner to have duplicated the dress pattern and surrendered the last purchased instead of the first, and that the first one might have been made-up and used by Lizzie Borden at the time of the murder and afterwards destroyed or put out of the way.

Yes, they could very well have done that, I'm sure. It's a great pity the dry goods store clerk wasn't able to keep an eye out for customers of that particular pattern for a while but of course it was months to the trial. I find it extremely irritating that not one of the women fussing around Lizzie at the time of the murders could remember what she was wearing.

FactFinder wrote:The Evening Standard—Saturday, Sept. 3, 1892: 6.

THAT DRESS PATTERN.

Was It Possible For Defence to Have
Duplicated the Goods?

Fall River, Sept. 3, 1892 - The day after the Borden murder City Marshal Hilliard put two New Bedford officers at work in that city with orders to trace Lizzie Borden’s actions during the two weeks previous. They found that she had purchased a dress pattern of cheap material in a dry goods store in that city, and it was to this pattern that reference was made at the trial. Some importance was attached to the matter at the time of the discovery of the purchase. The police failed to find the dress pattern or any dress of it in their search at the Borden house. They made demand on the members of the family to produce the piece of goods or the made-up dress. If they could not do this the police wanted to know what had become of it. The family refused to move in the matter and the police at New Bedford searched the store to get a sample of the goods bought by Lizzie.

The last day of the trial the defence surrendered the piece of dress goods which Lizzie had purchased and it was still intact. The question has arisen in the minds of some people who believe as the prosecution does whether or not it was possible for the friends of the prisoner to have duplicated the dress pattern and surrendered the last purchased instead of the first, and that the first one might have been made-up and used by Lizzie Borden at the time of the murder and afterwards destroyed or put out of the way.

good lord, that's a confusing read.

i'm assuming by 'pattern,' the author means fabric with that particular print in question on it. to me a dress pattern means a design of a dress, or rather the pieces you use to copy and cut out fabric from to make the dress.

interesting that the family was so vehement about refusing to produce the fabric, hmm. why would that be? why not simply turn it over to the police if in the end they did just that and the fabric was intact/uncut?

another thing, i read bridget's trial testimony yesterday and amongst several things that struck me, one was that she had no problem recalling the exact dress lizzie had worn the day before the murders, yet was stricken by amnesia when it came to which dress she was wearing the morning and afternoon of the murders! how are we supposed to believe that?

bridget was not as honest and forthcoming as i'd thought she was. she also stretched the truth to the point of lying about how cordial and normal things were between the elder bordens and the younger. she more than most *knew* how tense and UNnormal things were.

Yes! This might not mean anything sinister though, in the sense of her being paid off or anything like that being directly involved in the murders. I don't think she wanted the hassle of getting involved, either in getting Miss Lizzie into trouble or anything else. Didn't she tell a friend later in life that she had quite liked Lizzie.

ooo, ooo, how about this?

okay, after reading bridget's testimony, there's simply no doubt in my mind she was covering for lizzie. possibly lizzie and emma.

what if lizzie convinces emma she didn't do it, couldn't and wouldn't do it. emma would already be predisposed to believe her, and to protect her. 'emma, i'm your sister! you'd have to know i'd NEVER *kill* father and abby, no matter how bad things had gotten between us.' but, some things look bad for lizzie, despite her professed innocence. like the dress.

in emma's trial testimony she claims the dress with the paint on it, despite having only been made in april (a mere 4 months before the murders), was so ‘very dirty, very much soiled and faded’ she told lizzie to destroy it and it wasn’t in any condition to be made over for anything else. so that saturday or sunday, just 2 or 3 days after both parents were brutally murdered, emma says to lizzie 'you have not destroyed that old dress yet; why don't you?' really? that's what's on emma's mind 2-3 days after the murders?

bridget came back to the house a few times before finally leaving. if emma and lizzie could convince her that lizzie was of course innocent - 'bridget, you know us! you've lived with us for over two years. you know lizzie couldn't do something like this' - but that some things were coincidentally and unfortunately pointing to her, and they needed her help when she spoke to the police? i could see that happening.

they wouldn't have asked her to out and out lie, just not tell everything she knew, and to downplay some things that ('falsely') incriminated poor lizzie.

I do think that Emma would have protected Lizzie to the gates of Hell if necessary, to protect her from prison or asylum. I think for her own peace of mind she convinced herself that her sister was innocent. Bridget may possibly have gone the extra yard for Lizzie but only so far. If it felt like she herself might get into trouble she would tell the truth.

right. i think it would have been easy for lizzie to convince emma she didn't do it, and needed her help. emma would have thought she was doing the right thing, protecting her innocent baby sister. at least at the time.

if i had a sister, younger or older, and this happened, NO WAY would i want to believe she could or did do it. even if i intensely disliked my stepmother. murder? no!

i agree bridget would have only gone so far, but remember the only other known person in the house (according to lizzie, who was supposedly out in the barn), was bridget. lizzie may well have pointed that out to her, something along the lines of 'i know you didn't do it, bridget! i do hope no one else thinks so. but i'll vouch for you.' bridget would have felt grateful to lizzie for that, and predisposed to help her later by conveniently not recalling anything about the dress lizzie wore that day, and downplaying the family tensions. and lizzie did protect her.

bridget was an irish immigrant, and only a maid. as i'm sure you know, the irish already had problems at that time. who would the police and others believe, bridget or lizzie? bridget would have known that. so she had good reason to help lizzie as best she could, and keep quiet about it.

i think there's a really good chance this is how it happened. i could never see emma or bridget actually doing the murders, or knowingly being an accomplice. yet it always seemed lizzie had to have had some kind of help. i just never thought of it this way.

I do think that Bridget put the best face she could on the atmosphere in the Borden home between the family members when she gave her evidence at the trial. It was probably a combination of 'you don't speak ill of the dead' and genuine shock at seeing 'Miss Lizzie' on trial.
Perhaps she genuinely couldn't remember what dress it was, other than it was cotton and blue, though she must have had some interest in clothes or there would have been that conversation about cheap dress material on sale just before Andrew was murdered. I agree that she probably gave Miss Lizzy the benefit of the doubt there and stretched the truth when giving that evidence.
I'm not so sure as you about subtle conversations about the forthcoming Inquest between her and the Borden sisters. What if she had broken down and recounted the conversation about them possibly needing her help to say Dr Kelly (in whose house she was staying) or his wife, or Josiah Hunt, and they had reported it? What a gift to the prosecution case at a later trial that would have been, even if Emma had strongly denied it, and she would have!
We mustn't forget, as you've pointed out, that she was poor, Irish and probably uneducated, as well as being very very, frightened. She didn't stick around for long after Lizzie's arrest but went off to work for the Josiah Hunt family. I think being in the Borden house, especially sleeping there, gave her the creeps, and who can blame her. She seems to have wanted to put it all behind her and not speak about it like all the other main participants in the case, though she apparently did remark as an old lady that she had always liked Lizzie.

In defense of Bridget's selective memory about Lizzie's wardrobe choices around the time of the murders, she was very ill that morning. She hadn't actually seen Lizzie until later in the morning, after she'd already tossed her cookies in the yard, stoked the kitchen fire and made breakfast for the Borden family plus guest, had a little tête-à-tête over the fence with her peer at the Kellys', and tackled a strenuous window-washing job before being roused from a quick nap by the horrific news that her employer had just been hacked to death. If I were Bridget, the last thing on my mind would be to note what Miss Lizzie was wearing.

Yes, very true Mara, and rather inconsiderate of Abby to make Bridget stick to the weekly schedule of washing the windows. I don't think her nausea would have been helped by performing that task in the heat.
Wasn't Bridget taken to task when she gave evidence about Lizzie's dress by a rather sarcastic attorney about her clear memory of what Miss Lizzie wore the day before in contrast to fuzziness about what she wore on the murder morning? I'll have to check, hope I didn't dream it.

Mara wrote:In defense of Bridget's selective memory about Lizzie's wardrobe choices around the time of the murders, she was very ill that morning. She hadn't actually seen Lizzie until later in the morning, after she'd already tossed her cookies in the yard, stoked the kitchen fire and made breakfast for the Borden family plus guest, had a little tête-à-tête over the fence with her peer at the Kellys', and tackled a strenuous window-washing job before being roused from a quick nap by the horrific news that my employer had just been hacked to death. If I were Bridget, the last thing on my mind would be to note what Miss Lizzie was wearing.

Hold on Mara, am I getting confused, again, or is it us both! Didn't Bridget see Lizzie at about 9 a.m., before Andrew departed, when Miss Sleepyhead came downstairs and there was a brief conversation about her having breakfast which was cut short by Bridget having to rush out near the pear trees to throw up?
Bridget then saw Lizzie at the screen door, at about 9.30 I believe, when there was a brief couple of minutes talking about getting water for the windows and whether the screen door should be left on the hook. Granted, Bridget probably only glanced at Lizzie on both occasions but she would have been able to see certain things, such as colour of dress, whether it was plain or patterned at least, and she did give evidence, I think, that the dress was 'blue with a sprig'.

Curryong wrote:

Mara wrote:In defense of Bridget's selective memory about Lizzie's wardrobe choices around the time of the murders, she was very ill that morning. She hadn't actually seen Lizzie until later in the morning, after she'd already tossed her cookies in the yard, stoked the kitchen fire and made breakfast for the Borden family plus guest, had a little tête-à-tête over the fence with her peer at the Kellys', and tackled a strenuous window-washing job before being roused from a quick nap by the horrific news that my employer had just been hacked to death. If I were Bridget, the last thing on my mind would be to note what Miss Lizzie was wearing.

Hold on Mara, am I getting confused, again, or is it us both! Didn't Bridget see Lizzie at about 9 a.m., before Andrew departed, when Miss Sleepyhead came downstairs and there was a brief conversation about her having breakfast which was cut short by Bridget having to rush out near the pear trees to throw up?
Bridget then saw Lizzie at the screen door, at about 9.30 I believe, when there was a brief couple of minutes talking about getting water for the windows and whether the screen door should be left on the hook. Granted, Bridget probably only glanced at Lizzie on both occasions but she would have been able to see certain things, such as colour of dress, whether it was plain or patterned at least, and she did give evidence, I think, that the dress was 'blue with a sprig'.

Yes, you are correct on all counts Curryong. Another fact leads me to believe Bridget, and possibly anyone else who knew Lizzie very well (Emma) would know what dress Lizzie had on. She didn't have a vast wardrobe collection. She had a few dresses that she wore until they needed to be thrown out and new ones were made. And there were specific dresses she wore for specific purposes (example the pink wrapper) that were for around the house, and for going out. They didn't buy their clothing off of the racks in any store. All of their dresses were made by the seamstress. So, after seeing Lizzie every day in these same dresses I'd think it was really odd if she didn't know which one she had been wearing. Or could at least at the trial say, yes, that is probably the one she was wearing. Not "I can't tell what the girl was wearing". It's not like Lizzie had a dress for every day of the month.

In defence of her though, it's hard to know what poor Bridget was thinking, being questioned, harangued, by defence lawyers, sitting there giving evidence with the attention of all in the courtroom fixed on her. She was undoubtedly terrified, and though she wished to help Lizzie as much as possible I do believe she tried to keep to the truth, as much as her memory would allow.

What I meant by "later in the day" was quite a long time after she herself (Bridget) had been up and about. My main point remains that Bridget was not only sick that day, but had a lot of chores to manage. Lizzie's clothing may well not have registered with her.

i simply don't buy that bridget didn't remember what dress lizzie was wearing the day of the murders, yet remembers perfectly which dress she was wearing the day before. if she'd provided some reason for remembering what she wore the day before, such as 'i remember because lizzie asked me to mend a tear,' spilled something on her, or *something*, then i could buy it. but she didn't.

she saw lizzie in the morning for breakfast, then as she was going out to wash the windows, during their conversation in the dining room while lizzie was ironing handkerchiefs, again when lizzie called her down because andrew was dead, and i believe in the aftermath as well.

bridget wasn't feeling well, true, but not so unwell that she was unable to go out and wash all the windows. aside from washing the windows (which was a weekly task), she didn't have anything unusual to do that day. she also responded to lizzie that she intended to go out later that day to buy some of the cheap fabric on sale (it was only on sale that day), so how poorly could she have felt by then? sounds the worst of it was when she went outside and pitched her biscuits, and was more or less ok after that.

'm not so sure as you about subtle conversations about the forthcoming Inquest between her and the Borden sisters. What if she had broken down and recounted the conversation about them possibly needing her help to say Dr Kelly (in whose house she was staying) or his wife, or Josiah Hunt, and they had reported it? What a gift to the prosecution case at a later trial that would have been, even if Emma had strongly denied it, and she would have!
We mustn't forget, as you've pointed out, that she was poor, Irish and probably uneducated, as well as being very very, frightened. She didn't stick around for long after Lizzie's arrest but went off to work for the Josiah Hunt family. I think being in the Borden house, especially sleeping there, gave her the creeps, and who can blame her. She seems to have wanted to put it all behind her and not speak about it like all the other main participants in the case, though she apparently did remark as an old lady that she had always liked Lizzie.

if she were in fear for her life, afraid that *she* would be tried successfully for the murders - not an unreasonable conclusion at all and it had to have crossed her mind, especially if lizzie chose to point things in her direction - there's no way she'd say anything to anyone. besides, what would she say? that lizzie feared she'd be suspected and would do her best to make sure she wasn't accused because lizzie didn't believe she did it? that hardly incriminates lizzie.

she was very frightened. who wouldn't be? she was frightened of speaking to the police, and obviously wanted to get out of the house as soon as she could.

which reminds me, i wonder how that went down. did lizzie and emma let her go, dismiss her services, or did bridget quit? there had to have been some kind of conversation about that between them. we know bridget wanted to leave the borden household several times in the 2 years and 9 months she was there, but abby convinced her to stay.

i also wondered who emma hired as a maid after bridget left. in her trial testimony she mentions she lives there during the trial with 'servants.' she wouldn't have been able to manage the house by herself. bridget gone, abby gone, even lizzie was gone.

Who would have followed Bridget? People who obviously really, really, wanted a job! I wonder whether they slept at the property, sharing Bridget's old room, and how Emma explained it all when she was hiring them. They would probably have known anyway, unless they were foreigners just off the boat, but it would have been interesting to have been in on the interview.

ha ha, yes, someone who *really* wanted a job! i would think yes, they'd have slept in bridget's old room. room and board would have been part of the wages. unless they lived under a rock, they'd have had to have known all about it. or yes, an immigrant straight off the boat.

I don't understand why Emma insisted on staying at the Second St house, actually. To stay in a house where your father and stepmother have been horribly butchered, a place with a mutilated Brussels carpet in the sitting room and various other fittings in police hands, just seems to me to be bizarre. Wasn't the very couch on Andrew was murdered sent to be reupholstered at some stage?
Surely to goodness, no-one could have WANTED to have stayed in the house for sentimental reasons. Emma could have stayed with friends or relatives, or if she didn't want to impose, a room in a boarding house convenient for visiting her sister.
If she had locked up the Second St house and left, at least until after the trial, I don't think anyone would have blamed her. Emma could have just intimated to Church friends etc that she wished to stay near her sister to support her in her ordeal, or alternatively that she just couldn't bear to stay in the old home any longer.

I've often thought that there was something strange about Emma, an emotional disconnect that troubles me. We need a new thread on that very subject. Do you mind if I quote your opening paragraph toward that end?

Not at all Mara. Go ahead!

Thanks!

i've always thought the reason emma stayed in the house until the trial was over was because everything was up in the air, so to speak, until she knew the outcome. either lizzie was convicted and would be in prison for who knows how long, or executed (? they were doing that then, right?). or, acquitted and then they'd figure out together what to do.

but now that you mention it, if i were emma, i would *not* be happy staying in that house. alone, or at all.

About this dress pattern. In Lizzie's inquest testimony she describes the material as a pink, white, and blue striped gingham. So this material could not have been used to make a dress that looked similar to the blue one that she normally wore.