irina wrote:I say not premeditated. Who would ever premeditate a hatchet/axe murder(s)? Has that EVER been done? That said it does not mean that Lizzie wasn't premeditating murder by poison. I'm also not sure that it could be ruled out that Andrew and Abby could have had a dose of arsenic when they got horribly ill Tuesday night. A problem I would have with this is Lizzie didn't seem to prepare any food nor eat with the family plus Bridget didn't get similarly ill. Her illness Thursday morning seems to clearly be migraine and combing through her testimony she made a comment that she had frequent headaches at that time and headache was her first symptom in the morning. Food poisoning can cause headache but it sounds very much like migraine to me.
Among many arguments against premeditated hatchet murder~especially by a woman~is that is is a messy, horrific, gory act and there isn't much history of women choosing excessively bloody, disfiguring ways to murder.
interesting. i don't know if anyone's premeditated a murder using a hatchet or not. even if they have, it probably wasn't/isn't a common choice, and certainly not for a woman.
but, if lizzie did try to purchase the prussic acid the day before, she'd already made the decision to murder abby and andrew. i realize there is some question about if the woman was lizzie or not, but i tend to think it was, for a few reasons.
one is that the pharmacy was literally right around the corner from No 92, and yet lizzie claimed she'd not only never stepped foot in it (possible, maybe she hadn't), but also didn't even know about it! i find that impossible to believe. she'd lived there 25 or so years, they hadn't had a carriage and horse for a while so obviously traveled primarily on foot. it was on the way to main street, which she
had to have frequented. so, why would she lie about not knowing the druggist was there, if she was innocent?
the other reason is they stepped forward to tell the police about it right away, the next day, if memory serves. it was an unusual event, so they remembered it more clearly than had she come in and bought a plaster or somesuch. i don't buy that it was for publicity, because at that point no one, aside from the police, suspected lizzie. it wouldn't have been much fun to feel you were the one pointing the finger at a respected member of the community committing such a gruesome crime -- and a woman no less, and the daughter! -- and it could have easily backfired and lost them customers. who knows, maybe it did.
so then, where did the hatchet come from in order to execute (pun intended) plan B? had she already purchased or 5-finger-shopped the hatchet, as a backup plan? where, and when? if she got it in marion, she'd been planning this, complete with backup plan, for a while.
i've wondered if the borden's had a new or newish hatchet, because as far as i've found, the hatchets and axes found in the household weren't particularly functional. obviously the handless one wasn't good for anything. the others appear to have been in poor condition, and a hatchet was standard equipment in any household of the time.
Considering rage and not premeditation I find the conversation Lizzie reported between her and Abby to have an interesting clue. Lizzie says she asked Abby if she would change her dress before going out and Abby said she didn't plan to as what she had on was good enough. (Complete with Andrew's boots?) While I reject Lizzie killing for pure greed I find it plausible that she became enraged with the thought that Abby would never embarrass the family again. It seems that Lizzie and Emma may have suffered socially from the family's lack of style, so to put it. Perhaps Lizzie had even been previously rejected by a man~or thought she had~ because of this.
i don't think lizzie would have killed with greed as a sole motivation either. i agree lizzie, and probably emma too, was frequently embarrassed by both abby and andrew, but i can't see abby's unwillingness to change out of her housedress (and/or boots), on the way to visit a sick friend and then pop into the grocers, enough to tip her into a homicidal rage.
If these murders were premeditated, the outcome depended on too much chance. If Abby had finished the guest room before Lizzie arose, where would Abby have been killed? If Lizzie planned to kill that day why not get up early and nail Abby in the guest room right away? Lizzie's end of the house was a good choice for a murder but once Abby was not there things became a lot more difficult. What would have happened if Bridget wasn't washing windows? The window washing seems to have been a sudden inspiration. If Bridget wasn't reasonably expected to be out of the house then Lizzie's only opportunity would have been when Abby was in the guest room and I don't see her making extra effort to make sure this happened. For example she could have been innocently sewing in the guest room from the time Uncle John left or she could have offered to help Abby strip the bed.
well, emma was out of the way, so really all she had to deal with was getting bridget out of the way, and then getting abby alone, and then andrew. uncle john no doubt threw a monkeywrench into her plans, but luckily for lizzie, he'd gone off to visit his niece for the morning. thursdays were bridget's half-days off, so bridget would be out of the picture in the afternoon, or on sunday. it is possible that, as curryong said, lizzie suggested to abby how filthy the windows were, to get bridget out of the house that morning.
it was very unusual for lizzie to have not unlocked the front door in the mornings, and i believe she deliberately left it locked, knowing andrew would use the front door to get in when he came back from his rounds. if for some reason he returned even earlier than he did, it would have bought her some time. then there's that odd laugh from her, at the top of the stairs, when both bridget and andrew discovered the door was locked.
Is it possible Lizzie planned to kill her parents while they slept at night and thus had obtained a hatchet? She could fix the locks between her door and theirs for perfect access. Did rage impel her to attack Abby before a more elaborate plan could be worked out? Was Lizzie truly afraid of prowlers at night and did she arm herself with a small hatchet for self defense, but then use it opportunistically on Thursday morning? Possible.
as i recall, she wouldn't have had any way to get into their room, or for them to get into hers, for that matter. i thought it was locked from both sides, and seem to recall it was also nailed shut? not positive about the last. there was furniture in front of it. i suppose it is possible she was worried for her safety in that neighborhood, and possibly armed herself with a hatchet.
i say a combination of premeditated and opportunistic. planned, but she had to wait for the right moments.