Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Someone may be interested in “cracking the case”, but there’s big problems.
Neither sister had any offspring, so even though there’s probably DNA still available on the property, it would have little value to us today IMO.
Also, if a verified hand written confession were found, surely the FRHS, or authorities would destroy , or hide it away as long as Fall River is on the map.

So the best we can do is theorize .
Thankfully we have a treasure trove of documentation that allows us to do so, and authors like W Spencer have helped expedite study by their organization of events.
Similarly, quick reference computer searches help for precise answers, but it cannot crack anything.

The best we can do is improve our understanding of events.

So wheather you agree with me or not, I would like to propose two things:

If you were back in 1892, and first on the crime scene,

What one thing would yo do?

What one question would you ask Lizzie?


I’ll share mine later if anyone is interested, but they are nothing new.

I agree that no conclusive evidence will surface. There will be no forensic test or video recording answer things for us. Some posters have pondered if maybe, just maybe, a written confession is in the vaults of the current iteration of Robinson's law firm. If Lizzie was the perpetrator, I don't think Lizzie would ever have contemplated confessing, don't think that was her personality makeup.

That said, I do believe and feel that there are sufficient 'dots' of facts that can be connected in a highly plausible way to provide today's sleuths with a probable or likely answer. It sounds like an overly simplistic description of a 'solve' approach, but basically a game of 'connect the dots'.

Case in point, the mini-mystery of 'what were the paper scraps that Dr. Bowen burned in the Borden stove' appeared to be another unsolvable riddle. I would suggest that puzzle has now been conclusively answered. You just never know when you'll have an 'ah ha' moment with this case.

That is what no 'I've solved the case' author to-date has provided. They don't limit their 'creative problem solving' to connecting the 'dots' (aka facts), they also allow their imaginations to invent the dots and then apply their version of 'logic' to connect those fabricated dots. That is what makes their writings worthless to a reader seeking deeper, accurate understandings.

agree it’s not Lizzie’s makeup to author a confession note and if she’s guilty it would go against her strong nature to accomplish things she sets out to do.

Cam, I don’t think you ever came back and revealed the answer to that riddle, but you certainly have the right not to.

Those aha moments are sometimes the exciting aspect of the case, and are a result of hard study plus familiarity with the primary source material.

It takes lots of study to detect if something doesn’t sound right, or out of place, and a computer can only help find your search faster but can’t give you discernment, which many have developed through years of research.

A few things to answer:

1. I do not think the FRHS would hide a confession or any evidence. Just a gut feeling based on how much effort they put into preserving history, the amount of work they put into Parallel Lives, and the level of patience and trust involved in getting those families to share what they have.

2. If I were first on the crime scene, I would seal it and get everyone out of there. Then, one at a time, I would bring Lizzie back there accompanied by three officers and ask her to physically walk through all of her actions, what she saw, heard, and thought that morning, and with all 3 officers taking notes. I know that is totally unorthodox and she would likely refuse to do so, but it would be fascinating. After making sure Bridget couldn't see nor hear what Lizzie did during her tour, I'd have Bridget do the same routine.

Since it is physically impossible for Lizzie to make an actual physical walkthrough based on her testimony, it would be quite revealing:

For instance:

Did she hear a suspicious sound and come in the house to investigate or did she come in, check on the kitchen stove, put her hat in the dining room, and decide to go sit upstairs until Bridget got the fire hot enough for ironing?

Which door and when did she think she hear Abby come home and where were Lizzie and Bridget at the time?

As for the data analytics software, it doesn't give us any new primary source data, it just makes it exponentially quicker and easier to cross-check and find dependencies that haven't been found yet.

If we really made a complete list of all the circumstantial evidence against Lizzie, in the context of the rest of the physical environment surrounding the crime scenes, it is already a very strong case, but not strong enough to tie a rope around Lizzie's neck and kill her, which is what that jury was asked to do if they voted guilty.

I don't think we'd ever get to that level of certainty, but the journey to try to find a solution and the people you meet along the way makes this case worthy of study for, apparently, decades - based on some of the long time investigators in the community. I spent a lot of time investigating some of the American Wild West cases, and there is a lot of ego and anger, and those groups usually fall apart. This community seems a lot more like Sherlockian good manners - we all are free to investigate, make mistakes, and learn, while maintaining an enjoyable environment.

I’m glad the members of this forum are respectful for the most part. I’ve read a lot of the archives and I only remember a few arguments, nothing too serious.
That’s a good idea to separate Lizzie and. Bridget to see how they spent the morning.

That’s also interesting you don’t think the FRHS would hide the confession note if one was ever found.
I can respect your view, but don’t necessarily agree, and
I mean no disrespect to anyone there personally.
Notice how they never want to say she was guilty?
It has to be that way, the case has to remain a mystery.
Just my opinion.

If I only had one question for Lizzie, I suppose I’d ask her where the pear centers were dropped.
The only answer that would help her would be that she ate them,
Her teeth marks would either match or not, and they should be easily found even if in the yard.

The one thing I’d do, is run to Crowe’s barn.

I do find this an enjoyable environment, too, Lorcan, and this is an interesting conversation to me! The whole subject of how to go about "connecting the dots." First having to decide which things are legitimate dots and not just speculative dots. And sorting through what's a legitimate dot is dependent on how trustworthy sources were back then. I think we tend to take anything said in a witness statement or in court testimony as hard fact when people's memories at the time were fallible and often contradicted each other. (That's one of my favorite things about William Spencer's book, how often he notes how who said what contradicts someone else, even police officers). If John Morse says Abby asked Bridget to wash windows at breakfast, and Bridget says she didn't get the instruction til after finishing the dishes, which is the legitimate dot to connect?

And then there is the fact we cannot take Lizzie's version of things she said at the inquest as her official story of what she did on that morning, I know a lot of people think she was lying and doing a bad job of it, and maybe that is true, but maybe not. I am of the opinion that her story was given under duress, in a hostile interrogation, in which her memory at that time had to be compromised by shock and everything she had been through, and she botched it through perhaps no fault of her own. (Other inquest witnesses said they couldn't remember the day accurately either). In my mind, the fact that Lizzie's lawyer's didn't challenge Bridget on her version of events, which differed so much from Lizzie's, is a sign that hearing Bridget testify sparked Lizzie's memory and so she then realized Bridget had been mostly right and her own version full of mistakes or lapses of memory. So if Lizzie wasn't sticking to her story at the inquest, whether for innocent reasons or for guilty reasons, I don't know how we can gather any legitimate dots from her to connect?

I also think it's a great idea to look at the case through modern forensic methods, and I know some people have tried that in different ways -- luminol in the cellar was one I saw on T.V. But I think there is other modern knowledge we have available to us, like the impact of traumatic shock on memory (to help explain Lizzie's inquest disaster), or the impadt of hostile interrogation methods, or the psychological reasons for police bias, or the prevalence of mistaken identity (as regards to Eli Bence). I think if we don't just look at what they decided was evidence in 1892 and look through the lens of a more modern understanding of relevant issues, and maybe some of that can help us decide what makes a legitimate dot and how to connect them. I mean, why look back at the case at all if we can't add new light from our more modern knowledge?

But your question Inspector was about what we'd do if we could take our modern selves back there and get an answer from Lizzie. And I am laughing at myself that I am so stumped on how to answer. You'd think I'd have that in my back pocket, ha. I suspect whatever I asked wouldn't matter, I think she was so full of stress chemicals that she probably couldn't tell a straight story at that moment if her life depended on it (which it pretty much did.)

I like Inspector's questions though! Crowe's barn would be a great place to go looking! As for the pears, well I recall Bridget testifying that Andrew would throw rotted pears "under the barn." I can't quite picture what that means, but maybe if that's the family habit with pears.... who knows

I suppose hindsight is 20:20, so I’m sure we all can come up with several things that would be hard for Lizzie to lie about very easily.
Having only one question and one action makes it a little more challenging.
One of the aspects of this forum that is attractive for me, is the levels of experience in the case, and a common desire to discover the needles in the haystack.