Lizzie Borden Society Forum

This opening post is by Lorcan.

Re: Speculation: The Evolution of Suspicion
Unread post by Lorcan » Mon Jul 20, 2026 5:52 pm

I edited this and I'm treating it as a copper mine from which we can all throw in our two cents. It's not perfect, but I think it's got enough of a useful framework for what we need to try to see what would need to be true for Lizzie to be innocent and see where suspicion evolves as each coincidence and implausibility adds up and combines.

Contradict these at will and we can filter down to the truly useful items.

We can create seven major conjunctions of evidence when examining the evidence against Lizzie. The first three are structural: any innocence theory must solve them. The remaining four try to explain why Lizzie herself appeared incriminating despite being innocent.

A fully innocent Lizzie requires three large things to be true simultaneously:

An extraordinarily capable or fortunate outsider successfully committed two close-range murders inside an occupied house.

Lizzie was extraordinarily unfortunate, repeatedly saying and doing innocent things that looked exactly like alibi construction, misdirection and evidence destruction.

The outsider’s movements and Lizzie’s movements aligned perfectly, although neither supposedly knew what the other was doing.

1. The Intruder Access Conjunction
An outsider must have:
• Entered the house without being seen.
• Reached the guest room without alerting Abby, Bridget or Lizzie, assuming the killer entered the house after Andrew and John were already out of the house.
• Approached within arm’s reach of Abby without provoking an effective scream or struggle.
• Known, discovered or correctly guessed that the sewing/guest room would remain unused.
• Avoided detection while moving through a small, occupied house.

This is already more demanding than merely showing that a door might briefly have been unlocked. The theory must explain entry, movement, approach and non-detection together.

The absence of an effective alarm particularly suggests that Abby either knew the person, regarded the person as harmless, or was taken almost instantly by surprise. The wound evidence was consistent with an initial standing confrontation followed by most blows being delivered after she was prone.

2. The Two Separate Murders Timing Conjunction
After killing Abby, the murderer must then have:
• Chosen not to flee permanently.
• Remained concealed or left and returned.
• Tolerated an uncertain wait of roughly an hour.
• Avoided Bridget's observation.
• Avoided Lizzie's observation.
• Avoided the possibility that John Morse might return.
• Detected Andrew’s arrival.
• Waited until Andrew was vulnerable.
• Acted during the short interval when Bridget was upstairs and Lizzie claimed to be in the barn.

This is probably the hardest single conjunction in the innocence model.

A random intruder might kill and escape. A person waiting to kill Andrew might only attack Andrew. What is difficult to explain is an outsider killing

Abby, remaining committed to the premises despite extreme exposure, and then successfully obtaining a second opportunity whose timing was not fully predictable.

3. The Escape-Weapon-Blood Conjunction
The murderer must then have:
• Killed Andrew.
• Avoided being seen by Lizzie.
• Left without Bridget hearing or seeing anything suspicious.
• Carried or concealed the hatchet.
• Cleaned up enough to be potentially seen on the street.
• Escaped through a relatively busy urban neighborhood without attracting notice.

This requires not only an unseen killer, but an unseen post-attack killer potentially carrying the physical evidence of two hatchet murders.

4. The Barn Alibi Conjunction
For Lizzie to be entirely innocent, the essential barn account must be substantially genuine:
• She really left Andrew alive.
• She really entered the barn.
• She remained away long enough for the murder and escape.
• The murderer entered or emerged only after she wasn't in a position to be a witness.
• She saw and heard nothing useful.
• The lead, sinkers, pears, screen and stove explanations were genuine activities, intentions or confused recollections.
• The dust observations failed to record her movements accurately.

This is not just a question of whether she could physically have visited the barn. The visit must coincide almost perfectly with the murderer’s opportunity.

The murderer and Lizzie must therefore have moved according to complementary schedules without Lizzie seeing the killer:
Lizzie leaves → murderer approaches Andrew → murder occurs → murderer cleans or composes himself → murderer escapes → Lizzie returns.
That sequence is possible, but it requires unusually precise luck unless the killer was observing her movements.

5. The Controlling the Narrative Conjunction
Several statements that looked like attempts to control the narrative must all have innocent explanations:
• Abby really received a note, or Lizzie sincerely misunderstood something Abby said.
• Lizzie genuinely believed Abby had gone out.
• She genuinely thought she heard Abby return.
• She innocently discouraged Bridget from going to Mrs. Whitehead’s.
• Her reference to the cheap cloth sale was ordinary conversation.
• Asking whether Bridget intended to go out was not an attempt to clear the house.

Her statements about locked rooms were expressions of privacy or security, not efforts to restrict the search.

Her external-threat narrative to Alice reflected genuine anxiety, not pre-emptive misdirection.

The note is especially important because it simultaneously explains Abby’s disappearance and discourages inquiry into where she actually was. No note was found, no writer was identified and no sick person came forward, despite the small number of people who would have plausibly sent Abby a note.

For innocence, that entire evidentiary effect must be accidental.

6. The Clothing Destruction Conjunction
Lizzie’s clothing history must also be entirely innocent:
• The clothing submitted to police was genuinely what she wore.
• Witnesses describing another dress were mistaken or confused.
• The dress burning after police suspicion became explicit was entirely innocent.
• Emma genuinely suggested burning it.
• The police either overlooked the dress during their search or saw it without appreciating its significance.

The individual proposition “she burned an old paint-stained dress” is not inherently implausible. The difficult conjunction is:
Police search for bloody clothing → Lizzie learns she is suspected → a potentially relevant dress is destroyed → Alice warns that it was the worst possible act → Emma later supplies an earlier innocent reason for the destruction.

All of that must have occurred without evidence destruction or later narrative repair.

Emma testified that she had told Lizzie to destroy the dress Saturday night; Alice’s account made Emma’s Sunday reaction sound more spontaneous and uninformed.

7. The Cumulative Coincidence Conjunction
Finally, all the following must independently be innocent:
• The prussic-acid identification was mistaken or unrelated.
• The family illness was unrelated.
• The ominous conversation with Alice the previous evening was genuine anxiety.
• The angry stranger and external-enemy material were genuine.
• Lizzie’s conflicting accounts resulted from shock, paraphrase and memory problems.
• Hiram misread her conduct and character.
• Her unusual calmness was simply her crisis response.
• The very clean hands, face, hair, and clothing after the barn excursion was innocent.
• The dress burning was innocent.
• The missing note was innocent.
• The barn timing was innocent.
• The killer’s successful entry, concealment, timing and escape were all independent of her.

This is where the innocence hypothesis becomes weakest. None of these facts alone proves guilt. The problem is their joint occurrence.

1. The concealed-waiting murderer
The killer must remain available between the deaths despite unpredictable movements inside the house. This is the central logistical problem.

2. The barn-window coincidence
Lizzie must leave at exactly the interval needed for the second murder.

3. Silent access to Abby
The killer must approach Abby closely in a confined room without an effective alarm, suggesting familiarity or an extremely successful surprise attack.

4. Bloody escape without observation
The killer must exit with weapon and probable contamination through a heavily occupied and observed area.

5. The nonexistent or misunderstood note
Lizzie’s explanation for Abby’s absence must be sincere despite the absence of corroboration and its powerful usefulness to the murderer.

6. Innocent dress destruction
The timing, police search, Alice’s concern and Emma’s later explanation must all be unrelated to concealing evidence.

7. Innocent narrative management
The locked rooms, external enemies, prior robbery, screen, sinkers and exclusions of other people must represent naïve or anxious storytelling rather than deliberate direction of the investigation.

8. Innocent cumulative contradictions
The discrepancies must arise from shock, reporting imperfections and ordinary memory rather than adaptive changes to an invented account.

I know it's a lot to absorb and some things aren't in their most rigorous format, but I think this can be useful to really start to pull out a summary of related and dependent aspects of the case. It also really points out the difference between a legal trial and the search for truth.

From a defense team perspective - especially in the controversial weakest link of the chain example the judge gave - the defense would only have to poke one hole, break one link, to allow a sliver of reasonable doubt and that would be enough. A search for truth has to look at the totality and interrelationship of all the plausible evidence and try to reconstruct the reality of what happened, something that was specifically called out as not being part of a legal trial.

This is a great sentence. "It also really points out the difference between a legal trial and the search for truth."

For me this is the crux and the sole purpose of studying this case. The trial itself is inconsequential outside of being a source of information.

Re: Speculation: The Evolution of Suspicion
Post by Inspector » Tue Jul 21, 2026 8:07 am

Great write up Lorcan.
It glares as to why I stated “disregarding Lizzie’s contradictions” and I presented a simple way for an intruder to do the crimes.
You’ve presented the obstacles I wanted to ignore…lol
It is of course essential that we consider them if we are seriously debating her innocence.
One of the biggest problems we have is known facts that are possibly not true. We rely on testimony and we all draw the line hopefully close to the same spot, but not the same.

One thought I had in the intruder theory, was that Andrew , and Bridget were creatures of habit.
Andrew took his morning walk, and Bridget would be outside away from the side door, on a regular basis, possibly not always the same day, but still predictable.
Entering the house would be a simple matter.
Then the problems get tougher.

Practically all of Bridget's responsibilities were inside the house. But assuming someone knew when she would be out of the house, how would they know were Lizzie or Abby would be? The kitchen was the hub of the house. The back door opened directly into visual line of sight from the kitchen.

I don't view entering the side door as a simple matter if the definition of simple is 'easily avoid detection'. It would seem to be a complete crap shoot for the intruder as to whether someone was in the kitchen or not. I presume the intruder would also be clueless of the location of anyone in Churchill's house and whether they were near a window that looked upon the north side of the Borden home.

The aerial view really shows that a casual approach involves opening the gate and walking down the driveway, a virtual box canyon of windows visible to the Buffinton (Adelaide Churchill) House, the Borden House, the Miller-Bowen house, street traffic, and the barn loft window. Hopping a fence involves absolutely nobody seeing your approach as that would be extremely suspicious. I marked the northside screen door in blue.

Here's the view from the screen door porch into the kitchen. The killer would have to climb the steps, open the door, and hope there was nobody in the kitchen, turn a blind corner and hope nobody was in the sitting room or dining room or parlor, or front hallway, all of which can see into the kitchen (assuming the doors were open). If the doors are shut, then it really becomes a dungeon crawl game where you can only see a few feet ahead at any point and a scream can come at any moment as the killer opens the door.

Now play this game with 3 women all independently moving around the house and see how lucky you'd have to be to not be seen. Get there before Andrew and John leave and there are 5 independently moving people in that house. Otherwise, you enter the house during business hours on a busy business thoroughfare.

If Lizzie is not lying about her being in the kitchen and dining room and her father not leaving until close to 10 (we know that was a lie from multiple independent eye witnesses) how does that killer approach and enter the house through that screen door. Maybe they go in and sneak upstairs and only have to avoid Bridget and get lucky coming down the stairs. Maybe they sneak into the basement and monitor the footsteps on the ceiling? Those approaches might be worth a look.

Let's try the killer walks down the street and sees Bridget on the south side of the house. They take their chances and walk down the driveway while Lizzie is in the kitchen. They get a miracle of timing and just as the killer passes the easternmost dining room window the killer starts climbing the steps, opens the screen door and immediately goes upstairs or goes to the basement (hard to see but there is a door on the right side of the hall immediately before the kitchen.

Minor nitpick, but it is very possible that Lizzie (guilty or not) didn't know what time her father left and she just 'winged' an answer by saying 10am. I wouldn't classify as a lie since an alternative explanation is just as possible. It was a lie or a mistake.

Here is the miracle timing run.

1. Bridget is on the south side of the house cleaning the sitting room exterior windows. The killer sees this and hopes neither Lizzie nor Abby are in the dining room, kitchen, or front parlor, or guest room. The killer casually opens the gate, unnoticed by anyone in the street or surrounding houses. Lizzie is in the kitchen and Abby is just starting her walk upstairs.

2. The instant the killer is past the eastmost window of the dining room, Lizzie decides to go into the dining room and shut the door, leaving both dining room doors closed.

3. The killer walks in, goes through the kitchen, through the sitting room, up the stairs, through the guest room door, around the bed. They do this silently (something utterly impossible today since both the stairs and landing are very loud and creaky even walking around in socks, which I did.

4. Abby is so stunned or otherwise prone to silence, she doesn't scream. She is so frozen with fear or unafraid, she doesn't have time to raise an arm to protect herself. The killer administers the the blow to the cheek back to the ear (the flap wound), Abby turns and starts to fall, the killer swings for her head and misses hitting her upper back just below the neck, but Abby falls so softly, Lizzie doesn't hear it, even though dropping an iPhone onto the carpet today is easily heard. The killer then slams a hatchet into Abby's skull 17 more times, again silently.

5. The killer doesn't drip any blood, but is able to sneak back down into the basement before Lizzie opens the dining room door and goes to the kitchen.

6. Then the killer listens to and properly interprets all the footsteps on the cieling and hears Lizzie leave because the screen door slams behind her.

7. The killer silently walks up into the kitchen and hears Andrew's light snoring, kills him, and cleans up in the sink room that has a view of Lizzie looking out of the west side barn loft window. As soon as Lizzie turns away to look for lead, the killer leaves, leaving the screen door wide open and the killer merges into the hustle and bustle of Fall River.

Mystery Solved

Agreed, that was sloppy language calling it a lie. Sorry, Lizzie.

I was being sarcastic with my miracle timing run, but I bet a defense attorney could word that less sarcastically and get some traction. It would be ironic if me being a bit sarcastic could eventually end up as an actual extraordinarily unlikely, but possible, way for the murders to have happened. Teenabee, do your best with it! A killer with absolutely nothing to lose, who was willing to risk being caught, might be the plausible approach.

Teenabee - if you want to write this up as a thought experiment or even a novel or screenplay, make the killer strong enough to catch Abby as she fell. Make the horse hoof and ice house and stonemason and lumber sawing noises apparent. Make Lizzie hear something but disregard it. I think it might be doable.

Not that Teenabee is the only one who might try to run with this theory, but here are a couple more tidbits. From the basement stairs, you can easily hear Bridget go upstairs, see the attached photo. The front hall closet (that Jennings stood in) is also a spot for Andrew observation, but that would be an extremely uncomfortable hour wait compared to the basement where there was water and the footsteps of everyone could be heard and interpreted. I'm sure even voices could easily be heard.

This is a thought experiment, so I'm allowing for extremely unlikely but possible scenarios. Imagine a case where Lizzie is very willful and defiant. OK, we don't need to imagine that. Now imagine she thinks she is smarter than the police. We may not need to imagine that, either.

Now imagine she is innocent but one of the most unlucky people ever to have lived. But she is scared and mentally a bit naive and immature and prone to a very imaginative inner world, as many of us book lovers can be. What is she felt so threatened by the circumstantial evidence, she thought she could steer the investigation by making up plausible (in her mind at the time) alibis and try to direct the investigation, but dug herself deeper and deeper holes with her ever changing story.

Now Jennings shows up and she reveals the truth to him and the defense team. It looks very, very bad for Lizzie and they decide to take every advantage they can to get reasonable doubt. They do. They win.

Lizzie still suffers the consequences for the rest of her life. I don't have the screenplay writing chops to pull that off, but if someone on the board does, I think there may be the seed of a story here.

Your timeline and 'Todd Lunday's' pamphlet 'The Mystery Unveiled' are close cousins.

The scenario could be simplified if we assumed the assailant remained in the guest room for a goodly amount of time after Abby's death. Lizzie claimed the door was closed, so would match with that testimony. At some point, the intruder felt 'safe' or compelled to risk being seen and migrated down to the parlor which would provide an easy means to keep an eye on Andrew. How they would know that was a safe spot and when to go there unheard is up to complete speculation.

Teenabee -- this is why I think an advocate for Lizzie's innocence is best served offering up an alternative co-prime suspect. To believe Lizzie was innocent of voluntary participation in the deaths really stretches most folks sense of logic and common sense.

Its also why, if I was the prosecuting attorney, a big chalk board helping the jury visualize and keep track of testimony highlighting what Lorcan describes would have been very effective.

There is one man besides Andrew and John who were in the house that morning before the murders.
The ice man.
Has he been definitely cleared?

I would think he would have to do rounds to different houses on a tight schedule and ice would be very melty on August 3rd. But how about a killer wearing a uniform of an ice man or other known service who might almost be invisible and have the excuse of collecting a bill? If confronted, they could say Mr. Harris (fake name) gave me a list of addresses to collect past due. This is 192 Second Street, right? Oh, one block off. Sorry ma'am.

PURE SPECULATION BELOW - THIS IS UNVERIFIED

Camgarsky - has this road been travelled before - someone spying on the house over time from the Buffinton house and crossing the backyard, using the barn for cover from the street and only exposing themselves to turn the corner of the house, up the stairs and into the screen door?

Mrs. Churchill was out shopping during Andrew's murder. Here are the reported residents. From their south-facing windows, they could potentially see into the Borden house.

In her 1893 trial testimony, Adelaide said:

“My household consists of my mother, sister, son, niece and a man who works for us.”

Those people were apparently:

Adelaide Buffinton Churchill, widow of Charles H. Churchill.

Comfort Taber Buffinton, Adelaide’s widowed mother.

Estelle Buffinton Cheetham, apparently the sister Adelaide referenced; the 1892 directory lists the widowed Estelle Cheetham at 90 Second Street.

Charles Henry Churchill, Adelaide’s only son, about fourteen years old in August 1892.

A niece, unnamed in Adelaide’s testimony. She was likely Addie/Adelaide Cheetham, Estelle’s daughter, but I would treat that identification as probable rather than fully established from the trial record alone.

A male employee or handyman, possibly Thomas Bowles/Boulds, although the sources are inconsistent about the spelling and whether he actually resided there.

Other residents or boarders

The 1892 Fall River directory and witness statements indicate that the house also took in lodgers or boarders. The named residents associated with 90 Second Street include:

Mrs. John Gomeley/Gomely

Nelly H. Andrews, a teacher at the N. B. Borden School

Charles H. Deane, manager of the Pleasant Street Musée and Theatre

Possibly Thomas Bowles, the worker or paperhanger associated with the property.

This speculation thread is really making clear to me how potentially ethically dangerous a real murder trial and defense can be.

Is it ethical for the defense to point suspicion at someone where there is potential evidence in both directions?

Take this for example.

Suppose Emma had enough of all the Bordens? All of the apparent bickering and resentment. All of the reheated mutton, the $4 a week allowance, the everything. They all made her life harder than it needed to be. Lizzie sharing her room and everything that siblings living that close together might do to get on each other's nerves. What is she found a man with nothing to lose? A man who knew the name Andrew Borden. A man who could be offered a new life. A man without a conscience. If he succeeds, Lizzie and Emma are free to live the lives they wanted to live. If Lizzie is caught up in it, well then Emma is truly free. Bridget, oh, you mean Maggie? Twenty Maggie's a day are coming into town.

I can see how this line of thinking can get very dark, very quickly.

I hope we can speculate without ever going into that darkness.

Just imagine the implications that theory would have on Emma saying (paraphrasing), "Lizzie, you should burn that dress."

We know from what happened afterwards that Emma gives every indication of loving Lizzie, protecting Lizzie, for the rest of their lives, but imagine the harm a defense attorney could do, or a prosecutor. The ethics of trials are very dangerous territory. Life and death, based partly on the intelligence, speaking ability, and morals on both sides.

To enter from the backyard to side door would certainly simplify the entrance. Hiding around back of barn or wood pile might also give a vantage point of Andrew’s departure, and Bridget’s work.
Also, a possible view of the kitchen occupancy.

A couple of the forum's best researchers dove into the life of Thomas Bowles extensively. If interested, you can search the forum by that name. One thread was titled..."Thomas Bowles, Rapist".

Most of the secondary and tertiary characters associated with the case have had their life researched to the degree possible. Some by Kat, KGDevil, CagneyBT, some by me and many others. A lot of great info is on this forum about individuals.

I read the threads about Thomas Bowles. It was interesting.

I love the subject of this post because as you know I do consider it a strong possibility Lizzie was innocent. And you put the difficulty of explaining how it could be possible in such a well-defined list/set of questions, it helps me to refine my murky ideas of how an intruder could have pulled it off. I will give you my particular take on each piece of the dilemma as you pose it in the first post of this thread. Might take me a few days though!


1. The Intruder Access Conjunction
An outsider must have:
• Entered the house without being seen.

Me - I submit there was no way a set of eyes from surrounding neighbors was trained on the side door of the house every single minute of that morning, there was opportunity enough. If we posit that some “enemy” of Andrew, perhaps the one Lizzie said she saw sitting on the back porch in the evening a week or two before the murders before disappearing into the back yard (and thus probably over the back fence), then this person may have been observing the house for days or even weeks before the murders. Or, perhaps this person simply knew Andrew (at least well enough to become his enemy) and was familiar with the house and its habits. But certainly Intruder would have had to have been watching that morning, waiting for his opportunity to enter the house. He could have found that opportunity just after Andrew left, when Bridget was outside vomiting under the pear tree and the door was unlocked. Or perhaps a bit later when Bridget was in the barn getting water to wash windows. If Lizzie happened to be down in the cellar at that moment, or up in her room behind a closed door sewing a loop onto a sleeve, and Abby was upstairs as well, then he could have got into the house undetected. This intruder would have been uncommonly "capable and fortunate," no doubt about that. But one could also say that if Lizzie WAS guilty, she was equally "capable and fortunate" that Abby took herself upstairs out of sight of everyone else at the exact time Bridget went outdoors, giving Lizzie an unexpected and unpredictable opportunity to kill her.

• Reached the guest room without alerting Abby, Bridget or Lizzie, assuming the killer entered the house after Andrew and John were already out of the house.

Me - If, while Bridget was outside, Lizzie was down in the cellar closed off in the water closet, and Abby had gone up to the guest room, Abby's butchered body tells us the intruder did indeed head up to the guest room to hide and there unexpectedly found Abby and there killed her.

• Approached within arm’s reach of Abby without provoking an effective scream or struggle.

Me - I do believe if an intruder did it, this person must have been known to Abby, and that she may have been confused by this person walking into the guest room, perhaps did not think to scream until too late.

• Known, discovered or correctly guessed that the sewing/guest room would remain unused.

Me - Well if this person knew the family and had visited the house in the past, this might not be too difficult to know.

• Avoided detection while moving through a small, occupied house.

Me - If Lizzie was the only one in the house and was down in the water closet taking care of private business, and Bridget was outside, there would only be Abby to detect the killer when he walked into that room. One could argue Abby did of course detect the intruder and was killed for it.

This is already more demanding than merely showing that a door might briefly have been unlocked.

Me -- Oh absolutely degree it would have been demanding, but it would also be demanding, in a different way, for Lizzie. She would have had to have a previously acquired new hatchet at the ready when most people in the guilty camp believe that, at least until the day before, she was hoping/planning to poison her victims; plus, she would have had to be faced with the very lucky coincidence of Abby going upstairs to the guest room, where she apparently rarely ventured, at the exact time Andrew left the house and Bridget was outside out of earshot.... and so on.

When we have time, one thing I recommend is to print or draw the house plans and re-read all of Lizzie's surrounding testimony with chess pieces and move them around on the floor plan as Lizzie testifies. It's is an interesting way to go through the testimony. Here is a section of what I am talking about, but doing it for all the testimony is fun (at least for me).

Q. Where were you when the bell rang?
A. I think in my room up stairs.

Q. Then you were up stairs when your father came home?
A. I don't know sure, but I think I was.

Q. What were you doing?
A. As I say, I took up these clean clothes, and stopped and basted a little piece of tape on a garment.

Q. Did you come down before your father was let in?
A. I was on the stairs coming down when she let him in.


Q. Then you were up stairs when your father came to the house on his return?
A. I think I was.


Q. How long had you been there?
A. I had only been upstairs just long enough to take the clothes up and baste the little loop on the sleeve. I don't think I had been up there over five minutes.

Q. Was Maggie still engaged in washing windows when your father got back?
A. I don't know.

Q. You remember, Miss Borden, I will call your attention to it so as to see if I have any misunderstanding, not for the purpose of confusing you; you remember that you told me several times that you were down stairs, and not up stairs when your father came home? You have forgotten, perhaps?

A. I don't know what I have said. I have answered so many questions and I am so confused I don't know one thing from another. I am telling you just as nearly as I know.


Q. Calling your attention to what you said about that a few minutes ago, and now again to the circumstance you have said you were up stairs when the bell rang, and were on the stairs when Maggie let your father in; which now is your recollection of the true statement of the matter, that you were down stairs when the bell rang and your father came?

A. I think I was down stairs in the kitchen.

Q. And then you were not up stairs?
A. I think I was not; because I went up almost immediately, as soon as I went down, and then came down again and stayed down.