Lizzie Borden Society Forum

First, hello! I’ve been haunting the forum for a while and am very excited to chat about this case.

In my (admittedly meager compared to all of you) investigations of the case, a few not insurmountable obstacles stand out to me in the "Lizzie did it" theory.

The blood is probably for me the biggest. Not just the how did she hide the blood spatter? There are tons of options for ways she could have hidden it. Naked. Wearing Andrew’s coat. Wearing a different dress entirely.

But how did she know how to hide blood? What did an ex-Sunday school, temperance league, would-be socialite know about hiding crimes in Victorian America? Presumably, she'd know that being found covered in blood and holding a murder weapon was a stupid idea, but would she have had the foresight to meticulously come up with a system that would allow her to appear 8-12 minutes after Andrew's murder without a speck of blood to be seen? Would she even have known that her best goal for getting away with it was to appear 8-12 minutes after the crime without a speck of blood to be seen on her? At first it feels like, obviously, she couldn't possibly know how to hide a murder.

Unless ... maybe she studied up on it. I’m not proposing Lizzie plotted out these murders years in advance and bided her time like a spider, but maybe she was enough of a student of another famous murderer to have a degree of dangerous knowledge that proved useful to her later, when her thoughts turned homicidal, and Jack the Ripper was famously terrorizing London only two years before Abby and Andrew Borden’s murders.

The Ripper murders were widely reported, yes, in America, and yes, in Boston specifically. And gratuitously, graphically and in great detail.

This got me investigating to see what Lizzie might actually have been intaking in the years prior to the murders, and I found these articles from the Boston Globe specifically that detail the crimes in London and shed some insight into why it was so hard to find the killer—specifically, about the blood evidence, and the sound, and the idea of a mad intruder.

Imagine Lizzie, two years before the crime, at the dining table, eating a banana and reading this in the newspaper:

“When Policeman O'Neil was questioned closely he recollected that the body was lying on its back, with outstretched hands, as though it had been placed where it was found. There are three or four low houses close by, and the theory was suggested that the woman was murdered in one of them and then carried into the street.
Such a crime could scarcely be carried out without leaving traces of blood, and though the houses were carefully searched nothing of the kind was found."

OR THIS

"It is simply too hideous to describe. There were no indications in this case of the hand skilled in the use of a knife. The body is literally hacked to pieces, but there is no doubt at all but that it is the work of the person who has become known throughout the world as the Whitechapel Murderer.
The mystery in this case is as deep as in the preceding crimes. The fiend got away without leaving the slightest clew."

OR THIS

“The murder had been committed inside of 40 minutes, and not one of the 500 people within sound of a woman's voice had heard even a groan. Made bold by the failure of the police to catch him, or even get on his track, the murderer”

OR THIS

“On the first floor landing Reeves found the body of a woman in a pool of blood. She had been stabbed in 39 places with a sharp pointed instrument, probably a bayonet. The walls of the houses are thin, and ordinary conversation on the lower landing can easily be heard in the rooms up stairs. Yet no one in the house, not even four people sleeping 12 feet away from where the body was soaking in blood, head any unusual noise that night.”

SOURCE: https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/ ... g18881110/

OR THIS

“All agreed that the night was unusually quiet.
“I should have heard it had there been any,” said Mrs. Green when interviewed, “for I have trouble with my heart and am a very light sleeper.”
Another person, a Mrs. Perkins, who lives across the way from Mrs. Green’s house, also denied having heard any sounds of disturbance in the street during the night."

OR THIS

“Work of a Homicidal Maniac.
No sane man would have chosen such a place for such a crime. But if the murderer is a maniac he is wonderfully shrewd and clever, and one skilled in the use of the knife and familiar with the devices of the dissecting table. Every stroke of his knife cuts into a vital part. In short, he is a skilled anatomist.”

OR THIS

“The body was warm and the blood had not congealed, proving that the murderer must have gone just as the constable was approaching. Watkins sent for doctors …”

OR THIS

Continuing description of witness statement: “She drew the ale and meanwhile looked at him. As soon as he saw the woman in the other compartment watching him he turned his back and got the partition between them. There were blood spots on the back of his right hand. His shirt was torn. As soon as he had drank the ale, which he sawllowed at a gulp, he went out. he wore a light blue check shirt, which was in rags. There was a narrow streak of blood under his right ear, parallel with the edge of his shirt.
The man was rather thin, about 5 feet 8 inches high, and apparently between 40 and 50 years of age. He had a shabby genteel look, pepper and salt trousers, which fitted him badly, and dark coat. The man walked, holding his coat together at the top. he had a nervous and frightened way about him. He wore a ginger-colored moustache and had short sandy hair.
This man is probably the fiend whom the police seek, but who is still at large and unknown.”

SOURCE: https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/ ... g18881002/

I could probably keep going, finding little moments in these newspaper articles, because there are so many.

It seems to me that someone could read these and walk away from them with the following set of knowledge:

- The main way the Ripper would have been caught is if someone found him in the area covered in blood.
- The guy was able to leave the scene quickly.
- The police are pretty incapable of proving anyone did it unless they’re literally covered in blood near the scene of the crime
- There are crazy people out there who commit violent murders for no real reason
- Victims don’t make noise if you surprise them
- The man who did the killings probably wore dark clothes, a jacket and a hat that would hide the blood

Suddenly, it doesn’t seem that impossible to imagine that Lizzy cooked up an idea in her head that a madman could come in, slaughter them gruesomely, no one would hear, disappear, and as long as the police saw Lizzie with no blood and no weapon on her, she would be the last person they'd think did it.

And suddenly, the plan doesn't seem all that preposterously audacious. It helped settle in my chest the feeling that it's hard to imagine this stuffy Victorian spinster taking on such a wild plot and executing it so preposterously well ... unless maybe she didn't execute it that well, given that she missed the part where they did want a decent alibi, and they didn't immediately assume it was a mad intruder.

Preplanning can take a lengthy task and streamline it to make it fast. It seems impossible to imagine her taking a bath, drying her hair, changing her clothes, hiding all evidence of the bloody clothes and her cleaning up, then disposing of the weapon in 8-12 minutes … but if she’d already been exposed to the idea of it, and had some time (like oh, say, 90 minutes between murders to apply her recent education in blood splatter), to plan out her best order of operations … I can kinda see it.

You?

Welcome to the forum Curiousercat!! (checked twice to make sure I spelled that correct. )

I like the idea that a high-profile case like the Ripper, or others like it, would provide some general ideas and insights into the aftermath of a violent crime, helping the culprit consider how to avoid detection.

What is your view on the claimed attempts to purchase prussic acid (aka cyanide) the day before the murders and reportedly also made the attempt a couple weeks before in New Bedford? Asking because how you view the poison idea would have a lot of influence on how one would think through Lizzie's preplanning for a violent solution to the Borden's demise.

Thank you! (I was sure to call her an ex-sunday school teacher to avoid peeving you).

I generally accept the idea that Lizzie was trying to buy the prussic acid, and I assume it was a general stew of homicidal intent. I can envision that Emma and Lizzie had likely been grumbling for years that they hated Abby, and they wished she and Andrew would just hurry up and die, and I assume both of them were grappling with varying degrees of genuine hatred mixed with rage.

Depending on the day, I can convince myself that she and Emma even picked up a plan together to use poison, or Lizzie decided it on her own, but when she was thwarted, she decided to default to the mad-hatchet plan. I don't really see it as being all that well thought out, more of an impulsive thought brought on by frustration that she couldn't get her hands on the prussic acid, coupled with perhaps some sort of pressure-cooker evening. Could be as simple as Andrew telling her he could write her out of her will if she didn't start behaving better toward Abby?

What do you make of it?

Watching football this afternoon, but I'll circle back and share some thoughts later today.

Go Chiefs!!

*The elder Borden's get extremely sick Tuesday evening, carrying over into Wednesday.
*Wednesday morning, they arise and speak to Lizzie at the breakfast table.
*Around 10:30a.m., THREE adult men claim Lizzie came to D.R. Smith's Pharmacy and attempted to purchase poison. The customer is denied the prussic acid.
*6pm, Lizzie visits friend Alice Russell. During their chat, Lizzie mentions the illness as if it was a nefarious attempt at poisoning and implying a connection to her father's work and his enemies. The conversation evolves into the family possibly being in danger, Lizzie even fearing a fire at the house. Lizzie gets home around 9pm.
*The next morning Andrew and Abby are murdered with a hatchet.

To my way of thinking, poisoning had a role in the plot.

From most accounts Lizzie was well read, and I would imagine this was the case well before the murders as later in life.

I’ve always believed the Borden murders were surely not unplanned events, but what exactly the plan was, or was altered due to unforeseen occurrences, is hard to say.

A spur of the moment, fit of rage would be very sloppy, also unique to the Borden case is the time between deaths which gives extra cleanup time, as well as experience in how to become more proficient.

It’s sometimes hard to imagine Lizzie did it all without help, even if she is guilty.

The lack of blood on Lizzie or in her room and belongings is the reason it’s tempting to look for an accomplice.
It seems the accomplice is as illusive as the blood.