Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Lizzie Borden was noted to have a single drop of blood on her underskirt. The location was unusual for a typical non-incriminating explanation, suggesting the outer skirt may have shifted or been hitched up while she was positioned over the victim. A closer examination of the forensic evidence provides key context.

Professor Edward Wood recorded the stain six inches above the hem of the white underskirt and sixteen inches to the left of the center-back placket line, on a petticoat with an 85-inch total hem circumference. The stain measured 1/16 of an inch in diameter. Both Professor Wood and Medical Examiner Dr. Dolan noted that the stain was more prominent on the exterior surface than on the interior side. Consequently, Wood concluded that the droplet likely deposited onto the garment from the outside rather than transferring from within.

Regarding the placement, describing the spot as slightly off-center understates where sixteen inches lands on this garment. On an 85-inch hem, the distance from the center-back line to the side seam is approximately 21.25 inches (one-quarter of the total circumference). Being sixteen inches left of the center-back line puts the stain roughly three-quarters of the way toward the side seam. At six inches above the hem, this places the spot directly against the outer curve of the left calf rather than near the spine line.

At the time, Lizzie was wearing a two-piece cotton Bedford cord ensemble: a casual, matching skirt and blouse. Standard Victorian attire for a woman of her social standing comprised the following layers, ordered from innermost to outermost:

1. Stockings: Black stockings, secured with garters above the knee (investigators later collected a laundered pair).

2. Drawers: Open-style drawers, which remained standard for personal convenience and to comfortably accommodate sanitary protection garments. These extended to approximately knee-length.

3. Chemise: A chemise or combination garment ending between mid-thigh and knee level. While some women substituted a lightweight knit vest during summer, a traditional chemise remains the standard assumption.

4. Corset: Expected attire within the household, likely a lightweight summer style, terminating well above calf level.

5. Corset Cover: Optional while indoors.

6. Petticoat: A single starched white petticoat—the garment examined by Wood. This is the layer that bore the bloodstain near the left calf. Emma Borden noted that the outer Bedford cord skirt trailed by about an inch in the back, placing the petticoat hem slightly above the dress hem, a few inches off the floor.

7. Outer Dress: Bedford cord skirt and matching bodice/waist.

So, it sounds like the droplet hit the underskirt around the area of the outside of Lizzie's left calf. If Lizzie is swinging overhead while straddling Abby, do you think the left calf might raise up and right arm swung down and perhaps her skirt lifted a bit exposing the underdress during one of the swings and a droplet hit the underdress?

On the Lizzie is innocent side of things, how did a single tiny droplet hit the outside of her left calf? Based on the number of layers of cloth, a lone droplet on the outside surface would need a plausible explanation. I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts. Please if there are any women willing to give us some educated input, we men would appreciate the help with this investigation. Thanks!

I think your speculation is quite plausible, and also interesting.
I wonder if the stained spot was missed by Lizzie, and possibly worn during the time Alice tried to loosen her dress and objected to, stating “I am not faint.”

My personal feelings are that Lizzie was dressed lightly, and or loosely for fast change.
When Mrs Russell got there Lizzie wore what I call a two piece.
This could be a clue as to her quick change of whatever may become stained, without changing the entire dress.

The blood spatter is anyone’s guess, it could do just about anything and then some. The testimony of the Dr’s as arduous, and time consuming as it was , at least showed that the possibilities are almost endless for the spatter placement and volume.

However, the vicinity close to the floor and on the back of the skirt is interesting. It’s odd to me, and on the outside where I wouldn’t think the higher chance.

What really throws most of us off, at least when we first study the case, is the change in clothing terminology.

When the lawyers asked Lizzie what dress were you wearing they are asking, in modern terms, what outfit were you wearing. Lizzie clearly responds she was wearing 2 separate pieces a skirt and a matching top, in the form of:

“I had on a navy blue, sort of a bengaline or India silk skirt, with a navy blue blouse. In the afternoon they thought I had better change it. I put on a pink wrapper.”

Where it gets even more confusing, is the term "waist" refers to the matching top to a skirt. And the term "blouse waist" meant a matching top that is of a loose tailoring, not a tightly fitting torso, like on Lizzie's formal dresses.

I bought both of Shelley Dziedzig's books, Dressing Miss Lizzie, and her book about the Oak Grove Cemetery. They are both made with care and attention to detail and the Dressing Miss Lizzie book is super helpful to see all the different outfits in color.

I suppose they understood the questions and descriptions better than we do in reading the testimony, otherwise I feel there should have been deeper diving in regards to the one piece dress vs two piece.

Mrs Churchill described the skirt matching the waist—which seems to show a two piece, but it’s confusing.
Shouldn’t the question be about the skirt matching the top?

Alice Russell tried loosening the waist. but possibly there was some sort of a tie there , and it was a one piece dress. I feel it was a two piece primarily because of Alice, and also adding Mrs Churchill’s description of the dress burning. (SKIRT)

I think you’ve made a good point for a two piece being worn by Lizzie.
If she’s guilty (if). then we take your theory about the blood droplet on the hem, it makes sense that the (outer skirt) of a two piece which Alice saw her burn and rip, received more droplets, while the (under slip) received only the detected spot.

I think we also have to remember that these women had a room larger than Lizzie's original bedroom dedicated just to dresses and they had a week or two per year where they made dresses together. Lizzie said she bought dress material (one blue, one pink) while alone in New Bedford shortly before the murders and that material was not able to be found nor produced for several days even though Lizzie said it was in a trunk in the 3rd floor storage room. Could Lizzie have made a matching blue skirt with similar or identical material?

Between May and August there were approximately 100 days that Lizzie kept the skirt with paint stains. She burned it less than 1 day after hearing she was a suspect. She was pulling the skirt down from the coal cupboard next to the stove - I thought the whole problem was it was taking a valuable hook in the closet. What about the other 100 days? Not a problem? Why is a skirt in the closet in the kitchen?

What is so frustrating about the case is some very direct questions were not asked:

1. Lizzie what was a dress doing in the kitchen closet?
2. Why was it not a problem taking up a hook for 100 days?
3. Did you hear a scraping sound or a groan or both and investigate or did you casually reenter the house, check the stove, put your hat away, and decide to go upstairs to wait for Bridget to rebuild the fire?
4. Why didn't you bring lead back from the barn when you found it?
5. Where is that damaged screen?
6. Where is that dress material, really, since Emma can't find it where you said it was?
7. What did you write in that letter to Marion that your friend thought would be misinterpreted by the court and what did you really mean by it?
8. Did you actually take the morphine and how much and which days? You don't seem to have any addiction or withdrawal symptoms, so I just want to know.
9. Did you really eat one pear in the kitchen and 3 more in the loft all within 30 minutes?

I tried to find the progression of the burned skirt a while back and noticed that Alice placed Lizzie at a different spot in conjunction with the stove than Emma did.
A small detail yes, but I feel the dress wasn’t kept in the little kitchen closet, rather it was brought there for burning.
I also had/have suspicions that the back hallway sink room could have been used for several reasons, and possibly the burned skirt kept there.

I’ll add one to your list.
Where are the cores of the pears Lizzie ate in the barn loft?

You are correct. If you are looking at the stove with your back to the backyard in 1892 kitchen layout, Alice places Lizzie to the left of the stove literally pulling pieces of cloth down from the closet - sometimes called a coal closet - but I imagine all kinds of kitchen/stove related items were probably in there. Emma places Lizzie to the right of the stove, in the area where the path between the sitting room door, dining room door and hall to the screen door is. They could be referring to different times during the event, but Alice says Lizzie backed up when warned about the police putting her further into the corner of the left side of the stove.

Before we drift too far, what I was getting at with the original post is:

1. I believe 16 inches off center, 6 inches from the bottom and hitting from the outside makes that blood droplet hard to explain given the context and the match for what was expected of guilt, straddling the body, swinging a hatchet trying to counterbalance that momentum potentially causing the lower legs to move to counterbalance kicking up the outer skirt and exposing the underskirt to a droplet of cast off.

2. There is the obvious guilty explanation, but does anyone have a plausible innocent explanation for a single droplet in the left calf area that hit from the outside?

The size is apparently so small that it came from a spray, or spatter.
IMO, not from the hatchet itself, it’s too small for that.

One possibility is the skirt was kept down cellar, Lizzie was menstruating, and somehow there was a transfer as the skirt was on the top of the clothes pile.
It could have been there for a few days.

Inspector, where did you get that info? From what I can find, I checked 3 places, that droplet is almost in the exact center of the expected range for hatchet/stabbing cast off.

1/16 of an inch is equal to 1.5875 mm, which is commonly rounded to 1.6 mm

Modern forensic literature commonly describes impact spatter from beating or stabbing as generally around 1mm –3 mm, although stains can fall outside that range. This is a description of a commonly observed impact-spatter range, not a minimum or maximum size for blood droplets produced by a hatchet attack.

Accordingly, the Borden stain's approximately 1.6 mm diameter falls within the commonly cited 1–3 mm range for impact spatter, but its size alone does not establish that the stain was produced by a hatchet blow.

So, the median size of blade cast off is 1.5mm and the droplet was 1.58mm almost dead center of the expected range.

Typical Droplet Size for Passive Drops

Size Range: Passive drops typically measure greater than 3 to 4 mm in diameter.
Mechanics: When a liquid drips slowly under the sole influence of gravity, surface tension allows the hanging droplet to grow larger before its weight overcomes that tension and it detaches. Standard free-falling passive drops from a stationary or slowly moving source usually land as larger, circular spots ranging anywhere from 4 mm to 6 mm or more, depending on the volume of the drop and the height of the fall.

How This Compares to the Lizzie Borden Case
The single stain found on Lizzie Borden's petticoat was described by Professor Wood as being the size of a pin head (~1.6 mm / 1/16 of an inch).Because a passive gravity drop is significantly larger (>3–4 mm), a tiny ~1.6 mm stain is too small to be a standard passive, gravity-induced drip. Instead, it aligns with medium-velocity impact spatter or a cast-off droplet from a swung weapon, which explains why the size of the historical stain is a key point of forensic interest.

Thanks, Inspector! Pushing back has caused me to delve deeper. Now that the implication of the size ranges is sinking in, if this wasn't a gravity drop, but medium velocity spatter, we may have a very solid piece of evidence. I think we all need to independently verify it though, because if we all check and all get these ranges, we may have a very strong piece of physical evidence here.

I'm checking into how the fabric might affect the measurements, and 2mm is the center, I mistakenly divided 3 by 1/2 when the cast off range is 1 - 3 not 0 - 3. Fabric would have a wick effect, so that pushes a gravity drop further out of range, but there may be some innocent explanation, still.

I did consider the wicking effect as part of my deduction, and concluded the stain must have been a spattering due to its small size.

I do appreciate your scientific research, and agree there could be some clue hidden in the size, and location of the stain.

Possibly a ricochet or rebound of a larger droplet.
Maybe from the heel of Abby’s shoe.

Just checking to see if we are on the same page...here are my current assumptions:

1. 3mm is the minimum size for a gravity droplet, a drop of blood that was formed by normal gravity dripping. That is on a hard surface, so on cloth, the minimum would be even larger

2. The size of the droplet found is 1.6mm, within the 1mm - 3mm range for medium velocity spatter, such as caused by a knife, hatchet, axe, hammer, etc. High velocity spatter from a bullet would be even smaller.

3. The 16 inches off center right on a left calf, 6 inches from the bottom, is completely consistent with straddling Abby and the outer skirt at least momentarily exposing the petticoat skirt to spatter. That the measurement puts it near the left calf is particularly interesting because a right handed blow might lift the left calf (if you can, get on your hands and knees and swing violently down with your right hand, imagine the weight of the hatchet head 8 to 10 inches forward of your hand. Does your left calf lift off the ground? Mine does, if I am throwing my momentum forward and down.

4. For an innocent explanation, we have to find a way for a single droplet of that size to get on the outside surface of that petticoat skirt in that location.

I think the size must have been introduced to the skirt at a smaller size than the 1/16”, and therefore can only be combined with the scientific categories you’ve provided, not necessarily restricted to them.

I think it possible that a drop from the hatchet fell in contact with a hard surface (like Abby’s shoe heel), or any number of surfaces as Lizzie was straddling her, while revealing the skirt hem , and the rebound found the hem of Lizzie’s skirt.

It’s not provable in any way , but if the stain was Abby’s blood type, then how did it get there?

Inspector - the size range of a satellite droplet from a ricochet is plausible, but it might not be the best fit since it was only a single droplet that was found on the petticoat skirt and when a droplet produces satellite droplets, there are usually a bunch of them extending out. I'll find a photo. Here is what AI came up with on the topic:

When a parent drop hits, it flattens into a thin sheet. The rim of that sheet throws out finger-like jets. If those jets have enough speed, their tips pinch off and fly away as separate smaller droplets. One parent drop usually makes several of those secondaries, not one. Blood falling into wet blood does the same thing more strongly: the second impact stirs the pool and throws a spray of small droplets around the parent stain.

Those secondaries leave in many directions from the rim, mostly outward and somewhat upward, and they land as a ring or scatter around the parent. Published satellite stains from this process are typically 0.1–2.0 mm. A single drop on a hard, rough surface can send some of them as high as about 12 inches; a short fall onto a smooth surface may produce none.

If the underskirt hem was hanging in that spray, more than one hit is the expected result. The mechanism produces a group of droplets around one impact, not a single aimed particle. A wide hanging hem near the parent stain is a large target in that ring. One isolated 1.6 mm stain is possible only if the cloth caught the edge of a weak splash, or if most of the other satellites hit the floor, the shoe, or the outer dress instead. The formation process itself does not favor a single garment stain.

I think I might have reached my limit in speculation on the guilty side. I'm pretty much settled that a normal, gravity-created droplet is highly unlikely, and there are a couple of non-innocent mechanisms that could have produced the droplet. I'll give Lizzie a fair shake and see if I can find plausible innocent explanations.

Certainly the finger jetting is a detractor to the single drop stain, but with so many variables, there’s simply no way to trace the stain in my opinion.

For instance : Jetting in the perfect sense would create the spherical pattern consistent.
However, if say the droplet ricocheted off the corner of the bureau, or Abby’s heel, it wouldn’t be a perfect circumference spray pattern, which is why nothing substantial can be proven from the size and location.
We can theorize, but unfortunately there is no tailing, so we can’t determine its direction.

DNA of the stain would open the biggest clue.