Lizzie Borden Society Forum

If Lizzie was thinking of getting rid of her parents, could she have devised a scheme, after having read of Jack the Ripper's method of killing in the 1880's? She could have maybe subdued them with some kind of drug (laudanum or whatever- that's why everyone was feeling sick) and then hacked them afterwards to make it look like a similar lunatic was running around Fall River. Maybe, in her mind, it would throw any suspicions away from her.

I don't know about that- but I was recently wondering along similiar lines as to whether Lizzie read up on or studied any crime in her day?
If she did, I wondered which ones caught her fancy?

Do you think that Lizzie might have seen that the "Ripper" got away with it and thought that she might have, Angel?

It's certainly a possibility. She must certainly have read about the sensational news because it happened only a few years before her parents' murders. She was observed a short time before the murders at the beach looking uncommunicative and distracted. Who knows what could have been going through her head? She may have been planning something.
Another thing caught my eye as I was reading "The Lizzie Sourcebook". Someone describing her said she kept herself aloof from others and had a very distant nature until about five years before the murders. Then she blossomed out and became well liked and respected because she participated in more social things. I wonder if there was something (or someone) who may have come into her life who changed her outlook. If her parents found out and disapproved it could have threatened her very being.

I think that is a good senario. She could have very possibly gave them something to make them sick and then hacked them to death. I don't think that Lizzie is as innocent as she would like to have appeared.

5 years before the murders, Andrew gave Lizzie and Emma the Ferry Street house, and she became a landowner. Might have given her some confidence, being a landlord? 1887.

Good idea, Kat. Something had to have been the catalyst that opened Lizzie's shell. Could it also have been having more money from the rent? Yes, I know after some time Lizzie and Emma deeded the house back to Andrew, allegedly due to the cost of keeping the place in repair, but, before that? Did Lizzie feel like she had money to burn and could splash it around town at these organizations and clubs she joined? Wasn't she Treasurer of at least one, a chip off the old Borden block.

I think at this point she was ready to play Andrew's game. He taught her everything she knew about property and mortgages and being a landlord, and getting value for money. There may not be proof of this- but this is something which I suppose. One proof might be, when she and Emma were ready to sell back the house to Andrew, Lizzie sought out Cook to ask the value of the Ferry Street property- the property whch was given her freely- and which was given her freely by her father! Did she think Andrew would cheat her? She was well on her way to becoming "mogul" material, I think.

Yes, I also think Lizzie enjoyed having her name on these charitable "Boards."

That made me wonder, could that have been part of what sealed Andrew's fate? Lizzie as money mogul. She, by Andrew's doing, had a taste of his money and power and prestige and wanted more? More that there wasn't to be had with Andrew still at the helm? Lizzie and Emma both must have learned by his wheelings and dealings and maybe found they had a knack and a taste for it too.

Angel @ Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:30 pm wrote:She could have maybe subdued them with some kind of drug (laudanum or whatever- that's why everyone was feeling sick) and then hacked them afterwards to make it look like a similar lunatic was running around Fall River. Maybe, in her mind, it would throw any suspicions away from her.

Hmm. Laudanum makes people sleepy; did Andrew usually take a mid-day nap?

I don't think laudanum could have been used the night before.
Laudanum stops diarrhea. Nausea is listed as a rare side effect. The Bordens were very sick in the night, and any kind of opium preparation would have made them sleep quite heavily -- which they apparently did not.

Lynn

She could have slipped them something the previous night to make them ill and then offered them the laudanum in the morning under the guise of helping them"relieve" the diarrhea and nausea.
She also said she was sick too, but may have been faking it to cover herself and make it look like she had been poisoned too, because she had no problem eating the pears. If one is nauseated and having diarrhea one would notbe eating pears.

Why didn't she just then go ahead and overdose them on something?
It may be harder to "dose" someone with something, if one has no experience handling it, without killing them.

What if they were started to be poisioned with arsenic (they show the symptoms) and traces of arsenic were on the dress that Lizzie burned which might soon be examined?
Arsenic was easy to get, and still is. The cyanide she was implicated in trying to buy kills in seconds and would probably have to be dashed down someone's throat and the other's if two people were to be killed, and probably the killer would be as dead as the killees. Arsenic is slow and sick.
But if she planned to poision them, why hack them.
If Prussic was a real plan it would be a poor one. Arsenic would be better, but the options, which it appears there were, show a complete unknowing of poisioning, and desperation. For my thoughts someone might have believed arsenic worked quickly.
Still, the stomachs supposedly showed no poision. But the people who examined the stomachs were of the same group as the ones who reconstructed blood spots on the wall from memory, so you have to wonder.
Something made someone act very quick. That's probably what makes this crime very interesting.

The problem with posioning them is that there would be some kind of trace. So she couldn't make the overdose on something. That would have been too easy.

UR right snookums. The only thing about the poisining angle that's interesting is that Lizzie obviously lied. She said she wasn't aware of the drug store, yet it was a few blocks from her house. She said she'd never been in there which is doubtfull. Three people in the store said she was in there trying to buy poision, each who would most likely have known who not just Lizzie was, but all of the Borden family on sight.
Now if I get tired of this Borden site, which I guess I am getting, will you rock with me at the Michael Jackson site?

The stomach contents were examined by the experts in Boston, not just eyeballed by a country doctor. No one ever made mention of any trace of poison--chemical or vegetable.

--Lyddie

Kat @ Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:04 pm wrote:Why didn't she just then go ahead and overdose them on something?
It may be harder to "dose" someone with something, if one has no experience handling it, without killing them.

My mind keeps going back to the book with the broken spine on this. Somebody was reading up on prussic acid at least. Seems that book was pretty well read too, to have a broken spine.

Melissa.... That broken spine is not mentioned anywhere in the accepted source documents.

I do not put much store in it.

I have to agree with Audrey. That source is Pearson, and if you are familiar with Pearson you will know he has a certain way, in recounting this case, of adding rumor to *truth*, tho how much truth there is in his articles, even he doesn't know. He is up-front about it. He says here's a rumor or here's what I've heard...but he wasn't there.
He has a lighthearted way of writing about the Bordens which is endearing- but nothing he says is gospel.
Oh the stories he tells!

I sure agree with Audrey regarding the book.

Audrey @ Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:37 am wrote:Melissa.... That broken spine is not mentioned anywhere in the accepted source documents.

I do not put much store in it.

I could swear, though I would not bet money on it, that I read that somewhere before. I know Lincoln makes reference to it also. Oh well, unless I find my other source, it doesn't really matter.

Here I am, jumping up and down, saying the source is Pearson. He was First. Everything after doesn't matter.
Am I here?

Kat @ Fri Mar 18, 2005 3:28 am wrote:Here I am, jumping up and down, saying the source is Pearson. He was First. Everything after doesn't matter.
Am I here?

What I meant was an earlier source like newspaper coverage...I don't know...I can't remember. Could be my imagination. Yes, I saw what you said Kat. No need to jump up and down Sorry, it's late and I'm feeling a little tired and silly.

Did you get the LBQ?
They had a series with the Pearson-Knowlton Correspondence. It might be in there too- I haven't had time to look.
Pearson tried a few things out on Frank Knowlton there and got some straight dope from Jr.

The next question might be, where did Pearson get the idea?
I have kept my eyes peeled for quite a while.
Last night I noticed a snippet inside a larger article in the Boston Globe, dated Aug. 9, 1892, called "No Footprint."
There is mention of a book, such as druggists use.

Also, at the end, it mentions the bloody clothing which was dug back up from the Borden yard. I had posted a Globe snippet about that lately at:
viewtopic.php?t=905&start=25
(I don't know how many noticed it there- it says 5 views- just a reminder to go look)

I think she might haveread something on the ripper and thought she could get away with it. And I think she did. Back then, people just didn't think a woman could do such a horrible thing. And she played to the crowd and jury. :beameup: