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Lizzie Borden took an axe--or did she?

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  • #31
    Originally posted by RavenDarkendale View Post
    (Andrew was an awful miser, so I suppose he thought burning cloth helped heat the place, who knows!)
    Kind of hard to credit an "awful miser" who paid for Lizzie to have a grand European tour as 30th birthday present, gave his wife and children houses for a dollar, etc.

    Let all Oz be agreed;
    I need a better class of flying monkeys.

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    • #32
      Rhetorical

      My statement was rhetorical.

      I have just about every book ever published on the Borden case, including an 1893 copy of The Fall River Tragedy by Edwin Porter. I obtained the 2,000 page transcript of the trial, on microfilm, some 30 years ago and I have every issue of The Lizzie Borden Quarterly, to which I subscribed for many years.
      Last edited by Stewart P Evans; 07-30-2013, 04:21 PM.
      SPE

      Treat me gently I'm a newbie.

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      • #33
        A Correction

        A Correction, I have found the boxed microfilm of the Borden Trial transcript. I bought it from New England Micrographics back in January 1992, which was only 21 years ago.
        SPE

        Treat me gently I'm a newbie.

        Comment


        • #34
          The Borden case is extraordinary because she got off when it was so obvious that she did it.

          Not only did it, but did it ineptly in terms of getting caught. The maid was home, the barn alibi was hopeless, Lizzie could see her step-mother dead from the stairs as her father came home, the gap between the two murders was too long for an outsider-intruder to be hanging about (whom nobody saw) and she had tried to buy poison.

          Her father may have died because he would not install one of those new flush toilets like other well-to-do families (or, speculatively speaking, he may have abused her as a girl and his murder was the culmination of a seething, volcanic rage).

          The case and acquittel is an example of a very shrewd defence which played not to the circumstantial evidence--very incriminating--but to the prejudices of the men of the jury to give a fellow Christian, and a woman and and a member of the upper bourgeiosie the benefit of the doubt, as the judge directed.

          Afterwrards, of course, it all felt quite distasteful and Lizzie was snubbed by the same class.

          I am not trying to insult anybody but, oh well, that is the result.

          I will try and be diplomatic.

          To try and argue Lizzie Borden was innocent is quite a long bow to draw, and kind of misses the whole point of the case. I see this attitude infesting the tiny minority who still cling to the 'theory' that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed by drug dealers.

          People want some people (Borden, Crippen, Oswald, Dr. McDonald) to not be guilty, a kindly sentiment usually brutally quashed by the unforgiving facts.

          If somebody wants to say about me that I am obviously in love with Melville Macnaghten, fan-boy style, and sentimentally want him to be right about his chosen Ripper suspect, than that is a pefectly fair and understandable criticism.

          I would just say, trying not to upset anybody, that any person who thinks Lizzie Borden (?!) is innocent, then that is the person I want as Jury Foreman should I ever be on trial for double homicide.

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          • #35
            Any study of the evidence would have to point to Lizzie or the maid, since they were the only people home at the time of the murders. I say again that being found "not guilty" doesn't make one innocent.

            Lizze ought to have had the best lawyer, she and Emma paid his $25,000 for his services. Andrew Borden's net worth at the time of his murder was estimated at $500,000. This represented a payout of 1/20 of the entire estate. Getting the testimony of Lizzie disqualified as evidence was the key factor. That long rambling, contradictory, and at times a tissue of outright provable falsehoods would have sank Lizzie's ship. Another thing I read last night in The Fall River Tragedy by Edwin H Porter, the 1985 reprint, is in the last pages of the book, where the author closes his tale with the results of her trial. I quote:

            "Mr. Knowlton--'May it please the court. There are pending two indictments against this same defendant, one charging the murder which is charged in this indictment on the first count, and the other the murder which is charged in this indictment on the second count. An entry should be made in those cases of nol prossed by reason of the verdict in this case. Now, congratulating the defendant and the counsel for the defendant on the results of the trial, I believe the duties are concluded.'"

            Many times it isn't what is presented, it is what the jury never hears due to clever lawyers that decides a case. Sometime the defense gets a lot of evidence dismissed; sometimes the prosecution manages to object to defense proposals and win suppression of evidence.

            Was she innocent? There was, as I have said, no way she wasn't involved, either as murderess or accomplice. Had the trial been only for the murder of Mrs. Borden, she very well might have been convicted.With the marks of the hatchet/axe being uniform in both victims, both killed by the same killer was what was presented to the jury. I don't think the Jury was ready to believe she could kill her own father. Indeed, sediment too often plays out in the courtroom.

            But she got her acquittal only to find that Maplecroft was her new prison, as the public shunned her. Had there been a civil suit, she would have paid through the nose, as OJ had to. You may manage to convince 12 people of being not guilty. but the public is a far different story.

            God Bless

            Darkendale
            Last edited by RavenDarkendale; 07-31-2013, 12:42 PM.
            And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

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            • #36
              .

              Darkravendale...did you get your book? I am getting ready to sit with mine now and finish it off. I'm glad I went back to revisit this. Let me know where you are with it.

              LOL, I mean RavenDarkendale...close, I was close!

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              • #37
                it's in the mail, and you know how the postal service is...

                And, hey, don't worry about the Darkravendale. Who knows, if I had thought at the time I created the alias I might have gone with Dale Darkraven...

                God Bless

                RavenDarkendale
                And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

                Comment


                • #38
                  .

                  Okay, I am going to go ahead and post a few thoughts.

                  First of all, Victoria Lincoln's writing kind of bugs me. She definitely wants you to know she comes from upper crust and lets you know it over and over again. However, she does have that unique perspective, and it does help to see things more clearly at times. Also, there is a lot of supposition in her writing, but when you really think about what she is saying, her little theories make a lot of sense, for example when she supposes Uncle John Morse came home and figured out something was going on, and rushes back into town to get himself an alibi. It sounds silly that he would have figured out a murder had happened inside the house, but it makes perfect sense considering his actions afterward.

                  By all accounts, Abby was kind and good to her housekeepers. So why in the world would Abby have sent Bridget out to wash windows when it was so dreadfully hot, and Bridget had also been vomiting? That seems a bit out of character.

                  Who was this Detective Shaw who had a long talk with Lizzie about 10 months before the murders? Was he still around at the time of the murders and if so, why didn't someone ask him? If I had to guess what was talked about, I would think something regarding shoplifting, but we may never know.

                  Victoria Lincoln talks about "Lizzie's spells" but what I got out of it was a murderous case of PMS, not temporal lobe epilepsy. Not buying the epilepsy story. I think Lizzie did it and did it in a sound mind.

                  However, I also believe Bridget knew what happened. I don't think she walked in on anything, but she figured it all out and just decided to protect Lizzie. Either that or she was in on it all the way.

                  I believe Andrew Borden came home early and thwarted Lizzie's plans for her alibi for Abby's murder. She knew he would never protect her once he realized she had killed Abby, and she didn't have much of a choice but to kill him. Abby's murder was a crime of passion, but Andrew's murder was in cold blood.

                  I am amused to imagine Lizzie and Emma running around burning their old dresses all the time.

                  Andrew gave the girls a house for payment of $1.00. Then he turned around and bought it back from them for (I think it was) $5,000! That was a sweet deal for the girls, but that wouldn't have been nearly enough money to keep Lizzie happy.

                  Andrew sent Lizzie abroad. Just reading examples of his miserly characteristics...this is just almost hard to believe. I agree with Victoria Lincoln that he was attempting to pacify Lizzie and make up to her something she felt wronged over.

                  I can't get a good feel for who Abby really was. From what I read, she was shy, retiring, no friends. She really doesn't sound like an evil stepmother type. It would be interesting to know what some of her "trangressions" against Emma and Lizzie were.

                  I do believe that Lizzie and Nance O'Neill were probably lovers for a short time. There was way too much smoke without there being a bit of fire in there somewhere. Victoria Lincoln is indignant at the mere thought of it, and says she doesn't believe Lizzie was capable of a relationship. Well...why not? Of course she was capable of a relationship. It's just...better hope that relationship doesn't end on bad terms!

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                  • #39
                    Brenda:

                    Still haven't received that book, it has another three days before I can claim a refund.

                    Re: Uncle John Morse. It does seem odd that a person coming home for a meal would stop to eat pears in the yard. On the other hand, maybe the cooking there wasn't all that great, who knows.

                    Re: Bridgett. I agree she had to know the truth, as she was the only other person known to be in the house. On a sickbed near the end of her life, she said she had something to tell about the deaths. But she recovered and remained silent, and next time death came to call he was quick! No confession was ever made.

                    Re: Lizzie's "fits". I don't know what she may have suffered from, but sometimes in her pictures she is rather pretty and sometimes a wild-eyed looking woman that gives the impression of being crazy. If as has been postulated and likely true she had an affair with the female actress, perhaps it was repressed sexuality hysteria, something the Shakers were known to suffer, since sex was forbidden. There are quite a few websites on the phenomena.

                    Re: The murders, I still have problems with blood evidence, but when only two people are known to be in a house where two more are brutally murdered, to not suspect one or both of them to be guilty would be foolish. I will bet, though, if they had had luminol and/or the variable light source equipment in those days, the place would have lit up like Christmas trees!

                    The murder(ess) simply had to leave a trail They didn't find it or chose not to report their findings...

                    God Bless

                    Darkendale
                    And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      .

                      I can't believe your book didn't come!! I recently ordered a CD that didn't come either and I keep forgetting to work on getting my money back.

                      Another thing I wanted to say also is that another person I can't understand is Emma. Surely Emma at least suspected what had really happened...either she had at least a knowledge that something like a murder could happen, or she had never heard De Nial was not just a river in Egypt....

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                      • #41
                        Brenda:

                        Finally! Got the book last night and read about half. It at least is by someone who actually lived not far from Maplecroft and had first hand experience with the way Fall River society looked at things.

                        Has she convinced me that Lizzie alone was the killer? I am still hung up on the blood evidence, but as I said before, on evidence given, either Lizzie or Bridget committed the crime and the other had to know. I think Emma knew the truth as well. And apparently, her lawyer and most of the town were certain as well!

                        God Bless

                        Darkendale
                        And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          @ Brenda

                          Victoria Lincoln has the advantage of being from Fall River and alive during Lizzie's lifetime. Her story is straightforward and compelling.

                          I do not agree that the people were blinded because they didn't think from a woman's point of view.

                          That said, the blood evidence concealed in her used sanitary cloths as she was on her period has merit and could be the facts. The best way to hide something is right in the open. The use of her father's coat to protect her dress also has merit.

                          I still think there should have a blood trail to the basement or barn. Good point about people seeing her, so stating that's where she had gone makes more sense.
                          And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

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                          • #43
                            I think Lizzie did it but not alone.The housekeeper had to know what was going on even if she didn't directly participate.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Yeah, they both had to know who was guilty, even if we postulate it was neither of them. Unfortunately, only the two of them are plausible. Taking Sherlock Holmes' "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable has to be the truth." It was either Lizzie, or the maid, or both. The lack of a clear blood trail, no one bloody while her father's body was still oozing, the hatchet without handle (cops on stand said the handle was in the box), all these are merely enigmas. The fact: two people had motive and opportunity, one or both must be guilty.

                              God Bless

                              Darkendale
                              And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Which book would you reccommend ?

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