-Caveat Lector-
On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, Bill Richer wrote:
>That's because, despite the evidence suggesting her guilt, the press
>favored Lizzie.
There was just as much evidence pointing to others as being the culprit,
especially "Uncle John" Morse, who just happened to have dropped in the
day before and stayed the night...
Anyone who does any extensive research into the Borden case (as I've been
doing the past couple of months) quickly finds out that some sort of
strange financial shenanigans were taking place in the weeks prior to the
murders, in which "Uncle John" was in the middle...
Dr. Bowen, who lived across the street, doesn't come off so well,
either...the day before the murders, Mrs. Borden went to the good doctor
complaining of illness (indeed, the whole household was ill, even the
servant girl...the only person who didn't become ill was good old "Uncle
John")...Mrs. Borden then revealed to the doctor her fear that 'someone'
was trying to poison the family....the doctor basically told her not to
be so foolish, and sent her home....
The next day, he was the first medical person on the scene after the
bodies were discovered...and very quickly 'sedated' Lizzie with doses of
morphine...
Lizzie claimed her stepmother had gotten a postcard or letter right after
breakfast, requesting the stepmother to attend a 'sick friend'...Lizzie
used this as a defense, claiming she didn't know her stepmother was dead
in the guest bedroom because she presumed her stepmother had gone out on
the sick call...
The letter was never found, and no one ever came forward claiming they'd
sent it...so in the 'legend' of Lizzie Borden, this has been forwarded as
an example of her many attempts to cover up her murder of her
stepmother...
And yet, it is right there in the police record, that the very afternoon
of the murders, Dr. Bowen was seen in the kitchen, burning documents in
the kitchen stove....a police officer even asked him what he was doing,
and Dr. Bowen's response was "oh, it's nothing", and amazingly the matter
was pursued no further...
As to the press favoring Lizzie...some did, and some didn't, and those
that didn't were brutal, and didn't bother to check the validity of
supposed eyewitness statements --- the most blatant case was of the Fall
River Globe -- a 'liberal' Democrat newspaper -- printing a story
claiming that the night before the murders, various passersby claimed
they overheard her father arguing with her over the fact -- get this --
that 32-year-old Lizzie, who never had a male suitor, as far as anyone
can determine -- was pregnant, obviously out of wedlock...
Within a day, it was proven that the eyewitnesses named in that article
did not in fact exist, neither were their home addresses real...
The press divided along economic lines in the stance they took regarding
Lizzie's guilt or innocence....Andrew Borden had been president of two
banks, and on the board of directors of a couple of the major mills in
town....so the 'conservative' papers of a Republican bent tended to treat
Lizzie very well, since she was considered 'on of their own'...the
'liberal' paper of a Democratic bent, on the other hand, tended to cast
her as guilty, even before a trial was held....
>Responding to the lawyers'cue, newspaper headlines and
>cartoons publicly vilified Blaisell for refusing to step down.
Perhaps you can name these newspapers? Because in my research into the
Borden murders, I've never seen one cartoon which 'vilified' Blaisdell,
and the articles that supported the defense's stance only had relatively
mild criticism of him.
>Gossip
>columnists painted the "accused" as a proper Victorian victim and
More due the the feeling at the time that a proper lady of a good home
would be incapable of such a heinous crime....
Remember, Lizzie WAS highly regarded in the community. She was an active
church member, and taught Sunday School. Her most adamant support after
she was arrested came from her minister and her fellow church
members...indeed, it was a rare occurance that her minister didn't
accompany her, leaning on his arm, to the inquest hearings and later
trial.
>Outside the courtroom, Lizzie Borden enjoyed the status of a national
>celebrity and her "poll numbers" skyrocketed.
Yes, the Borden murders are the American equivalent of the
Jack-the-Ripper murders, in the way they caught the attention of the
press.
>Like Clinton, her most visible and vocal supporters came from the organized
>women's movement of her day: the Women's Christian Temperance Movement
>Suffragettes and the Women's Auxiliary of the YMCA. To further her own public
>relations, Lizzie was always accompanied by two clergymen, Reverend Jubb and
>Reverend Buck.
Who sincerely believed in her innocence.
>Trouble surfaced for Lizzie, though, when her friend Alice Russell gave grand
>jury testimony regarding a stained blue dress. At the inquest, Borden had
>testified that she'd worn a blue dress on the day of the murders, and that
>she had later changed. Investigators noted that Lizzie's clothes exhibited no
>blood stains that day, but Russell claimed she saw Lizzie burn the blue dress
>that presumably contained those incriminating blood stains.
Supposedly it was paint.
Lizzie Borden's own actions and testimony after the murders are her own
worst enemies....I'm not about to claim I believe she's innocent...but
I'm not completely convinced of her guilt, or complete guilt, either...
Perhaps...just perhaps...she DID get some blood on the dress when she
discovered her father...maybe, when she realized she was the prime
suspect, she thought it would be better to get rid of the dress....
Perhaps she's guilty of being an ACCOMPLICE to murder, and is not the
actual killer herself...
Perhaps she was an accessory after the fact....
As I said, a lot of strange things were going on in the weeks prior to
the murders, and it was obvious that Lizzie, her sister Emma, and good
old 'Uncle John' wanted to hide something outside of the murders
themselves....
>Might history have been recorded differently if the family maid had kept that
>dress in a safe place until investigators could examine it?
There's no evidence that Bridget Sullivan was even aware of the dress, or
of its possible signifcance...remember, at the time, Bridget herself was
considered a likely suspect...and quite reasonably expected that as a
poor Irish working girl, that SHE would be the one who'd be accused of
the murders, before her well-respected employer would be....
>Perhaps, but like modern-day FOBs, those close to Lizzie were willing to
>protect her from justice. The Borden's family friend, Dr. Bowen, was caught
>in the Borden's kitchen burning evidence in the wood stove,
As I mentioned before, whatever Bowen was burning would have most likely
HELPED Lizzie, so the fact that he burned whatever it was can't be
automatically construed as an attempt to 'help' her...
>and the maid,
>known as "Maggie," accepted compensation to testify on behalf of her boss.
The maid's name was Bridget Sullivan..."Maggie" was the name of the maid
the Borden's had before her, and as was the affectation of rich people of
the time, they just continued to call a servant by the name of their
predecessor...
And while there has been a persistent rumor that Bridget was 'paid off'
by the Bordens to give favorable testimony, there was never any EVIDENCE
to prove it, and Bridget denied it until the day she died. And if you
read her inquest and trial testimony (as I have), it's obvious that she
truthfully testified to what she knew and had seen that morning -- nor
more and no less -- and some of what she testified to did NOT help
Lizzie's cause (specifically in the amount of time Lizzie claimed to
have been out in the barn, the time during which her father was being
murdered).
>Historians are still baffled that Borden's friends and acquaintances
>would knowingly protect an axe murderer,
Because they sincerely believed her innocent, that is why...except,
perhaps for her sister Emma, who after Lizzie was exhonerated, never had
anything to do with her for the rest of her life.
>Sometimes juries surprise us. Borden's apparently didn't think that 81
>whacks constituted an impeachable offense.
Actually, her father got 22 or so 'whacks', while the stepmother got 18.
The blows that killed the stepmother were described as being deep,
inflicted with great force, while the father's blows were described as
being 'weak', inflicted with much less force...
Which to me tends to lead to the speculation of more than one murderer...
while Andrew Borden was killed as he napped on the sitting room couch,
and could have easily been killed by a woman standing in the doorway
behind him (the edge of the couch was on the doorjamb)...Abby Borden was
struck down from a standing position....
Lizzie Borden was only 5-foot-3-inches tall...which would have made it
difficult for her to sneak up behind her stepmother, and swing a hatchet
(it was determined the blows actually came from a hatchet and not an ax)
with sufficient force to inflict the type of injuries which were
inflicted on her stepmother.
No, the Borden murder case is NOT as cut-and-dried as you would like to
make it...over the years, various authors have made just as valid
arguments (showing various bits of evidence to 'prove' their theories)
claiming that "Uncle John" did it, Dr. Bowen did, that the maid Bridget
was the culprit, or that Andrew Borden's sister's husband did, or that
even Emma Borden snuck away from where she was sojourning at the Cape to
come home the morning of Aug. 4, 1892 and kill her parents, escaping back
to the Cape immediately afterwards without being seen in Fall River, nor
missed by her companions at the shore....
June ;-)
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