trousers

[Susan]

It is possible that Lizzie was still sitting on the stairs where Mrs. Churchill left her. Lizzie sent Mrs. Churchill off to get someone to find a doctor for her when Mrs. Churchill first showed up. And then Mrs. Churchill came back, though she doesn't state in her testimony where Lizzie was at the moment. Then Mrs. Churchill states that Bridget came back. And then Dr. Bowen. So, its entirely possible that Lizzie was still sitting or standing in the back entry of the house when Dr. Bowen arrived.

[Haulover]

i thought it worthwhile to call attention to exactly what bowen found as he approached the door. so he first says lizzie is in the door, as if to hurry him in; then she's in the hall. so there is confusion in bowen's memory....he changes his mind later.. was it someone else he passed in the doorway?

***The point is she was not at the screen door when Dr. Bowen came. Yet Dr. Bowen said she was.***
no, the point is -- nothing prevents this. the sitting/rubbing/fainting, etc. does not change it. i'm talking about the very beginning of the discovery.

what is the difference in implication -- is it major? -- as to whether lizzie was looking out the door or sitting on the inside steps or standing in the entry or standing further back in the kitchen? in terms of a theory, what is at stake? what kind of assumptions may be buried here? bridget went for the doctor, so i assume lizzie wants him there.

you know, there is a simple reason lizzie would crack the door -- she can't see the street directly through the screen.

[Kat]

Well there's a question, Eugene. Why Didn't Lizzie go to the front door for help? It's closest to the street as you imply she cant see much without stepping out the screen door. Maybe she could see the Bowen's front door from the screen, inside. But not much else! I think her view from the screen was very limited. Which would mean she was only intent on Bowen, but not in attracting just anyone?
She might say she moved to the back hall in order to call for Bridget?
I'd say, when she is at the dining room doorway to the sitting room, she is as close to the front door as she is to the back hallway & the side door there. But in going to the back hall she has to pass that scary cellar door- which is still scary to this day!

[theebmonique]

.......

But in going to the back hall she has to pass that scary cellar door- which is still scary to this day!

I can attest to being 'downcellar', alone, and hearing the door shut and the lights go off !...It was a bit unnerving.

I am thinking that Bowen's confusion could be from the shock of this kind of event. I don't think in his wildest imagination he would have ever thought he'd see a scene like what happened that day.

Eugene, I like what you say about the reason Lizzie would have the screen door cracked open.


Tracy...

[Nancie]

I dunno, the precious "living room" was never used
and the front entry only for expected special guests,
everyone knew to come in the side door.

[Kat]

Actually you remind me that the front door is Lizzie's door. Maybe she used the side door even less than the front door- I didn't think of that.
(I don't mean the parlour)- I mean cutting thru the sitting room to reach the front foyer, but maybe Lizzie couldn't bring herself to cut thru there to get help?
She did late at night twice, but the body of Andrew was no longer there.
Let me see- she cut thru the sitting room to go to her room Thursday- and she went alone.
Hmmm..

Imagine standing on that front porch to attract attention. Compared to hiding behind the screen door down that long length of building.

[Susan]

Maybe it had something to do with with Lizzie's story of coming back from the barn and finding the screen door open, only one way in and out for the murderer. In that house of locked doors, the screen door could be left unlocked due to Lizzie's alleged trip to the barn. If Lizzie went and unlocked the front door to stand there for help, no one could then find that door locked up tight, there would be no proof. And that might play a big part in her story somehow, so, she would have to leave the front door alone.

Or, it could just be that in order to call "Maggie" down, Lizzie had to go in the back hall and the closest means of egress was the side door, so it was put to use?

[Kat]

Yes that could be- but what is the "somehow?"
Why would the front door need to be found locked later? It spoils Lizzie's testimony to have to say of all days she never unlocked it. And it spoils a story of someone possibly getting in that way, to keep it locked after the deed. At least after Andrew is found Lizzie no longer needs a locked door, does she? I mean, Morse tried to convince people the spring lock didn't work, so he's trying to prove something loose about the front door locks...
So what do you think might be the "somehow?"

[Haulover]

well, if lizzie's instinct was to call for bridget and send her out, there would be no reason for her to then go to the front door -- in fact, she would expect bridget back at the side door. as for looking sideways out the door, she would be looking for someone's approach, she would want to beckon them in here. well, it would be to lizzie's benefit to have the front door unlocked, wouldn't it--or would it? anyway, lizzie's behavior is making more sense to me if she is actually surprised to find andrew dead. though she must figure it out at once to be trying to get someone upstairs to find abby--which she wastes no time doing.

now this leads me to into the mystery of lizzie telling bridget she might go out, etc. was lizzie in the act of going upstairs to change for going out when she found the body? so lizzie never did get dressed up for going out (i'm trusting churchill's description of what she was wearing).......

[Susan]

Yes that could be- but what is the "somehow?"
Why would the front door need to be found locked later? It spoils Lizzie's testimony to have to say of all days she never unlocked it. And it spoils a story of someone possibly getting in that way, to keep it locked after the deed. At least after Andrew is found Lizzie no longer needs a locked door, does she? I mean, Morse tried to convince people the spring lock didn't work, so he's trying to prove something loose about the front door locks...
So what do you think might be the "somehow?"

I'm not sure, but my thought is how that front door was found triple locked again and I don't think Andrew did that when he came in that day. Perhaps if Lizzie had a hired killer who left by the front door and was possibly seen by a witness, she could say, "O, no could get in or out that way, the front door was completely locked up." Yes, Bridget letting in Andrew shoots holes in that, because the door is then tampered with, but why all three locks done up again for the night that early in the day? Somehow it plays a part in her story, but the lady never quite explains it.

[Edisto]

Coupla points (well, three):

Mrs. Churchill testified that she didn't see Andrew's body, so she wouldn't have been horrified at the sight of it. She might have been horrified at the idea that he had been attacked, but not at the sight of the body. By choice, she wanted to remember him the way he was when she had seen him in his yard earlier that day. When Dr. Bowen invited her to view the remains, she declined. I don't blame her!

The "living room" at the Borden house was probably what we refer to as the "sitting room." That would be the room where Andrew was found dead. Lizzie used the term "living room" in her inquest testimony to describe where Andew was found dead. I doubt if it's true that "everybody" came to the Bordens' side door, although it sounds as if their intimates often did. If the front door and entry hall were never used, what would have been the use of keeping that door unlocked in the daytime, as was apparently the custom except on the murder day?

I have never been sure that Lizzie went through the dining room and opened a door from it to the sitting room, thereby discovering Andrew's body. She could just as easily have opened the door from the kitchen to the sitting room and discovered Andrew's body that way. Yes, I know she testified that she put her hat on the dining room table, but she could easily have doubled back into the kitchen, mere steps away. I've never found anything in the primary sources that clarifies exactly where Lizzie was standing when she saw Andrew's body. (I brought this up some time back, and everybody seemed to disagree, but I don't recall that anyone could offer any proof either way.) If Lizzie was standing in the kitchen, rather than the dining room, it certainly would have made sense for her to go to the back stairs and holler up for Bridget. No matter where she was standing when she discovered the body, it doesn't make sense to me that she would have walked or run past Andrew's body, gone to the triple-locked front door, undone all those locks, and gone outside to summon aid from a stanger passing on the street. Not when there was help right there in the house.

[Kat]

Here is Lizzie at the inquest, She mentions putting down her hat, but not where -but this is also that mysterious place where she states she pushed the door to the sitting room, which all seems very odd, as it opens inward to the dining room:

Q. When you came down from the barn, what did you do then?
A. Came into the kitchen.
Q. What did you do then?
A. I went into the dining room and laid down my hat.
Q. What did you do then?
A. Opened the sitting room door, and went into the sitting room, or pushed it open; it was not latched.
Q. What did you do then?
A. I found my father, and rushed to the foot of the stairs.
Q. What were you going into the sitting room for?
78 (35)
A. To go up stairs.
Q. What for?
A. To sit down.

--It does sound like a different door but the kitchen door also opens inward. The only murder door which pushes open is the guest room.
When Bowen comes Lizzie takes him to the dining room door to the the sitting room, as well, rather than going through the kitchen door to the sitting room.

[Haulover]

yes, kat, that's a good topic about the door. i remember it. i seem to remember it was susan who first noticed it -- that you can't push a door into the sitting room. we're certain the kitchen door could not be pushed into the room? (some are the opposite now to what they were then, right?)

ha. i even remember my brilliant idea that lizzie pushed open the guest room door to pry the axe out of abby before using it on andrew. yeah, that was it.

AND the hat.

we never got anywhere. the idea that the sitting room door was ajar and lizzie "pushed" it this way to enter---does that hold?

[Kat]

Yes Susan found that awkward phrase, which I love. That is another big mystery to me. Some developed decent arguments about word usage and intent, and praticed pushing doors open which actually were pulled toward one. But I was never quite convinced. Some were satisfied tho.

The doors are not "opposite" now, tho. The couple of doors which were interfered with in McGinn family days were put right. The correct floor plans prove this. Bill Pavao had posted correct floor plans based on Kieran's exhibits which are in de Mille's Dance of Death and the cellar one is in Knowlton Papers.

I did notice, with Bill, one time, that the Entry-way door to the back hall had two different latch-catchers (please see my pic, door closest to camera)- but that door is not on the original floor plans. I'm not sure when that door was added and it has been interfered with.
However, all doors to other rooms opening to the sitting room all open out of the sitting room.

[Susan]

Wasn't the house broken up into two apartments again at some point, like during the 1950s or 1960s? I seem to recall that someone had posted something like that, there was an elderly woman living on the second floor of the house. A relative of Martha McGinn's?

[Kat]

I wrote all about it in the last Hatchet issue, after getting newspaper sources and interviewing people on the phone.
I hope you get the magazine, Susan!

[john]

Kat brings up something REALLY interesting in her post of 7/12 at 7:05 PM. Why didn't Lizzie use the front door to yell for help, which she really never did, the neighbor called to her. Did someone else have the key necessary to open the front door? Lets say Lizzie says to someone - "no one can get in the front door right now - here is the key - it is necessary to get out. Leave it on the inside of the door." And so someone else has the key, but they leave by the back door with the key in their pocket.
And when the police try to open the front door they use Andrew's inside side key to do it and think nothing of it.

[Kat]

Is that the way the front door locks work? There needs to be a key? Inside and/or outside?

[john]

I think we went over that, but you might have missed it - for security, there is a third lock on a door which requires a common key, and can be used from the inside or the outside. The logic is to lock from the inside a deadbolt, which someone can also enter from the outside with a key. Most setups like this however, have a key nopass as well which would mean that by clicking a little switch from the inside no one could get in even with a key from the outside.
I always susperted Mr. Borden came at the nopass, and wondered what the women were doing, that they didn't see him coming.

[Susan]

I wrote all about it in the last Hatchet issue, after getting newspaper sources and interviewing people on the phone.
I hope you get the magazine, Susan!

Ah, yes, that is where I read it! Thanks for pointing me back to source, I reread your article in The Hatchet. So, I guess its possible that that door was added to the back hall to seperate the first floor as its own apartment in the 1940s.

[Allen]

There is not a known case of what could be called a "spurt" killer, that is someone who just kills somebody, with no violent history. Even the cases which are brought up against this notion when examined are found to have animal torture as a child or fecal eating, or some very unusual behavior, and Lizzie apparently had none of that.

I would like to know what kind of research you have done to back that statement up? Because I have done research on subjects such as this, and we have discussed these issues in class at great length. I have found that to be a myth. There are numerous cases of people with no prior criminal history, or history of criminal behavior, or odd behavior, who commit murder every day in this country. While there are a percentage of those who commit murder who do have these indicators in their backgrounds, it is not by any means a universal trait for all killers. I did a paper on Juvenile Homicide last semester, and what I found is that one of the most chilling facts about murder is this is occurring more and more. Perfectly sane people, with no history of mental illness or criminal behavior, are resorting to murder. But there have been countless cases through out history.

[Audrey]

It is not uncommon at all for someone to kill once and never again. If Lizzie did kill A&A she did not do it for the sake of killing them.. She did it for other reasons. If she could have pushed a button and made them die of natural causes she would have. I do not think she felt the need to physically kill them as much as she wanted them dead...

[john]

Just for starters do you think it is unusual for a girl to go along for 32 years with never a boyfriend? Do you think it's unusual to simply drop out of high school - the only one that did in that class? Do you think it's unusual to have never been employed? Do you think it's unusual to consider your sister normal who has the same stats?

[Kat]

I wrote all about it in the last Hatchet issue, after getting newspaper sources and interviewing people on the phone.
I hope you get the magazine, Susan!

Ah, yes, that is where I read it! Thanks for pointing me back to source, I reread your article in The Hatchet. So, I guess its possible that that door was added to the back hall to seperate the first floor as its own apartment in the 1940s.

I'm beginning to think you are on the right track about the back entry hall door.
At any time when the place was a 2-family house after 1893, that door could have been put there, removed, put there again. What it would accomplish then would be (as you propose)- that door would close off the upper story's portion of the house, and so then the front door would be for the family's use of the lower, or bottom story's use.
We were trying to figure that out a while ago, remember?
I saw a house once which was seperated and they just stuck a door at the top of the stairs, to shut the upper story family off from the lower.

[Kat]

I think we went over that, but you might have missed it - for security, there is a third lock on a door which requires a common key, and can be used from the inside or the outside. The logic is to lock from the inside a deadbolt, which someone can also enter from the outside with a key. Most setups like this however, have a key nopass as well which would mean that by clicking a little switch from the inside no one could get in even with a key from the outside.
I always susperted Mr. Borden came at the nopass, and wondered what the women were doing, that they didn't see him coming.

I didn't miss it- I just don't quite understand.
Here is Bridget at the Preliminary Hearing talking about the front door locks:
189
Q. What locks on the front door did you find locked when you let him in?
A. The bolt and a common key that I turned on both sides.
Q. Anythingelse?
A. No Sir.
Q. A spring lock?
A. Yes Sir. He had a key.
Q. He unlocked that from the outside?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. Was that spring lock set to lock the door up when it was shut?
A. Yes Sir.

--What does she mean about a common key and that she turned it on both sides?
Is this like a dead-bolt lock nowadays where you can lock it on the inside and if you take the key away it cannot be opened, nohow?
And what is the "both sides" to which she refers?
Does Andrew need a spring-lock key and a dead-bolt-like key?
Is this the kind of key which is suggested one keep in the inside door lock in case of fire?
Anyone?

[john]

Yes - Andrew would need a key to what she calls the spring lock. That would be what most of us consider a normal lock. The Borden's front door also had a deadbolt whick was keyed on each side, meaning that if you were on the outside without a key you couldn't get in, or if you were on the inside without a key you couldn't get out. It is a security function. The added feature of most dual key deadbolts is that by leaving the key in position on the inside, the outside keying won't function, or that there is a little inside switch which makes the outside key function not work. I'm not sure that the Borden's locks had these features, but I would say that they probably did. If not, we've gone over this lock stuff quite a bit anyway, and Andrew's not getting has been an issue.

[Susan]

--What does she mean about a common key and that she turned it on both sides?
Is this like a dead-bolt lock nowadays where you can lock it on the inside and if you take the key away it cannot be opened, nohow?
And what is the "both sides" to which she refers?
Does Andrew need a spring-lock key and a dead-bolt-like key?
Is this the kind of key which is suggested one keep in the inside door lock in case of fire?
Anyone?

I think what Bridget calls the common key would be the key that goes in the lock under the doorknob, a skeleton type key. I'm assuming this had a keyhole on the exterior of the door also that one could use a key to open. When Bridget says she turned it both sides, definitely Bridget speak, I think she means she turned it both ways in the lock. You know how when you turn a key in the lock all the way one way it locks it and you turn it all the way opposite and it unlocks it, perhaps Bridget wasn't sure which way to turn it as she normally didn't handle unlocking the front door?

Remember the order of the locks on the front door, heres a pic from the 1890s of the front door; spring lock, common keyed lock and then the slide bolt.




And a current pic, not the original locks, but, the same configuration.

[/quote]

[Kat]

Do you mean like this?
There is not a dead-bolt here, correct?

[john]

What you are calling a springlock is a deadbolt Also the keyhole is a deadbolt. The Bolt is of course, just a bolt. This"spring lock" definately would have a switch that made it impossible to open from the outside. I'm familiar with this particular lock, as is every locksmith. That opens up a lot - good job!

[Susan]

DEADBOLT: A lock bolt having no spring action, usually rectangular in shape, which is operated by a key or turnknob. It is locked against end pressure when projected. The deadbolt locking mechanism can be double cylinder, single cylinder, or single-sided.

• Double cylinder: A deadbolt that locks from the outside and the inside with a key on each side. This form of deadbolt is used to secure a door when the deadbolt itself is within arm's reach of a window. The intent here is to prevent a burglar from breaking open a window then reaching in and opening a deadbolt turnpiece from the inside.

• Single cylinder: A deadbolt that locks from the outside with a key and from the inside with a turnpiece.

• Single-sided: A deadbolt without exterior locking. It locks on the inside with a turnpiece.

So, the spring lock can't be considered a deadbolt, I don't think it had a bolt, all of the ones I have seen so far have had a latch. Didn't Morse mention that the latch didn't catch if you didn't close the Borden's front door hard enough? My parents had one of these "traditional door locks" on our back door and yes, it did have the little button you could slide to prevent someone from using a key to open the door. You also used this button to hold the latch open, keeping the door unlocked.



The keyhole under the doorknob is a mortise lock as it fits into a mortise opening in the side of the door. This lock can be considered a deadbolt as it surely has a bolt and no spring action.

The sliding bolt under the keyhole lock is just called a straight bolt. Hope that helps some Kat.

[snokkums]

That would make since, wearing pants. She wouldn't have the skirts getting in the way, nor getting messy. And also too, if the police found the pants, they could assume a man did it, or someone saw a figure wearing pants, they could assume that a man done the deed.

[Kat]

Thanks Susan!
Does the spring-lock take a key?
If no one unlocked the front door at all, does Andrew need at least 2 keys?

[Susan]

You're welcome, Kat. Yes, I believe the spring lock was keyed from the exterior of the door. From Lizzie's testimony and Emma's and even Morse's, that spring lock sounds like the main lock on the front door that was in use during the day and we know that Lizzie and Andrew both had one key to use to get in.

You ask a really good question. Obviously Andrew couldn't have opened that sliding bolt from outside the house, but, if it was just the other two keyed locks, hmmmm. I don't know if that lock under the doorknob was also keyed on the exterior, it may have only been keyed on the interior. Do we have any pics of the front door, what is currently there? There may be evidence that the lock under the doorknob was once keyed on the outside. Would Bill Pavao know?

[FairhavenGuy]

I have two out of three of these locks on my own exterior doors.

The spring lock uses a knob on the inside and a key on the outside. This is the only working lock we have on our back door, so you have to be able to open it from the outside with a key. (The back door used to have a deadbolt with the old style keyhole, too, but that no longer functions and we never even had the key for it.)

Our front door still uses the deadbolt with the old fashioned style keyhole and key. Most older doors only had this type of lock originally, so it, too, opens from the outside with a key. You also have to use the key to lock it from the inside. We have basically the same style locks on the bedroom and bathroom doors, though we never use them.

[Kat]

Thanks Christopher.
OK so that's 2 keys?
Well, when Mrs. Dr. Bowen said Abby told her they had taken her key, and john kept saying *keys*- maybe it was *keys*? Or else it was the spring-lock key that was taken, yes, because the keyhole key was usually unlocked in the day? If the 2 locks were locked, taking 1 key from Abby would keep her out of that door, right?
And when Andrew approached the front door to unlock it, he may only have tried 1 key before Bridget got there to open it? (Because he never expected to need the keyhole key because that was usually unlocked during the day..?)

Could the keyhole lock be the one Bridget refers to has having turned it from both sides? (Same key- outside and in.) Did she make a blunder?

[john]

My reference was that when Abby was talking about the front door only, she said "they have taken my key,"which could have meant many things including including they have taken my jewlery or something, but when she is talking about the front door she says "key," singularly. She could have meant keys, but just using the one door could have said "key," and I never said that she said they have "taken my keys." That she did just say "key," though is interesting, because it means there was normally only one key needed to get into the front door, as Kat said we are led to believe. Bridget, however, in spite of her lack of knowledge of the front door, speaks of a "common key." A common key has only one meaning - it is the same key used on each side of a lock, and obviously in the Borden's case, it is the skeleton lock. So that means that it of course could take two keys to get in at any given time, and although only one lock was supposed to be locked at the time Andrew arrived home, it would seem logical that after venturing through that door for most likely many years and having problems on the day he died, that the skeleton lock, the deadbolt was locked. This would also answer why Bridget had trouble with the locks because she didn't expect that to be secured. It also brings up Lizzie the lookout. When the FBI looked at this crime they didn't determine much, but they did say that an intruder would never have locked the front door. Now that doesn't tell us much but it does exclude some things. Would Emma be an intruder if she was going to leave by the front exit to her carrige. Would Uncle john be an intruder - how would he leave? Remember, the door couldn't be locked again behind someone leaving unless someone from the inside did it. Bridget wouldn't have been concerned with leaving. The real key is, would Lizzie have left the front door locked cancelling her only exit if she were caught? Say Uncle John or Miss Russell came in the back door while she was holding the axe, even if she killed them, she would wanr more than one exit.
Lets say Lizzie set the crime up. She wouldn't want a front exit. A rear one would be bad enough for an unknown. I'm thinking here just the crime of Abby, and probably rear entrance, rear exit (probably by cellar).
I think Lizzie suspected Andrew's crime too was coming, and that's why she tried to strike up a conversation with Bridget. Bridget said that Lizzie had never done that before. Lizzie tried in her way to keep Bridget downstairs but it didn't work.
So Andrew's now dead and the killer scoots and Lizzie's in shock - that answers almost half the legitimate questions of the case.

[FairhavenGuy]

If both the spring lock and the keyhole lock were locked, two different keys would be needed to get in. If the straight bolt were locked, one couldn't unlock that at all from the outside.

What tends to point to an insider for these murders is the fact that this family seemed to be overly security conscious. Three locks on the front door. The near obsession with the screen door hook having to be hooked at the side door. Even the locks used within the house to prevent access from "trusted" members of the household.

What's ironic about the triple locked front door, of course, in the days before alarms, is that all that was really stopping somebody from entering the house at any time were rather large panes of easy to break glass on all the downstairs windows. . . Any crazed maniac hell-bent on killing Andrew or Abby only had to smash a window to get in.

[Kat]

They would need a ladder.
Or just cut that screen door.
I don't think they were as careful hooking the side screen door as we've been led to believe.

I have a question for you guys who think there was another person involved in the actual killings. Do you know why Lizzie burned that dress and did the earlier robbery have anything to do with the later murder?
You don't have to answer both- but a good shot at one of these is fine.

[Audrey]

I think the robbery was more of a "hate crime" designed to remove things which may have been precious to A&A. It may have also been a control issue or a "beard" to cover a search. (wills?)

IMO Lizzie burned the dress to destroy incriminating evidence. It may have had paint on it which might be why she wore it to commit the crimes. (If she did it) she wouldn't risk her fine wardrobe!

[Kat]

Could the robbery have netted the info which culminated in the killings a year later? Maybe Lizzie robbed the desk for info but then hired a killer based on what she found out?

[john]

No, Andrew said what was missing, and could have drawn up a new will.
I always wondered if they really checked up on the railway tickets.