Exploring the David Anthony/Ruby Cameron theory

[Curryong]

Ooh, by the way, I never knew Mr Pettey said things about Lizzie. When, where, how!

[Catbooks]

i just found that bit

by nbcatlover » Fri Aug 12, 2005 10:21 pm

Rebello's book quotes George Ambrose Petty as saying "Lizzie is known to be ugly" but in the context of sanity in the Morse and Borden families. I always assumed that it was her moods or dispostion which could turn ugly. I just could never understand in what context Pettey knew her.

she wasn't physically ugly, as we can see from her photos, so i'm with nbcatlover in thinking he must have meant her moods or disposition in general.

[Curryong]

Yes, agree.

[debbiediablo]

Now we have two people who mention a man as the killer. One is Ruby, and the other is Bridget who tells a police officer that she fears that "horrible man" will come back and kill her, too. David Anthony doesn't sound "horrible" but if he did hatchet both Bordens to death, then that's pretty horrible. Bridget also opens the door for Billy Borden or some other unidentified "horrible" man. Just when I'm about to dismiss Ruby as lacking credibility, Bridget says something to make me reconsider...if not the Anthony theory then at least Lizzie's complicity. The fact that this never made it to trial for the defense leaves me wondering if she really said it.

[Curryong]

I think Bridget probably did say it, but I also think that she didn't mean any specific man. That is, that she didn't know who the murderer was.

She was genuinely frightened by the homicides and pretty well refused to sleep in the Borden house again, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she suspected anyone. In those first few days and nights following the murder the whole town was terrified of an axe-wielding monster on the loose.

Emma later in her life is reputed to have said "One day they will come for me!" meaning bogie men with axes/hatchets in the dark, men who killed first Abby then Andrew for some unknown reason. Why should a simple poor, servant girl be any different?

[debbiediablo]

It's the semantics that makes me think she meant exactly what she said. "That horrible man" means something different to me than "he" or "they" or "the killer" or the "@&!#^@"...when I listen to "that horrible man" in my head, it has far more specificity.

[Curryong]

I've been rooting around in the archives again in my usual way, for stuff on Bridget! When I first joined the Forum I copied but never posted a statement of Bridget's in which she said that sometimes she would talk of Ireland to Abby and when she got fed up at times she would say she wanted to go back. Abby would try and dissuade her and say "I shall be lonely if you go". So Bridget never had the heart to leave. It's clear there was a warm bond between them.

Harry also posted some interesting things on Bridget in the thread 'Bridget' of November 2010. (Near the bottom of Page 9 of the threads.)

This includes a small piece on June 26th 1893, in an interview with Charles Holmes, husband of Marianna (defence witness for Lizzie.)

'How about the truth of the story to the effect that Bridget Sullivan will return to work for the Borden sisters? "The story is not true.
Bridget Sullivan and the Borden sisters have had no communication with each other since the trial. Furthermore, Bridget is superstitious enough not to be willing to return to a house where murder has been committed. Why, she wouldn't stay there last August, was kept there by the police a day or two, I believe and then departed for good."

[Catbooks]

It's the semantics that makes me think she meant exactly what she said. "That horrible man" means something different to me than "he" or "they" or "the killer" or the "@&!#^@"...when I listen to "that horrible man" in my head, it has far more specificity.

it does to me too. did she, at that point, have some reason to think it was a man who killed abby, if not both? because she knew, or because lizzie said or implied it?

i remember reading emma said that about 'them' coming for her someday. but 1) we don't know for certain she said it and, 2) honestly it sounds more like dementia than anything to do with the murders. why would anyone want to kill quiet-living, close-mouthed emma? if she were speaking about two or more people having killed her parents, there would be no reason for her to speak out against 'them' at that point in her life.

i'll bet abby would have been lonely if bridget left. that would have left her alone with lizzie and emma treating her poorly, and her cold fish of a husband.

thanks for finding that article about lizzie and bridget having no communication, up to june of '93. if they hadn't at that point, it's unlikely they ever did again.

[debbiediablo]

[
i remember reading emma said that about 'them' coming for her someday.

I always took this to mean the police were coming for her for due to complicity in the murder or her paying off people after the fact. If money did exchange hands (and I'm not convinced that it did...but I'm also not convinced that it didn't either) then it was Emma who did the deed. She had control of the estate, and Lizzie was in jail.

[Catbooks]

[
i remember reading emma said that about 'them' coming for her someday.

I always took this to mean the police were coming for her for due to complicity in the murder or her paying off people after the fact. If money did exchange hands (and I'm not convinced that it did...but I'm also not convinced that it didn't either) then it was Emma who did the deed. She had control of the estate, and Lizzie was in jail.

huh, interesting. i'd never considered she thought it was the police coming for her one day (if she did say it). because of the bars on the basement window of maplecroft. they wouldn't have been very helpful in keeping the them-police away.

[debbiediablo]

[
i remember reading emma said that about 'them' coming for her someday.

I always took this to mean the police were coming for her for due to complicity in the murder or her paying off people after the fact. If money did exchange hands (and I'm not convinced that it did...but I'm also not convinced that it didn't either) then it was Emma who did the deed. She had control of the estate, and Lizzie was in jail.

huh, interesting. i'd never considered she thought it was the police coming for her one day (if she did say it). because of the bars on the basement window of maplecroft. they wouldn't have been very helpful in keeping the them-police away.

And I never thought of it your way...to me the bars looked more along the line of keeping the 1890s version of keeping Peeping Toms, paparazzi and potentially purloining people from popping through a pane. Okay, that was puerile....it's a perfect 50 degrees today, and I feel positively perky.

This is all Curryong's fault for using the word purloined.

[Curryong]

Too much reading of Victorian literature! I remember saying once in the course of conversation "and was she penitent?" much to the amusement of friends! I do like the Victorian expression 'bow-wow mutton' though, as that's exactly what the frugal Borden household were enjoying (ha) before the murders.

I wonder whether anyone ate anything on the day of the murder? No-one probably felt like eating but you would think something would have to appear in the way of a scratch evening meal. Mutton broth, anyone?

There has always been a theory, hasn't there, that if anyone conspired together to hire someone to kill the Borden parents it would be Lizzie and Emma, as they would never betray each other. The only thing against it though is that Emma would'nt have allowed her problem child, her responsibility, to go to trial, with the possibility of being hanged.

[SallyG]

There really has never been any evidence that there was any relationship between David Anthony and Lizzie at the time of the murders. The meat wagon and clean-up crew were never spotted after the murders, and the time frame would not have fit. As for Gramma, I remember her postings at that time...I can't remember how legitimate they seemed...I would have to go back and reread them. I do know that in the years past, we had people claiming they were someone they were not.

[Catbooks]

i wished i'd been around here when gramma was posting. not sure how long she was around, but it must have been during a period when i wasn't visiting at all. she sounded pretty convincing to me. at least that *she* believed ruby. it would make me feel a bit sad if she (or he?) had been claiming to be something she (or he) wasn't.

[debbiediablo]

Gramma seemed sincere to me while reading her archived posts...but I tend to give all people benefit of the doubt in all things. Possum made a good point regarding this: people can truly believe what they're saying when it's not supported by fact if it's third hand information. The brutality of the act is what keeps me from being 99.9% that Lizzie did it. In the annals of female murderers, most of them were poisoners, smotherers or drowned their children. Very few butchered their victims. The ones that did were usually killing an abusive partner, not a parent.

[Curryong]

That is quite true, debbie,,mespecially for her time and place. The vast majority of female killers at that time used poison to kill their victims, with those victims being inconvenient husbands, lovers and children. Lizzie really is unique.

I suppose one reason for her not attempting poison is that Bridget did the vast majority of the cooking, with Abby picking up the slack. Even after the murders Alice Russell cooked breakfast the next day. So, it would have looked remarkably suspicious if she had started hanging around the kitchen. Even if she had managed a moment alone in there and popped a pinch of arsenic in the soup or something, that would have been much too random. What if it had killed Andrew and they would have been left with Abby?

She doesn't seem to have had any access to firearms, perhaps at Swansea, but not at Fall River. Who knows, if Andrew had possessed a pistol she may have used that.

To me, though others disagree, Lizzie hurried her schedule for murder up. John Morse's visit may have had something to do with it. Perhaps she became convinced that he was going to be asked to witness a new will or transfer of property, and therefore murder had to be done before that could be accomplished.

She did not regularly chop wood but she had done so when holidaying and picnicking with friends. She was quite agile and strong, so she grabbed a weapon to hand, a hatchet.

[Catbooks]

Gramma seemed sincere to me while reading her archived posts...but I tend to give all people benefit of the doubt in all things. […]

i do too, so maybe we're not the best judges of gramma, lol.

i didn't realize lizzie was so unique amongst women killers. i still think she sneaked up on andrew, with his face in the opposite direction. i don't know that i think she could have done it if she'd been facing him. abby maybe, but not andrew.

[Curryong]

I often think that, if in the grip of a tremendous rage, Lizzie would have been quite capable of literally strangling Abby with her bare hands. She wouldn't have been able to tackle Andrew in the same manner!

As far as female killers are concerned Lizzie seems to be on a little plinth of her own. There was a British murderess of the 1870's who was a very unstable and bad tempered Irish Cook. She went for her elderly employer in a rage, chopped her up into small pieces and then tried to sell her clothes and possessions. However, most female killers of the day preferred the far less energetic alternative of poison. "Another cup of cocoa, dearest?"

[debbiediablo]

If Lizzie did do this, then I don't think it was money that entirely motivated the murders. The method was too brutal, chopping a face to pieces is very personal and both of them were overkilled. Being the grip of that tremendous level of rage looks like something more than father is changing his will.

[Catbooks]

the overkill of both of them (along with many other things) has always been a big part of why i've thought it was lizzie. so i was taken aback when i read the portions of that book you posted about staged and unstaged murders, where one of the instances was a man who thought his employer had shorted him on wages, and overkilled.

up until then, when i thought of overkill, i thought of the bordens, and nicole brown simpson and ron goldman - where the rage was very personal, the victims well known to the murderer.

[Curryong]

In a way, though, that rage WAS personal, wasn't it? An assault had been made, in his mind, upon his self-worth as a man and breadwinner, as well as an employee!

[Catbooks]

i suppose in a way, but the relationship was brief. how personal could it be? it's not like there were years of disagreements, hurts, and festering resentments that had built up.

[Curryong]

Yes, that's true. Perhaps he just had a strong sense of entitlement, like you-know-who!

[debbiediablo]

In a way, though, that rage WAS personal, wasn't it? An assault had been made, in his mind, upon his self-worth as a man and breadwinner, as well as an employee!

I agree. Individuals are entirely different about they take personally and sometimes inflate into a huge transgression.

[Catbooks]

In a way, though, that rage WAS personal, wasn't it? An assault had been made, in his mind, upon his self-worth as a man and breadwinner, as well as an employee!

I agree. Individuals are entirely different about they take personally and sometimes inflate into a huge transgression.

if that's true, then overkill doesn't mean much.