Poll: Was The Crowe Hatchet The Murder Weapon?

[RGJ]

On June 14, 1893, @10 months after the murders, a hatchet was found on the roof of a barn very near the Borden home. Without presenting the pro-con arguments, with which I assume most members here are familiar, simple question:

Do You Believe The Crowe Hatchet Was The Murder Weapon?

Same premise, someone has a gun, okay a hatchet, to your head, and your life depends on your opinion. No "I don't knows."

[Curryong]

I'm not 100% certain that this is the hatchet, but the way it was found, the gilt still on it, the way the carpenter hurriedly claimed it, makes it a likely candidate for me.

[irina]

I have felt this was the murder weapon for a long time. There are a lot of pros & cons and I won't say absolutely it IS the weapon but deep in my heart I have long believed it so. (Proving Lizzie's innocence of course. )

[mbhenty]

Yes: I too at one time considered the axe found on the Crowe barn.

But when you study it there are to many variables, including the one that police never made anything of it, dismissed it, found nothing on the Crowe property on the week of the crime

But let us look at the unique circumstance.

There is two huge, and I mean huge reasons why Lizzie did not do the killings. One is that she was found with no blood on her 10 to 15 minutes after her father was killed, and the other is that the weapon was never found. It would probably be easier for Lizzie to throw the axe over the fence and onto the barn, than for her to rid herself of the dress or blood evidence.


One thing we are sure of is that the yards behind the house were searched, including the Crowe yard. I think it was Dennis Desmond who checked out the Crowe property, and the roof of a barn would be one of the first places he would look. Police insisted the the Crowe search was thorough.

Another is that if the axe was in fact on that roof on the day of the crime, there were several buildings in the neighborhood with a view of the Crowe barn roof. It should have not taken all that time for it to be discovered. Police alone would have a perfect view of the Crowe barn from the top floor of the Borden house.

Papers later reported that someone came forward to claim the hatchet as his, a Mr. McDonnell (spelling?) who said he lost it when working for Dr. Chagnon.(the axe was found by a boy called Potter)

The timing was quite unique. For many years I thought that it may have been a prank. It possible, still could have been. After all, you can't believe everything you read in the papers. After all. Why would an axe someone used on Chagnon's property be on John Crowe's property.

Too many question, and the time to ask or investigate would have been on the day of the crime or when the Crowe axe was actually discovered.

An interesting little account about axes, including the Crowe axe, was published by Robert A. Flynn in 1992 called LIZZIE BORDEN AND THE MYSTERIOUS AXE. Though from what I remember it is incomplete, and doesn't even mention McDonnell. But it does mention the boy Potter, who found the axe, and it makes a case for the Crowe axe as being the weapon that killed the Bordens. (flawed, ignoring all the facts and newspaper accounts. Check Rebello for McDonnell)

Mr. Flynn was a very knowledgable historian and publisher. He should have known better. Why he chose to ignore McDonnell's account is suspicious. Flynn was from Fall River and should have known better. I knew him. He was a very shrewd fellow. He published Porters 1893 book in 1985 as a reprint of 1000 limited copies.

After it sold out, he republished the same exact book, but kept out the "limited copy page" and tried to say that the identical book was a different book. He was not truthful. So if you purchase a copy of Porter's book, and it say's that it is limited to 1000 copies, don't you believe it. And don't be surprise if you don't even find the limited edition page. I know this for a fact because I saw the second publication and spoke to Flynn about it. Flynn insisted that it was a different issue of his original book just because he ripped out the limited edition page. At the time I had already purchased 3 or 4 copies of Flynn's book as an investment. The book sold so well that he republished it. A very unethical, unscrupulous and dishonest move. Especially for a publisher and book dealer like he was, and for a collector such as myself. Perhaps he was the one who planted the Crowe axe.

[Aamartin]

I chose no, but I am really undecided

[irina]

The Crowe axe was noted to have been out in the weather. Perhaps it was THE weapon but someone else threw it up there long after the fact? Strange interlude.

[RGJ]

Yes: I too at one time considered the axe found on the Crowe barn. But when you study it there are to many variables, including the one that police never made anything of it, dismissed it..

The cops and prosecutors were ten days into a trial where they claimed something else was the murder weapon. The NY Times wrote on June 15 that the boy and his family were trying to reach the prosecutor but there was no response. A new murder weapon would have absolutely been those guys worst nightmare.

One thing we are sure of is that the yards behind the house were searched, including the Crowe yard. I think it was Dennis Desmond who checked out the Crowe property, and the roof of a barn would be one of the first places he would look. Police insisted the the Crowe search was thorough.

Fall River News the day after discovery:

"So far as is known no man has been on the roof within two years. Mr. Crowe knows of none; all telegraph, telephone, electric light wiremen, roofers and several photographers agree on this. The police did not visit it in their thorough search."

But let us look at the unique circumstance. There is two huge, and I mean huge reasons why Lizzie did not do the killings. One is that she was found with no blood on her 10 to 15 minutes after her father was killed, and the other is that the weapon was never found. It would probably be easier for Lizzie to throw the axe over the fence and onto the barn, than for her to rid herself of the dress or blood evidence.

I'm unclear as to why you would raise Lizzie here.

An interesting little account about axes, including the Crowe axe, was published by Robert A. Flynn in 1992 called LIZZIE BORDEN AND THE MYSTERIOUS AXE. Though from what I remember it is incomplete, and doesn't even mention McDonnell. But it does mention the boy Potter, who found the axe, and it makes a case for the Crowe axe as being the weapon that killed the Bordens. (flawed, ignoring all the facts and newspaper accounts. Check Rebello for McDonnell)
Mr. Flynn was a very knowledgable historian and publisher. He should have known better. Why he chose to ignore McDonnell's account is suspicious. Flynn was from Fall River and should have known better. I knew him. He was a very shrewd fellow. He published Porters 1893 book in 1985 as a reprint of 1000 limited copies. After it sold out, he republished the same exact book, but kept out the "limited copy page" and tried to say that the identical book was a different book. He was not truthful. So if you purchase a copy of Porter's book, and it say's that it is limited to 1000 copies, don't you believe it. And don't be surprise if you don't even find the limited edition page. I know this for a fact because I saw the second publication and spoke to Flynn about it. Flynn insisted that it was a different issue of his original book just because he ripped out the limited edition page. At the time I had already purchased 3 or 4 copies of Flynn's book as an investment. The book sold so well that he republished it. A very unethical, unscrupulous and dishonest move. Especially for a publisher and book dealer like he was, and for a collector such as myself. Perhaps he was the one who planted the Crowe axe.

Well -- bam -- in a court of law your opinion just got tossed for bias. And you say you are unclear on what is in the book, but you bought three or four copies?

I dunno you, dude, but it sounds like if Flynn said the sun rises in the east, you'd disagree.

[RGJ]

At the inquest, Desmond testifies that he clambered over the fence into Crowe's yard (this takes like four pages) and spoke to a few guys working there, and then went home for dinner from noon to 3:30 pm. He returned and went to the Borden's barn. There is a passing mention of the Crowe's barn, but no talk of searching it:

http://phayemuss.wordpress.com/preliminary-hearing-2/\

[mbhenty]

If in fact Lizzie used an axe one was never found. The Crowe axe could have been the axe. Unlilely, but it could have been.

And as for the murder weapon....... thought they had the the handless axe in court, they never really officially claimed, or proved that it was the murder weapon. Though they brought it to court and claimed that the murders were done with such an axe, they never really conclusively proved, or even maintained, or argued, that it was the actual murder weapon. The prosecution had nothing. Nothing! Not even the axe they brought with them. And they knew it.

For us to think that there was an axe on the Crowe barn roof, and that Police, spectators, neighbors, birds, or beetles, missed it,or that Lizzie would toss an axe into a yard full of workmen, would be extending possibilities to its limit. It was the most simple place to look for a weapon, if one was tossed in the air and over a fence. You throw something in the air, over a fence, where do you suppose it could land? Is it possible it could land on a roof, it probably could.

Are we to believe that police did not look there? But a young kid did, 10 months later, and found it? What's wrong with this picture? For an axe to be sitting on the roof for 10 months of a barn, and with multi level homes all around that looked down on that roof, well..... you are talking to someone who believes that Police are not the brightest people in the world, and even I believe that if the axe was on the Crowe barn that day, police would have found it. I have lived in countless apartment houses in fall river, on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4 floors. When you look out your window you get a good look at roof tops, believe me. And in those days, looking out the window rivaled watching TV.

And during the trail if the prosecution thought that the Crowe axe was the weapon they would have jumped at this disclosure, since they had nothing, nothing. The reason they did not, was because they were certain that it was not the axe. Even if they were not certain, if they could have made something of it they would have. And since they had "nothing on Lizzie" in the way of a weapon, the finding of the Crowe axe would have been in the prosecutions favor. Let us consider the timing, the trial was happening. What fortune.


Newspaper are one of he most reliable and unreliable sources we have. They reported that "So far as it is known no man has been on the roof within two years." Sensationalism. How would they know. Did they take up shop on the Crowe Roof. Newspapers many times just repeat what others say. Even the good ones are gossip rags. Competition for selling papers in 1893 was infinite. Most cities the size of fall river had three or four of them. It was do or die, print and be damed, more times than necessary.

And as for he book by Flynn book, The Mysterious Axe, I was being a bit disingenuous when I said I had not read it. I had. Back 22 years when I purchased it the month it was published.. It is really a pamphlet. And just for you, I went through it again tonight. It is only 16 pages long.Nowhere does it mention Carl Mcdonnell who came forward to claim the axe as his.

Flynn published several books on Lizzie Borden, through his own publishing company He knew more about this case than I did, I will not argue that. But it was an uneducated move for him to leave Mcdonnell out from his little book, The Mysterious Axe. If he did put him in it would enhance the book not take away from it.


Mr. Flynn did print extra copies of Porters book when it was suppose to be only 1000 copies. Out of Greed. Mr. Flynn screwed collectors. Just a fact. As a collector that is ripping people off. And as a dealer it was plain unethical.

I use to visit Mr. Flynns booth in book shows all over New England, mostly at the Cape in Massachusetts. I knew his stock. I knew how he operated. All that being said, he was a really nice guy to talk to. Grey haired gentlemen. Easy going guy. Laid back. And shrewd. I confronted him at a book show when I knew that the 1985 publication of Porter's book was sold out. He had a stack of them at the show. I asked him about them, and mentioned that I thought they were all sold. He specifically said to me, "that's a different edition." I told him that they were exactly the same book, to which he said, "no they are not, I left out the 'limited edition page'. That my friend is snake oil entrepreneurship.

[irina]

I find the Crowe barn hatchet interesting on for a number of reasons. It was on a roof that seems not to have had workmen upon it. A workman claimed the hatchet but we don't have any explanation how his hatchet got onto the roof or why it was there apparently for a long period of time as it was noted it was weathered. Like I said, people didn't have as much stuff as they do today. One couldn't go to WalMart and get another cheap hatchet. So if it was a work tool it had to be replaced and the cost of replacement could have been food out of family mouths.

One thought is that other workmen teased the fellow who owned the hatchet and threw it on the roof, but if so why didn't he find a way to retrieve it? Perhaps he left it behind at a work site and someone else threw it up there. Perhaps it was a hoax or joke perpetrated during the trial.

I think I have read in passing, and it makes sense to me that the prosecution wouldn't have wanted another possible weapon to come in so late because it would further weaken their case and make them look inept. But like we discussed on another thread, did the prosecution want to win?

I do think there is a possibility a workman from nearby could have perpetrated the murders for whatever reason. Perhaps he got caught swiping pears and was cussed out by Abby. Some people are like that, powder kegs waiting to explode.

[RGJ]

edited for disrespect

[RGJ]

I find the Crowe barn hatchet interesting on for a number of reasons. It was on a roof that seems not to have had workmen upon it. A workman claimed the hatchet but we don't have any explanation how his hatchet got onto the roof or why it was there apparently for a long period of time as it was noted it was weathered.

See....the thing to me is, and if any one knows, correct me, but the questions as to whether it had actually been there are of recent vintage. If anyone has identified precisely where it was, and precisely what the sitelines were from neighboring windows, and whether those windowns owners could/would/did look out at the roof....that I would like to hear.

Contemporary accounts seem to center on the workman, and the effect on thr trail, and whether there was blood on it....am I correct?

No one was saying "No way it was there for ten months!"

No one was saying "I looked at that rook every morning during my incestous masturbation!"

No one was saying "I looked at that roof every morning!" (simple version)

No one was saying "I own that barn, and someone has been up there every day for two years!"

What contemporary reports were saying was:

Daily News Bulletin:

Mr. Crowe knows of no one up there in two years

The police did not visit the roof during their thorough search

The police are "baffled"

That "everything has "gone up" for the prosecution in terms fo a conviction"

The fact that the workman said the hatchet was similar to one he lost there is not exculpatory to me of Lizzie, in fact it is damning. The workman did not say he tossed it on the roof, he just said he lost it.

So, anyone know a kleptomaniac in the neighborhood?

[mbhenty]

The information that was entered here has been removed as to improve the texture and complexion of this thread.

mbhenty

[Franz]

... This time I'm here to stay...

[mbhenty]

Yes Irina:

Anything is possible about the Crowe Axe.

But the suggestion that it could have been a hoax or a joke really feeds into the Crowe story.

When we talk facts we are talking about testimony, Inquests, prelims, and court and trail activities. More than not, that is where all the "real dependable fact" comes from on this case. And when it comes to the Crowe axe, all the information we have comes from the newspaper, and very little of it at that.

When you are dealing with newspapers you are dealing with much error, and in some cases, gossip. The man on the street, the person looking for their name in the paper, the reporter eager to uncover that all important story, etc.

One consideration we must entertain is the fact that the axe was found by a child, during the trail proceedings. What are the chances. How fortunate, what a lucky find, what timing, what a great story for the papers. There had to be some valid reason why there is no police or official transcript on the matter. The fact that it could have been concluded that it was a hoax is a very good one.

[mbhenty]

Thank you Franz!

I also brought all my friends with me.....

[twinsrwe]

... This time I'm here to stay...

YES!!!

[MysteryReader]

... This time I'm here to stay...

Yay! Me, too.

[Curryong]

Very very good to hear, mb. and MysteryReader!

[mbhenty]

Yes:

Thank you everyone.

I promise to try harder and be good.

But I must warn you. My word is worth much more than my promises.

Cheers.

[MysteryReader]

Thank you everyone.

I'll be here but maybe not posting much.

Happy hunting everyone...

[mbhenty]

Just a little formal note here.

On this tread I have posted some churlish and unmannerly remarks. Most derogatory and disrespectful language by me has been edited or removed as to improve harmony and for the darn stuff not to be floating around on the net for the next 92 years. Though they may be found or posted as a quote elsewhere. I have very little control over free speech. It is up to the poster as what he/she is comfortable with and what they would like to edit. I am fine with that. Hope everyone understands.

Thanks,
mbhenty

[debbiediablo]

I voted 'no' for an empirically valid reason : my husband owns and operates six farms in NE Iowa. We have more than a dozen barns of all sizes. Our neighbors are Amish so there are dozens and dozens of houses and outbuildings on the seven mile drive to the nearest town. There is no way a hatchet could be on the roof of any of these buildings without attracting notice. Every time the wind blows, men look for loose shingles. People observe birds and weather in ways not common to modern urban society. Given the attention paid to the Borden crimes and the surrounding area, the Crowe hatchet would've been spotted by someone with "spyglasses" (as my grandmother used to call them... ) before the end of the first week. Regardless of how well the police searched, the children in the neighborhood plus the journalists plus the curiosity seekers plus the local painters would've been equally thorough or more so.

[MysteryReader]

I agree Debbie about it would have been noticed. I can't remember how I voted.. lol!

[twinsrwe]

I voted 'no', for the same reasons that Debbie stated.

[mbhenty]

This crime is so baffling that we begin to search every possible scenarios

After we are done with the Crowe axe we explore other possibilities. After hitting stone walls and dead ends, we come back to the Crowe axe and deliberate upon whether it was the axe. But the possibility that it would have been missed, and the good fortune that it was found during the trial....... well, it compels us to realize that it could have been a hoax. Another determining factor is that there is no official investigation, or formal or legal discussion on the matter. Implying that it was dismissed by the legal system.

That Lizzie killed her parents, went to the back yard, threw the axe over the fence, then woke up the maid to give the alarm, makes no sense. Her parents were dead. The maid was sleeping. The best thing Lizzie could have done, or what I would have done, is go shopping, or out to Swansea, take the axe and bloody dress with me and dispose of it. She had the time. Remove herself from the scene. When you kill someone you don't stick around and call the cops. You remove yourself from the crime scene. Even if she let the killer in, she knew she did not do it, so it was safe to pull the alarm and play victim.

In school every class had it's pranksters. In a city as big as fall river, with over 75 thousand people at the time. There had to be one or two who thought about how funny it would be to throw an axe on the Crowe barn roof, especially since the trial had started and that was what everyone was talking about. How fortunate, what timing, that the axe should be discovered. Begs us to be suspicious.

Apparently police made nothing of it. They had information, facts, and details that we don't. Could have been anything, anything but the murder weapon.

But in the end when we don't know something, it makes your guess as good as mine, and we would all be wrong, and we would all be right, with the only alternative left to us to talk about it and study it. But puzzles with missing pieces make it difficult to see the who picture.

And this case has many pieces missing.

[Curryong]

McDonnell, though, didn't say that he'd lost his hatchet only a little time before. He said he had done some work for Dr Chagnon 'about the time of the murder or a little later' and had lost a hatchet. (Rebello Page 105) It was of weatherbeaten appearance, it was reported, as if it had been on the roof for a long time.

[mbhenty]

Thank you RGJ, at the end of the day we are all gentlemen.

[irina]

I decided to read the old papers to see if there were different versions of the Crowe hatchet story. There seems to have been a longer version though most papers settled on a one paragraph version.

In the longer version it mentions that the blade was rusted and when bits of rust were scraped away there was some gilt that appeared; "...slight coloring of gilt indicates the hatchet was once used as an ornament or was quite new when lost or disappeared." ('Waco Evening News', June 15, 1893)

The father of the boy who found it was C.C. Potter who was a clerk at the Fall River waterworks office. Abby Borden's niece "Little Abbie" eventually married a Potter as I think since her name at the time of the interview about Lizzie was Potter. None of this necessarily matters but it is interesting.

Considering the time of "finding" the hatchet on Crowe's roof, there is still room for a lot of questions. Perhaps the boy(s) found the hatchet somewhere and pitched it up on the roof. I suspect there is more to the story whether or not it has anything to do with the murders.

[taosjohn]

It was of weatherbeaten appearance, it was reported, as if it had been on the roof for a long time.

Or as if it had been exposed to the weather for a long time and moved to the roof recently?

[irina]

My update crossed with R's & got lost.

I checked out Potters in our search engine. Little Abbie married Charles Potter who was an executive with the National Biscuit Company, today known to us as Nabisco unless it has been gobbled up by a bigger conglomerate. I have no idea if Abbie's husband was from Fall River or not.

However Potter shows up in another intriguing way that is mentioned a number of times in various threads. I will choose "Lizzie's Privy" 8/14/04 as a reference. Investigators trailed out the rumor that Lizzie had been bulking up at a gym and bragging about it. The rumor seemed to go back to a Mrs. Potter and her sister Mrs. Dimon who were milliners on Fourth Street. These women got less than nice remarks from the investigator.

It may not mean anything and I don't have the genealogy capabilities to check anything out. Perhaps Potters were as thick as Bordens in Fall River. On the other hand it would be interesting to know if Mrs. Potter milliner who spread nasty rumors about Lizzie, was related to C. C. Potter, father of the Potter lad who "found" the hatchet on Crowes roof. If they were closely related I would then ask, what was the Borden tragedy to them, if anything?

[RGJ]

I'm going on memory but I believe Driscoll indicated the yard was sort of a pig sty, where stuff sitting around stands out a little less than we all might think.. Maybe there was some other odds and ends on the roof. Maybe the several houses with vantage points had older people without razor sharp vision correction.

Did anyone at the time comment on its visibility or lack thereof? If it was suspiciously visible, wouldn't you think they would?

[debbiediablo]

I'd think if there were other odds and ends on the roof then that would attract additional investigative attention especially by police who were disposed to dismantling a wood pile. As for old people without razor sharp vision, old people (especially back when sitting at the window and watching life go by was considered a retirement goal) know better what's going on than anyone in any neighborhood. My grandmother had a superb pair of German-made binoculars, and she would've spotted that hatchet in a heartbeat even though her uncorrected vision was poor.