What Time Did Abby Really Die?

[GwenKay]

Wow! Abby's time of death has bothered me for a while! I feel that the two victims were very different body types, and it is very possible to have different digestion times. I thought I was the only one thinking about this! So glad I found this forum! The people here get why this case is so captivating!

I do not think that Lizzie could possibly done the 2nd murder-she simply did not have the time to get herself together after committing a very bloody murder, cleaning up, breaking the axe/hatchet off of the handle; and appearing "too calm" to the police! Now I am not saying that she did not have knowledge the murders or was not complicit; of course we do not know this. I think it is possible she did not know about the murders, but I find it highly improbable. I absolutely do not accept that she carried out this whole thing by herself!

[InterestedReader]

I have not thought of the Borden's unfinished ceiling in the basement as being something that someone would be able to clearly hear a conversation from the rooms above. You have a good point; Lizzie or someone else could have hid in the basement, and heard everything that was said between Andrew, Abby and Uncle John.

Nor me, I don't remember anyone making this observation before, and it's an important one.

[NancyDrew]

My goodness, I meant no harm or offense, jersey. I was only observing that there were 2 different trains of thought going on, and that this is absolutely fine. I wanted to respond to the original, but still acknowledge what you were saying as well.

Hope you come back!

[twinsrwe]

Hello GwenKay. Welcome to the forum.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I can't say as though I agree with all that you stated, but I try to have an open mind in spite of my disagreements.

[NancyDrew]

I agree with GwenKay. I simply cannot put together a picture of Lizzie killing Andrew. The timeline is too tight, and there was no reported evidence that she carried on or with her the telltale signs of her supposed deed. It is the cleaning up part that bothers me the most. Andrew's face was, by all reports, hacked beyond recognition, and was very, very bloody. Supposing Lizzie had a covering on her clothing (his Prince Albert jacket..worn backwards, it's been said). What about her hands, fingernails, face, hair? They were said to be pristine.

OTOH, I absolutely can feature her murdering Abby, but this theory also is problematic. To my knowledge, from everything I've read, the only 'enemies' that Abby Borden had were her two step-daughters. No one else thought ill of the lady. And the very nature of her death, to me, at least, bespeaks a deep and passionate rage.

However, supposing Lizzie did follow Abby upstairs, fell her with one blow of the axe (the hinge-flap on her forehead suggest she was facing her attacker with the first blow) then practically sit on her and flail away at her stepmothers skull, she would have had blood spatter on her...both skin and clothes. So she must change, hide the clothes, secret away the hatchet, and THEN appear in front of her father and Bridget as if nothing had happened.

Abby's murder doesn't suffer from the tight timeline of her husbands. But it still presents challenges. Don't you (or anyone reading this) find it hard to believe she could murder her stepmother, VICIOUSLY, and then calmly change her clothes saunter downstairs (after giggling at Bridgets attempt to unlock the front door) and stroll into the sitting room, asking her father if there was any mail for her?

But I'm digressing here...sorry folks!!

[KGDevil]

The short answer that I have for whether I think LIzzie was capable of killing Abby, and then going downstairs to meet her father like nothing happened is, yes. I do think she could. History is full of killers who have lured their unsuspecting victims in with just such actions.

The only clean up that Lizzie had to do was on her own person. There wasn't any clean up of the scene. It was a brutal murder cleaning the scene would've been kind of moot. I've taken a complete shower in less than five minutes. Those buckets of bloody rags in the cellar were pretty convenient. She didn't even have to hide the clean up. Toss them in and claim it's that time of the month.

[KGDevil]

If she wore the coat on backwards, and a covering over her head, face and hands tops would be what got splattered. Face and hands can be washed in under two minutes. Why would she need to clean fingernails? I'm not getting that point. She would've been holding the hatchet. She wouldn't necessarily have been scratching at anything to get blood under her fingernails.

[InterestedReader]

There must be killers who plan and execute a murder all by cold-blooded strategy. No passion, no flipping out - the place and the time and the circumstances are chosen strategically. But what is the tendency when one family-member is killing other family-members? Does anyone have a general view of the statistics? Is it just as usual for family murders to be as planned as these are thought to be - efficient, is that the word? - or is it less usual?

I suppose I never understand the blend of dispassionate planning and the passionate 'overkill', both equally imputed to Lizzie. One seems to be at odds with the other. There's the popular idea she intended to kill Abby but once she'd done so it only then occurred to her Daddy wouldn't put up with it so he gets killed too. I'm not sure why, but that doesn't feel right to me. She could easily see Daddy wouldn't put up with it at any stage of the game, not only when he returns home that day... Coming home for lunch seems part of his routine. And even a psychopath, surely, would anticipate Borden's displeasure at finding she'd made mincemeat of his wife. Also she doesn't have much time to decide if her father lives, once he's home. She tries to pack Bridget off to the shops and when that fails she allegedly sees her pop upstairs for a quick nap - in those moments she must scrabble to decide and execute his death? Wouldn't this be anathema to a cold-blooded strategist?

[KGDevil]

There must be killers who plan and execute a murder all by cold-blooded strategy. No passion, no flipping out - the place and the time and the circumstances are chosen strategically. But what is the tendency when one family-member is killing other family-members? Does anyone have a general view of the statistics? Is it just as usual for family murders to be as planned as these are thought to be - efficient, is that the word? - or is it less usual?

I suppose I never understand the blend of dispassionate planning and the passionate 'overkill', both equally imputed to Lizzie. One seems to be at odds with the other. There's the popular idea she intended to kill Abby but once she'd done so it only then occurred to her Daddy wouldn't put up with it so he gets killed too. I'm not sure why, but that doesn't feel right to me. She could easily see Daddy wouldn't put up with it at any stage of the game, not only when he returns home that day... Coming home for lunch seems part of his routine. And even a psychopath, surely, would anticipate Borden's displeasure at finding she'd made mincemeat of his wife. Also she doesn't have much time to decide if her father lives, once he's home. She tries to pack Bridget off to the shops and when that fails she allegedly sees her pop upstairs for a quick nap - in those moments she must scrabble to decide and execute his death? Wouldn't this be anathema to a cold-blooded strategist?

What I think is that Lizzie had thought about killing Abby for a long time. A person can come up with many scenerios for doing something, plan it, fantasize about it, but never really put it into action. Think about things like if, "I killed her this way then I'd could do this afterward." Or, " If I bashed her head then I'd need to do this and that after the deed." Because she daydreamed about it, maybe even had elaborate plans, but never acted on it. Don't we all have something that we fantasize about, a what if, but never really put into action? Until that one day, that perfect storm, that final straw that broke the camels back that allowed her to do it. Then she'd have all of that pent of rage that had been building and simmering for all of that time which allowed for the violent attack. But she'd also have some sense of what she was doing. I think it being done in the heat of the moment, and being planned ahead, can almost be the same thing. And if it was premeditated, no matter how well you plan something, you can never plan for everything. You can never plan for what other's are going to do in any given moment, or for things that go wrong, or any of the details that may not go off as you saw them in your mind.

[NancyDrew]

You all make excellent points. IR: The planning doesn't jibe with the overkill...I agree with you. I don't think that anyone planned on whacking Abby 19 times...more like once it got started, the killer had a hard time stopping; the rage took on a life of its own.

And KG: I also agree that Lizzie may have been fantasizing about killing Abby for a while. Planning to kill her father as well? Hmmm. It's been almost accepted as fact that he was killed because

1. His death AFTER Abby's meant his estate and money went to Lizzie and Emma, and not to Abby's relatives and/or...

2. He would have totally freaked finding his wife murdered, put 2 + 2 together and blamed Lizzie. I think there is a 3rd possibility. She hated BOTH of them (for different reasons) and planned on killing them both. Or convincing someone else to do it.

I have a question here: I know that a great deal of attention went into studying and cataloguing every single wound on both of the victims...the locations, size, etc. Was or COULD it be determined, by the depth of the wounds, if the same hand felled both people? Because I can see perhaps Lizzie killing Abby, and someone else murdering Andrew....on Lizzie's behalf or behest. Thoughts?

[NancyDrew]

P.S.

The reason I ask about the possibility of two killers is because of the Rage-Calm-Rage scenario. I can't feature Lizzie, or anyone, being able to pull off that behavior UNLESS they were mentally damaged, as in a sociopath (or psychopath, whatever the appropriate term is nowadays...no emotion, incapable of empathy, born w/o a conscience, etc.)

And IF Lizzie were a sociopath, why was her life relatively drama free after the murders? Except for befriending a movie star (Nance) and having a big fight with her sister, Lizzie was pretty boring. Limo rides, theater trips, tripe and mushrooms for dinner, lots of charity to animals, neighborhood kids, the servants. That doesn't make sense either. The 'before' Lizzie and the 'after' Lizzie. The former was capable of murdering two elderly people in a gruesome, vicious, barbaric manner, the latter was making jellyrolls and rescuing puppies.

This case is so full of twists, turns, & contradictions. No wonder we are still discussing it 125 years later...

[KGDevil]

I'm not sure if a coroner could tell by the size and depth of the wounds if there were two killers. But it's an interesting question to ponder.

[NancyDrew]

Referring to the autopsies of Andrew and Abby (http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f ... psies.html,

I looked at every one of the 11 blows Andrew suffered...out of the 11, at least 5 of them were 4 inches long; accounting for over 45% of the wounds. The smallest was 1/4 inch in length; one was 1 inch, one was 3 inches, and rest were approximately 2 inches long.

Now, compared with Abby's wounds (eighteen of them), only ONE is over 4 inches long. 45% of her wounds (8 of them) are at least 2 inches in length, but not more than 2 3/4. Another 45% are approximately 1 inch in length. She has one wound that is 5 inches long, reaching form the midline of her head to her ear (not sure which one.)

I think this is interesting. Andrew's wounds are longer, and of course, there are less of them. Abby's head and skull are full of small cuts. Is this because the killer was sinking the instrument into the BACK of her skull, and it was harder to penetrate, whilst Andrew's blows were to the side of his face and upper skull, where bone might be thinner? Or does this speak to anyone of the possibility of two killers? Thoughts?

[KGDevil]

NancyDrew, I think that's an interesting question about the size and depth of the wounds. I'd first have to ask myself what we really know about the murder weapon, or weapons. What were the dimensions? And the angles at which the killer was swinging during the attack? Did they have room to swing back fully, or were they hindered in some way during Andrew's attack? There are several variables to consider. But it's a very interesting question.

[KGDevil]

I thought this was interesting food for thought about the question of how calm someone could have remained after committing a brutal murder.

Boston Weekly Globe for Wednesday April 28, 1880.

[InterestedReader]

Does it suggest the assailant is closer to Abby's head - perhaps as they thought at the time, straddling her body? Then with Andrew the assailant is standing above a recumbent body, so the weapon's ambit of travel is larger, takes more time, but gathers more force from the momentum?

[Marchesk]

A big problem with Abbie being killed closer to the time Andrew was is that would mean she would have stayed upstairs for an hour or more for no good reason, possibly even after Andrew comes home. If Lizzie is innocent, then we take her inquest statements as truthful, as far as she could remember events. That means Abbie went up there to to place two pillow cases, which wouldn't take long. She had received a note to visit a sick friend, and was planning on going to the market. She also wasn't in the habit of using the guest bedroom for sewing.

So there's no reason for Abby to stay up there all that time. Nor is there any reason for her to leave, come back and then go up to the guest bedroom. If she had, Lizzie should have heard her coming and going. That pretty much rules out Abby being killed later. She was up in that guest bedroom the entire time because she was killed earlier somewhere in the vicinity of 9:30 as the investigation determined.

As for Andrew's killing, whoever did it had little time to cleanup before making a quick getaway while not leaving any sort of bloody trail. Lizzie would have had more time with some control over when to call for Bridget to come down. It's interesting how Lizzie hears the groan and scraping noise right before returning to the house. That would have meant her 20 minutes in the barn eating pears and searching for lead concluded just as the killer was finishing and making their getaway. How convenient!

[PattiG157]

I have always thought that Abby might not have died that early. According to what I've read (which may or may not be correct), the coroner had a thermometer in his pocket when he got to the Borden home but decided not to use it. He just did a physical exam only. We know Abby was killed first because the blood had coagulated and was dark, but that doesn't necessarily mean she died around 9 or 9:30. Using a thermometer would've given him a more accurate timeframe, but since he didn't use it, we'll never know for sure. Just a thought!

[Fargo]

Perhaps the warmer temperature on the second floor wasn't taken into consideration. The extra heat would dry up her blood faster.