Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I was addressing the question of why so many forum members adopt the perspective that Lizzie was unusually calm after the murders. I'm still waiting for most of them to chime in. I can only explain it from one point of view.

Shelley brought up a good point earlier about Lizzie shutting herself away from the activities after the murders. That also strikes me as odd, I would be intensely interested in finding the murderer if it happened to me. I think being available to answer questions or helping the police search the premises might be a positive step toward that goal.

Am not good with timelines, but wasn't Abby found about 11:30, and Lizzie upstairs, changed and on the fainting sofa by noon shooing policemen away who wanted to search her room? Come to think of it, I would have been more like Uncle John, I think I would want OUT of that house and would have found some cool air under the pergola outside in the back yard while people were running all over my house.

The timeline sounds reasonable Shelley. What would closing herself in her room accomplish for Lizzie? One possibility is it might forestall or inhibit a thorough search of Lizzie and Emma's rooms. Ordering Lizzie out of her room while a search was made might have been a breach of Victorian etiquette under the circumstances.

Yes, it would have been a breach, seeing as how the minister and doctor hovered solicitously nearby. Who but a CAD would have pressed himself on a distressed and faint gentlewoman? I would LOVE to know what was rolled up on the floor of Emma's closet. I would have risked insulting Miss Borden and bolted like a rabbit right over to the closet and shook that thing out right in front of them all! Lizzie could have swooned to high heaven!

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Sequestering herself also may have prevented having to answer random and disjointed questions from various people. It is difficult to remember what was said to whom. It is much easier to deal with an interviewer one on one than with several haphazardly. The most effective witness against Lizzie was Lizzie herself, and her defense team seemed to share that notion when they petitioned to have her Inquest testimony disallowed in court.

I'm not real sure how to put this, so I'll do it this way.......imagine that another murderer had been caught, tried and convicted. Now look at Lizzies behavier in that light and it isn't really out of line at all. Her father had been brutally murdered, even though she had seen it for herself, she still couldn't come to grips with it yet.....she had lost control of what was happening, people she didn't even know were in her home wandering around, people she did know were smothering her, too close, too personal, patting, fanning, asking questions, etc. She hadn't come to terms with what had happend herself yet, how could she help anyone else? She had to distance herself from the chaos, up to the relatively normal quiet of her room, where she busied herself doing something.....changeing her clothes, not so much that it needed doing as it was a normal, unthinking quiet thing she could do away from all that was going on downstairs kinda thing. Like when she told Mrs. Churchill she had to make the funeral alone, she had skipped right over what she had lost control of to grasp what she could control, she not only left out Mrs. Borden, she also left out Emma her elder sister. Now had she said "oh what shall we do, Emma and I will have to arrange a funeral" I'd say she had knowledge that Mrs. Borden was already dead and wouldn't be planning anything any more. She was grasping at something pertaining to what had and was happening that she could have control of.......if you see what I mean? Ok enough, everyone out there grinding your teeth, raise your hand>

If I murder someone, I want YOU for my attorney!

If someone else had been caught and charged with the murders, Lizzie would still need to explain how she knew Abby was dead and how she knew where she would be found. Lizzie would still need to explain why she was unaware of an intruder and the necessary movements of that person to bring about the murders, in addition to why she didn't miss Abby that morning. Lizzie would still be a strong suspect as an accessory.

Lizzie may have retreated to her room to escape the chaos, that's another possibility. If she thought she was losing control, maybe she wanted some privacy. But if she was at some emotional brink, pushed to the point of losing control, why would she appear so calm and collected to Harrington? Why not take him up on the offer to postpone the interview? I think a false front of calmness by an agitated person would be given away by body language or voice anomaly at some point, Harrington noticed Alice Russell's agitation.

I'm not grinding my teeth, shakiboo . I think you make a very valid point. Over the years I've seen my share of people experiencing sudden trauma who attempted to cling to normalcy by trying to accomplish a task. Lizzie worrying about the undertaker struck me as one of those incidences.

If one is convinced of Lizzie's guilt, then of course her actions are colored by that conviction. However, if one has doubts, one affords Lizzie the benefit of those doubts until a resolution is reached.

By the way, in addition to the four witnesses who saw Lizzie directly after the murders and testified as to her distraught condition, we have Dr. Bowen prescribing bromo caffeine and morphine to calm her during the next few days and Mrs. Holmes testifying that she was tearful on the day of the funeral.

So the ratio is now six to one that Lizzie was distressed. Can we find anyone else to support Harrington's contention that Lizzie's demeanor was unnaturally cool under the circumstances?

I think Lizzie at the time she talked to Harrington had just completely emotionally shut down. She showed no emotion what so ever. Why didn't she postpone that interview? Because she wanted it done and overwith, she didn't want to have to deal with it again at another time. She just wanted it done. Why was Alice Russel agitated and fidgiting. Because she could, there's no way that what happend could effect her to the degree it would effect Lizzie. Evidently Dr. Bowen was conserned enough for Lizzie that he prescribed something to calm her, why would he do that if indeed she was perfectly calm and in control? Not only for that time but for quite awhile afterwards.

Shelley, I hope that was a compliment....lol but I just have to know, were you grinding your teeth when you wrote it?

Oh Diane sorry, I must have been writing that post and totally missed yours.....thanks for not grinding your teeth! lol I just think there was alot more that went on that we just don't know about. And I think Harrington had a personel dislike for Lizzie, for what-ever reason.

On what exactly are you basing the “personal dislike” of Lizzie by Harrington, shakiboo? Can you explain that a little?

I wish I had a better answer for that Dougoh, I went back and re-read his questioning of her and then what he said later "I don't like that girl" and then when asked to clarify that answer he said "she doesn't act in a manner to suit me" I just got the impression that it was a little more personel. It had been awhile since I read it, and it had just stuck in my head that he didn't like her.

Thanks. shakiboo, for saying that Lizzie's behavior makes sense to some of us who have experienced severe losses in our lives. I don't know that Harrington had a personal dislike of Lizzie, per se, but perhaps a general dislike for her "class."

As a policeman, he has an agenda to catch the murderer and calm the public's fears. There are only 2 people there--the one from the ruling class and the working Irish lass who is one of his own. Guess which one he picks? I'm not sure that some of the police really looked beyond the household. Everytime I read the witness interviews, I am dumbfounded by the questions they DON'T ask. If you think you are going to get an answer you won't like, you never aks the question. That's how I feel the police operated during the investigation.

Nahhh, your answer is just fine, shakiboo!

I meant that you make a sympathetic case for Lizzie, which I could almost buy Shakiboo.

Yes, it does depend on whether you think she is innocent or guilty as to how you interpret her stress or lack of stress at times. Guilt can sure produce stress as could circumstances going very wrong, circumstances escalating to the point of murder when you had not planned that, or fear of suspicion if you are innocent, fear of being found out, or just plain stress at the situation whcih would rattle most normal people.

In over 50% of domestic murders, patricides or murders of mothers, profilers will look to an adult child or relative living in the house. Police saw all sorts of disturbing things now and back then, and probably arrived at the house with the notion that someone within that house, statistically, could have done the killings. The fact that Lizzie was more than a cut above some of the rowdy residents on the wrong side of the tracks might have bought her more respect and a degree more remote from suspicion than a mill worker- but a good cop has a sixth sense and a good nose for sniffing out things which don't quite gel. My hero Bill Medley sure had his doubts about the story he heard,-enough to do his own little investigations.

Once I was trying to be seated on a murder trial jury and had made the last cut but one. When the judge leaned over the bench and looked me in the eye and asked "Do you believe a police officer could tell a lie?"-
I had to say "Yes, I do- and even a judge, under the right set of circumstances because they are all human beings". First he looked a little wide-eyed, but then smiled and nodded. I was dismissed by the defense team-and was disappointed.

Harrington might have lied, or been prejudiced, for reasons we may not know- or Lizzie could also have feigned certain behaviors which she thought might be to her advantage or which she thought might be expected from her by the police. This is what captures us all- we just don't know and never will know what really went on that morning upstairs and downstairs, behind closed doors, to various people.

You got struck from the jury pool for that wonderful answer? That's terrible! It sounds like you did make the cut with the judge though, and that in itself says something, huh??

nbcatlover @ Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:35 pm wrote:Thanks. shakiboo, for saying that Lizzie's behavior makes sense to some of us who have experienced severe losses in our lives. I don't know that Harrington had a personal dislike of Lizzie, per se, but perhaps a general dislike for her "class."

As a policeman, he has an agenda to catch the murderer and calm the public's fears. There are only 2 people there--the one from the ruling class and the working Irish lass who is one of his own. Guess which one he picks? I'm not sure that some of the police really looked beyond the household. Everytime I read the witness interviews, I am dumbfounded by the questions they DON'T ask. If you think you are going to get an answer you won't like, you never aks the question. That's how I feel the police operated during the investigation.

To others of us who have experienced severe losses in our lives, Lizzie's apparent ability to change her demeanor so effectively defies reason.

I expect the police officers valued their jobs, took pride in being a cop. The quickest way I can imagine to jeopardize their jobs would be to put the wrong person behind bars and allow a murderer to go free and continue killing. The public was certainly interested in a swift apprehension of the perpetrator, but only if it was the right one. Framing Lizzie to provide the public with a quick and sloppy solution to pacify them is foolishness.

Yes, Doug, -I did like that judge- and we had a really good time talking over the Borden case, along with the prosecution team. I made the mistake of telling them all the jobs I have when asked what I do for a living. The church secretary part pleased the defense, but the Lizzie Borden B&B job part pleased the prosecution! The defendant just looked uneasy.

Well, had I been Lizzie, I think the smart move, if she were guilty, would have been to play dazed and confused. Once I got mugged in an underground parking lot. It all happened so fast, I was just staring aimlessly when the police arrived.
What I did learn about myself though was that I am unconsciously a good observer without realizing it, because my description led to the perps being picked up 30 minutes later. But my reaction to the violence was to be very still, processing it in slow motion. Seems as if most people either get hysterical, cry, tremble, faint, scream, or else get very detached, and process it all inwardly which gives the impression they are in a fog and dazed. Maybe it is delayed shock. Lizzie could have done a big swoon and passed the day on the fainting couch . Actually, thanks to Bowen, that is pretty much what she got to do thanks to bromo-caffeine and 2 guardians at her gate. As Agatha Christie used to say, people always give themselves away when allowed to talk too much.

Mugged? How terrible that must have been for you! Glad they caught the buggers! Thanks for the compliment, it's just that we all handle things so differently, saying Lizzie was cold and unfeeling could have been way off base, especially if she took it all inside and was unable to show it outside.