Lizzie Borden Society Forum

On Friday, October 16, at 7:00 p.m. the Fairhaven Historical Society presents "Lizzie Borden as Myth and Legend," a talk by Jules Ryckebusch, at Fairhaven Town Hall, 40 Center Street. Light refreshments will be served. Donations requested. Handicap accessible.

So I take it this is happening as I post this query?

I wonder who will come back with the first report?

I know you heard it all before. Well you'll hear it again.


YES, Well, Victoria Lincoln, Frank Speiring and Agnes de mille have nothing on Ryckebusch. As predicted, the lecture was very adolescent in its telling, filled with errors, invention and exaggerations but entertaining.

He's a very pleasant guy. Mild mannered. Give him a smoking pipe, a wooly cardigan sweater, sit him in an old creaky rocker and you have the quintessential mad-man story teller.

Ryckebusch, once again, proved that his lectures were more entertaining, at times sadly comical, and somewhat suspect.

There is nothing more unsettling and irksome than when a professor and expert on a subject intentionally insists on conveying his interpretation, fabrications and falsehoods to an unsuspecting audience starving for information on the case. At time you could sense that he was making it up when he did not know the answer to a question, such as, when someone asked how much money Lizzie inherited. He thought about it for a long while, stroking his beard and said "140 thousand dollars."

Mind you, much of this stuff, accounts, are very subtle and at times lost in his presentation and unless you are familiar with the case they by pass you by. He's a likable guy. He presents himself well, speaks with authority and has a "very pleasant papa appearance."

Allow me to touch on a couple of these subtle and somewhat blurred falsehoods. There's no assumptions here. He talks with authority, as if he was there. Never does he say, "it is believed, some would say, I am not sure, etc." Instead he tells it like he was there.

Here are a couple of things he touched on.

You be the judge whether they are falsehoods or facts:


When asked whether Lizzie had any boyfriends he was quick to respond. "Yes Nance O'neil. That is why Emma left Maplecroft."

He implies that Lizzie killed Abby because Abby caught her in her bedroom naked and masturbating (Though he does not put it into those words, his description and the words he uses leaves us with no other assumption.)

So....she had to kill Abby because she was found out.

When she killed Abby, she faced her in the middle of the guest room and hit her in the middle of the forehead taking a piece of her head off which flew across the room and came to settle in the corner. The reason Abby was found by the side of the bed was because she was probably trying to climb under it to get away. And, that there was a good chance that Lizzie was still naked, which made it easier to clean off the blood.

Lizzie faced her father before wheeling the ax.

Lizzie never went fishing.

Emma said that lizzie was very queer.

Lizzie shoplifted a lot. and it was well known.

her behavior was not normal.

He further goes on to say that Emma had no money, then changes his story....confusing.....but then later adds that "Lizzie ended up with all the money", implying that Emma got none.

Lizzie was asked in court if she would like to leave the court room while they brought in the skulls but that Lizzie insisted on staying.

The skulls were delivered to lizzie in leather hat boxes. She had the funeral parlor bury them. He said he saw photos of the boxs.

Bridget inherited a lot of money, went to ireland , came back to FR, then moved out west.

He makes the claim that he has a copy of Lizzie's inquest testimony.

That the inquest testimony was not admitted at trial simply because the defense objected.

Emma was a very shy person.

Lizzie inherited 140,000 in cash.

And finally that Andrews skull was so hard and sharp that it broke the handle on the hatchet. When this happened, Lizzie had to stop chopping him up.

Like I said............, entertaining to say the least.

I want to clarify something that mbhenty posted.

A woman in the audience asked JR about the missing Inquest testimony of Lizzie Borden. He responded to that by saying it wasn't lost and he had a copy. Now I am not sure what he meant by this, as we all know Lizzie and Bridget's inquest testimony is lost to us and the only way we know what Lizzie testified to at the Inquest is because the prosecution handed it over to the newspaper to print when it was excluded at trial.

When he said this, the woman said "oh", kind of surprised.

But, the night was full of things like this. People would ask questions and he would not really answer them and leave the questioner more confused. I heard a lot of comments in the group like "that doesn't make sense" and "how can that be?"

The biggest oddity was his description of the death of Abby. It was not stated as "this is my theory" or "this is what I think happened," but rather "this is what happened," which is really unfortunate. It was so not possible in so many ways, and several audience members were confused by his descriptions of the crime. Placing Abby in the dead center of the room and having the first blow being to her forehead was not accurate in any way. But he said all this was based on the forensics of the case.

I had to chuckle when he said that the hatchet in the historical society was broken by the skull of Andrew as Lizzie whacked him. Fanciful huh?

When JR repeated his now famous statement about a big piece of Abby's skull and flesh flying across the room and landing in the corner, the audience gasped a little. He did this also at the little roundtable that was held at Durfee HS last year before the new Lizzie play was presented. But then he said the piece flew across the room and landed on the radiator. I have to say the audience was totally grossed out by that! we all just imagined it sizzling there, event though it was August and the radiators would be off.

At least he did not call Abby a "fat cow" like he does in all the videos! However, he did remark that she was 5 feet and weighed over 200 pounds right before he mentioned that life was intolerable in the Borden household. It sort of led one to believe that Abby's size had something to do with her being mean.

I will have to say that it was not a lecture, per say, but more of a chat. He was nicely informal and pleasing to listen to. He really spoke very little in any prepared way, and opened it up for questions withing 15 minutes. He added his spin as he answered the questions.

There were probably about 50-70 people there.

It is unfortunate that the responses and general tone of the entire discussion were authoritarian rather than theoretical when called for. It sounds like several people in the audience found some of it incredible. Fortunately, the audience members have the opportunity to read the source documents for themselves, just as we all have. Hopefully, anyone finding the talks something less than entirely accurate will be inspired to do so.

Yes: Many of the people who attend such lectures do so to learn more.

The audience, more than likely, see the speaker as the expert and are ready to have him disclose the truth. Many attend such talks with flawed preconceived theories about Lizzie and the case. They ask questions in hopes of finding the truth or validating their beliefs, but instead walk away with a completely new set of inaccuracies.

Much of what JR said would be OK if only he added that....... it was his belief, the way he sees it, a possible occurrence, that more than likely it happened this way, etc. etc., instead of making it sound like what he has said is the absolute truth.

For example: He talks about Lizzie looking for sinkers in the barn and then adds that Lizzie never went fishing, implying that she had never handled a fishing pole or spent any time at all fishing. How would he know that? He said it with a complete air of confidence, like it was the absolute truth.

Another thing he said was that Lizzie led a very restrictive and oppressive life, comparing Lizzie to a simple mill girl and adding that the mill girl had it better and could at least visit the pub for a beer. (?) That Lizzie was bound by stern religious shackles which dictated what sort of life she could lead.

And, then to say that Lizzie received all the money, that Emma was shy and reserved implying that she let Lizzie have it all. (?) What was that all about?

Why would an expert such as JR, who has supposedly studied the case comprehensively declare that Abby received the first blow to the forehead; that a piece of her forehead flew into the corner of the room? When he said that he used his hand like an ax and placed it just off center of his forehead to show where the axe hit. Also, that Abby was standing in the middle of the room when she received her first blow from a naked Lizzie. How did he know that?

He goes on to explain that lizzie was doing something in her bedroom, naked, and had to kill Abby because she was found out. So why did she kill her father? And how did JR know that Lizzie faced her father and that he saw her wheel the ax? How did he know that?

That Lizzie received the skulls in a hat box and then in turn had to call the undertaker to bury them for her.............(??????) Listening to JR you walk away with the impression that Lizzie received the skulls at her door and that it was from that time forward her problem.

When challenged on an issue by someone in the audience on something that he asserted, he never really comes up with an answer and appeared somewhat confused and removed.

If JR was just a writer of books, a novelist, a journalist, a playwright, I could fully understand his approach.

But the man is a Professor and Teacher.

He should know better, and I for one hold individuals who claim to be experts to a much higher standard, with little room for error.

At the very least I expect them to be honest.

There were three reasons why I didn't go to the lecture, even though I live five minutes away from the Town Hall.

A) I'm not on the best of terms with many of the members of the Historical Society.

B) A flier for the event was stuck through the mail slot of the Visitors Center only a week before it happened and I already had Friday night plans.

C) It was Jules Ryckebusch. And I know that I would NOT have been able to sit quietly by as he presented the "facts" the way he does.

Fortunately, I think that most of the "real" Lizzie Borden buffs around here know of the resources available locally and online that can give them as clear a picture of the case as we're ever going to get.

It's a shame, though, that members of the general public come away from a lecture like JR's with little more understanding of the case than they'd get from the old "Lizzie Borden took an axe. . ." rhyme.

I hope you and Yooper are right, but I fear that people go to talks to not only support the organization that sponsors them but to hear the story. And when a so-called expert bungles it, I am not too sure they go off and do the research to see what was going on for real. They usually just believe what people say, I think. Which is too bad in this case.

For instance, last night at the opening of the Lizzie Borden exhibit at Gallery X, Ed Thibault gave a talk on the case to the huge crowd there. He was accurate and interesting. There was nothing to dispute, and he presented himself well. It was such a different experience to hear the story told without spin. Three cheers for Ed!

Stef, there will certainly be any number of people who don't research the case beyond listening to a so-called expert. Much like a student in a classroom who isn't serious about being there, only taking up space, like a rock with eyebrows. There really isn't much to be done about their lack of interest, they gotta wanna first, and there usually isn't any way to inspire them. Maybe, if they attend more than one talk or lecture and hear conflicting stories, they might question one version or the other.

The real problem seems to be the proliferation of bad information. I can see two causes for it, those providing the information, and those hiring the individual or providing the forum for the talk. While a word with the individual providing the information might seem confrontational, perhaps a word with those responsible for hiring him might be less so. I can see where an Historical Society would be interested in providing an accurate historical record or account. They might even be inspired to correct the situation by inviting someone to speak who could provide an accurate account of events.

Yooper: Not THIS Historical Society. . .

Last year one of its own member gave a talk on Native American in Fairhaven and brought along a collection of "artifacts" that she had found around her neighborhood. Anyone with a shred of knowledge realized that this was simply a pile of rocks (my parents were members of the Massachusetts Archeological Society when I was young). But no one questioned it when she said that some huge, roughly triangular hunk of stone had been used to kill "wooly mammoths" in East Fairhaven.

lol! to kill wooly mammoths!

Sounds more like the Fairhaven Hysterical Society. I guess you get what you pay for. I have a piece of verde marble I could donate if they're interested. It was well known as a Woolly Mammoth repellent. It works quite well, I haven't seen a Woolly Mammoth since I found the rock.