Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I have always wondered how people treated Lizzie after the trial. I also wondered how her neighbors treated her when she moved into Maplecroft. I wonder if they ignored her, avoided her, or treated her like their next door neighbor.

Me too, Snokkums! She had people working for her, but they wouldn't have been in her class. She finally made it to the Hill, but I don't think it was the way she pictured it would be. I understand why they wouldn't have wanted to go on living at the old house, I wouldn't have either! When you think of the money that they had, they could have gotten a bigger more expensive house. I don't think there would have been much hanging over the back fence chatting, anyway. But I doubt there were any invitations extended to her, and she probably wouldn't have been recieved graciously if she went to a public place. Not by her peers, anyway. I wonder about Emma though, she didn't really go anywhere before it happend, I wonder how it changed her life, and if that's not what finally made her move away from Lizzie.

Yeah, I too don't think that there were too many invitations or chatting over the fence. Must have been very lonely. But, I wonder if Emma had any friends. I guess it would have been hard for her too, being the sister of an acdcused axe murderer.

I imagine the notoriety of the case would have made both Lizzie and Emma suspicious of the motivations of any new friends. I doubt that everyone was convinced of Lizzie's guilt, so she probably had at least some supporters in Fall River, but she didn't know who they were. The risk of being accosted by someone convinced of her guilt likely prevented socializing, it just wasn't worth it. Emma would probably have grown tired of the questions and the same would apply to her. I doubt that Emma's life changed drastically as a result, she seems to have been a bit of a recluse, but it would have been more out of necessity than choice after the trial.

All things considered, you'd think they would have both been happy to just pack up and go some place far away from there, if not at first, then later, when they had an idea of how things were going to be for them.

I can't imagine how far they would have to go to escape the notoriety. They might change their names, move to Europe, whatever else was necessary, but sooner or later, someone might track them down. Then what? Do it all again? Still, it might have been better than remaining in Fall River.

What I was thinking, is that the people of Fall River took it more personal then say some one in New York would have. The people who stood beside her through most of the trial had to have felt betrayed by her. Also even though the newspapers covered the trial, they weren't privy to the real goings on, we really don't know why Alice and her other friend all of a sudden did an about face and totally abandoned her.

That sounds right, people in Fall River thought it reflected upon them directly, while others living elsewhere were more removed. Alice Russell left the Borden house immediately after the dress burning, and she testified before the grand jury late in the year, November or December. She kept quiet about the dress burning during that time. I don't know if she visited Emma or Lizzie or if they remained friends during that time, but they seemed to part company after the grand jury hearing. I'm not sure what prompted Alice to volunteer the information for the grand jury, either. She may have decided Lizzie was guilty by then and was tired of covering for her. I think any number of people kept quiet about many things which may have shed some light on the case. They were content with the idea that they weren't necessarily lying, they just weren't telling the whole truth. There was something published in the newspaper in later years which held Alice Russell as a traitor to Lizzie, it may still be here among the archives. It seems people who helped to support the case against Lizzie were held in contempt to a degree. I think we vastly underestimate the public sentiment to avoid giving a woman the death penalty, they just weren't going to let that happen, no way, no how. That might actually have encouraged Lizzie to commit the murders, she wouldn't be convicted, no matter what.

If she hung her hat on that hope I think she was really taking a big chance with her life. But then she knew the people better then I do. But aren't those people descendents of the people who had no problem burning a woman to death because some one said they were a witch? Of course that was a couple of hundred years before.

That might well have been the stigma involved, the Salem witch trials. The legacy of that may have been the impossibility to convict a woman of first degree murder in Massachusetts. I agree, it would have been a long chance to count on not being convicted. At the same time, I sometimes wonder even if she had been caught in the act if she would have been sentenced to death.

From Robert Sullivan, "Goodbye Lizzie Borden":
"In 1857 a female charged with murdering her husband by arsenic poisoning was tried in Plymouth County. The evidence against her was overwhelming, but the jury resisted conviction and was unable to reach a verdict."
"Months later, in 1858, the state legislature enacted the so-called 'murder statute' for the first time, distinguishing murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree, defining both and requiring a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment and not the death penalty for persons convicted of murder in the second degree. It had been argued to the legislature that regardless of the evidence, it was impossible to convict female defendants in murder cases because of the mandatory death penalty."
"Immediately after the new murder statute was enacted, the Plymouth County female defendant just mentioned was re-tried and, after a discussion of abandonment of purpose to kill and some flimsy evidence of lack of deliberate premeditation, she was convicted by the jury of second degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment."
"Some thirty years later, and only a few years before Lizzie Borden came to trial, Sarah Jane Robinson, accused of six murders, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Shortly thereafter, on the sole ground that she was a woman, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Incongruously, militant equal-rights-for-women groups exerted considerable pressure upon the Governor to obtain this commutation."

well, so much for equal rights, if they can hang a man for murder, it would only be equal to hang a women!! Doesn't that come under the "sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander" theory? I think that had they found Lizzie quilty it would have been for the lesser charge of 2nd degree, they just didn't have enough evidence, especially never having found a murder weapon. What could she have possibly done with it, in so short a time?

It is difficult to get second degree murder out of the Borden case. It was a double murder with a time lapse in between. Unless Lizzie was in the habit of carrying a hatchet with her at all times, she had to physically retrieve it from wherever it was kept and that amounts to premeditation in each case. It is doubtful that a hatchet would have been readily at hand in either the sitting room or the guest room, let alone both.

That's the $64,000 question: Where is the hatchet? I suppose the possibility exists that if it was hidden in the house and it hasn't turned up in the meantime, it's right where it was put in 1892.

Could it really still be there? Wouldn't that be something?

I've thought the best way to hide a hatchet is to break off or saw off the handle, then set it on edge outdoors in the dirt and either step on it or pound it into the ground. If the grass in the yard was of sufficient length, it would never be noticed.

If the hatchet had been hidden somewhere in the house and it wasn't discovered, it could have been retrieved at a later date and disposed of. No sense in taking the chance that subsequent tenants might discover it.

Well duh! I didn't even think of that! It could be laying at the bottom of the river. That makes more sense, she surly wouldn't ever want to have to deal with it again in any way.

Once she'd been acquitted, the heat was pretty well off. She might have had it gold plated and worn it on a chain as a necklace at that point. Still, she could be tried as an accessory to murder so there was no sense in tempting fate.

Several thoughts about the hatchet:

It makes Lizzie look all the more guilty if the hatchet were not left at the scene. In the absence of modern forensics, it would have been difficult to tie it to her, anyway.

Furthermore, an intruder would have risked far more by leaving with it, by having to conceal it and possibly being accosted with it on his/her person.

Hiding the hatchet was one of Lizzie's big boo-boo's. She should have left it planted in Andrew's skull. I know that sounds gruesome, but that would have made the scenario look all the more "less feminine."

An intruder would have gotten out ASAP. Without carrying a murder weapon. That makes zero sense.

You might argue that he/she would have planted it to make Lizzie look guilty. Well, if Lizzie had really been out in the barn digging for lead (and the intruder was willing to risk the time), the best spot to have planted it would have been in her room (perhaps under her bed), which could easily have been determined by process of elimination.

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As I've said before, Lizzie was curiously quiet about not directing the constabulary to the cellar.

That, when she was "all over the cellar" as the point of entry for the daylight robbery.

I've also said I would have left that cellar door wide open, to add another point of entry for an intruder.

Dime to a doughnut she stashed the murder weapon down cellar, whether one believes the police retrieved the correct implement-- the handle-less one-- or not. I believe the handle-less hatchet was the (remains of) the murder weapon.

The more you think about it, the more you scratch your head and go, huh? She would have had to get the handle off the head, that would have taken time, then found the spot to hide it, more time. gotten herself together, from the exersion of killing her father, running to the cellar, breaking off the handle, then running back up the stairs, making sure she didn't have any stray bits of gore on her anywhere and then yelling for Bridget. She only had minutes. and not many of them. Not to mention the coat, if she did wear it while killing Andrew, she then had to put it under the pillow, under his head. Lizzie said herself she didn't do anything fast, and I think she was right.

I don't know why someone has not used a metal detector in the house and yard. I have always wondered if she buried it in the cellar dirt floor and then put a trunk or box or whatever over it.

If she concealed it in the house, she was confident enough it wouldn't be found while she awaited trial. It could have been moved a couple of times from an original hiding place, but that had to occur while she was there. I doubt it would have been left there after the trial for someone to find at a future date.