2 murder weapons?

[Aamartin]

Lets speculate that the killer only intended to murder Abby.... (I am hypothesizing that it was Lizzie)

The killer, (more speculation) found it was messier than they thought and in the process of cleaning up and disposing of the hatchet, was unable to leave the house to establish an alibi before Andrew came home....

The weapon was gone-- another one was needed.

Would the killer reach for another hatchet? A different one? Why not use something else?

I don't believe someone got into the house and then hid for 90 minutes-- nor do I believe someone came in and out twice in 90 minutes without being seen.

Same hatchet? Where could it have been for 90 minutes? Did the killer see a need to hide it very well at all? Could it have been somewhere simple? A closet? Behind a piece of furniture, etc?

If it's the same weapon, the killer had to be fairly certain Abby wouldn't be found--- and if he/she did not intend to kill Andrew-- why not totally get rid of it? (like the one broken in the cellar)

90 minutes is a lot of time to dispose of something. But if it was kept close at hand-- that shows premeditated murder of Andrew and not just Abby...

Things could have 'gone wrong' for the killer in that 90 minute time span. John Morse might have returned, Bridget (or Lizzie) might have found Abby. Lots and lots of 'what ifs'.

Thoughts?

[PossumPie]

If the killer were someone from the outside (not Lizzie or Bridget) they most certainly DID intend to kill both Abby and Andrew. Hence the sitting around so long. They could have held onto the hatchet the whole time in case someone discovered them. If it were Lizzie only intending to kill Mrs. Borden, She could have cleaned the hatchet, hidden it, then decided to kill Andrew and get it out of hiding.
This brings up a REALLY good point I haven't thought of before. IF an outsider killed Mrs. Borden, they would have cleaned up between killings if for no other reason than they had NO IDEA that Mr. Borden would have his eyes closed when they approached him. To approach an old man while carrying a hatchet and being covered in blood is going to raise some suspicions. Where are the cleanup rags from cleaning himself after killing Mrs. Borden? I guess one could argue that the killer would have taken them with him, but WOULD HE? Risk being caught walking down the street of a murdered couple with a hatchet and bundle of bloody rags?
The people who say Lizzie had no time to clean up between killing her father and raising the alarm have a moot point...the 'real killer' would have had exactly the same (short) amount of time, and he/she supposedly sneaked out and walked down a busy street.

[Curryong]

I may be awfully dumb but, whether the killer was within the household or a stranger who hated Abby and Andrew for whatever warped reason, why was it urgent and necessary (if it was a weapon bought for the purpose) to dispose of the weapon at all. We are after all, talking of an age without D.N.A., fingerprinting etc., an era in which forensics of all kinds were in their infancy. As has been mooted on several threads before, why not just drop it beside the body.
It would add to the scenario, surely, of a nutty madman on the loose, rather than a sane and respectable household member. The only reason that action might rebound on the killer is if some identifying mark or label was engraved on the handle. In that case they would have to dispose of it. If the killer was Lizzy there were innumerable spots to hide the axe/hatchet until it was needed again for Andrew, even in the guest room itself, and, after all, how do we know she didn't do just that?

[FactFinder]

Maybe the killer was not aware that there was no way to conclusively use the weapon to identify them. Someone with no knowledge of science perhaps. Or someone with limited knowledge of the right type of science. Or perhaps just a voracious reader (as we know Lizzie was.) Fingerprints were not in use to identify criminals at the time of the Borden murders in the United States but members of law enforcement and scientists around the world were aware of their possible value in identifying people. But as with any new science there were doubting Thomases. As early as 1858 Sir William Hershel required fingerprint signatures on civil contracts. A book called Fingerprints written by Francis Galton was published in 1892 detailing fingerprint analysis and it's possible use for identifying criminals. The use of fingerprints was also already popular in novels that involved crime in the nineteenth century. In 1893-4 a story by Mark Twain called Pudd'nhead Wilson was published in installments in Century Magazine and was later published as a novel in 1894. The plot of the story involved a man named Tom Driscoll who murders his uncle for money. The crime is solved through the use of fingerprint identification.

[Curryong]

Yes, I believe Scotland Yard/Home Office initiated Inquiries and Committees examining the work of Hershel, Galton etc. before Okaying the use of fingerprinting techniques several years later [haven't got my book on the Yard nearby] and the Stratton? brothers were the first caught by the new process [in Britain] in the early 1900's. Nevertheless, it had not featured in any trials in the U.S. at that time and, speculating here, murder and robbery trials of great national public interest would have featured in local newspapers read by the Bordens. I just feel that the same weapon was used in the Borden case for both killings, and, as I am about 90% sure that Miss Lizzie was the culprit, I believe she secreted the weapon [probably a hatchet though we don't know for sure] somewhere of easy access in the house between the murders. After Andrew's death she obviously got rid of it, and it may have been a case of making doubly sure that it could never be traced back to her. I just believe, in the context of the times, that, forensically, it was unnecessary, that's all.