I have always wondered about this. The reason being, it seems that Uncle John seemed to be too detailed. He knew the exact tolley car . It number, the drivers' badge number, amongst other things. It just smacks to me of trying too hard to cover his butt, like he knew Lizzie was about to do something stupid. Or maybe that he had something to do with it and didn't want anyone to connect the dots. After all, Emma was out of town why not make himself scarce?
What do you all think?
Suicide is painless It brings on many changes and I will take my leave when I please.
John Morse definitely didn't commit the murders, snokkums, as he had an ironclad alibi, visiting another of his nieces. If he had something to do with killing Andrew and Abby, as in paying a killer, his best plan would have been to have just stayed out of town until it was all over. If he was in league with Lizzie then he took one heck of a risk, especially as he doesnt seem to have been overly fond of her. If John and Lizzie had met on the day before the murders or for breakfast that day you could say perhaps that he had somehow picked up a feeling from her that something was going to happen, but they didn't. As for John remembering things, he just seems to have been one of those people who have a spectacular memory for trivia.
I see what you are saying and I agree with you on all points, it's just I get a little nervous when someone can remember everything down to the last little detail. He must of had an excellent memory.
Suicide is painless It brings on many changes and I will take my leave when I please.
My youngest can identify any piece of music she's ever heard and immediately remember where she heard it. There's a television commercial right now for Jameson Irish whiskey called "The Hawk of Achill" that has stirred up people given that one of the Jameson heirs supposedly bought an 11 year-old girl for cannibals to eat so he could sketch the process. The commercial involves the Hawk of Achill stealing the mason's daughter and then a barrel of whiskey. The music is Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns. I'm like where have I heard that music before, and my daughter says, "On the movie Tombstone, when the Devil is dancing with Faust." Her friend reads and memorizes phone books and all schedules he sees. So Uncle John's prodigious memory doesn't seem so unlikely to me, especially since he was socially odd, too.
DebbieDiablo
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"Everything you want is on the other side of fear."
Some of us think Uncle John heard of at least the murder of Andrew while he was on the way home. Maybe it was just rumor but we think he heard something. Also we need to remember that there were fewer distractions in life in those days. Uncle John had lived in the country mostly. Maybe a car ride was special and exciting. Maybe he looked at everyone to see if he knew them or was related to them. Maybe he made up number games in his head~something I do to go to sleep. Maybe he had a photographic memory which has to do with in-putting information in the brain via more than one pathway at a time, such as sight, sound, smell, etc. (I read slow because I turn everything into pictures in my mind. I have a high rate of recall. Excessive Twitter activity is a way to damage this ability.) Uncle John didn't necessarily have a lot to clutter his mind before the murders. Maybe he absorbed everything he saw in the big city, to remember later.
Is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream. ~Edgar Allan Poe
Even nowadays that can be so. One of my sons in law comes from the country and his family, who still live there, are a bit like John when they go to Melbourne, even though they don't live like hermits when they're home and use computers etc. So it is possible.
According to John Morse’s testimony, Weybosset Street was only about a mile and a quarter from Second Street. It’s not as if the route he took that day was a complicated one. He left 92 Second Street and went to the Post Office; from there he walked up Third Street to Pleasant St, and then to Weybosset St. He took a horse car back, getting off at Pleasant and Second streets, and from there walked to the Borden's residence. I don’t find it all that alarming if John remembered the exact number of the streetcar he rode on, or the conductor's number.
I knew a pharmacy technician who could recall from memory all of a clients medications several years after she had filled their scripts. There is a gal at my work site that has an uncanny ability to remember telephone numbers; she uses them once and the number becomes ingrained in her brain. A very dear friend of mine can listen to a song once, sit down at a piano and play that song, note perfect. She has an ’ear for music’, and has never taken a piano lesson in her life!!! Some people just have the unique ability to remember, and recall accurately, certain things.
I have never thought John Morse’s airtight alibi was in any way odd or suspicious.
In remembrance of my beloved son: "Vaya Con Dios" (Spanish for: "Go with God"), by Anne Murray ( https://tinyurl.com/y8nvqqx9 ) “God has you in heaven, but I have you in my heart.” ~ TobyMac (https://tinyurl.com/rakc5nd )
We have a lot of fun with Morse' testimony about eating pears and not noticing anything before he went into the house. I decided to go through the testimony again and see all I could about Uncle John's return. There is nothing to say he didn't go around back, eat pears and then go to the side door.
Considering Uncle John's innocence I found Sawyer's testimony. Sawyer is one of the witnesses who really seemed to tell the truth and I enjoy what he had to say.
Q: When did you first see him [Morse]?
A: He came towards me from the gate. I stood on the steps at that time... He came along to the steps and he says "for God's sake what has happened here?" [Sawyer tells him] ..."My God, and I left Mr. Borden right at this door and he told me to come home to dinner." page 138/45
Another recollection of what Morse said was something like, "What kind of God would allow something like this to happen?"
John Fleet in witness statements records Morse' words about returning to Second Street thus: Saw a number of persons around house, and was told that Mr. and Mrs. Borden was killed. That is the first I knew of their deaths.
Taken all together I think it strengthens Morse' innocence. The statements are in keeping with what a shocked and surprised person would likely say. Plus in that day when religion was more mainstream, he might have been a little careful about bringing God into the conversation if he was guilty IMO. (Yes I know the guilty will "swear to God" but Morse seems to refer to God in a reverent way.)
Is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream. ~Edgar Allan Poe
I agree, Irina. Thank you for posting your findings and thoughts on the testimonies of Morse and Sawyer.
In remembrance of my beloved son: "Vaya Con Dios" (Spanish for: "Go with God"), by Anne Murray ( https://tinyurl.com/y8nvqqx9 ) “God has you in heaven, but I have you in my heart.” ~ TobyMac (https://tinyurl.com/rakc5nd )
I didn't try to sort through the time though I am curious about that. It doesn't matter a great deal since he arrived back in the neighborhood by public transportation. Unusual activity would likely have been visible say after 12:25 or so.
(On & off topic; there is a clipping from a British paper mentioning Lizzie, posted at JTRForum.com under 'American way'. It mostly says there wasn't any evidence against Lizzie and that the Borden murders were a 'Jack the Ripper' style crime for which an innocent young woman was charged.)
Is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream. ~Edgar Allan Poe
In one sense that seems reasonable except most JtR-types keep killing...I do wonder whether the rule out of the subsequent axe murderer of Bertha Manchester was a mistake. Did they trace the correct José Correira? John Watson, if you are reading this, what are the chances of tracing this immigrant with records online? I'm guessing that José Correira is a fairly common name.
If it was a Jack the Ripper-type crime you'd expect other such killings to bob up, with or without mutilations. I wonder where the British newspaper got its source from? American newspapers were sometimes quite wistful about all the excitement over the other side of the Atlantic. The Carrie 'Shakespeare' Brown murder of a New York prostitute in 1891 was supposed to be one of his, according to New York newspapers.
The Manchester murder was particularly tragic wasn't it, as Bertha Manchester paid with her life for her father's mean and cheating ways? It made a huge impact on the countryside around though, and ultimately on the Borden jury.
The use of Jack the Ripper in the clipping was just a literary device. I checked a bunch of old papers looking for crimes similar to the Bordens in a proximity to time and location. Nothing conclusive. I thought that would be a way to point to Lizzie's innocence if a psychopathic stranger/intruder did it. There are always those types floating around but I couldn't find any patterns that I felt meant anything. Similar crimes didn't happen on busy city streets and robbery was a main motive.
Is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream. ~Edgar Allan Poe
