Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story 'book report'

[camgarsky4]

Good morning from the bitter cold Midwest!

Just got done reading this book and figured I'd burn a few minutes and share some thoughts on it.

The Untold Story was written by Edward Radin and it was published in 1961. The year is key because as MB noted on a different thread, some key information wasn't available at that time, including the Witness Statements. I strongly suspect Radin would have done a decent amount of editing if he had the additional information.

As a member of the "Lizzie was the culprit" club, I enjoyed this book because it provided a relatively thorough and definitely enthusiastic endorsement of Lizzie's innocence. This is forcing me to think thru a number of 'thought provokers' around Lizzie's involvement. So far nothing is shifting my POV, but his book definitely throws up some road blocks to solve for.

My frustration is that he didn't do a great job of sourcing some of his new material. He does provide the names of a couple of ~12 year olds (in 1892), whose recollections he leans into. But other than that, he makes some relatively declarative statements on a few important background situations that I've not heard elsewhere, but he doesn't state in sufficient detail where he gained the insights and why we should buy in.

If not Lizzie, then whom?
SPOILER ALERT
To state that Lizzie is innocent requires offering up someone else as the bad guy. Radin does just that.
He briefly reviews the possibilities of Emma and John, but ends up going with Bridget as the killer. I think he would have been better off picking John...there are more open questions with him (in my opinion).

I encourage you to read the book to get his full take on Bridget, but I think he left the putt quite short of making a convincing argument.

The authors theory on why Bridget killed Andrew is one example of why I view his 'Bridget did it' theory was an over reach.
Here we go....speculation #1....Bridget has a second talk with Abby about the windows and asks if she can wait until she feels better....leading to Speculation #2. Abby says 'no, wash them today', which infuriates (to a homicidal degree) Bridget.....leading to speculation #3, Andrew happens to be close by and hears Abby insist that Bridget clean window today......leading to speculation #4, Bridget must now kill Andrew because he might tell someone about Abby making Bridget clean the windows.

After reading this book, I don't think Bridget committed the murders, I still think Lizzie did, but now I have some open questions to solve for.

In summary, this book definitely encourages the reader to challenge and broaden their thinking on this case. Money and time well spent!

[camgarsky4]

Assuming 125 years is a sufficient passage of time to share a bit of sarcastic gallows humor......if not, please accept my apology. :)

Bridget so badly didn't want to wash the window that she massacred TWO people.

But alas, she ended up washing the windows anyway. She just bookended the washing with a murder on each side. Bridget not only ended up washing the windows, but now she was unemployed!!

[Constantine]

Funny and astute!