William Borden, Lewis Peterson, Ellen Eagan & More

[camgarsky4]

To consolidate the information being posted about these folks, I'm creating this thread.

Link to The Hatchet article introducing us to Lewis Peterson and his theory of the Borden case, centered around William Borden.
https://lizzieandrewborden.com/HatchetO ... -1998.html

Initial newspaper articles reporting the death of William Borden in 1901. In the Hatchet article, Peterson references these articles as 'pillars' of his theory of the case. Comparisons can be made by the reader.
Click on image to enlarge.

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[camgarsky4]

Another article reporting when the body had been identified. Reports that William Borden had multiple immediate family members who had been institutionalized and that he behaved erratically at time.

Click on image to enlarge.

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[camgarsky4]

Photo of Andrew J. Borden in his earlier years.
Photo of William S. Borden per Lewis Peterson. Photo source: Find A Grave.

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[Inspector]

Wow, side by side is pretty striking, the nose, and shape of the bone structure around the eyes.
Wonder if anyone has done the photo transition from one to the other. .

[camgarsky4]

As William Spencer reviews in his book, Lizzie Borden Uncut, there is no documented corroborating evidence supporting any of Peterson, Hawthorne or Brown's assertions about William S. Borden being Andrew's illegitimate son and being directly involved in Andrew and Abby's killing. However, there are multiple examples of documented information that conflict with their complex theories.

Peterson makes an issue that Winward funeral home handled both Andrew and William's bodies post death. Reading the articles I posted above, it is clear that William's body was taken to Winward's before it was identified.

Lewis Peterson's identification is the ONLY reason the Spectator newspaper article or Find A Grave has this photo labelled as William S. Borden. Peterson.

Below is a Borden family tree starting with the Borden who fathered both William S. and Andrew J.'s multi-great grandfathers. Charles Borden was a very real person (not sure why Peterson couldn't figure that out) and had a son named William S. Borden. There is absolutely no proof that Charles son William, was actually Andrew's illegitimate son besides whatever family gossip and hearsay Peterson was told.

John Morse did not live in Fall River for the 9 years after the murder. There is no documentation that he lived in Fall River ever after the trial.
Here is the 1900 U.S. census for Hastings, Iowa, listing John. He is the final listing on the image. In 1912, Morse died in Hastings.
Additionally, he did not disappear after 1901. Via newspaper articles, John's will, notice of his death, etc. we know a goodly amount about John's movements and location after William's hanging. Lastly, John being seen near the hanging has no origin. So another family gossip or something someone invented to make the story juicier.
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Tree 'creator', Kat Koorey, approved me posting to this thread. Her sources are noted at bottom of image.
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[Inspector]

That’s some good detective work!
I knew the subject might be slippery. and I believe some have even changed William’s last name to try and make it fit the family tree, but it seems to be grasping at straws.

It’s hard to even see a real motive for an illegitimate son being a good contender to the crime. and Lizzie certainly wouldn’t have wanted to split her fortune three ways, as she , and Emma have already made that clear.

A boyfriend of some sort who might receive a one time payout makes more sense to me.

Someone affiliated with the household, not necessarily in the household.

Going back through the trial testimony, I can’t get my copy/paste to work from the LAB website.
Do you happen to know if that is prohibited?

[camgarsky4]

You are correct, you can't copy and paste the primary documents, I think they are in PDF format. Best you can do is "snip" it and treat it as an image for this forum. Do you know how to do that?

[Inspector]

Well, I’ve tried about everything, but haven’t figured out the snip .
Any help would be appreciated.

[Inspector]

I was able to screenshot before, but now it has stopped working also.

[camgarsky4]

Go to the testimony you want to "snip". On your keyboard, simultaneously hit the shift, "s", and option keys. The option key on my keyboard is between the alt and ctrl keys. Snip the text you want copied and then paste it somewhere. I paste to either a blank email or if I want to save for personal use, I save to excel or word doc.

Once you do that. Go to the forum and click on the attachment button in the bottom left corner (next to options button).
Click the "add files" button.
Should take you to where all the images snipped are stored
Double click on the image you want to post
On the forum page, click "place inline.
That should get the image to your post.

I've screen shot the steps above to help navigate. CLick image to enlarge. Good luck!

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[Inspector]

That’s very kind of you!
I do most on my phone, so I’ll try and use this and adapt it to my phone.
Thank you!