tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post2670015759637456858..comments2024-03-19T07:27:06.216-04:00Comments on VOTARIES OF HORROR: Lizzie Borden in ContextKatherine Woodburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-51607454829678218152016-05-21T14:21:54.396-04:002016-05-21T14:21:54.396-04:00A little more about Lizzie: she was also a thief. ...A little more about Lizzie: she was also a thief. A year prior to the murder, items belonging to Abby, the stepmother, were burgled when only Lizzie was home. There is no reasonable argument that the thief <b>wasn't</b> Lizzie, and there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that she was not only the thief but that everyone in the household knew she was, especially Andrew Borden, her father. He told the investigators on the day of the investigation that the culprit would never be found. <br /><br />After the theft, all members of the household--except Bridget--began locking their bedroom doors when they were out (this in a house whose outside doors were also always locked). When home, Andrew would leave the keys to his and Abby's room on the mantelpiece in full sight of the household (including Bridget, a presumably objective outsider whom Andrew never blamed). <br /><br />I think one reason the Borden case is such a case celebre is because it includes just about every Victorian cliche about upper-middleclass Victorian households that <b>honestly</b> didn't exist in all of them. Many Victorian families got along perfectly well!Katherine Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-28550948059622079542016-05-14T23:17:35.482-04:002016-05-14T23:17:35.482-04:00In her essay about John Herbert Wallace, Dorothy S...In her essay about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herbert_Wallace" rel="nofollow">John Herbert Wallace</a>, Dorothy Sayers discusses the gap between legal guilt and actual guilt. Wallace--who likely didn't kill his wife--was found guilty by the jury but went free when his verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal. There simply wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty, even if he was. <br /><br />Dorothy Sayers argues that this gap occurs because the law's obligation is (only) to ask, "Is this particular person guilty?" while society--and detective writers--can't help but ask, "If this person isn't guilty, who else could it possibly be?" <br /><br />In Lizzie Borden's case, the probability that a woman who had a history of arguments with her father and stepmother, who lied repeatedly during the inquest, who was--furthermore--one of only two people home when the murders were committed during the day in a house whose outside doors were usually locked and whose floor-plan was so oddly constructed that the murderer would have had to lurk undetected for an hour without being seen or heard . . . the probability that it WASN'T Lizzie was too improbable for Fall River to accept. <br /><br />But the court only had to ask, "Is there a preponderance of evidence to prove her guilt?" And the jury decided, "No." Legal minds even now debate whether the judge was right or wrong to NOT allow the inquest transcript, in which Lizzie repeatedly lied, read at the trial. The judge did sum up in Lizzie's favor. However, all the evidence was circumstantial.<br /><br />Which doesn't mean people can't be found guilty on circumstantial evidence--<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Peterson" rel="nofollow">Scott Peterson</a> correctly was--only that it is harder to get a conviction with circumstantial evidence, especially in today's society when juries say, "Hey, where're the forensics!?" Ah, the power of <i>CSI</i>!<br /><br />(On a total side-note, I am always bothered during <i>Murder She Wrote</i> episodes when Jessica spots the murderer because of a verbal inconsistency. I sit there, grinding my teeth. <i>Verbal inconsistency?! Do you know how easy it is to argue one's way out of that!?</i> I prefer Columbo who backs up his instincts with a tangible, physical clue. I'm a <i>CSI</i>-er by nature.)Katherine Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-85731806010840564112016-05-14T19:53:01.778-04:002016-05-14T19:53:01.778-04:00I remember reading a story by Harlan Ellison where...I remember reading a story by Harlan Ellison where Lizzie Borden was condemned to hell unjustly because everyone believed she did it. Ellison said in an introduction that she had to be innocent since was acquitted. I believe Rex Stout also believed she was innocent.<br /><br />I woundn't say it was impossible that she was innocent, but most of the time the person who was accused of the crime is the person who committed the crime. That's why they were accuse in the first place. <br /><br /> Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04695983348254508387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-73257263190416455212016-05-14T16:35:11.793-04:002016-05-14T16:35:11.793-04:00Lizzie's reactions to things were definitely &...Lizzie's reactions to things were definitely "off." <br /><br />Lizzie HATED her stepmother, Abby. Several years prior to the murder, her father, Andrew, bought half-a house for the sake of Abby's sister and put the property in Abby's name. This is a completely normal action for a man towards his second wife (who had no other money or property in her own name). The property did not even fall into the category of property that his daughters would inherit since Andrew bought it outright. Later, he transferred some of his properties to his daughters to smooth the matter over. <br /><br />Because, when they learned what he had done for Abby, Emma (to a degree) and Lizzie (to an extreme) were furious. They stopped speaking to Abby and refused to eat with the Borden parents. All this going on in a Victorian household where nobody actually argues out loud.<br /><br />It is clear that Emma, the appeaser, would have let the matter go (eventually). But Lizzie never did--unless one counts the intense psychological release of battering Abby's brains in five years later. She vehemently insisted on calling Abby "stepmother" rather than "mother" in the presence of others--this in an age where the distinction was not made to the same degree it is now. <br /><br />Keep in mind that Abby was the most harmless, mild, dumpy (if that matters), unpushy, undemanding person in the history of 2nd wives; Lizzie's "reading" of her stepmother as a conniving evildoer is, frankly, <b>weird</b>. <br /><br />Plus Lizzie was a petty thief--but more about that in a later comment!Katherine Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-30001884272346676852016-05-13T21:20:54.075-04:002016-05-13T21:20:54.075-04:00I believe Lizzie was a psychopath and "everyo...I believe Lizzie was a psychopath and "everyone" in Fall River knew it; you can hide psychopathy only so much. The notion of a person without a conscience is a hard concept to accept, let alone that a woman would be one. (Shakespeare got it though.)<br /><br />One of the more bizarre notions even prevalent today is that "a woman isn't capable of [fill in the evil]" It's even weirder to hear feminists say it. Fact is women are just as capable of men of extreme cruelty for as big a myriad of reasons. (I actually find women more cruel in some ways. In college, I observed that when male roommates didn't get along, they either ignored each other or had a fight. Female roommates who didn't get along, got even in very nasty ways.)<br /><br />The extreme violence of the Borden murders solidifies my conviction that it was Lizzie. Ironically, it's also [a big part of] what got her off.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04450897654318345683noreply@blogger.com