How Lizzie Borden Got Away With Murder
May 18, 2024 2:10 AM Subscribe
How Lizzie Borden Got Away With Murder. Class, nativism and gender stereotypes all played a role in Borden’s acquittal for the 1892 killings of her father and stepmother. (Smithsonian magazine.)
That was a really good piece, a friend recommended it earlier and I went on to read What made Lizzie Borden kill, written in 1992 on the possible - as anything can be in a case where the facts are deliberately sparse - sexual abuse in the Borden family. That led to a whole rabbit hole on suppressed and recovered memory, but the Borden story does seem to be more of a lens onto current themes, than its own story.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:12 AM on May 18 [5 favorites]
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:12 AM on May 18 [5 favorites]
I have seen photos of the murder scene(s) and, I cannot stress this enough, do not ever need to see them again.
If anyone else is in a similar boat and wants reassurance: nah, this article doesn't have those images. It does have a drawing of her father's body, but with its face intact.
(Good article!)
posted by verbminx at 4:12 AM on May 18 [2 favorites]
If anyone else is in a similar boat and wants reassurance: nah, this article doesn't have those images. It does have a drawing of her father's body, but with its face intact.
(Good article!)
posted by verbminx at 4:12 AM on May 18 [2 favorites]
The case is so tangled, and the authorities botched it so thoroughly, that I think every generation gets the Lizzie Borden it wants to see. There is nothing other than the lens. She’s a bit like Jack the Ripper and Joan of Arc that way.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:58 AM on May 18 [15 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:58 AM on May 18 [15 favorites]
The same environment of nativism and anti-Catholic sentiment fostered H. P. Lovecraft and led, at least in part, to Prohibition. Of course, it sure did work for some people.
posted by tommasz at 5:29 AM on May 18 [4 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 5:29 AM on May 18 [4 favorites]
Bill James in his really absorbing true crime book makes a very good case on why Lizzie Borden could not possibly have committed the murders; it hinges, if I remember correctly, on the fact that she simply didn't have time to clean up the blood that would have been all over her before she was seen by neighbors calling for help. He doesn't, however, discuss the social mores that the posted article covers.
posted by JanetLand at 6:07 AM on May 18 [3 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 6:07 AM on May 18 [3 favorites]
she simply didn't have time to clean up the blood that would have been all over her before she was seen by neighbors calling for help.
I suspect either that the official timing is off and that the daughter did have time to kill her parents and clean herself and put on fresh clothes, or that another person worked with the daughter's help and was able to clean up and slip away. I have no idea who that other person could have been, but this wasn't suicide; after a good deal of vigorous butchery, someone covered with blood and bone and brain was catching their breath in that house in the middle of the day.
posted by pracowity at 6:49 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]
I suspect either that the official timing is off and that the daughter did have time to kill her parents and clean herself and put on fresh clothes, or that another person worked with the daughter's help and was able to clean up and slip away. I have no idea who that other person could have been, but this wasn't suicide; after a good deal of vigorous butchery, someone covered with blood and bone and brain was catching their breath in that house in the middle of the day.
posted by pracowity at 6:49 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]
she simply didn't have time to clean up the blood that would have been all over her before she was seen by neighbors calling for help.
I have heard it suggested (I don't remember where) that she might have killed them while naked, done clean up on her hands and face and put her clothes on to conceal blood elsewhere. The clothes would be stained eventually from being on a bloody body, but once the immediate scene is over, she could finish washing up more completely and burn the bloodstained clothes.
I have no idea if this is plausible or not. But "the Borden murders were committed in the nude" seems like the next natural step in the ever escalating luridness of axe murder theorizing.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:10 AM on May 18 [5 favorites]
I have heard it suggested (I don't remember where) that she might have killed them while naked, done clean up on her hands and face and put her clothes on to conceal blood elsewhere. The clothes would be stained eventually from being on a bloody body, but once the immediate scene is over, she could finish washing up more completely and burn the bloodstained clothes.
I have no idea if this is plausible or not. But "the Borden murders were committed in the nude" seems like the next natural step in the ever escalating luridness of axe murder theorizing.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:10 AM on May 18 [5 favorites]
The nude murder theory doesn't explain her dry, clean hair, though, and it's hard to imagine a woman of her time and class understanding how messy an axe murder would be.
posted by LindsayIrene at 7:16 AM on May 18 [8 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 7:16 AM on May 18 [8 favorites]
I’m totally fascinated the Borden case - she was certainly my intro to true crime. I for sure bought the narrative that she did it and was a genius at the cover up. However, I have since listened to multiple true crime podcasts break down the crime minute by minute and give more detail on dad’s life and I absolutely believe it was a jilted client who snuck out the back.
The detail that the police were all at a picnic that day and would be slow to respond isn’t something Lizzie was likely to know… but a client absolutely could have been privy to that information and could have planned the murders for that day. It’s not the evidence that tells me it wasn’t Lizzie there are just so many theories abt that (also a man wearing a dark trenchcoat fits with the bloodstains so much better bc a black coat would hide blood pretty well) - it’s her lack of motive. There’s no convincing motive that fits with who she was as a person prior to the murders.
Anyhow, that’s my tiny little take on it - thanks so much for the post!
posted by sonika at 7:34 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
The detail that the police were all at a picnic that day and would be slow to respond isn’t something Lizzie was likely to know… but a client absolutely could have been privy to that information and could have planned the murders for that day. It’s not the evidence that tells me it wasn’t Lizzie there are just so many theories abt that (also a man wearing a dark trenchcoat fits with the bloodstains so much better bc a black coat would hide blood pretty well) - it’s her lack of motive. There’s no convincing motive that fits with who she was as a person prior to the murders.
Anyhow, that’s my tiny little take on it - thanks so much for the post!
posted by sonika at 7:34 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
The nude murder theory
For research, see The Legend of Lizzie Borden, starring Elizabeth Montgomery. An ABC "Movie of the Week", IIRC.
posted by SPrintF at 7:34 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
For research, see The Legend of Lizzie Borden, starring Elizabeth Montgomery. An ABC "Movie of the Week", IIRC.
posted by SPrintF at 7:34 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
The article mentions that Lizzie Borden had access to her father's money and used it to pay for her defence. Isn't that unusual, in a murder case where the possible murderer might have killed in order to inherit?
posted by Zumbador at 8:10 AM on May 18
posted by Zumbador at 8:10 AM on May 18
I don't believe it could have occurred to Lizzie to murder anyone in the nude -- or do much of anything in the nude, except for the occasional hip bath. It was pretty hilarious to see Elizabeth Montgomery do it, in a "ladies and gentlemen, the reason this movie was made" sort of way.
I liked the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Older Sister." It got a lot done in a half hour or so. I do note that Lizzie Borden is never cast quite true to her appearance. The actress is either beautiful or hard-bitten, and in either case they're thin. Chloe Sevigny was good because she always is, but the movie with her is good as a story rather than as a theory.
Lizzie was a little plump, not unattractive but not alluring, either. I don't know that she ever wanted to be. She had a girlfriend later in life. Her later years suggested she would have liked to be what we'd call a "theater kid," if that option had been open. She hung out with artists and actresses and left her money to animal rescue.
Personally, I always figured she had done it but that a combination of status, gender preconceptions, and poor police work got her out of it. (She was burning and washing her clothes after the murder!) On the other hand, it never exactly seemed like Andrew Borden's blood was crying out from the ground. No one seemed to miss him for himself. About poor Abby I know less.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:28 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
I liked the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Older Sister." It got a lot done in a half hour or so. I do note that Lizzie Borden is never cast quite true to her appearance. The actress is either beautiful or hard-bitten, and in either case they're thin. Chloe Sevigny was good because she always is, but the movie with her is good as a story rather than as a theory.
Lizzie was a little plump, not unattractive but not alluring, either. I don't know that she ever wanted to be. She had a girlfriend later in life. Her later years suggested she would have liked to be what we'd call a "theater kid," if that option had been open. She hung out with artists and actresses and left her money to animal rescue.
Personally, I always figured she had done it but that a combination of status, gender preconceptions, and poor police work got her out of it. (She was burning and washing her clothes after the murder!) On the other hand, it never exactly seemed like Andrew Borden's blood was crying out from the ground. No one seemed to miss him for himself. About poor Abby I know less.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:28 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
The article mentions that Lizzie Borden had access to her father's money and used it to pay for her defence. Isn't that unusual
I wouldn't think so...innocent until proven guilty. The courts are the domain of property, I am not a lawyer but such a law seems unlikely in the United states.
posted by eustatic at 8:29 AM on May 18
I wouldn't think so...innocent until proven guilty. The courts are the domain of property, I am not a lawyer but such a law seems unlikely in the United states.
posted by eustatic at 8:29 AM on May 18
Yeah, I think the thing that stuck out for me about access to her father's money is the attitude that's carried forward into asset forfeiture policies today: The notion that the justice system is necessarily swayed by wealth, which says that rather than fixing that we're just accepting that poor people get convicted without reason.
And that we really don't believe innocent until proven guilty.
posted by straw at 8:37 AM on May 18 [2 favorites]
And that we really don't believe innocent until proven guilty.
posted by straw at 8:37 AM on May 18 [2 favorites]
I was just reading Wikipedia on the Slayer Rule, and the 'No Profit' principle, but it would seem that those idea apply once the suspect is a convicted criminal.
Whereas my 'Slayer Rule' is that we must listen to Slayer while learning about ax murder
posted by eustatic at 9:10 AM on May 18 [11 favorites]
Whereas my 'Slayer Rule' is that we must listen to Slayer while learning about ax murder
posted by eustatic at 9:10 AM on May 18 [11 favorites]
I have never believed that she committed the murders.
posted by maryellenreads at 11:00 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]
posted by maryellenreads at 11:00 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]
I don't have any strong opinions on whether she did it or not, but given that her father had that house built without hallways, making it so that this room could only be accessed by walking through that room and privacy was a distant dream, I could understand having an urge to murder him.
posted by johnofjack at 11:12 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
posted by johnofjack at 11:12 AM on May 18 [7 favorites]
This article isn't interested in the other male relative (John Vinnicum Morse) staying at the Borden home with an impossible alibi?
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 11:17 AM on May 18 [4 favorites]
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 11:17 AM on May 18 [4 favorites]
I went on to read What made Lizzie Borden kill, written in 1992 on the possible - as anything can be in a case where the facts are deliberately sparse - sexual abuse in the Borden family
This was a good article, and most honest about how this event has passed into myth, while presenting interesting facts and history consistent with the abuse theory
posted by eustatic at 12:53 PM on May 18
This was a good article, and most honest about how this event has passed into myth, while presenting interesting facts and history consistent with the abuse theory
posted by eustatic at 12:53 PM on May 18
It's really striking how much this case must have influenced the modern murder-mystery genre of entertainment. The locked house, the large number of plausible suspects, the hidden family dynamics brought to light, the implications drawn out from specific details. Even the circumstance of the class divide between the victim / suspects and the police.
What would murder mysteries be like today if Lizzie (or someone else) had short-circuited everything by just confessing?
posted by Western Infidels at 12:00 PM on May 19
What would murder mysteries be like today if Lizzie (or someone else) had short-circuited everything by just confessing?
posted by Western Infidels at 12:00 PM on May 19
Ms. Borden did not "get away with murder". She was acquitted of that same murder. As far as I know acquittal establishes her non-guilt as a matter of legal fact. If someone thinks they have other facts they can enter into evidence, it's possible that a legal system would allow some kind of retrial to establish a correspondence between the "legal facts" and the demonstrable facts in new evidence. Until that happens there is at least one legal fact which is at odds with the "real" (measurable, demonstrable) facts on the ground.
If there is one, how do we know there aren't more? Of course, we do know that. Everyone can probably think of at least one area of settled law at flagrant odds with the "real" world we have to live in.
If you have a legal system that makes these sorts of errors without visibility into error rates or etiology, it's awfully hard to diagnose or correct. It ruins lives without righting wrongs. It isn't a very good system.
It would be nice if, in this enlightened period of human history, we had a better system in place in the Bordens' jurisdiction than was there during their time. Is it so? How can we tell?
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:01 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
If there is one, how do we know there aren't more? Of course, we do know that. Everyone can probably think of at least one area of settled law at flagrant odds with the "real" world we have to live in.
If you have a legal system that makes these sorts of errors without visibility into error rates or etiology, it's awfully hard to diagnose or correct. It ruins lives without righting wrongs. It isn't a very good system.
It would be nice if, in this enlightened period of human history, we had a better system in place in the Bordens' jurisdiction than was there during their time. Is it so? How can we tell?
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:01 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
« Older "It’s not for everyone, but it’s a good life." | Procedural Artificial Narrative using Gen AI for... Newer »
posted by HearHere at 3:22 AM on May 18 [4 favorites]