Lizzie Borden, queen of spin
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If OJ was the crime of the 20th century, Lizzie Borden was the female equivalent for the 19th century. In 1892, she took a hatchet and killed her father and her stepmother, presumably so she could escape her father’s tight grip on the family finances and live the life she craved in high society in Fall River, Mass. (and no, that’s not an oxymoron).
If you’re not familiar with the story, the amazing aspect of it is that the police never checked Lizzie’s clothes for blood (it was considered improper at the time to examine female suspects), and they bought her story that she had purchased hydrogen cyanide (a deadly chemical) to clean a seal coat. Uh, doesn’t that sort of indicate you have ill intentions?
Not only was Lizzie lucky that she was female, she had the added benefit of being a Sunday School teacher. Great spin for a murderess.
My mother’s house is not too far from Fall River, and I may have to visit the Lizzie Borden museum again soon. I saw it last summer in the heat of July, and the upstairs bedrooms were closed to visitors because of an A/C flooding problem. So I never did get to see all of the house. It’s actually a bed and breakfast (only in New England can they turn the macabre into a profit center), but I think just a tour is enough for me.
You may remember the 1970s Lizzie Borden movie that Elizabeth Montgomery (the actress from “Bewitched”) starred in. The movie’s theory was that Lizzie committed the acts in the nude, so that was why there were no bloodstains on her clothes. Lizzie’s older sister was conveniently out of town when the murders took place, and the family’s Irish maid claimed not to have seen or heard anything.
I became fascinated early on by Lizzie because of her ability to escape such damning evidence unscathed, save for public disapproval of her after she used the money to immediately buy a much larger and expensive house . My father’s ancestors all grew up in the Carver/New Bedford area, so for many generations we had the New Bedford newspaper edition that came out the day after the murders were committed. Unfortunately, my absent-minded mother left it in the family room downstairs in plain view, and it appears some workman over the years stole it, no doubt to get some money off eBay. So the family’s prized possession is gone.
But my memory isn’t. To me, Lizzie is the ultimate mystery. The ultimate queen of spin.
Thank you for the nice piece. There are a few factual inaccuracies. I hope you don’t mind me pointing them out to you.
Lizzie denied being in Bence’s drug store asking for prussic acid the day before the murders. It was Bence, the druggest, who claimed that Lizzie said she needed the prussic acid to clean a seal skin cape. His testimony was not allowed at the trial, so the jury heard none of it.
There actually wasn’t any evidence at all pointing to Lizzie’s guilt. No blood on her anywhere (clothes, hair, etc.). The only thing that tied her to the crimes was the fact that she was there that day and eventually profited from the deaths with her inheritance. But then, her sister Emma likewise profited, but was not at home during the time of the murders.
The police had many many suspects that they investigated, however, early on lighted upon Lizzie because they didn’t like her demeanor. They felt her too calm and collected.
If one were to read your first paragraph, but miss your last, I might think that Lizzie was guilty. She was acquitted, but you indicated she did it right off the bat.
I am totally intrigued by your take, however, and wonder if you would work it up to an article for my magazine, The Hatchet? I think the idea that spin was involved in intriguing, but I think you might spend more time discussing how that spin has been spun then and now.
Thanks!
Hi, Stefani! A lot of the information and opinion I formed was from the trial transcripts from “The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook” by David Kent. It’s true they never found the axe, and fingerprints were never taken by the police. I look at motive and opportunity, and of all the people involved, Lizzie had both.