Lizzie Borden Revisited w/ Cara Robertson

In August of 1892, one of the most famous double murders in American history was committed in brutal fashion. Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death in their Fall River house, and their daughter Lizzie, home at the time, became the number one suspect. What followed was a spectacular trial, fought by brilliant attorneys, in a courtroom packed with fascinated spectators and reporters.

My guest is Cara Robertson, author of “The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story”. She summarizes this sensational Gilded Age true crime story with a unique legal perspective.

More about the author and her work can be found here: www.carawrobertson.com

Transcript of the Interview (generated by an automated transcription software)

Erik: You might remember I did an episode on Lizzie Borden a long time ago. In fact, it was episode three last year. I circled back to the case in my podcast, aghast at the past 1892, and it really renewed my interest in the subject. It truly is an iconic case. Can a murder case be called iconic? I, I don’t know.

But if it can be, this really is it. Anyway, I chose purposely not to re-listen to the 2015 interview, partly because I’m overly critical of myself on those first few episodes, and also because I just wanted to experience the story all over again with a fresh set of eyes and ears. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, as I certainly did, revisiting the Lizzy Borden double murder case.

Let’s get to it.

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Most Notorious podcast. I’m Eric Rs. Great to connect with you again as we merely trudge along through the dog days of summer. I’m so thrilled to be speaking today with Cara Robertson. She began researching the B and Case as a Harvard undergraduate in 19. Among her many accomplishments, she clerked at the Supreme Court of the United States and served as a legal advisor to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, and has written for numerous publications.

And she is here to talk about her book, The Trial of Lizzie Borden. A True Story. Thank you so much for coming on.

Cara: Thanks Erik for having me.

Erik: Yes. So this subject is a massive one to tackle. It’s perhaps the most well known true crime case from 19th Century America. And so much has been written about it already. How did you decide to approach it to, to put a unique spin on it?

Cara: As you say, Erik, it, it has been much written about because it is in some sense, you know, almost the her American, you know, true crime story. And there’s something, you know, sort of mythic about it, this very unhappy family altogether in a, in a small house.

And at the same time it’s a story that that tells us a lot about the Giled age in America, because it takes place in a, in a town whose wealth is created by massive industrialization. It’s the Fall River Massachusetts is often called the Manchester of America in that period. So there’s a, you know, there are a lot of interesting themes going on, but what I wanted to do was, I wanted to focus on the trial because most people talk about the murders or the focuses on the murders that it, you know, there’s something kind of irresistible about the way in which.

You know, it remains an unsolved mystery and that it’s, it’s almost like a locked room mystery. And that in, and that there are a limited number of suspects and people have to have been in a particular place at a particular time. And so there’s, there’s a lot that’s, that’s a lot like a, a traditional detective novel to it.

But the problem with telling the story that’s, that’s just focused on the murders as opposed to the trial is that for the most part, the writers have decided whether they think Lior did it or not. And sort of inevitably that ends up skewing the story a little bit. And so I wanted to present it sort of as straightforwardly as possible so that the readers could come to their own conclusions.

Erik: That makes sense. You mentioned Fall River being an important city in Massachusetts during this time, and Andrew Borden was an important man in Fall River. And Andrew Borden was the patriarch of a family that operated with some level of dysfunction. I, I couldn’t help but noticing as I read your book.

Cara: Yeah. I think that, you know, it would’ve seemed less odd at the time. You know, we, we, of course know a lot about the boards because things go so disastrously wrong in the house. But, you know, on the surface it probably would’ve looked fairly typical, you know, kind of unlikely setting for, for that kind of bloodshed.

Andrew Borden, as you mentioned, was a prominent local citizen. He was a self-made man who’d made a fortune in real estate. Although he did. He could trace his descent to the founding families of Fall River. He was in fact, you know, a self-made man and he lived with his second wife, Abby, and his adult unmarried daughters, Emma and Lizzie in a single family house that had been converted from a 10 event for two families in a neighborhood near the downtown of Fall River, which suited his preferred manner of living and also his business interests cuz he could walk and check on his various buildings.

So there was a lot that was, you know, not that unusual and the fact that the unmarried adult daughters were living at home would’ve been typical at the time. But it is true that that beneath that surface, calm the household. Almost a sight of a cold war between the elder Bodens and the the daughters.

About five years before the murders, Andrew gave his wife a house for her sister and her family to live in, and his daughters, Lizzie and Emma, resented this and told their father that, you know, what, what he did for his wife, he should do for his own blood. And he gave them a house of comparable value. You know, it was a rental property, but it didn’t heal the breach.

And after that, Lizzie and her sister avoided their father and stepmother as much as was possible in a small house, preferring to eat separately and to entertain their own visitors in a guest room upstairs.

Erik: What happened to their biological mother?

Cara: She died when Lizzie was very young. And so there is a sense that, that Emma was a sort of second mother to Lizzie and might have resented her stepmother.

Trying to take on that role. Abby Borden, the stepmother was really the only mother that, you know, Lizzie would’ve remembered.

Erik: Part of the resentment perhaps from the Bordens and daughters had to do with the way the family lived. They were wealthy, but Andrew Borden was notoriously tight-fisted and they could have easily afforded a, a much larger house.

Cara: Right, right. That kind of dissatisfaction was, was definitely seen as a, as a possible motive for murder because it was clear that the, the daughters would’ve preferred to live in the Hill District which was the elite residential district in Fall River. They lived in this small house, as you say, in the, in what was called the flats, which was more of.

You know, middle class kind of professional Irish or maybe you know, waspy families on their way down. It was for the Midling sword, I think maybe would be the, would be the way to put it. And so there was a sense that they were not living maybe in the way that they would’ve liked to have lived. One of their former neighbors and close friends put it that, you know, they would’ve liked to have been cultured girls.

But that, you know, Andrew Borden really just didn’t understand that desire and didn’t see any reason to live in a way any grander than he chose for himself. You know, less charitable people said that, said that, you know, he just was somebody who liked piling up dollars and, you know, had the, had the first one he ever made, basically.

Erik: And they also didn’t attend the same church.

Cara: Right. I mean, that’s a, that in and of itself is an, you know, an oddity. I mean, not to have a, not to have the family united on Sunday. And they had in fact, attended this, this, the same church. But Andrew had gotten into a dispute over, actually over a land valuation that the church wanted to buy.

And it gives you some sense of, of his temperament, you know, that, that that was enough to make him wanna switch churches. But that the but that his daughters weren’t prepared to give up their community there, you know, that they weren’t, they weren’t willing to walk with him.

Erik: So we’ve got Andrew and Abby Borden in the house, their daughters, Emma and Lizzie living together, but not spending time together.

Also in the house was their servant, a woman named Bridget Sullivan. And while Lizzie and Emma were not fond of their stepmother at all, Abby Borden actually got along really well with Bridget.

Cara: Yeah, she spoke very highly of her. And, and you know, really, I mean, speaking, speaking from my own research, I’d say Abby was the, you know, was by far the nicest person in the household.

she gets a bad, you know, she has a bad reputation as the stepmother. And the assumption is that, you know, that somehow she must be responsible in some way. I mean, if you’re assuming, of course, that Lizzie Borden was guilty that, you know, because of, you know, we think of stepmothers out of fairy tales, but, but in fact she seemed to really be looking out for her stepdaughters in lots of ways and really this, this property transaction that triggered or, or raised to the surface, the tension in the household was, was only to help her own sister, her own half sister, actually.

I mean, it wasn’t actually for herself.

Erik: I felt a lot of sympathy for, for Abby Borden while reading your book, she was kind of trapped in this house with a stingy husband and two stepdaughters who didn’t like her very much. It had to have been a difficult existence for her.

Cara: Yeah. She’s, she’s a poignant figure.

Erik: So in the days leading up to the murders, which happened in the summer of 1892, members of the family, specifically Andrew and Abby, had been suffering from some stomach ailments, thought to be food poisoning.

Cara: Right. As you know, as we’ve mentioned that Andrew was a bit of a cheap skate. You know, there’s a lot of bad leftover food in the board household.

I mean, it’s the, it’s one of the things that people remember the most about the case. You know, there’s the, there was the leftover swordfish that, that caused that particular. Stomach complaint. But then there’s also the, the story of the, of the dinners and the breakfast of mutton and leftover mutton stew.

And that seems to, that always seems to linger in people’s minds as really like the worst possible American history food story. But precisely because it was so hot in Massachusetts in the summer that, and, you know, food storage protocols were different. It was not that unusual to have people stricken by, by these kind of digestive ailments that in fact, the locals referred to as the summer complaint.

But what was striking and gives you a sense of the kind of tension in the household is that, is that Abby Borden didn’t view her distress as typical. She went across the street to the family doctor and said that she thought she’d been poisoned.

Erik: Also, an interesting event that it happened about a year or so before the murders, There had been a mysterious robbery in the Borden House, right?

Cara: There’s this odd daytime theft and the details of it seem to, you know, almost press what’s going to happen later in that, you know, Lizzie, Lizzie, Emma, and Bridget Sullivan are all home. And somehow a thief manages to sneak in while Mr. And Mrs. B are out and takes some things of, you know, not great value.

A little a, a watch that’s of particular sentimental value to Abby. Some streetcar tickets and some other items of Andrew Borden’s. And then this is reported to the police and they, they come over, take a look, and Lizzie Borden leads, leads the police detective on a kind of excited tour of the house.

And one of the things that, you know, again, is very striking, particularly in light of later events, is that Andrew Borden tells the police officer that he doesn’t think that they’ll ever find the thief. And after that, he begins the practice of locking his bedroom door when he leaves it and then putting the key on the mantle in the sitting room.

You know, and this seems like the sort of thing designed to send a message rather than actually secure his bedroom because he is leaving the key out, you know? So it seems like it’s, he’s not actually suspecting a servant or indeed anyone else. And that the message is that, you know, the, the thief is someone very close to him and he knows.

Erik: So on the morning of August 4th, 1892, a neighbor of the boards named Adelaide Churchill happened to look out her window and she saw Lizzie standing just inside the screen door of the Borden home. And Adelaide Churchill said she could tell something was wrong with Lizzie and she called out to her,

Cara: Right, right. Adelaide Churchill’s sort of the Gladys Kravitz of the neighborhood . That’s how I think of her. She’s always sort of on hand and is very pleased to be at this center of the action. So she just happens to be looking out her window and she sees Lizzie just inside the screen door. At the side entrance of the house, there’s a, there’s a front door there’s a door from the basement that goes out to the backyard, and then there’s the side door that goes into a kitchen and She’s Lizzie then tells her that, you know, someone has killed her father.

And she’s already at that point sent Bridget Sullivan out to find the doctor. And when the doctor turns out to be away on a, on a different call to a patient, she, she sends Bridget Sullivan to a former neighbor and close family friend Alice Russell. But that makes Adelaide Churchill, the kind of the first, the first outsider on the scene.

Erik: It’s interesting that there’s a doctor that lives right next door, but Lizzie doesn’t bother to check to see if he’s home.

Cara: Right. it’s one of those things that’s so striking and, and telling about the class dynamics, the class and ethnic views of, of people in Fall River in that era. You know, the boards are surrounded by doctors, but they’re, but the only doctor that

she thinks to summon is the Protestant doctor , who lives across the street. I mean, it makes sense that she would go to him first because he is in fact the family physician. But it is, it is striking that surrounded, you know, surrounded by the Catholics doctors. She, she instead waits for Dr. Bowen the Protestant to return.

Erik: So there just happened to be a Fall River Police Department picnic going on that day coincidentally, which meant that the police department, of course, was short-staffed and only one officer was sent to the board and home.

Cara: Right. That was the, you know, it was the annual picnic at Rocky Mount. So it was, you know, either really bad or really good timing, depending upon your perspective, you know, in fairness to the police that, you know, they just weren’t prepared for, for what they found.

Andrew Borden, you know, was found on his city room sofa. And his face resembled raw meat, according to a, an early witness he’d been, you know, he’d been fell by, by 10 blows as he was sleeping on the sofa. And, you know, a lot of his face was just almost unrecognizable. And that’s just not something that, you know, you would expect to see an elderly man in his own home just on a normal summer morning.

And then it took, they didn’t immediately realize that, that Abby Borden was, was dead upstairs because Lizzie said that she had gone out. But she was killed by 19 blows. So, you know, in sense it was, it was even worse murder. So these were just, these were just things that were not the norm in Full River, happily.

And would’ve been front page news, even had suspicion not fallen on. The very unlikely person of Lizzie Borden.

Erik: Bridget told police that Abby, whenever she went out, would tell her she was leaving beforehand. But Bridget said that Abby hadn’t told her that morning.

Cara: Right. This, the Lizzie, Lizzie told her, Or actually maybe to, to step back for a moment.

First thing in the morning, you know, there are five people in the house. There’s Andrew, Abby, Lizzie, Bridget Sullivan, and Andrew’s brother-in-law from his first marriage. John Morris, who’s Lizzie’s biological uncle Emma was away visiting friends in Fair Haven. And Andrew and Abby you know, are up early for breakfast.

And John Morris has breakfast with John Morris and Andrew Borden go out. You know about, Separate business in town. Abby gives Bridget Sullivan the job of washing the outside windows around nine. And we know that Abby was killed about nine 30 upstairs. And we know that Bridget had an alibi because she was spotted by a neighboring house servant.

She was, you know, they were having a little chat outside. And so then that, fortunately for Bridge had put her out of you know, out of harm’s way. She wasn’t really a suspect. But Andrew Borden came home around 10 45 and at that point Lizzie told him that Abby had had a note from a sick friend and had gone out.

And apparently he didn’t think anything out, but he just went into the sitting room and decided to take a nap. And, you know, shortly thereafter he was murdered. Though at the trial, the defense does a very good job of, of suggesting that maybe Bridget Sullivan was, had said something about the note as well.

But it’s pretty clear that the first mention of the note comes from Lizzie when asking her when, when greeting her father that morning. And, you know, it was considered extremely significant that, that no such note was ever found. And also that, you know, no one came forward to say that he had delivered a note.

You know, so not just that the person who allegedly had sent the note had not come forward, but also that, you know, one of the, one of the boys who would’ve delivered a note said, you know, never came forward either. So, in other words, the, according to the prosecution, there was no note that this was a, this was a ruse to keep Andrew from inquiring further about his wife.

Erik: The first police officer who arrives, he quickly realizes he has got his hands full, of course, and he has to leave the scene of the crime to get more help. So he assigns some random guy kind of a local busy body who’s already sort of snooping around as a century to guard the house while he’s gone.

Cara: Right. Just a, just, he’s a kind of decorative house painter, , and he ends up as the century. And, you know, by all gods, he’s kind of scared to death. And, and actually that gets at another really intriguing part of the story, which is that, you know, it seemed almost as if everybody who was in the vicinity that day just walked through the crime scene, you know, came to have a look when I described Andrew Borden’s faces resembling raw meat.

You know, that comes from a. Somebody who just, who just stopped in to, to see what was going on. You know, not somebody official. So there’s nothing like the you know, what we would expect to see today with the, with the house being cordoned off and people in there hazmat suits and it was a lot looser , shall we say.

Erik: Yeah. Yeah. And one of the officers that arrives, I think his name was Harrington, stumbles in on the family doctor, Dr. Bowen, who had always been protective of Lizzie. He, he stumbles in on Dr. Bowen and Lizzie in the kitchen and he catches sight of the doctor throwing something into the kitchen stove.

Cara: Right. Yeah. That, there’s just so many oddities. I mean, they’re definitely. Reasons to be a little suspicious of the, of the Good Doctor. You know, that he he’s the person who as you say, puts something into the stove, and it’s not really clear what that is. It seems to have the name Emma on it, and he’s, but, but he says that it, it’s something relating to his own daughter.

Again, that’s something that, you know, that’s a mystery that’s never resolved. He’s protective of Lizzie Borden when the police wanna question her. And probably the most helpful thing he does is when a pale of bloody cloths is, is found in the basement. And Lizzie’s asked about it. She refers the policeman to the doctor, and the doctor tells the policeman on her behalf, That, you know, it’s her monthly illness, you know, which is to say she’s menstruating and that that’s the, that’s the reason for the, for the bloody towels.

And from that time on the, that’s just sort of passed over. I mean, it, it, it could of course be true. And in terms of late 19th century medical and criminological theories, it, it, it could be significant cuz there were theories about menstrual insanity. But I, in the short term, what it, what it does is it, it just explains the way, the presence of, of some bloody clause that, you know, could have been used to clean up, you know, either a criminal after, after committing the murder or, you know, or the scene.

Erik: Do you think authorities ignored the bloody rags because of the taboo nature of the subject during the era? It was just something that men didn’t want to talk about or think about, or did they just not find it important?

Cara: Yeah, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting question. I because on the one hand, of course, these things, you know, it’s not like they didn’t know about these things.

And that’s a point that’s made at the trial is that, you know, some of you are husbands, you know, you know all about, you know, all about these things. But it, it’s more just that it was, it seems sort of distasteful and that there is, you know, deep discomfort in investigating this prominent family, and particularly the daughter of the house.

And so. You know, I, I, I would say that I, I think it’s more discomfort. I mean, that it’s something that they just, that they just seem to pass over.

Erik: So Lizzie, I, I know she was asked by multiple people what had happened, where she had been, Did she hold firm to her story or, or did it change over the course of the first few days of the investigation?

Cara: Yeah, you, you, you know, you hit on an important point which is that her, her story seemed to vary. I mean, the, she’s kind of settled on the story that she was downstairs ironing handkerchiefs when her stepmother was killed. Which, you know, if you’ve been in the house or, and as they tried to convey at the trial is, is a little bit tough to believe because, I mean, or rather what’s tough to believe is that, is that she would not have known anything was going on.

Cause it’s, it’s a small enough house that, you know, you would think that that that kind of violence upstairs would be, would be heard downstairs. And then she also said that at the time of her father’s killing, she was outside, first in the backyard, picking some pairs. And then upstairs in the, in the barn on the second floor in the loft looking for variously, you know, piece of iron to fix a screen, perhaps a sinker for a fishing trip she was contemplating.

So, you know, as you know, the, the story seemed to change. I mean, the fundamentals were, were, were that she was downstairs during her stepmother’s murder and outside, you know, in other words, out of the house and away from wherever the murderer was during her father’s killing. But the details seemed to change.

Erik: And Bridget Sullivan washing the windows, you would think that she would have a great view of anyone going in or coming out of the house.

Cara: Yeah, it, it, it was a difficult, a difficult place to get into. The, you know, the front door was always locked. And, and we know that the back door was that, you know, went from the basement out to the, to the backyard was locked.

And in fact, cobwebs had, you know, grown over so clearly no one had come in that way. So that meant that the side door, you know, where Lizzie had been standing and spotted by Adelaide Churchill, the neighbor, that was really the only place where someone from the outside could have gotten in. And then that person would’ve had to allude the two women, you know, who were in and out of the house that morning.

And it just wasn’t the sort of house where there are a lot of opportunities. Or places to hide. As and mentioned it’s a converted tenement house, which, which meant that the first floor and the second floor had the same floor plan and, and there’re just no hallways. You know, you walk through one room to get to another.

So it wasn’t the sort of place where you could imagine being safe if somebody were walking around the house. So, I mean, and you know, it’s theoretically possible and it, and it’s one of those details about this case that I think turn people into, you know, amateur detectives. If you go to the house and you can in fact go to the house and take a tour, you’ll often find that, that people will do things like fall on the floor upstairs and see if anybody downstairs can hear them or look for places where someone could have, you know, possibly have hidden.

But you know, the there there’s also an hour and a half between the murders and that also seems to. You know, rule out a murder, a stranger, because why would someone kill someone upstairs wait in the house for some unknown amount of time for another person to come back, but not harm the other two women who were in the house.

It just, it just seems very strange.

Erik: And that person who would’ve been hiding for an hour and a half, they’d need to not only be hidden from sight, but they’d also have to have a clear view of, of, of anyone coming or going.

Cara: Right. Right. And then, you know, so alluding the two women who were known to be at the house at the time, and also with no desire to kill them because they were unharmed.

Erik: So is there a particular spot in the house that people think a killer could have hidden?

Cara: Right. Well, there’s an upstairs closed closet. I mean, it’s not really a closet in the way that that, you know, we think of them as, you know, these large walk-in closets, but they’re, you know, in theory somebody could have been there and I suppose that person could have, you know, heard whether somebody comes in the front door or not.

You know, if that kind of assassin was waiting for Andrew. But it just seems like I don’t know, a profiling mismatch, you know? Cause if you imagine someone coming in from the outside, you think, and, and that was the police first thought was that, oh, this is some kind of just madman who’s wandered in because of the brutality of the murders.

I mean, it’s, they’re just so unnecessarily brutal. So it’s hard to imagine that somebody would kill Abby the way that Abby was murdered, you know, with all those blows. And then, Hide in a calm and collected way waiting for, you know, Andrew to come home. Right. You know, either it’s a maniac or, you know, it’s somebody who’s, who’s really targeting these people.

Erik: And the killer would’ve had to have gotten into the house, gotten out of the house in broad daylight on a busy street with neighbors.

Cara: Exactly. And, and there are, I mean, this is, this is something that comes up at trial. I mean, what the defense does is call a bunch of witnesses who see odd looking people in the vicinity at the time, the, at the rough time of the murders on that morning.

You know, and it’s a busy enough street because this is the, it’s, you know, it’s right near the, the center of town and it’s part of the commercial district that you know, that there are some odd , there are some odd looking characters. There’s My favorite is Dr. Handy’s Wild Eye Man, . And then there’s another witness who has a, the who, who sees someone who’s very pale and has eyes that seem like they would look right through her.

Erik: And in Fall River in 1892, a woman like Lizzie from a well-to-do family would not have been the automatic suspect for. You write that it was assumed off the bat that an immigrant had committed the murders.

Cara: Yeah, they’re definitely looking for an outsider. And then, and, and their first thought is, is right.

The, the immigrants and in fact pretty much anybody who’s of that status , who’s doing anything that’s out of the ordinary, gets stopped and questioned somebody. Portuguese has a suitcase and that person is, comes under suspicion. I mean, there, there are plenty of very strange leads that get, get run down.

Cause the problem for the police is that somebody like Lizzie Borden ticks all the boxes of proper middle class womanhood and, you know, she’s active in good works, particularly in her church. And, and with that class status. And those good works come a number of assumptions about, you know, her fundamental goodness assumptions that you know are not accorded.

To people of immigrant backgrounds. So she presents this kind of conundrum because she’s the person who obviously has the, has the opportunity and upon, you know, some limited investigation. It turns out she has a motive as well, but it, she just seems so unlike the kind of person they expect to be the killer.

Erik: Right. Women in the 19th century used poison predominantly when committing murder.

Cara: Right, Right. Had it been a poisoning, I think that, that the whole thing would’ve been, you know, maybe a little easier to imagine, but the murder with a hatchet or an ax or some, you know, some kind of really sharp implement like that, that, you know, that scene is very male.

That that’s a, that, that’s a male method of, of killing someone. It’s too physical. It’s too violent. You know, poison is poison, which, which allows some distance is something that, that women would be inclined to use. And you know, it turns out that on the day before the murders, Lizzie Borden allegedly tried to buy poison, or at least tried to buy presic acid that she claimed was to clean a, a seal skin cape.

And she was refused the protic acid on the grounds that, you know, it was something that was only sold on prescription of a doctor. And so there are some who then, then were able to say, Well, okay, if she tried to buy a deadly poison and wasn’t unable to, then that makes turning to a weapon that would’ve been in the house more plausible.

I mean, I should just say to in, you know, in the spirit of even hadn’t in this, she never admitted that she’s the person who tried to buy the poison. And then this is something that doesn’t get admitted at trial either, but there were multiple people who identified her.

Right? There are three people who, who identified her It seems like she did, and that, and that the defense argument would’ve been that, you know, that there are lots of innocent reasons to try to buy poison that it’s, you know, it was used to kill vermin and in that era, and also for all sorts of cleaning purposes.

So, I mean, not press acid necessarily, but all sorts of poisons are used, were used in the household. So I, That probably would’ve been the argument. Right.

Erik: And when autopsies were done on the boards, poison was not found in their stomachs.

Cara: That’s right. There was definitely no poison in either of the victim’s stomachs or, you know, anything else that they, that they examined for that.

So that whatever kind of, you know, their, their gastrointestinal distress was, was probably really from the, just the leftover food. And what the prosecution then argues is that it’s not so much that Lizzie Borden. Poisoned. But that, but that, that gave her an idea, right? And that’s why she went out. That was the reason that she went out to get the presic acid, is that she thought, Okay, they’re already sick, so I could just sort of hasan this along and then, and then denied the, the poison she turned desperately to something that was, you know, readily at hand.

Erik: Part of the argument presented by Nolton who was prosecuting the case, and we can talk more about the attorneys in a bit, but, but he suggested that Mr. And Mrs. B were killed by a woman because the strikes, the blows on the victim’s heads were sloppy and imprecise. If a man had killed them, he said, These blows would’ve been more efficient. They would’ve looked neater.

Cara: Right. It’s, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? That, that Yeah, I think he says that there, there of a, you know, vacillating nature, the sort of indecisive of feminine blows because the, you know, whereas a whereas as you say, like a man would’ve made just, just quick work of it. And it’s fascinating that there’s just, every, every part of this crime is seen through this gendered lens and needs to be explained that way.

Erik: So motives Lizzie’s motive would’ve been money, Right. And revenge against her stepmother?

Cara: Yeah. I, I think that, that, you know, that’s obviously the motive or the motives. But what’s interesting is that that’s really not what the prosecution says. You know, the prosecution talks about. Things like l board’s dissatisfaction with the way that they lived her dislike of her stepmother, you know, her belief that her stepmother, you know, was deceitful particularly as related to this, that particular property transaction.

But really what gets focused on is the, you know, the idea that, that she just has this hatred for her stepmother. And that, that that’s the, that’s the thing that really gets explored at the trial. You know, in other words, that this is a, this is a woman’s crime with a woman’s motive. And as a result, it’s very difficult for the prosecution to explain why Lizzie Borden would’ve killed her father.

And they essentially fall back on the idea that, you know, he just came home before she could get out and establish her own alibi. And so she was sort of forced to kill him because, It would’ve been impossible for him to believe that she hadn’t killed her stepmother and she wouldn’t have been able to, you know, bear that, you know?

So it’s quite convoluted as opposed to a pretty straightforward monetary motive. Particularly since there’s some indication that, that Andrew was preparing to write a will. And had he done that and left, you know, money to the stepmother or put, maybe even given her control of all of it, who knows what the plan was, you know, that that would’ve been very strong motive and also created the urgency, you know, the reason that it had to be committed on that particular day.

But we don’t know that this is, this is speculation, but you know, there’s some evidence in the record that this was something he was talking about. Right?

Erik: Yeah. I wanted to ask you too, about, John Mo, he was quite a strange character. Wouldn’t you agree

Cara: Yeah. He’s an odd, he’s an odd one. You know, he’s sort of the ideal suspect in some respects, cuz he, you know, he’s this, he’s the outside figure who suddenly comes into the house right before the murders happen.

And he’s quite unappealing. I mean, he’s a good match for his brother-in-law in terms of his stinginess. And and he also there’s something kind of unsavory about him, at least, at least as he, you know, appears in the newspapers that there’s, you know, there’s talk that, that he hangs out with gypsies who are horse thieves and he has a bad reputation back in Iowa where he mostly lived.

But, you know, he has this alibi that’s kind of straight out of an ag at the Christie novel. He’s riding on a street car and his fellow passengers are six priests. And this, the conductor doesn’t remember him, but you know, remembers the priest. So he’s considered to be pretty much out of it, but he, he’s someone who gets followed around by a crowd of townspeople who thinks that, you know, he must be the murderer.

Erik: So as, as far as the autopsies went, were there any noteworthy discoveries made that would be important later during the trial?

Cara: Yeah, the most important thing that the autopsies disclose, you know, aside from the actual wounds, which are used to try to identify the actual murder weapon, is that the digestions progress is different in Andrew and Abby.

And so that is part of what proves that Abby was killed, you know, an hour and a half to two hours before Andrew. And that’s considered significant for two reasons. One, you know, one of course it, it means that. Lizzie and Emma inherit all of their father’s property because since Abby predeceased him, she, you know, she doesn’t get the widow share, you know, the dower share.

And secondly, it’s, you know, it’s important because it, for the reasons that we talked about earlier, that it would’ve meant that if someone had come in from the outside, that person would’ve had to been hiding, you know, lying in white for that length of time between the murders.

Erik: Right, Right. So the inquest is very interesting and it became a, a point of contention during the trial when the prosecution tries to use Lizzie’s testimony during the inquest in her trial, and the defense is not interested at all.

Can you explain that for us?

Cara: The inquest is really the only time we, we get Lizzie Borden under oath speaking, you know, so it’s very important for that reason. And what’s clear is that the police and the prosecutor already suspect her at that point. And in fact the chief of police has an arrest warrant already made out that he kind of carries around in his pocket while the inquest is taken place.

And, and that, that becomes a significant later on because the argument for keeping out Lizzie’s counsel at the time of the inquest is that, you know, this is just standard practice that, you know, in the case of suspicious deaths, the states or, or rather the commonwealth is required. You know, have an inquest and it’s not the practice to permit people to be represented, you know, at that time.

And, you know, Lizzie Borden was not then under arrest. And so she had no particular right to counsel. And, you know, the court later on looks at this and says you wanted to arrest her, and you just sort of strategically held off until you could get her testimony under oath. And then the counterargument to that is that, is that, you know, she, she had a chance to talk over the matter with her counsel and she could have refused to testify at the time because there was a right under the state constitution, or I’m sorry, again, the Commonwealth Constitution, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts constitution, that’s akin to the, you know, Fifth Amendment protection.

But as to, as to what Li Borden said during the, in. She gave an account of her movements on that morning, you know, she was sort of mad maddeningly, evasive, you know, about whether she was upstairs or downstairs at different times to the consternation of the prosecutor. And what struck me, you know, as I was reading this, is that, you know, on the one hand, obviously this doesn’t look good, , this is very right.

This is not behavior that, you know, is consistent with, with innocence. But at the same time, it does speak to the sort of life she had. You know, that, that she’s, she doesn’t have a life of purpose and time keeping, you know, in the way that, in the way that the you know, the men who are looking at this story do you know, someone like the prosecutor who’s a busy man who could probably account for, you know, how he spent most of, most minutes of every day.

Whereas someone like Lizzie Borden, who is fortunate enough to have a housekeeper who, you know, does the heavy domestic lifting, she has her personal, her own personal task, like ironing the handkerchiefs she wants to iron. And then, you know, other than that, her time is kind of her own as long as she’s at home.

And so the fact that she might have wandered out into the, into the orchard, you know, in the middle of doing her anchor tips and then deciding to go to the barn and then coming back and maybe being upstairs and maybe being downstairs makes a certain amount of sense, you know, in that context, even though it was something that I think was hard for the, for the men looking at the story to understand.

The, the other thing I’m sorry, I, I, I probably should add is that, is that, you know, most of the most vivid information about the ill will in the household comes from Lizzie Borden herself during the inquest. You know, that she, I mean, she claims that, that it was sort of all settled, but she’s able to talk about it with, with some fervor you know, even though she’s, she is in fact at an inquest about her stepmother and her father’s death.

And so that, so it becomes important for that reason as well, that that’s something that, that’s a reason that the prosecution wants, wants this admitted.

Erik: Right. And she doesn’t really show much emotion over the death of her father and stepmother. People would later comment in observing her on the day of the murders. She seemed really composed. She didn’t cry or anything like that, but there was a, a moment both during the inquest and during the trial that she does have a, a good laugh and she laughs when her stepmother’s weight is brought up. Mm-hmm. , It seems pretty cruel.

Erik: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s insensitive to say the least.

And she does have this extraordinary self, self-possession, and that’s something that gets read, you know, in, in two opposing ways. You know, either it’s something. You know, if you’re inclined to think that she might be innocent, that’s sort of consistent with her status as a lady. It’s a sort of sign of, of American grit.

But you know, for others there’s, it just seems unfeminine, you know, and really peculiar, like a sign of some kind of masculine nerve, you know, that she’s able to be so unmoved by the horror.

Erik: She does show one moment of what appeared to witnesses to be legitimate grief when she learns in the courtroom that the heads of her father and stepmother had been removed from their bodies during the

autopsies.

Cara: Right. It’s, it’s quite extraordinary. I mean, it’s just hard to imagine now that, but it’s, you know, it’s one of those things that they did. They took the, you know, they took the heads off and then rendered the flesh off so that, you know, I guess, so that they could examine the, the skulls and the, to, you know, to see the, the wounds or the blows more clearly.

But of course, right, Lizzie Borton didn’t know that. And there is this moment in the opening. Statement by the prosecutor where, you know, he refers to that and then, you know, you could see that, that the skulls are actually in the courtroom and she faints and that earns her the, you know, basically the approval and the sympathy of a lot of newspaper people.

You know, as well as other people in the audience, you know, that that’s an appropriately feminine reaction to something that horrible. Even the local Irish Catholic paper whose reporters culture this thinks of coolness, , they you know, they, they were sympathetic and, and generally they, you know, they viewed this as a, this is a story of police, basically showing a lot of deference to somebody who was Protestant and native, native born and that if it had been a mil hand, you know, that that person would’ve been tried, convicted, and hanged pretty quickly.

Erik: So this was of course an incredibly sensational case, and with that came very prominent, well known lawyers wanting to be connected to. Both for the prosecution and the defense, would you tell us about these lawyers and how they matched up against each other?

Cara: Yeah, as a, you know, as a recovering lawyer myself, I, I found the, the lawyers, you know, a real, a real joy, you know, to read, read their arguments.

The prosecution is led. Essentially the district attorney of, of New Bedford, which is, which is the, the whaling town or the former whaling town at this point. And he’s assisted by this a young DA from Haval, Massachusetts. And, you know, both are gonna go on to even greater prominence. Nolton becomes the, you know, attorney General of Massachusetts.

And Moody the Junior ends up on the Supreme Court. He’s a college friend of Teddy Roosevelt. And then on the defense side, the family attorney quickly realizes that he needs to hire some trial lawyers from Boston. And so there’s a a prominent trial lawyer named Melvin Adams, who handles a lot of the medical and scientific testimony.

And then their kind of big star is the former governor of Massachusetts. Robinson who has this, you know, fantastic folksy manner with the jury. And so they’re, you know, they’re kind of a, I don’t know, they’re a precursor to the, to the OJ Simpson Dream team. And they’re also extremely well paid.

Erik: That, that’s right. Yeah. Robinson, you write was paid like $25,000, which was …

Cara: Right. The, the other two, I think have 15 a piece. Yeah. So it was an expensive, it was an expensive trial and fortunately, fortunately for Lizzie, her, her sister was supporting her. So they, they split the cost.

Erik: The trial was very well attended, every seat taken, and women made up most of the gallery, most of whom had very strong opinions on Lizzie’s innocence or guilt.

Cara: Yeah, I think it’s, I think, I think in light of the, you know, our modern sense that, oh, you know, most of the audience for true crime is, is female, and, and this must be something that reflects our particular moment. I, I think when you, you know, you look at a lot of these historical cases, , there’s a sense of, of women often being fascinated by these terrible crimes and, and jockeying to try to get into the courtroom.

I mean, it was particularly noticeable in this case. You know, I think I, I think some of it was that, you know, that this was a, this was an important event, you know, and then they should sort of see it if they, if it was possible almost like the World’s Fair that, you know, had just opened in Chicago. You know, here’s this respectable woman accused of the most terrible crime that you could possibly imagine.

And the audience of women who in the words of one of the reporters are sort of second jury, you know, a sort of self constituted second jury since they can’t serve on the actual jury, you know, they come to see the monster beneath the unflappable demeanor, you know, maybe to j maybe to judge. And in so doing a lot of these journalists who are much more sympathetic to l Borden than that, than the, these women in the audience, these journalists see the women who are jocking for position and, and just.

Staring, you know, staring at this poor creature on trial that they’re, that they’re sort of monstrous, you know, that it reveals this really unsettling side of, of female nature. There’s a kind of carnivalesque spectacle to it, you know, that, that people bring lunches. They, there are signs on the houses that are near the, the courthouse telling people to keep off the stairs because there’s so many people who are just, you know, either hoping to get admittance or, or just wanting information nearby.

And one of the other striking details about it is that the journalists note that there’s a mix of, of calico and silk in the audience so that, you know, all the social classes are represented that these are, you know, ladies are coming over to, to watch the trial, but they’re also women getting off shift at the factory who want come see it as well.

Erik: Right, right. Speaking of journalists, there was a lot of jockeying among journalists about work areas in the courthouse. Massachusetts reporters thought they deserved priority, and the New York papers complained.

Cara: Yeah. And, you know, you have the, you realize the, the number of papers that are represented, you know, as well as the wire surfaces, and they, they build out a shed in the back to accommodate them.

And one, one wa right? Says that, says that all the wires coming from, you know, from that shed, you know, leading out, could be used to, you know, hang all the laundry in New Bedford, where the, where the town takes, where the trial takes place.

Erik: And, and again, to give an idea of, of how truly sensational this case was a Boston Globe crime reporter named Henry Trickey paid $500 for what he thought was this incredible scoop…

Right. I mean, that ends up being something that, that helps Lizzie Borden eventually because it, you know, creates some sympathy for her. But yeah, Tricky is fooled by this unscrupulous local private detective named McHenry into believing that, that there were a whole bunch of witnesses who had seen, you know, a hooded figure on the second floor.

And that there had been this terrible fight in the Borden household and that Lizzie Borden was herself pregnant, you know, so the, the headline was Lizzie Borden’s Secret. And you know, obviously that provided the kind of sensational. Motive that seemed to be lacking in the story. I mean, the other piece of the story that, that was missing, you know, according to people who wanna make a good yarn out of it, is that, you know, that there’s no romance in it.

You know, there’s, there’s no mystery lover. And that, you know, that was something that would, you know, really sell the, the papers. And so Henry Trickey really thought he was gonna make his reputation with it, and instead you know, he had to leave and disgrace.

Erik: And he, he died not long after.

Right?

Cara: Right. He, he fell under under the under a moving train.

Erik: Oh, interesting. I read enough newspapers from this period to know that suicide by moving train was very common during this time.

Cara: Yeah. No. And horrible. No, I, you know, I think, I think you’re also getting at, I mean, this, this case is just full of these fascinating minor figures, you know, each one of whom is worthy of you know, a long digression. And that was a real challenge in writing this book. You know, cuz I became so fascinated with some of these side figures,

Erik: There were hints, right, that maybe Lizzie and Dr. Bowen, there might have been an affair going on between them.

Cara: People noticed they seemed really close. If you read the police notes, you know, there’s a, there’s a hint that there was some gossip about, about Dr. Bowen and Lizzie. But, you know, it doesn’t seem very plausible to me. I mean, it seems, it makes sense that there was gossip because it’s a, it’s a town

There’s always gossip, Also things, as you say. These, this was something that was looked at, you know, to explain his protectiveness.

Erik: That, that romantic angle sold papers, right? And also offered perhaps new possible motives.

Cara: Right? I mean, we come back to the, to, you know, the initial conundrum for the police, which is that, that it’s difficult for them to imagine that a woman like Lizzie Borden would kill her father and stepmother, you know, basically for her inheritance.

I mean, you know, plus obviously anger and a festering resentment. But that, you know, that ultimately it was about, about money. I mean, because that’s the most straightforward explanation. And so there’s, you know, there’s, there’s a search for something more complicated and an out, you know, a thwarted romance or some other kind of something that would be suitably feminine would make the whole thing more explicable.

Right.

Erik: Yeah. So we haven’t really talked about the murder weapon or lack thereof. The police were very earnest, it seemed, in, in wanting to solve the crime. But one of their biggest blunders had to do with recovering the weapon that killed Mr. And Mrs. Borden.

Cara: Yeah, there, there are a number of hatchets and axes in the house, and one of the police officers finds something called the handles hatchet, or it becomes known as the hoodoo hatchet in the press.

And he says that he found it in a box with a bunch of other. Kind of disused old tools, but that, unlike the other items in the box, it was covered with a fine ash as opposed to just, you know, the dust, you know, the implication being that someone had put it in there to hide it, had broken off the handle, you know, which would would’ve been what would’ve been bloody clean the blade and then just, and stuck it in with a bunch of tools.

And then that, again, pointed to somebody in the house, and the medical experts testified that it could have been the murder weapon. I mean, they couldn’t conclusively say that it was the murder weapon. And in fact, earlier they thought a different weapon was the murder weapon. So, so there was, you know, there’s plenty of confusion about that.

And it was never really conclusively shown one way or another, but that seems like it’s the most likely, It’s the most likely one.

Th there was some drama during the trial about that differing opinions on what the weapon that killed them was based on the, the depth of the blows. What was it? A claw hammer, an ax, a hatchet.

And the defense used that debate to their advantage.

And there’s also the su the suspicion of police misconduct because there’s a police officer who contradicts his colleagues, you know, his more senior colleagues’ account of the finding of the handle this hatchet blade, you know, or the who do hatchet.

So it’s a little bit unclear, you know, as to, as to the actual murder weapon. But I think that, you know, it’s, it seems pretty clear that the, that the weapon was, was a hatchet. That, you know, had a blade of about two and a half or three inches. And one of the things that’s interesting, again, I’ve been looking at this from a gendered perspective is that the medical experts all testified that a woman of ordinary strength could have committed the murders.

As long as, you know, there was a sufficient length of handle to, you know, create leverage. But the defense over and over again insists that you know, that a woman just couldn’t have done it , that the, you know, the wounds were such that the weapon is such that, or the likely weapon is such that it just couldn’t have been a woman.

Erik: Right. So we haven’t really talked about the dress. What was there blood on her dress? It appeared that there wasn’t, So had she had a, a change of clothing at some point.

Cara: The defense makes the point over and over again of saying that, you know, no one ever saw any blood on Lizzie Borden, and these were bloody murders.

And so it’s just not possible, you know, whatever. You can, you can talk about how difficult it was for an outsider to get in, but ultimately, you know, you look at, you look at these, the wounds on these, this victim, and you look at Lizzie Borton, who is, is consistently described as as having clean hands and clean hair that she just couldn’t possibly have, have done it.

And we know that she was wearing a blue dress on the morning of the murders, and we also know that she gave a dress to the police, you know, in other words, she gave the clothes so it could be examined. And. We learn that she burned a blue dress on the Sunday after the murders. Her sister testifies at trial that it was her idea to burn the dress, That it was just this old paint stain dress.

And it’s true that both the dress maker and a painter were able to testify on Lizzie’s behalf that, you know, that, that this dress in particular had been stain with paint. But the question was, you know, was it stained with anything else? And it’s very odd to decide on a, on the Sunday after the murders of her father and stepmother to burn a dress.

So that’s something that, that the prosecution makes a lot of at the trial.

Erik: Right, Right. So as you studied the trial, was there any witness that you found especially compelling, a key piece of testimony that had the power to sway the jury?

Cara: Well, in terms of, in terms of the witness that I, I found most compelling I found Alice Russell, the, the friend of the family who ultimately does testify about the burn dress, the most compelling figure because she, she testifies with great reluctance.

She, this was a, a detail that she withheld, and it’s only after at the preliminary hearing, she takes an oath to tell the truth and the whole truth, and realizes that perhaps , she omitted something material and then consults a lawyer and then, you know, enlarges on her testimony and reveals this detail.

A Anyway, I just thought as a psychological matter that that was, that, that was quite fascinating because she’s, she’s someone who really supports Lizzie and her sister. And there’s a turn, I think, where she both believes that it’s her duty to tell this story and also where she may begin to have doubts herself.

And it’s, it’s clear that at some point she stops her visits to Lizzie Borden in jail. And so it seems like her view of Lizzie Borton has changed. A, as far as the witnesses that you know, I think were very effective for the jury. The, the fact that Emma Borden testifies that she’s the one who told Lizzie to burn the dress and shows up and supports her sister every day and actually says that she’s the one who really had the, the difficult time with Abby Borden, not her sister, that, you know, that, in other words, she’s taking the, the blame for the quarrel on herself and suggests that really, you know, if anybody harbored a grudge, it was her.

I think she’s probably the most important defense witness in that regard. If I could just add one more thing. You know, I, I, I guess there’s a sense in which, you know, Lizzie Borden in the courtroom is herself the best evidence of her in her own defense. You know, that, that she’s someone who really presents well, you know, who seems, you know, to use an antiquated expression, it seems like a lady.

She dresses very carefully. She makes sure that she has a little extra curl in her hair when, when they she comes back from a, a break. She, she hides her face behind her fan during particularly gruesome testimony. You know, there, there’s a way in which although she isn’t, she isn’t in fact testifying at the trial.

She never takes the stand, She never speaks that. A lot of her demeanor and her behavior counts in her favor.

Erik: Were there any points taken off, do you think, because she didn’t take the stand? Or was that just kind of expected?

Cara: No you know, much like, much like now, I mean, there’s a kind of technical legal point, which is that the Fifth Amendment wasn’t what they call incorporated to the states at this point which means that it only applied to the federal government.

But the there was a, a Massachusetts constitutional equivalent, which said that you, you know, you’re, you’re viewed as being ineligible or incapable of testifying on your, on your own behalf unless you elect to do so. The jury was instructed not to counter her refusal to take the stand, or decision not to take the stand as, as any kind of evidence against her, and in fact, in the, in his charge to the jury, the judge.

You know, in a lot of respects is really sort of testifying on her own behalf. Explains that. Well, you know, there are lots of good reasons why she wouldn’t wanna take the stand because, you know, she might explain something, but maybe you don’t think that that’s adequate and it just raises a whole can of, you know, just opens a whole can of worms,

So this the sort of thing that, you know, you can’t imagine him doing on behalf of a, of a of a male defendant.

Erik: So how long did it take for the jury to deliberate.

Cara: Well, that’s a, that’s really an amazing point because, you know, this trial lasted over two weeks, which is a really long time for a, for a murder trial in that era.

And yet the jury discovered that they were, you know, unanimous on the on the first ballot. They just stayed in the jury room for another hour and a half so that they would, you know, appear, appear to have been reasonably deliberative. And, you know, sort of out of respect for the prosecutor as well.

And so, you know, when I think about that fact, I think this really wasn’t a case of reasonable doubt. I mean, this was, this was a jury that was not prepared to believe that it was possible that somebody like Lucy Borden could have done such a thing. It, you know, it wasn’t a case of, of weighing the various evidence and thinking like, Well, is there a possible other explanation?

It’s, it seemed to me that. That they were pretty convinced that not that the, the prosecution didn’t prove the case, but rather that L Borden couldn’t possibly have done it.

Erik: Did her defense attorneys try and present an alternative explanation, or was it more about just sowing seeds of doubt?

Cara: No, they, they said that you know, it wasn’t their job to unravel the mystery, you know, that the prosecution’s job was proving the case.

And, and so they, you know, they did provide evidence of other sort of suspicious characters and the vicinity. And they suggested lots of ways in which it was possible, you know, it was theoretically possible for an outsider to have done it, you know, But ultimately they, they just said you know, look, this, this woman you see before you could not possibly have killed her father.

You know, that the, it’s the father’s death that I think is the real stumbling point. You know, there was enough evidence of dissatisfaction in the household that, you know, you could imagine that in a, in a bad moment, someone might lash out against the stepmother, you know? But even then, the defense is very good about making this, just seem like, you know, women are like this, women have quarrels all the time.

It doesn’t mean anything. You know, these are, these are adult women living with their stepmother. You know, you, you have to expect friction. But that’s no reason to imagine that, that she would kill this, this father who loved her so much, but

as a person who desired the finer things in life. And was stymied a bit by her small allowance.

Erik: That must have been frustrating to her.

Cara: Yeah. No, it’s, I mean, it’s a, it’s a good point and it’s when the prosecution makes, but it’s, but what the defense does with that is say, look, she, you know, she had this allowance. There was nothing that she wanted that she couldn’t get. That was, you know, sort of within like a desire for some, you know, extra pin money.

And the defense also goes through the various comforts of the, of the households. You know, in other words, she had her own room, but also there’s steam, heat, and eat. They just basically poo poo this idea that she might have desired something greater than that, greater than her father would’ve given her.

And for the prosecution, the real crime in this respect. It’s not that she, she could have wanted independence, but rather that she, she would’ve been so ungrateful to her father that she would’ve wanted more than he was willing to give her, and that she would’ve begrudged his gift to his wife.

Erik: Right. So after she was acquitted, was there a change in her lifestyle?

Cara: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a great detail, you know, and I think part of the fascination is that, you know, the assumption is that she and her sis, she and her sister will go back and live in the, you know, family house. And that she will basically spend the rest of her life, you know, in good works and living down her notoriety.

And instead you know, she and her sister promptly moved to a big house, a sort of mc mansion, you know, in the Elite Hill District. And, you know, Lizzie Borden, instead of living down her notoriety kind of starts living it up. You know, she goes to the theater in Boston and becomes friends with an actress and has parties and, you know, does some traveling and does things that are, you know, that seem to be sort of inconsistent with the role that she’s expected to play.

But, you know, in fairness to her I’d say that she was given the message pretty clearly, very early that she was gonna be frozen out. When she went back to the church that had formed the bedrock of her support during the trial, she found the pews around her empty. And she sort of got the, you know, got the message that there was a way in which the town, or at least her part of the town, you know, that had supported her during the trial against outsiders, you know, or against this, this charge that reflected badly on all of them, probably that they were going to exact their own kind of punishment.

You know, it’s sort it’s almost like an anthropological kinda tribal ostracism where, you know, the, the town wants her officially not guilty, but then imposes its own sentence. I should say that, you know, there’s not really anything in her later life to suggest that she had a lot of regrets. She. You know, relatively relatively happy.

You know, she, she got what she wanted. She got the house, she got the lifestyle that she wanted. Her, her sister moved out in 1905. So 12 years after the trial, there was some dispute and it’s, it’s not clear what exactly it was about, but it doesn’t seem to be that she suddenly thought, really Lizzie Borden was guilty.

It seems to have been about something else. It might well have been about the way that Lizzie was conducting herself, but in any event, the, the sisters then don’t, don’t speak again, you know, on this side of the, on this side of the veil. And Lizzie Borden remains in the town until her death, you know, which I think is a, you know, is one of those little details about the case.

That’s so fascinating, you know, that, that she could have gone anywhere else and been, you know, maybe not totally anonymous, but, but at least not, you know, the same kind of. Famous or infamous figure that she was in Fall River. And yet she chose, you know, she, she chose to remain there. And I think that, you know, that shows her nerve that she was willing to, that she was willing to stay that stay there.

Erik: Yeah. So as you have already stated, your goal in writing the book wasn’t to try and pin the murders on a particular suspect, but instead examine the case. From beginning to end with a focus on the trial. Obviously Lizzie’s a suspect, but do you think that there are any other viable suspects that should have been looked at more closely during the investigation? Someone that raises your hackles a little?

Cara: Well, no, I, I should say that everybody, even tangentially involved with the case, has been fingered by one author or another, you know, as a possible suspect. Right? There’s, there’s there’s a real desire to find, you know, to, to find somebody else, or, or, as you know, a why done it, to come up with an explanation beyond the obvious as to why Lizzie Borden would’ve done it.

I’d say, you know, I, I think we really, we really can’t know. I, I would say that I’m, I’m with the, the journalist who at the time wrote that, you know, it’s really hard to imagine that she did it because there is this, there is this problem of, you know, even if you assume that she burned the dress, even if you assume that the, that the pale of towels represented some attempt of cleanup, these are pretty bloody murders.

To have committed in a short span of time and then to have appeared before other people twice completely free of blood is, is pretty, pretty difficult to imagine. And you know, there are people like Bill James for example, who’s written a, a, a book about a number of, of number of crimes, and he says that, you know, like that forensics would’ve just ruled her out.

But at the same time, I, I’d say that it’s really. Even more difficult to imagine that, that she could have been in the house while these murders took place and not have seen or heard anything.

Erik: Well, a great note to leave things on. So you have a website for people who wanna learn more about you and your book?

Cara: Yes. It’s www cara w robertson dot com.

Erik: Well, thank you for taking some time out of your day to tell us about this incredible

case. Well, thank you Erik. I really enjoyed talking with you.

Again, I have been speaking with Cara Robertson. She is the author of the Trial of Lizzie Borden, A True Story. This has been another episode of the Most notorious podcast, broadcasting to every dark and cobweb corner corner of the world. I’m Erik Rivenes and have a safe tomorrow.