Harry Thaw

Lizzie Borden:  Damned by the Press?

Lizzie burden

Lizzie Borden

The silence of a small New England town was shattered on the afternoon of August 4, 1892.  Andrew Borden and his second wife, Abby, were brutally murdered with an ax.  No one heard anything while the crime was being committed, but the media sensation it caused was heard across the country.

Lizzie Borden’s screams awakened maid Bridget Sullivan from a nap.  Sullivan was ill and had gone up to her room in the late morning.  She was under the impression Abby Borden was out of the house. Lizzie, Andrew’s youngest daughter, said Abby received a note from a friend and left.

Andrew Borden’s body was found on the first-floor sofa.  He had been struck in the face multiple times.  His nose was hacked from his body, and an eyeball was cut in half.

Sullivan ran for help while the neighbors, suspicious of the commotion, called the police. Sullivan soon returned with the town doctor, Seabury Bowen, and not long after found Abby dead upstairs.  She, too, had been struck multiple times, and Dr. Bowen concluded Abby was killed first.

Fiendish Murder

“A most brutal and shocking murder stirred this city [Fall River, Massachusetts] as it has seldom been stirred this morning, and no crime has ever been committed here which would compare with it in fiendishness,” the Boston Globe reported the day of the murders.

“Lying on the lounge, with his face upwards toward the ceiling was the body of her father,” the Globe said of Andrew’s murder scene.  “The head was covered with wounds from half an inch to six inches in length, and the wall of the skull had been crushed in.  One gaping cut extended from the forehead diagonally across the face to the shoulder blade and had evidently been inflicted by a butcher’s cleaver or broadax.  The unfortunate man’s blood had flowed on to his shirt front and stained the sofa pillow.”

Of Abby’s murder scene, the Globe said, “Stretched in a sickening pool of blood was the wife and mother.  The body lay between the bed and a dressing case, and the skull had been battered in apparently by the same weapon which had been used on Mr. Borden, although the nature of the wounds suggested the murderer had dealt his blows with the blunt edge.”

Lizzie, the Globe said, retained remarkable control of herself.

Lizzie Borden Took an Ax

Other suspects, including Sullivan, were considered, but it didn’t take long before the police settled on Lizzie.  She was the only person with means and a motive.  She claimed her parents had been poisoned even though the coroner found no evidence.

Lizzie looked suspicious for several reasons:

  • She could not locate the note she claimed Abby had received the morning of the murder.
  • She hated her step-mother.
  • She had tried to purchase cyanide the day before the murder.
  • She burned one of her dresses days after the murder.
  • She often contradicted herself in her accounts to police.

It is worth mentioning that Lizzie was taking high doses of morphine to calm her nerves, and this could explain the contradictions.

“It is said, too, that the Mayor wished to secure from Dr. Bowen some facts relative to Lizzie Borden’s mental characteristics, with the view to determine if it is probable that she would be subject to hysteria or temporary aberration under given circumstances,” the Globe said August 8.

Many in the community told the media they felt Lizzie was innocent.

The trial opened nearly a year after the murders.

“Confronted with the skulls, she fainted,” the Globe said June 7, 1893, the trial’s opening day.

The district attorney aimed to prove Lizzie was the only person with the opportunity and the motive to murder the Bordens.

“According to the prosecution’s theory, Miss Borden had determined to kill her father and mother and deliberately prepared to the do the deed,” the Globe said.

The defense was able to create a credible case for reasonable doubt, and on June 20, 1893, Lizzie was found not guilty.

“If she were an ordinary woman, she would have cried and cried, perhaps fainted, then smiled, and … reasserted the habitudes of her sex,” the Globe said the following day.  “The difficulty is she is not an ordinary woman: she is a puzzle psychologic.”

Alternate Theories on Who Killed the Bordens

If Lizzie was not the killer, than who was?  There have been many theories over the decades.  They include:

  • William Borden, Andrew’s illegitimate son
  • John Morse, the Borden’s houseguest and the brother of Andrew’s first wife
  • Suspicious strangers seen around town

There also is the theory Lizzie committed the murders naked, and that’s why no bloody clothing was ever found.

Devil in the White City

1893 Chicago World's Fair illuminated by electricity

The White City: 1893 Chicago World’s Fair illuminated by electricity.

Erik Larson’s book Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America reads like a novel but is, in reality, a nonfiction piece. Every event that occurs in the book is factual.  Even the dialogue actually was spoken and is the result of Larson’s in-depth research. The devil in the title refers to H. H. Holmes, the United States’ first documented serial killer, and t he White City refers to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair being constructed by famed architect Daniel Burnham.

Dr. Henry Howard Holmes was one of the many aliases of Herman Webster Mudgett. Born in New Hampshire, he killed animals as a child. Later, he went to medical school where, to make easy money, he sold skeletons and made false insurance claims. When he moved to Chicago, he assumed the H. H. Holmes alias and ingrained himself into the community.

Holmes married three times, never divorcing any of the previous wives, and was engaged to a fourth woman; he had two children.

The Murder Castle

Holmes built a structure with chambers specifically for torturing, killing and cremating victims that later was nicknamed the Murder Castle. Construction workers were routinely fired, so they would not learn the true nature of the building.  During the World’s Fair, Holmes opened his building to the public as the World’s Fair Hotel. Many hotel patrons, especially young women traveling alone, became his victims.

But it wasn’t the Murder Castle that got Holmes in trouble with the law. It was his persistent insurance schemes. After authorities were notified, Holmes fled Chicago and traveled throughout the U.S. and Canada. He eventually was arrested in Boston.

Holmes admitted to killing 27 people, although police only could prove nine. Historians estimate he may have killed as many as 200 people.

“I was born with the devil in me,” Holmes said. “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. I was born with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.”

Holmes was executed in 1896.

Jack the Ripper?

Some, including his own great-great-grandson, believe Holmes also was Jack the Ripper. In his book Bloodstains, Jeff Mudgett claims a handwriting expert examined notes written by Jack the Ripper and by Holmes and verified that the handwriting has a 98 percent probability of coming from the same person.

Holmes was in London during the killings in 1888, but there is little evidence of his whereabouts, and many researchers have disputed a connection.  Nevertheless, Mudgett won’t have his opinion swayed.

“I’m a believer,” Mudgett says. “I’d be willing to debate that Holmes was Jack the Ripper with anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

The Thaw-White Murder 

Harry Thaw

Harry Thaw

Decades before O.J. Simpson was charged with the murder of his ex-wife, there was another court case labeled “the trial of the century.” The case was known as the Thaw-White Murder, and it involved everything that makes crimes compelling to the general public – a celebrity, salacious sex and jealousy.

The celebrity at the centre of the Thaw-White Murder was actress and model Evelyn Nesbit. Nesbit began her career in 1899 when she became a model for an artist. Her father had died in the mid-1890s leaving her, her mother and her brother penniless and homeless. Unable to find a job as a seamstress, Nesbit’s mother relied on Evelyn to provide for the family.

She came to New York City the following year and she soon became a chorus girl. At 16, Nesbit gained the attention of married, 52-year-old architect Stanford White. He became obsessed with Nesbit and supported the girl and her family. To satisfy his obsession, White suggested that Mrs. Nesbit visit relatives out of town. While she was away, White had sex with Evelyn. Two stories have been told as to how it occurred. The first says he got her drunk and seduced her. The second says he raped her. Either way, they remained lovers for months.

White’s lavish, multi-floor apartment contained a red velvet swing suspended from the ceiling by ropes that looked like vines. White pushed Nesbit repeatedly on this swing during one of her first visits to his home. She swung on the swing numerous other times throughout the course of their affair, sometimes naked.

After her relationship with White ended, Nesbit had a relationship with actor John Barrymore.

The Murder

In 1905, after two years of rejected proposals, Nesbit married millionaire Harry Thaw. She may have believed Thaw was her only opportunity for a respectable marriage. Thaw, however, was anything but respectable. He was a sadist who enjoyed torturing women and possibly was a drug addict. In 1903, not long after learning about Nesbit’s affair with White, Thaw whipped and raped her.  Thaw became obsessed with White. He was filled with jealousy and rage at the man he believed ruined Nesbit.

On June 25, 1906, Thaw shot White at a rooftop theatre at Madison Square Garden, a building White designed. He fired three shots at close range, two hitting White in the head.

The court case began in January 1907.  The trail of the century was actually two trials, the first ending in a hung jury. During the second trial, in 1908, Thaw was found insane and sentenced to an asylum for the criminally insane. He was released from the mental institution in 1915. Two years after his release, Thaw was again in an asylum, this time for whipping a teenage boy.

In the press, Nesbit was painted as a wronged woman.  Thaw was a sympathetic character, viewed as protecting the innocence of women. White, meanwhile, was a member of a sex club and seduced many young women.

Nesbit would go on to become a silent-screen actress, eventually remarrying and becoming a mother.

In 1955, Joan Collins played Nesbit in the film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. A fictional version of Nesbit appears in the novel/film/musical Ragtime.

Villisca Ax Murder House

The Villisca ax murder victims

The Villisca ax murder victims

Today, it’s called the Villisca ax murder house, but in the early 1910s, it was known simply as the home of the Moore family.  Villisca is a sleepy town in southwestern Iowa that became the scene of a gruesome crime the night of June 9, 1912.

That night, an unknown assailant snuck into the home of Josiah and Sarah Moore and murdered them with an ax, along with their four children and two girls who were sleeping over.  All were killed in their sleep except one.  House guest Lena Stillinger fought back. She was found across the bed with a defensive wound on her body. Her undergarments were removed and her nightgown pushed up, leading the police to speculate she had been molested.

The victims had been stuck in the head with an ax that belonged to the family. Josiah was attacked more brutally than the rest, and his body was found without eyes.

The next morning, the family’s neighbor became concerned. She tried to check on the family, but the door was locked so she called Josiah’s brother who had a key. He discovered the bodies.

“There were no cries from the sleeping rooms of the family that were heard by the neighbors,” the Des Moines Tribune said June 10.  “… the slaying of the entire family promises to become a mystery which will take much time to unravel.”

When the police arrived, they found some curious details.

  • All the windows in the house had been covered.
  • The victims’ heads also had been covered.
  • In two of the bedrooms, a lamp was left at the foot of the bed.
  • The murderer had tried to wipe clean the ax and wash himself.
  • A slab of bacon was found in one of the bedrooms that matched a slab in the icebox.
  • One of Sarah’s shoes was found completely covered in blood.
  • Days before the murder a stranger asked the Moore’s niece for directions to the Moore house. Sarah complained the man had been seen loitering about their property.

Bloodhounds were used to track the killer, and detectives from nearby cities arrived to investigate.  The case was placed under the management of the Red Oak, Iowa, sheriff.

Dozens of people came to gawk at the bodies, tainting the crime scene before the house could be cordoned off.

The Suspects

There were several unsolved ax killings in the 1911-1912 time frame. Details of many of the cases were similar. The Villisca ax murder also is solved, although there have been numerous suspects:

  • Frank Jones: Jones was angry Moore had taken business from him.
  • George Kelly: A traveling minister, Kelly attended the same church service the Moores did the night of their death and left town before 6 a.m. the next morning. He had a fascination with the case.  Five years later, he was arrested and confessed but later recanted. One trial ended in a hung jury; another ended in acquittal.
  • William Mansfield: Mansfield killed his family with an ax in 1914 and is believed to have killed another family with an ax in 1912. Mansfield was arrested but a grand jury did not indict him.
  • Henry Moore: Another suspected serial killer whose weapon of choice was an ax.
  • Sam Moyer: Josiah’s brother-in-law who had threatened to kill him.
  • Andrew Sawyer: A transient and railroad worker, he was turned in to the police by his boss who thought he was behaving suspiciously. Sawyer had a fixation with the case and spoke about it often. He slept with an ax and apparently had knowledge of the Moore’s property. However, he had an alibi: he was arrested in another town.
  • Joe Ricks: He came to town with blood on his shoes and was arrested. The Moore’s niece said he was not the man who asked for directions.
  • Negro tramps:  The Tribune reported four African-American men who had been sleeping at the railroad yards were suspicious.  They had been in town only a few days and left on the morning of the murder. Since no African-Americans lived in Villisca, their presence caused much speculation, the Tribune said.

“From the condition of the heads of the eight people,” the Tribune said, “it seems as though the murders were the deed of a mad man, who took maniacal delight in chopping open and crushing the heads of his victims.  The fact that nothing else was disturbed in the house throws a dark cloud over the robbery and murder theory which was entertained early this morning.

“That the slayer was a maniac or an enemy of the Moores, who was seeking revenge, are the most probably theories entertained.”

Paranormal Hot Spot

The Villisca ax-murder house has been restored to look like it did when the Moores were alive and now is a museum. It offers tours and overnight stays. The house reportedly is haunted, and many people who lived in the house prior to it becoming a museum fled in terror.  Paranormal investigators have visited the home. EVP recordings taken in the home supposedly named Andrew Sawyer as the killer.

Visit Hettie’s World

This blog is a companion piece to Melina Druga’s WWI Trilogy, available in eBook, paperback and hardcover.

Book 1: Angel of Mercy

The first installment in a spellbinding trilogy centered around Canada’s involvement in World War I follows a privileged young newlywed to the fraught medical encampments of the Western Front.  Buy now.

Book 2: Those Left Behind

Told through a series of epistolary vignettes, the second novel in Melina Druga’s World War I trilogy traces the lives of the Steward and Bartlette families as they contend with their children’s and siblings’ wartime absences.  Buy now.

Book 3: Adjustment Year

The stunning conclusion to Melina Druga’s World War I trilogy traces Hettie’s attempts to reacclimate to civilian life in the aftermath of the conflict.  Buy now.

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