Many of you know that we have a lot going on here. That, checkop of out our events calendar. Book, are a fan of this you may enjoy our true crime book club. I am a bookseller here. I am glad to introduce our speaker. She is a lawyer. She served as a Legal Advisor to the International Criminal tribunal and was a visiting scholar at stanford law school. She first started researching. He Lizzie Borden story this is her first book. She addresses one of the most infamous murders in American History. It remains a ubiquitous part of american law. Salacious away the and mythologized details and uses primary sources like Court Transcripts and letters to have a total look at the case. [applause] i am not expecting a call. This is just to make sure that i do not talk too long. Much for coming on such a beautiful day. You have been working on a subject as long as i have, there is always the year that you are involved in some kind of intellectual stockholm syndrome. I will give you a little bit of background on the story. I look forward to knowing what it is that grabs you about the case. Something like this would be a great way to get a window into the gilded age. Great changeme of and tension in american society. One that seems like our own in some regards. Some of that is because the lawyers need to explain how it is comprehensible. How something might have happened. Insight into the story that a culture once and expects to hear. It made me question the sharp distinction that people make between what legal professionals do and what lawyers might argue to a jury. When the lawyers were making their arguments. That is something i had in the back of my mind. I was attracted to the mystery of this story. It is a whodunit. Even if youre pretty sure who whyit, it is certainly a done it. Is almost aery locked room story. A mystery out of the golden age. There are a limited number of suspects. Tois very difficult understand how anyone could have done it at all. Ofhas some of the pleasures that kind of puzzling out. Mythic quality. It is a locked room mystery. Is a story of an extremely unhappy family. Arrived thatthat many people see as symbolic of wider social questions. I should give you a nonspoiler alert. Solve thetually mystery in the course of the story. I thought it was important to layout the story from the beginning to the verdict to the strange cultural afterlife of the case. Without officially taking a position. It would be as evenhanded as possible and allow the readers to puzzle it out for themselves. There is something that felt like a cheat when you are reading a nonfiction narrative. It is hard not to think that. A sense of them emphasizing parts of the story. That is something that i did not want to do. All of that is the background. On august 4, 1892, an elderly couple were found hacked to in their home. Initially like the work of a madman. Mrs. Borden had been felled by 19 blows. Borden himself was killed by 10 blows. It was a pretty horrifying scene. That alone was enough to news. Te frontpage the police soon discovered some anomalies. They thought it was the work of a madman and some crazed stranger would be found wandering the streets with the next. An ax. Interval between the murders seemed odd. It was strange that someone from the inside would have come in, den, waited anr hour and a half to kill mr. Borden, and then departed. It was a small house. Light narrow, with no central hall. It was a converted house. There were not that many places to hide. There had been other people in the house. Pointcond, more important is that the hell seem to have been locked. The front door was certainly locked. This was often in the sight of the family housekeeper. It was not conclusively shown that it was locked throughout. There were known to be people in the house at the time. There were three others who woke up in the house that morning who survived the carnage. Brotherinlaw. Ofhad been the brother andrews first wife. Before toived the day pay a visit on the bordens. That appeared suspicious to many people. He was an attractive suspect because he was in outsider. Said he consorted with a few traders. There were things about him that were appealing. It seemed plausible. That wasd an alibi straight out of a detective novel. To visit relatives in another part of town. He had been writing on a horse car with six priests. That seemed like a pretty good alibi. There wasnt was a housekeeper. Mrs. Borden did her another favor which was to ask her to wash windows that morning inside and outside. That meant that she happened to be outside washing windows at was killed. Borden that seem to rule her out of the murder. It seemed like whoever had killed mrs. Borden had killed mr. Borden as well. The family had suffered from some Food Poisoning the day before. That left one person. Younger andrew bordens daughter, lizzie. She had an older sister named emma. She had been away visiting friends for about two weeks. She was definitely not there. There were a number of suspicious things about lizzie. She had not actually looked for her stepmother when she discovered her fathers body. She said her stepmother had received a note and had gone out. No note was ever found. Also the case that she seemed to give shifting accounts of where she was. She said she was downstairs ironing handkerchiefs at the time that mrs. Borden died. She said she was outside in the linelooking for a fishing or a piece of something to fix a screen. And also eating pears in the upper part of the barn at the time when her father was murdered. Notof this probably would have been enough to place her under arrest. But it was also discovered that she had tried to buy poison the day before the murders. She had gone to the local drugstore. She was identified. She had asked for acid. It was only sold on doctors prescriptions. Had done so one various occasions. No one believed that she had actually able to purchase the acid. The bordens themselves were not poisoned. It went a long way toward explaining why a woman might turn into a readily available household implement to execute a murder that she had already planned. Poison was considered to be a womans weapon. That held a lot of sway. It also was discovered that the seemed implacably divided between the generations. There was a lot of ill feeling and the lizzie in particular had disliked her stepmother. All of these things culminated in Lizzie Borden being arrested. That catapulted what would have been a passing horror into something much darker. A case of international significance. Descriptionyou the of the newspaper coverage of the opening of the trial. Would be one of the greatest murder trials the world had ever seen. The new york world declared it a trial of the most extraordinary criminal case in the history of new england. The boston globe proclaimed it would be impossible to exaggerate the interests manifested by intelligent readers throughout the country in the outcome of this trial of a comparatively young woman for the murder of her father and stepmother. Amongobe estimated that its own readership, there were at this moment 100,000 persons devoting what they are pleased to call their mind and a hopeless analysis of this tremendous case. To satisfy the demand, so many correspondence and reporters converged on new bedford. The newspaper their question whether a distinguished collection of writers was ever detailed to cover a murder trial. Included many of what you might call the boldfaced names of the day. Journalists that were famous. In the samelked of way as significant literary figures. One was a man named joe howard junior, who covered the case for the boston globe. He was at the time the highestpaid correspondent in america. With a blonde stenographer. He devoted a great deal of attention to bringing his readers into the courtroom so people could follow along with the proceedings. Not just what actually happened while the court was in session but also the sense of urgency that so many felt in their attempts to get into the courthouse. The fact that so many women were in the audience. The number of women definitely increased throughout the trial. By the end, more than half were women. Some even put the number higher. Crowd forcan the pretty faces. And other celebrities of the day would receive mention. Readers would have the pleasure of reading about the familiar people. The eloquence of the lawyer. He even reported on the activities of what he referred day, a cowow of the that just happened to be across the street. It was audible at different moments and seem to provide a commentary. The globe said it would go down level ofy as the same misses olearys cow. The cow that started the chicago fire. They weref what looking at, the person of most interest to all the correspondence was Lizzie Borden. She presented a conundrum. She had this quite extraordinary self possession. That was read in opposing way. For those inclined to think she as thelty, they saw her snake of coolness. Thatne with his attachment suggested the kind of masculine nerves that was consistent with premeditated violence. And not consistent with late 19th century notions of opera femininity. For those inclined to be happened to which be most reporters from out of this asey saw consistent with a kind of inborn dignity, a mark of lady hood. All was someone who ticked of the boxes of respectable femininity. She had been active in her local church. She was engaged in all of the culturally sensitive activities that one might expect of a unmarried woman of her day. Her behavior was exactly what you would expect. She acquitted herself admirably. She was in an impossible situation. It was also noted, and this gives you some idea of the theater involved in the trial, there is a moment when the prosecution displays a bag that happens to hold these goals the skulls of the bordens. Fainted, winning the approval of all of the journalists. There was this sense that her own behavior, her own demeanor during the trial, was essential to the question of her guilt or innocence. The book is mostly about the trial. You a very briefly give sense that, for the prosecution, as was indicated by my summary of the murders, the trial is a case of exclusive opportunity mixed with a powerful motive. Nobody else could have done it. Therefore, Lizzie Borden did it. We know she hated her stepmother. We are largely silent on the question of why he killed her led her father. Il all of the focus of the enmity in the household was at her stepmother. The only thing the prosecution can argue is that Lizzie Borden meant to kill her stepmother and then did not get out in time to establish her own alibaba, transformede was like jekyll and hyde into a murderous. Murderess. The defense makes a lot of that. Politics e the the prosecution for not being able to figure out her fathers murder. They point to many suspicious characters seen in the this entity. My personal favorite is a wild eyed young man who is spotted staring at various people and staring into the ground. Essentially, the argument is, it is not your business to unravel the mystery. If you have any kind of doubt at cannot send this woman to the gallows. Lasts over two weeks, which was unusually long for that time. Jury worth noting that the was unanimous on the first ballot. Were innd that they total agreement and really did not need to discuss the evidence. In the jury room for about an hour and a half so it would seem like they had been properly deliberative. When they came out to deliver the verdict, the foreman was so excited that he could not wait for the clerk to finish the question. He blurted out, not guilty. At that point, there is pandemonium in the courthouse. Congratulations to Lizzie Borden and her supporters. The assumption is she will return and live down her notoriety. Dulled inpporters their enthusiasm pretty quickly. People started to wonder, if she did not do it, who did . Her innd the pews around her local church were empty when she tried to return. Formed the had bedrock of her support during the trial. That pretty much set the tone for treatment in the polite circles of society. , who was 10 years older and a bit of a mother figure, lived with her. They had moved from the more cramped house to what you might call a mansion. For 12 yearsere together, with Lizzie Borden increasingly isolated, until thathad a mysterious rift persisted until they died within a month of each other. Lizzie borden lived out her last days alone. Shunned by the people she most wished to know. That thatstruck me also shows the nerve that is remarked upon a trial. At trial. 10 possibly also the provincialism that was her universe. That was where she was going to live. I think it is that piece of the story that contributes to the legend. It enhances the enigma that she presented at trial. I want to be sensitive to the question time. I think i will leave it there and then see where you all want to go with this. Thank you very much for your attention. [applause] if there are no questions, i am going to talk some more. Stays we would expect some dna staff. Was there evidence . What happened to it . Do you think there was any kind of travesty of justice . Hand, it was stateoftheart csi fall river. The police came in and picked up pieces of carpeting, wood molding, the bodies were autopsied, the stomachs were sent to harvard. In some ways they did what they could. This was before fingerprint evidence. Long before dna. On the other hand, you can say they really botched it. There was nothing like the preservation of the crime scene. How many people are just wandering through the crime scene on the day of the murders . We know, based on the testimony, moved. S. Borden was we cant really be certain about these things. I think it is a mixed bag. Is, basedi would say on how quickly the jury came to the decision, i dont think more evidence would have made that much difference. This was a story about what people believed someone like Lizzie Borden might be capable of as opposed to a question of whether or not she did it. You might call reasonable doubt as much as an unreasoning uncertainty or anxiety. To believe that that was not possible. Thank you for educating me. Thank you for educating me. I have been hearing about the Lizzie Borden case all my life, but never really known any detail about the murder or the case. Makees strike me it would good material for a film. I dont know there have been good or bad films made on the case up to this point. The real question i have is do you think it would make a good film, especially one based on any new material you have in this book . Other related question would be, would it be possible to make a good film with this without changing the story in any significant way . Without changing the a romanticdding in interest or whatever. Potential. [laughter] cara it is a story that has been retold over again in many genres, including film. A tv movie and a couple of films, and plays, a ballet, an opera. I just recently saw a rock musical. Which was good, by the way. All of them resort to heavy fictionalizing, particularly on thatoint you raise, people think the story is incomplete without a romance. The festering and the tensions in the household, plus a money motive dont seem to provide an adequate motive for dramatic purposes, that there needs to be a sordid romance. The most recent movie puts lizzie and bridget in a relationship. It afford some practical help, that it is easier if they were in it together for the cleanup, but there was no historical basis for that. Beo think the trials can inherently dramatic. Of course im biased because that is what my book is about. I think that would provide a way to capture the drama, the real highs and lows of the story, and all these moments of great theater. Were is still the question struggle with in many other contexts too, which is trying to understand human behavior. How is this someone who led basically a normal life for 32, might have committed two horrible murders in one day and went on to live a basically normal life afterwards . Maybe in a contemporary sense, the lack of a romance would give movie reviewers something to say about how this differs and films dont need a romance. Cara thank you. Hi. I was wondering what precedent, if any, you think the case set for Law Enforcement officials and Court Officials handling similar cases in near future . Cara yeah. I struggled with this one, because i think that it doesnt do much in the doctrinal sense because it was so out of the ordinary. Its hard to imagine the rulings, for example, on evidence in the case, two significant rulings that favored the defense where the exclusion of the attempt to buy poison. Jury never heard but her attempt to buy poison and the jury also never got to hear about her inquest testimony, which was her only testimony under oath, and both of those rulings were criticized with being inconsistent with contemporary evidence law. Even if you could argue them on both sides. And it seems pretty clear that the fact that Lizzie Borden was not just a woman, but a particular kind of woman, had an effect on how the black letter law was applied to the case. I dont think it offered much precedent, but thats an interesting question. Thank you. Really enjoyed your talk and i enjoying the book. Ami have two questions. One is kind of technical and the other is more overarching. The first one, the overarching question, you touched on this a bit, but im curious as to what your take is on why were still fascinated with this case. Currentit that keeps it in our interest . Then the second question is, if Lizzie Borden did do the murders, if we assume that, just for sake of argument, how do you think she was found never to have any blood on her . That seems like a really amazing little detail that if she committed it, how could she have not had a trace of blood. Cara ill take the second one first if if may. So thats the question of why no blood. Obviously that is a huge part of the defense case. And the short answer is she burned a dress the sunday after the murders. It was a dress that had been stained with paint and she was able to demonstrate that via testimony from a dressmaker and the painter, but it is also true that the police had searched the house and looked for all of her dresses and had not found one that had been stained with paint. So the prosecution clearly thought that was the explanation. It is also true that the medical experts all testified that whoever had committed the crimes would have been spattered, at least in some part of their body depends on which particular murder we are talking about. Im not 100 sure the burned dress even explains all of that given the practical problems of the cleanup. Thats pretty much what the prosecutions theory was. And as to why were still fascinated, i think its a truly horrible case, that ended with an acquittal, so that leaves it much more openended than a case than end with a conviction, which you could argue about, but hard to know what an acquittal means. Two they think she didnt do it . Do the think maybe she did but wanted her to get away with it . Did think there wasnt enough evidence . I think there is this mythic it iso the story hard to understand how somebody who seemed so normal transformed into such a violent murderess the tonicsefit of that turned jekyll into hyde. Thank you. I once read a book about another famous massachusetts trial some decades later. It was an interesting book to read because it pointed out some of the problems in massachusetts justice, that the prosecutor prosecutor failed in his duties and the defense failed in his duties and the judge failed in his duties, and so in the end he concluded there was no conclusion you could come to, which made it an interesting book to read. What is your judgment about the quality of justice in massachusetts at the time . Cara [laughter] i thought the lawyers were excellent on both sides. One of the many things i left out for this short talk is that the prosecution was led by a man who went on to become the attorney general of massachusetts. His junior in case was a man who is a friend of Theodore Roosevelt and ends off on the Supreme Court in addition to having an excellent record as a trial lawyer. On the defense side, Lizzie Borden put her considerable inheritance to work quickly in terms of hiring expensive legal talent from boston. Trial lawyer who was a dandy, and most significantly the former governor of massachusetts, a man who is very folksy. I almost could hear a southern accent, though he was from massachusetts so theres no way he could have he had that air of one. Just stopping by to chat with the jury, and being extremely reasonable. So, thats not really an answer to the quality of justice, but i think that the lawyering was good on both sides. My interest in this case goes back to seventh grade, but piqued there, and i havent thought about it sense but i got interested in it again because my cousin wrote a book you probably know about the case. A best seller actually back in the early 1960s, and ed took a different tack. He was a journalist in addition to a crime writer, and he basically decided, shes innocent and picked the guilty one. You know who he picked as the guilty one. You dont have to solve the case now, but do you think he probably was right . Cara no. [laughter] i think he was a terrific writer, and its a great book. So i recommend it highly as a read. Can i spoil the book . I dont want to ruin your cousins posthumous sales. No, i dont think he is at risk of that at all. Service,fingers the bridget sullivan. It makes sense if its not Lizzie Borden, it would have been bridget sullivan. But i would say he brings to bear the prejudice that would have been very familiar to late 19th century readers. Although his book is much later, but Lizzie Bordens lawyer at one point wonders out loud, who in the natural course of things should be the party suspected, the stranger and he might as well have said the immigrant, or Lizzie Borden . His book also has yeah. It incorporates some of those biases in that the only explanation for why she would have done it is she did not want to wash the windows on that day and pushed her over the edge. Without solving this case, tell us who you think probably but not certainly done it. You are not convicting them, but cara sure, this is the question i get the most. I would have to say it is hard to imagine how anyone else besides Lizzie Borden could have done it. It is true that after looking through everything, i am struck by how difficult it would have been for her to do it, too. I think i was more smug when i first started about this being a case about the biases of a particular era leading to some blindnesses on the part of the men who were conducting the trial. I do think its harder than that. Its do come back to the, hard to see how it could have been anyone else, and im content to let it be unsolved. Thank you. Cara thank you. I only read the first chapter, but i read a lot of reviews and a number of them seem to be burning up the adjoining door connecting the rooms and the ring that she wore and seemed to be creating a relationship between the father and daughter. Cara yeah. I struggle with what to in some talks i talked about that and others i havent. There are many odd things about the family, and one that seems to particularly grab peoples attention is the way in which the house has no feng shui, to put it mildly. It is a converted two family tenement house, which means the upstairs and downstairs are the same. There is no central hall. What that means for the upstairs is the bedrooms open on to each other. At the time of the property dispute, to which i had alluded, that either raised the tension in the borden household or created some new grievance, the move moveock and lizzies bedroom and the parents bedroom. If you were going to the house and you can walk from the front of the second floor to the back but then you would not have been able to because the doors that separated the daughters suite of rooms from the parents suite of rooms was locked and furniture was moved in front of it. I think this gives us an example too of the way in which we bring our own biases and preoccupations to this kind of case. I think its not a coincidence that in the 1990s people looked at the case and thought this is an incest story and a person who struck back against a mother who was complicit in victimization. It seems obvious. There are Little Details like Lizzie Borden had given her father a ring and he wore it on he isnger always and buried with it, though he wore no ring to commemorate his wedding to his second wife. But it overlooks that Analysis Shows us more about our own concerns than a particular time. Because many of the things that are shown to be signs of that kind of relationship would have been equally true of other unmarried women in that era. The fact that they were two sisters unmarried living at home with a father and stepmother wasnt that unusual. A close relationship with a father where he controlled most of the money would have been also not unusual. I think it also gets at our desire to have an explanation both for the identity of the at identity of the killer and the ferocity of the attack. It is troubling to think there might not be Something Like that at its base. No . Thank you. [applause] announcer history bookshelf features the countrys bestknown American History writers of the past decade talking about their books. 4 00 our weekly series at p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. Announcer each week, American History tvs reel america brings you archival films that provide context for todays Public Affairs issues. Narrator along the city streets. In the buses and trolley cars. In the woods. Comics. N in the and now there is a song about smokey our schoolchildren can sing and take to heart. You can find him in the forest Pay Attention Everybody Knows he is the Fire Prevention bear smokey the bear need to find a fire before it starts to flame and you know what smokey tells you when you see him passing through be careful its the least that you can do smokey the bear smokey the bear he can find a fire before it starts to blaze they call him smokey that was how he got his name smokey the bear, a reminder of the need to protect our forests and wildlife. Announcer you can watch archival films on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series, reel america. Saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv. Announcer curators Herman Eberhardt from the friendly d roosevelt president ial library and clay bauske of the president truman president ial library talk about the factors that led to the remaking of their museums and the thought that goes into overhauling their exhibits. The two discuss what their job as curators entail. The fdr president ial library hosted the conversation and provided video. The am Herman Eberhardt at franklin was of a president ial library and museum and i want to welcome you to a new series of programs featuring conversations between me and curators at other president ial libraries. In this series we will explore the various jobs and roles of museum curators. Today we will be talking about one of the most important and complicated jobs of a curator, developing new museum exhibits
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