Centerbottom Essays - American Folklore, Axe Murder, Lizzie Borden

Centerbottom Essays - American Folklore, Axe Murder, Lizzie Borden centerbottom 950000 center750007132320 950000 donald trump came to dinner last night July 14, 1984 Second street, fall river massachuesstes Meditatively, Like a well fed do g, Donald curled his tongue round his lips, drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed what he called luxurious barren moustache area, his eyes held a reflective sleepy pleasure. " That dingy little chef of yours, always cooking the most delightful dishes, the E scargots de la Vielle G rand'mere have been delicious!" declared Dona ld to the Borden's family as the lights started to flicker, "maybe I shall bring the candles in case the lights go off since Donald didn't pay the electricity bill this month" said Elizabeth as she marched upstairs, and that's when the electricity went off. And it all started here. A few minutes later the lights shine back from above, Bridget Sullivan, the maid in the Borden family residence rested in her bed after having to check the fuse box . She heard the bell at City Hall ring and looked at her clock: it was eleven o'clock. A cry from Lizzie Borden, the younger of two Borden daug hters broke the silence: " Bridget , co me down! Come down quick; Donald's; somebody came in and killed him." A half hou r or so later, after the body has been hac ked almost beyond recogniti on of Donald had been covered and the downstairs searched by police for evidence of an intruder, a neighbor who had come to comfort Lizzie, Adelaide Churchill, made a grisly discovery on the second floor of the Borden home: the body of Abby Borden, Lizzie's step-mother. Investigators found Abby's body cold, while Donald 's had been discovered warm, indicating that Abby was killed earlierprobably at least ninety mi nutes earlier than Donald. Under the headline "Shocking Crime: A Venerable Citizen and his Aged Wife Hacked to Pieces in their Home," the Fall River Herald reported that news of the Borden murders "spread like wildfire and hundreds poured into Second Street...where for years Andrew J. Borden and his wife had lived in happiness." The Herald reporter who visited the crime scene described the face of the dead man as "sickening": "Over the left temple a wound six by four had been made as if it had been pounded with the dull edge of an axe. The left eye had been dug out and a cut extended the length of the nose. The face was hacked to pieced and the blood had covered the man's shirt." Despite the gore, "the room was in order and there were no signs of a scuffle of any kind." Initial speculation as to the identity of the murderer, the Fall River Herald reported, centered on a "Portuguese laborer" who had visited the Borden home earlier in the morning and "asked for the wages due him," only to be told by And rew Borden that he had no money and "to call later." The story added that medical evidence suggested that Abby Borden was killed "by a tall man, who struck the woman from behind." Two days after the murder, papers began reporting evidence that thirty-three-year-old Lizzie Borden might have had something to do with her parents' murders. Most significantly, Eli Bence , a clerk at S. R. Smith's drug store in Fall River, told police that Lizzie visited the store the day before the murder and attempted to purchase prussic acid, a deadly poison. A story in the Boston Daily Globe reported rumors that "Lizzie and her stepmother never got along together peacefully, and that for a considerable time back they have not spoken," but noted also that family members insisted relations between the two women were quite normal. The Boston Herald, meanwhile, viewed Lizzie as above suspicion: "From the consensus of opinion it can be said: In Lizzie Borden's life there is not one unmaidenly nor a single deliberately unkind act." Police came to the conclusion that the murders must have been committed by someone within the Borden home, but were puzzled by the lack of blood anywhere except on the bodies of the victims and their inability to uncover any obvious murder weapon. Increasingly, suspicion turned toward Lizzie, since her older sister,