LIZZIE

History 4 Minutes

Lizzie Borden, born July 19, 1860, was tried in court for the murder of her stepmother, Abby Borden, and father, Andrew Borden. Although she was acquitted, no other person was accused and she remains infamous for their murders. The murders occurred on August 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Abby Borden was found face down on the floor next to a bed; Andrew was found sprawled across the sitting room couch. Their skulls had been smashed in. A hatchet was found in the cellar, and suspicion fell on their 32-year-old daughter Lizzie, who also lived in the house. Lizzie claimed to have discovered the body of her father about 30 minutes after he came home from his morning errands. Shortly after, the maid, Bridget Sullivan, found the body of Lizzie’s stepmother.

It was said that Lizzie did not get along well with her stepmother, and that they had a falling out years before the murder occurred. Lizzie and her sister, Emma Borden, were also known to have conflicts with their father. They feared their stepmother’s family had designs on the family’s money and property, and they disagreed with his decisions regarding the division of that property. Her father was also responsible for killing her pigeons that were housed in the family barn.

Just before the murders occurred, the entire family fell ill. Since Mr. Borden was not a well-liked man in town, Mrs. Borden believed foul play was involved. Although Mrs. Borden believed they had been poisoned, it was discovered that they ingested contaminated meat and contracted food poisoning. The contents of their stomach were investigated for toxins following death; however, no conclusions were achieved.

Lizzie was then arrested on August 11, 1892. She was indicted by a grand jury; however, the trial didn’t begin until June 1893. Her sister was out of town at the time and was never a suspect.  The hatchet was discovered by the Fall River police; however, it appeared to have been cleaned of any evidence. A downfall for the prosecution occurred when the Fall River police didn’t properly execute collection of the newly discovered forensic fingerprint evidence. Therefore, no potential prints were lifted from the murder weapon. Although no blood-stained clothing was found as evidence, it was reported that Lizzie tore apart and burned a blue dress in the kitchen stove a few days following the murder because it was covered in baseboard paint. Based on the lack of evidence and a few excluded testimonies, Lizzie Borden was acquitted for the murder of her father and stepmother.

Lizzie and Emma inherited a significant portion of their father’s estate, which allowed them to purchase a new home together. The Borden sisters lived together for the following decade. Although free, Lizzie was considered guilty by many of her neighbors, and thusly never enjoyed acceptance in the community following her trial. Her reputation was further tarnished when she was accused of shoplifting in 1897.

In 1905, Emma abruptly moved out of the house that she shared with her sister. The two never spoke again. Emma may have been uncomfortable with Lizzie’s close friendship with another woman, Nance O’Neil, although her silence on the issue has fueled speculation that she learned new details about the murders of her father and stepmother. No member of the household staff ever offered additional information on the rift, even following Lizzie’s death.

Lizzie died of pneumonia in Fall River, Massachusetts, on June 1, 1927. Emma Borden died days later in Newmarket, New Hampshire.  The case has never been solved.

The House is now a Bed & Breakfast.  Mr. Borden’s “couch of death” disappeared years ago — supposedly it was stored in a warehouse that was destroyed by a hurricane — but Lee Ann Wilbur (the previous owner) found a nearly identical replacement that is now the most sat-on piece of furniture in the house. The carpeted floor next to the death bed is also popular. “More people lie on that spot, and have posed on that spot, than do on the couch.”

Over at the county historical museum, the curator of Lizzie Borden’s Murderabilia told us that the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast was voted one of the scariest places on earth by the viewers of Scariest Places On Earth. Even levelheaded Lee Ann conceded that “something’s going on here,” and told us of phantom footfalls and unnatural gusts of wind, especially when guests use the Ouija Board in the sitting room. House cat Max acts as her paranormal alarm system. “When he has issues with the house, I’m gonna have issues with the house.”

Of course, most visitors here WANT an encounter with Lizzie’s pulp-headed parents. Abby Borden’s death room is the most popular rental in the house. For the murder anniversary night Lee Ann put it up for auction online (in 2008 it went for $405.00). “I haven’t had anybody have a heart attack yet,” she says, “but I have lost people around 2 AM. And there are no refunds if you leave.” Visitors can pull their lace coverlets over their heads if the ghosts pop in, but those who run for the exit don’t get breakfast — and that’s a shame, since it’s designed to be similar to the one that the Bordens ate on the morning of their murders.

NOTE: Lee Ann put the property up for sale and it was bought in 2021 by Lance Zaal, who is no stranger to the ghosts and spirits world. He is the creator of Lily, a supernatural doll that wards off ghosts and ghouls around Halloween. He also operates US Ghost Adventures, which offers ghost tours in over 35 states.

Unknown's avatar

Published by pat frederick

Published

158 thoughts on “LIZZIE”

      1. He is a real sweetheart…the only thing I wondered was what were the other pets they already had that he “didn’t get along with.” But at least they found him the perfect home. A little old lady who had been praying for a dog…..really cute.

        Liked by 1 person

  13. Entire Article @ reclaimthenet:

    “Voter analytics firm PredictWise harvested location data from tens of millions of US cellphones during the initial Covid lockdown months and used this data to assign a “Covid-19 decree violation” score to the people associated with the phones.

    These Covid-19 decree violation scores were calculated by analyzing nearly two billion global positioning system (GPS) pings to get “real-time, ultra-granular locations patterns.” People who were “on the go more often than their neighbors” were given a high Covid-19 decree violation score while those who mostly or always stayed at home were given a low Covid-19 decree violation score.

    Not only did PredictWise use this highly sensitive location data to monitor millions of Americans’ compliance with Covid lockdown decrees but it also combined this data with follow-up surveys to assign “Covid concern” scores to the people who were being surveilled. PredictWise then used this data to help Democrats in several swing states to target more than 350,000 “Covid concerned” Republicans with Covid-related campaign ads.

    In its white paper, PredictWise claims that Democrats were able to “deploy this real-time location model to open up just over 40,000 persuasion targets that normally would have fallen off” for Mark Kelly who was running for Senate at the time and has now been elected.

    “PredictWise understood that there were potential pockets of voters to target with Covid-19 messaging and turned high-dimensional data covering over 100 million Americans into measures of adherence to Covid-19 restrictions during deep lockdown,” the company states in the white paper.

    PredictWise doesn’t provide the exact dates when this location data was collected but its white paper does note that the data was collected during Covid lockdowns and used during Senator Kelly’s 2020 election campaign. State-level US lockdowns began on March 15, 2020 and Kelly was elected on November 4, 2020 so the data appears to have been collected during the first few months of this 11 month period.

    Location data and survey data are just two of the many types of data PredictWise claims to have access to. According to its white paper, PredictWise also tracks “telemetry data” (which is “passively sourced cell-phone data”), media consumption data, and unregistered voter data (which contains verified data on over 50 million unregistered voters that’s updated daily and sourced from credit files and portal registration data). Additionally, PredictWise claims that “Crate&Barrel” (which seems to be a reference to the online furniture and home decor shopping portal Crate & Barrel) is one of the portal registration data sources it has access to.

    In total, PredictWise says its data “tracks the opinions, attitudes, and behaviors” of over 260 million Americans – a figure that represents 78% of the entire US population of 333 million. PredictWise uses the data it collects to create scores on 13 issue preference clusters and 7 value-frame, or psychometric clusters. These clusters use more than 30 million behavioral data points. PredictWise also claims to be able to use this data to predict the party of unregistered voters.

    This mass surveillance of location data and lockdown compliance is just one of the many examples of the large-scale data harvesting that occurred during the pandemic. Private companies tracked the everyday activities of citizens, pushed remote learning surveillance technologies, increased surveillance in the workplace, and more. Meanwhile, governments ushered in numerous forms of surveillance such as forcing citizens to wear ankle bracelet trackers, secretly surveilling vaccine recipients via their phones, and combining vaccine passports with digital IDs.”

    Liked by 1 person

  14. H/T Duchess – Entire Article @ mustreadalaska:

    “A groundswell from the grassroots has risen and reached the Alaska Republican Party leadership. After voting members of the Alaska Republican Party State Central Committee asked party leadership to take action, the entire body was polled by Chairwoman Ann Brown on whether to censure Sen. Mitch McConnell for bullying Alaska Republican Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka.

    The result was 49-8 in favor of the resolution to censure McConnell and his Senate Leadership Fund for attacking Tshibaka on behalf of McConnell’s favored candidate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Several districts had already conducted separate votes as subcommittees of the State Central Committee. The District 26 resolution requested that the entire party take a vote, which triggered the statewide question.

    On Friday night, Chairwoman Ann Brown sent out a note to voting members and balloting began, ending on Sunday evening. Results were sent out to the party’s voting members on Monday morning.

    McConnell, who runs the Senate Leadership Fund, has been running anti-Tshibaka ads since Labor Day in his effort to support the reelection of Murkowski. But Tshibaka is the endorsed candidate of the Alaska Republican Party since June of 2021, while Murkowski was censured and asked to leave the party in March of 2021.

    “That the Alaska Republican Party State Central Committee condemns the divisive and misleading statements from the Senate Leadership Fund and the inappropriate use of millions of dollars from the Senate Leadership Fund to oppose our endorsed candidate, Kelly Tshibaka,” the resolution reads in part, “Finally, be it resolved that we request the Senate Leadership Fund immediately stop the attack ads against Kelly Tshibaka and discontinue the support of all other opposing candidates.”

    The party is unhappy with Murkowski because she works against the party platform and against the best interest of the state she represents, the resolutions says. In an overwhelming vote in 2021, the party’s censure action also prohibited Murkowski from being a candidate in any Republican primary, a condition that has been superseded by Ballot Measure 2, which destroyed the Republican primary.

    While the 49-8 vote shows overwhelming for the censure, no subcommittee of the party has risen to defend McConnell’s action against the Alaska Republican Party.

    “No one from Alaska wants big shots from the Lower 48 meddling in our elections, and they certainly don’t want D.C. Republicans lying about the candidate who’s been endorsed by the Alaska GOP. Alaska Republicans are telling Mitch McConnell to stay out of it. But this goes to show you who Lisa Murkowski is aligned with. She’s wearing the jersey of the Washington establishment of Biden, Pelosi, and McConnell, and she’s not on Alaska’s team,” said Mary Ann Pruitt, adviser to the Tshibaka campaign.

    The vote comes at a time when Murkowski has endorsed a Democrat for Congress. Over the weekend, Murkowski skipped over the two Republicans running for Alaska’s lone House seat in Congress, and endorsed Mary Peltola.

    The vote was to be posted on the Alaska Republican Party’s Facebook page, but Chairwoman Brown made no mention about sending it to the National Republican Committee, McConnell, or the Senate Leadership Fund.”

    Letter @ link: https://mustreadalaska.com/breaking-alaska-republican-party-votes-to-censure-sen-mitch-mcconnell-for-attacking-republican-kelly-tshibaka/

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Entire Article @ NewAmerican: “A Christian baker has won her second battle in California courts after being sued for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex “wedding” five years ago.

    Kern County Superior Court Judge Eric Bradshaw ruled Friday that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) violated both the California and U.S. Constitutions in its attempts to punish Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, for turning down business that conflicted with her faith.

    Miller’s ordeal began in 2017, when Eileen and Mireya Rodriguez-Del Rio, a lesbian couple, approached her to make a cake for their upcoming nuptials. Miller told them that while she would have been happy to sell them a pre-made blank cake to which they could add their own message, she would not create a custom cake celebrating something she believed was contrary to the teachings of the Bible. However, she did offer to forward their request to another bakery that would have gladly fulfilled it.

    According to the Thomas More Society, which defended Miller in court: ‘The couple blasted their encounter on social media, characterizing it as discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and filed a complaint with [the DFEH].

    The local Bakersfield media quickly discovered the online posts and began a media firestorm. In response, Tastries Bakery and Cathy received thousands of items of hate mail, including threats of violence and gay pornography. The bakery’s phone lines also rang off the hook, with hundreds of callers accusing them of bigotry.’

    “I had seven employees in two weeks quit because they couldn’t handle it,” Miller said. “I can’t even go into how bad it has been, horrible to the point where I can only allow certain people to open our emails. My daughter refused to let me see our social media which was so hateful.”

    The DFEH petitioned the courts to order Miller either to make cakes for same-sex “weddings” or to cease making wedding cakes altogether. In 2018, Judge David Lampe rejected their request on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment’s free-speech clause by requiring Miller to endorse a message with which she disagrees.

    Undaunted, the DFEH, on behalf of the Rodriguez-Del Rios, filed a civil lawsuit eight months later, alleging that Miller had violated California’s anti-discrimination law. That case finally went to trial in July after years of discovery, including at least one deposition in which a state attorney grilled Miller over the sincerity of her Christian beliefs.

    When the suit reached Bradshaw’s courtroom, it was dealt a seemingly decisive blow. Miller, he wrote, did not discriminate against the plaintiffs because they were lesbians — he noted that she even employs “persons with same-sex orientations” — but because they had asked her to do something “at odds with her faith.”

    “DFEH’s argument seems to take issue with what Miller believes the Bible teaches regarding marriage, even though DFEH concedes she sincerely does believe it,” observed Bradshaw (emphasis in original).

    Bradshaw made much of DFEH’s clear indifference, if not hostility, toward Miller’s faith. He pointed out that the agency was not only seeking “punitive fines” against her but also giving her the Hobson’s choice of either producing same-sex wedding cakes, thereby violating her conscience, or, essentially, closing up shop. Alternatively, the DFEH suggested she could simply recuse herself from participating in making same-sex wedding cakes — a practical impossibility in a small business, not to mention one that would require her employees to deceive her.

    The “blunt force rigidity” of these options, penned Bradshaw, “lacks any sensitivity to the rational, reasonable, sincere religious beliefs the DFEH says it acknowledges.” (Emphasis in original.) Bradshaw also found the DFEH’s attempt to compel Miller to express a message with which she disagrees to be a violation of the First Amendment.

    Miller, of course, was thrilled with the decision. On Facebook, she thanked “Tastries friends and family for [their] support and encouragement,” adding, “I’m hoping that in our community we can grow together, and we should understand that we shouldn’t push any agenda against anyone else.”

    The plaintiffs, on the other hand, vowed to appeal Bradshaw’s decision — and why not? With the DFEH doing the litigating, taxpayers are footing the bill for these women’s crusade against liberty and its Author.”

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Trudeau Orders Freeze on Handgun Purchases in Canada

    matt_benoit/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Friday a national freeze on the sale, purchase, and transfer of handguns effective immediately. This means that people cannot buy, sell, or transfer handguns within Canada, and they cannot bring newly acquired handguns into the country.

    The nationwide freeze was first announced in May, to coincide with the Canadian Minister of Public Safety’s Bill C-21, or “Act to amend certain Acts,” which includes amending the Firearms Act. While the bill continues to be heavily debated in the House of Commons and still needs to find its way to the Senate, Trudeau decided to use his familiar dictator-style leadership and institute draconian action immediately through regulations to “keep Canadians safe.”

    “Canadians have the right to feel safe in their homes, in their schools, and in their places of worship. With handgun violence increasing across Canada, it is our duty to take urgent action to remove these deadly weapons from our communities. Today, we’re keeping more guns out of our communities, and keeping our kids safe,” Trudeau stated in the official announcement.

    Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, Marco E.L. Mendicino, added, “Our government is taking Canada’s most significant action on gun violence in a generation. We made a commitment to Canadians that we would act — and we are. The national freeze will tackle the alarming role of handguns in crime, gender-based violence, and more. We are using all tools at our disposal to fight gun violence and will not rest until all Canadians feel safe in their communities.”

    The government of Canada thinks that “handguns are the weapon of choice in most firearm-related crimes,” and thus the national handgun freeze is part of their comprehensive plan to tackle gun violence. They have already banned over 1,500 types of assault-style firearms and strengthened their gun control laws, expanding background checks. Bill C-21 proposes further measures to keep guns out of the “wrong hands,” such as revoking the firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, continuing to fight gun smuggling and trafficking, and providing law enforcement more tools to investigate firearms crimes.

    NPR reported:

    ‘In addition to a ban on handgun sales, it is also now forbidden to bring newly acquired handguns into Canada. The freeze is being met with elation from gun reform groups who welcomed the immediate action.

    “Reducing the proliferation of handguns is one important example of the evidence-based measures Canada needs to reduce gun violence and save lives,” Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns tweeted in response to the news.’

    But a gun-owners group, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR), disagreed that the gun freeze would protect Canadians from gun violence. Their data, based on Canada’s accurate counts of the number of registered firearms and handguns since 2003, show that “the number of restricted and prohibited firearms has doubled from 572,325 to 1,165,114 firearms, while the rate of homicide by handgun has remained relatively constant.”

    The CCFR website explained, “The data revealed no associated increase in handgun homicide with the increase in the number of registered restricted and prohibited firearms…. If prevalence of handguns was associated with an increase in homicide, one would expect homicide rates to also increase. This suggests that legally owned firearms are not linked with homicide rates.”

    The data also showed that a reduction in access to handguns would not necessarily reduce handgun-related homicides, as legally owned handguns and handguns on the black market may have much different risk of associated harm.

    “In fact, in Ontario, Canada, where handguns are very difficult to legally acquire, it appears that 85% of handguns involved in criminal activity were not obtained legally in Canada but rather from outside the country and most often from the United States,” the group shared. “Hence, controlling domestically legally owned handguns may in fact result in no additional or measurable benefit. In addition, licensed firearms owners in Canada are half as likely to commit homicide with a firearm than an average Canadian.”

    Gun violence has been with mankind since the invention of firearms, and laws supposedly to prevent such violence have only hindered the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. Prime Minister Trudeau and Canada’s Parliament need to be honest about their true intentions in this gun freeze. Even if it were passed, Bill C-21 wouldn’t fix the problem.”

    Liked by 1 person

  17. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

  21. H/T Kea

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.