BORDEN, LIZZIE: Popular Rhyme - Lizzie Borden documentary - Crime Library online
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one! Popular rhyme, re acquittal of Lizzie Borden June 1893 Massachusetts
It was a crime that shocked the nation: a pious young woman arrested for the brutal murder of her parents. Did she do it? Lizzie Borden, Crime Channel
Lizzie was acquitted. ibid.
Andrew Borden seventy-two and his second wife Abby had been brutally murdered, both hacked to death. ibid.
Andrew Borden’s fortune was vast. ibid.
Witnesses still wondered about a man seen in front of the house on the morning of the murders. ibid.
From the beginning people were intent on solving the case. ibid.
Author Arnold Brown [The Legend, The Truth, The Final Chapter] believes the killer’s name was William Borden. And he really was Andrew Borden’s illegitimate son. ibid.
Did William Borden wield the axe that killed Abby and Andrew Borden or was someone paid to do it, as historian George Quigley [International Lizzie Borden Association] suggests? ibid.
Quigley also believes Lizzie’s older sister Emma and their uncle Morse were involved. ibid.
Many of those who have studied the Lizzie Borden case believe that more than one person was involved in the murder of Abby and Andrew Borden. ibid.
Other theories suggest the maid Bridget Sullivan may have been involved. ibid.
The Lizzie Borden case has mystified and fascinated those interested in crime for over one hundred years. Very few cases in American history have attracted as much attention as the hatchet murders of Andrew J Borden and his wife, Abby Borden. The bloodiness of the acts in an otherwise respectable late nineteenth century domestic setting is startling. Along with the gruesome nature of the crimes is the unexpected character of the accused, not a hatchet-wielding maniac, but a church-going, Sunday-school-teaching, respectable, spinster-daughter, charged with parricide, the murder of parents, a crime worthy of Classical Greek tragedy. This is a murder case in which the accused is found not guilty for the violent and bloody murders of two people. There were the unusual circumstances considering that it was an era of swift justice, of vast newspaper coverage, evidence that was almost entirely circumstantial, passionately divided public opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, incompetent prosecution, and acquittal. Crime Library online article
BORJESSON, ANNIE murder: The Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? I: The Body TV -
Annie Borjesson said she was coming home to see friends and family. She never made it. The police investigation said she took her own life. Her family and friends have never accepted this. The Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? I: The Body, Hazel Martin reporting, captions, BBC 2023
December 4th 2005 8.23 a.m.: ‘Found right here on this beach.’ ibid.
‘It looked like someone had pressed their thumbs standing in front of Annie and with matching finger bruisings on her back.’ ibid. friend in Sweden
‘She couldn’t have caused all those bruises herself.’ ibid. woman
After seeing her body Annie’s family became convinced she’d been heavily beaten and drowned. ibid. caption
There’s all the weird bruising and the missing hair that the family say they found on Annie’s body. The Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? II: The Journey
Annie began the 76 mile journey [from Edinburgh] to Prestwick Airport. ibid. caption
After being in the terminal for 5 minutes and 47 seconds Annie left the airport. ibid.
Two days before she died Annie called her family from a payphone. She said she was worried someone was listening to her mobile phone calls. ibid.
Why on earth would the security services be interested in Annie Borjesson? ibid.
‘A case of mistaken identity by agents of the US state.’ ibid. bloke’s theory
How incredibly shallow it was … Just how far would Annie have had to travel? … She would have had to walk nearly half a mile … She was a strong swimmer. The Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? III: The Beach *****
‘To be able to hold your head underwater for long enough for you to drown simply voluntarily would be almost impossible.’ ibid. pathologist
When her body was found she was discovered right next to the sea wall, and right next to her metres away were her jacket and her bag … Is that even possible? ibid.
The tidal conditions at Prestwick beach do make it possible for different objects to wash up all together at exactly the same spot where Annie was found. ibid.
‘What we’re seeing here is a diatom species that we typically find in freshwater environments.’ ibid. specialist
‘Since Annie didn’t have any saltwater diatoms within her system I think something very terrible happened to her.’ ibid. friend
There are loads of references to Annie meeting a ruby player. And there’s a name. Martin Leslie. The Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? IV: The Suspect
Whoever Annie thought that she was speaking to, it absolutely wasn’t Martin Leslie, because he was 11,000 miles away. So who was Annie speaking to? ibid.
‘The picture that we were getting from the people we were speaking to was that Annie’s life in Scotland was completely different to the life her family was led to believe she was leading. She was depressive. She was low mood. She was obsessive.’ ibid. rozzer
There were loads of beaches near her flat. Why would she travel the whole way across the country to find an incredibly shallow bay to take her own life? ibid.
The diatoms in her body should have come from saltwater. ibid.
Unbelievably, there’s one last twist … A request for information at the highest level … They [Swedish government] refused, and the reason – they say that releasing any material relating to Annie could ‘harm Sweden’s international relations with a foreign state’ … The government have marked Annie’s case ‘a classified state secret’. ibid.
BORUTSKI, BORIS: The Fifth Estate TV -
It’s the kind of crime that’s not meant to happen in small-town Canada. We have a complete lockdown of two townships. Three women picked off one by one. One of the worst incidents of domestic violence in Canadian history. The suspect, known to the women, known to everyone, and for years known as violent. So why did it happen? How did the system, supposed to protect women, end up failing them so badly? The Fifth Estate: Wilno Murders: Why Didn’t We Know? CBC 2016