Shocking Psychic Solution : The Lizzie Borden Case

A look at the historical evidences with a psychic interpretation for the reasons and missing facts behind this crime of the century, that shocked the world.

About the Authors:

Debbie Senate is a well-respected psychic who has helped many people with her gifts, from police murder cases to lost pets. For many years she wrote an advice column titled "Dear Debbie" that used her psychic impressions to give answers to people's problems. She is a gifted medium as well as wife and mother of three. She resides now with her husband and daughter, Megan, in Oak View, California.

Richard Senate is best known as a ghost hunter and psychic researcher. For 22 years he was the historian for the city of Ventura and operated a historical museum. He has appeared on numerous TV and Radio shows as an expert on the paranormal. He is the author of 14 published books with his most recent being Hollywood Ghosts and The Ghosts of the California Missions. He began to research and investigate phantoms when he saw one himself in 1978. He still gives ghost tours of Ventura and contributes articles to magazines and newspapers.

EXCERPT

It took place over a century ago. It was two obscure murders committed in a savage way yet they still enthrall the public imagination. Perhaps it is the fact that the crime is still unsolved that so haunts us still. Most believe that the daughter, Lizzie Borden, took the ax and did the savage crime but, if that is true, how did she do it? How did she hide the murder weapon and how did she manage to do the terrible act without getting covered in blood? What would cause a Sunday school teacher to snap in such a way as to do in her hated stepmother and elderly father?

By all accounts, Andrew Borden loved his daughter and was generous to her in ways he was never generous to others. Witnesses confirmed Lizzie returned his love. No one could even imagine she would slay him. Her stepmother perhaps, her father, never. The brutality of the attacks was enough to cause public shock, but few could imagine this was the act of a woman. It flew in the face of all Victorian logic that a frail woman would have the stealth and the rage to commit these bloody murders. Though the public knew there was little love between Lizzie and her stepmother, Abby, everyone knew how much her father doted on her; she seemed to have had a strong relationship with him.

When he died he was still wearing the ring she had presented to him on his little finger. What horrible thing had dislodged her love and sent her, if she did it, into such a killing frenzy? Like the awful murders of Jack the Ripper in London's Soho district two decades before, the Fall River murders stunned the public and challenged their Victorian standards.

The Borden Family was, in our modern terms, dysfunctional, and had been for the last five years. Like many blowups, it started small and built slowly. They were abnormal for their day. Andrew Borden could best be described as an American version of "Ebenezer Scrooge." Those who knew him described him as a cold, moneygrubber who saw the world only in terms of profit and loss. Upon learning of his passing most were pleased rather than saddened. He had few friends in Fall River among all classes.

His only human quality was his soft spot towards his daughters, Lizzie and her sister, Emma. Even his second wife hadn't won a secure place in his heart. When his first wife passed away, Andrew followed the tradition of the times and re-married. It was believed that children needed a mother to raise them and to manage the house. A new wife would provide stability to the family.

The problems in the family all started over money, that root of all evil. In a bid to make more money, Andrew "gave" a house to Abby, the second wife. It was all a well thought-out plan and one that he didn't share with his daughters. Somehow, the cat got out of the bag. Lizzie heard about the deal at church and was livid. To make up for the deal, Andrew gave Lizzie and Emma each a house-they could keep the rent on those houses as their personal income. He also treated Lizzie to an escorted trip to Europe. The grand tour was something young people did. Sometimes young women would find husbands on these long journeys that were both cultural and educational. The tour wasn't cheap and it is doubtful Andrew would have come forward with this "gift" if he hadn't deemed it necessary.

By all accounts, the trip didn't work out and the animosity lingered still. Lizzie stopped calling Abby "mother" and began referring to her simply as "Mrs. Borden." Before this they had gotten on rather well. Emma had never warmed to Abby. Abby was a hard person to like. In many ways she complimented Andrew. She, like her husband, had few friends, ran the house to his frugal tastes and did the cooking herself, reducing the need for a cook in the household. They got on with a single servant, an Irish girl.

Lizzie and the Irish servant seem, by all accounts, to have gotten along well, yet as the case progressed, it was this Irish girl who gave the most damming testimony against Lizzie. Then there was the break-in. The home was always kept locked in an era where this was almost unheard of. People of that day, rich or poor, almost never locked their doors.

And seeing as many people had a small arsenal of weapons in their homes, breaking in while people were on the premises was a hazardous undertaking. Yet the home was broken into months before the murders. A nail was found in the door lock as if to imply the door lock had been forced. Only a few items were taken.

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