Lizzie Borden Case | Mental Health, Personality, & Psychopathy

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today I have several questions related to the lizzie borden case can I analyze the case was she psychopathic can I talk about the mental health and personality characteristics in general and was she guilty so the Lizzie Borden case is an old case that involved murders that occurred in 1892 but it's still hotly debated in terms of Lizzie Borden's guilt or innocence as well as her mental health and personality so first I'll look at a timeline of the crime then I'll talk about the background of Lizzie Borden the arrest and the trial the mental health and personality characteristics and my thoughts as to whether Lizzie Borden was guilty or innocent the case starts on August 2nd 1892 at number 92 second Street in Fall River Massachusetts normally residing at this house we see Andrew Borden age 69 Andrews second life Abby Borden age 64 Andrews two daughters Emma Borden 42 and Lizzie Borden 32 and Bridget Sullivan a 26 year old maid who worked for the family for almost three years in July of 1892 Emma left to visit with friends so she wasn't there during the time of the murders so on this day August 2nd we see that Lizzie's stepmother Abby and the maid Bridget Sullivan suffered severe vomiting Abby went across the street to a physician named dr. Bowen and informed him that she believed that she was poisoned the physician sent her home the next day August 3rd Lizzie's uncle John Morse unexpectedly arrived at the house that same night Lizzie visited a friend of Emma's named Alice Russell Russell would later testified that Lizzie had talked about burglary attempts on the board and residence and indicated that there have been threats against her father when Russell tried to comfort Lizzie Lizzie said that she was afraid that somebody will do something this brings us to August 4 1892 John Morse leaves around 9:00 a.m. about 20 minutes later andrew borden leaves to check on some of his investments at about 9:30 Abbey went upstairs to clean the guest room and Sullivan went outside to wash the windows so Lizzie was alone in the house with Abby at about 10:45 Andrew returned from his walk we see that he struggled to get the door lock open and solvent let him in Lizzie came down from the second floor at this time Andrew inquired as to Abby's location so he asked Lizzie where Abby was Lizzie indicated that Abby had received a note asking her to go see a friend of hers who was sick Sullivan ascended the back stairs to her room in the Attic she wanted to rest it was about 11 o'clock she knew this because she heard the bell at City Hall ring at this time Lizzie yells up the steps to solvent come down quick father's dead somebody came in and killed him Sullivan comes down the steps and sees the body of Lizzie Borden's father Andrew he had evidently been struck multiple times with a hatchet like weapon Lizzie sent Sullivan across the street to get dr. Bowen after he arrived he asked for the police to be called the police were already in the house when Sullivan and a neighbor went upstairs to find a sheet to cover Andrews body there they discovered Abby Borden laying on the guest room floor Abby was also dead having been struck many times with a hatchet like weapon so that's the timeline of the crime now to take a look at Lizzie Borden's background so Lizzie was born in 1860 her mother Sarah Morse died in 1862 two years after that Andrew Borden married Abby gray who was 38 years old at the time the evidence suggests that Abby was kind to Lizzie and her older sister Emma but evidently the sisters did not return the affection in particular Lizzie and Abby's relationship was tense Lizzie was reported to have said that she hated Abby Andrew Borden has been described as a miserly and unscrupulous businessman he became quite wealthy by the time of his death he was worth about half a million dollars now of course that's half a million dollars in 1890 - in today's dollars that would be around 14 million even though he could have afforded it he lived in a house that was not equipped with the conveniences that many people with his level wealth had at that time for example the board and residents didn't have electricity or a bath even though he was frugal he did buy Lizzie expensive gifts he paid for a tour of Europe he bought her a diamond ring and he bought her sealskin case that's something you don't hear too much of anymore right capes in general I guess they weren't just for superheroes back then both Lizzie and Emma had given up on the idea of getting married however Lizzie was active in her church she taught Sunday School she volunteered in a hospital and was involved in a lot of other charitable activities so now moving back to August 4 1892 we see that the police described a bee as calm and collected immediately after the murders they were surprised that Lizzie didn't faint at the sight of her father's body interestingly this became an important factor in creating suspicion of her involvement in the murders they know that Lizzie's clothes appeared to be clean and her body appeared to be clean not covered in blood as they initially suspected that the murderer must have been however they couldn't actually remember what she was wearing the police really didn't get aggressive in their investigation quickly they didn't make a meaningful search of the house until 32 hours after the mers and they waited three days to conduct a formal interview of Lizzie or Emma so within several days after the murders we see Lizzie becomes the prime suspect Abbey weighed 210 pounds the police didn't believe that Lizzie could be on the first floor and not here Abby's body hit the floor when Abby was being murdered also nobody came forward and claimed to be the person who sent the note to Abby right so we see Lizzie's story was kind of falling apart Lizzie also changed her story several times in one story she claimed to be in the barn up in the loft during the time when her father was being murdered the police insisted it was too hot that day for anybody to be in the loft also the dust in that area appeared to be undisturbed the police found the head of Hachette in the basement the handle was broken off and missing although one officer said they recovered the handle it was never produced at trial it was believed at that time that Abby must have been murdered at least an hour before Andrew so the police were thinking about an hour to an hour and a half earlier later these times would be disputed but that was the conclusion at the time which means the murder had to stay in the house for over an hour between the murders or they would have to have left and then came back later so that would be pretty unusual behavior for somebody in broad daylight just walking around so they're walking around there carrying an ax or a hatchet the hatchets really a smaller version of an axe and they gain entrance in this house they murder one person and they hang out or they leave and then come back right when the other person comes home it doesn't make a lot of sense all these things really hurt Lizzie Borden's case on August 8th Alice Russell witnessed Borden using a kitchen stove to burn a dress now the dress appeared to have a small brown stain on it so this could be confused with dried blood Lizzie said that the dress had wet paint on it and that's why she was burning it that same day Lizzie appeared at the inquest hearing just like during her initial statements her answers were contradictory she was on morphine at this time due the stress of the murders so this is something that's also changed quite a bit from 1892 nobody these days would be given morphine because they're anxious or distressed but back then this wasn't entirely unheard of now the local pharmacist came forward and said that on the day before the murder Lizzie tried to buy prussic acid now this is a lethal poison that required a prescription from a physician Lizzie told the pharmacist that she needed it to put an edge on a sealskin cape he refused to sell it to her now not everybody was jumping on board the Lizzie is guilty train many people believe that a daughter would be incapable of committing a double parasite they believed that if Lizzie was the killer she would have used poison and not used a hatchet or also the nature of the crime indicated a great deal of rage on the part of the murderer people thought that this was inconsistent with a female killer and between both victims 29 blows were delivered by the weapon some of them breaking through the belt many people didn't think that Lizzie had the capability to strike two people a total of 29 times and to generate the amount of force necessary to cause the damage that was observed strangely many people sent letters asking that Sullivan be arrested even though there was no evidence whatsoever that tied her to the crimes in fact really Lizzie's testimony essentially exonerated Bridget Sullivan so perhaps it was really more about the wealth and status that Lizzie possessed as opposed to the idea that a female could not be a killer a woman of her social standing could not have committed this crime was really I think what a lot of people were thinking even though her guilt was debated on many levels she was arrested on August 11 this moves us forward to June 5 1893 Lizzie's trial begins her inconsistent statements and the attempt to purchase prussic acid or ruled as inadmissible the prosecution has an uphill battle right from the beginning because of Lizzie's inheritance she was able to hire a high-powered defense team including an attorney named George Robinson he was the former governor of the state of Massachusetts he understood how people were looking at Lizzie and judging her behavior like she wasn't sad enough she wasn't reacting in the right way and he told her to start grieving in an obvious way the defense brought in experts that indicated Lizzie was physically incapable of swinging an axe with enough force to have done the damage observed at the crime scenes experts for the prosecution indicated that she was capable and she could have done it without splattering blood the jurors clearly didn't buy this story it seemed very hard to believe that the murder would not be covered in blood now this trial was overseen by a three-judge panel one of them justice dewy issued a statement to the jury more or less telling them that a not guilty verdict really made sense the jury decided in five minutes that Lizzie Borden was not guilty but they did not return for about an hour so people wouldn't believe they had rushed through the process after the trial Lizzie and Emma inherited about three hundred thousand dollars that's roughly eight million dollars today they bought a mansion Lizzie was ostracized by the community that had once defended her and we see that on June 1 1927 she died from pneumonia she was 66 years old so that takes care of the investigation the arrests in the trial now moving to the mental health and personality characteristics we see with Lizzie Borden even though there's a lot of information available about this case when it comes to Lizzie's mental disorder symptoms or her personality we see mixed reports the case predates the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual by 60 years so there's no expectation of a diagnosis the descriptions we hear of Lizzie suggests she might have been somewhat unhappy but there's no indication of uncontrolled anger impulsive miss or irresponsibility other than the morphine she was given after the murders there's really no indication of using substances either really nothing's going on here in terms of mental health symptoms at least not based on available information so now looking at her personality I'll use the five factor model I remember this through the acronym ocean openness to experience conscientiousness extraversion agreeableness and neuroticism there's not a lot to go on in terms of figuring this profile out but if I had to guess I would say mid range openness high conscientiousness mid range extraversion mid to low agreeableness and low neuroticism and the level of neuroticism becomes important as we consider the type of crime she was accused of low neuroticism is associated with psychopathy these murders were particularly brutal and it's hard to imagine the perpetrator did not have several psychopathic characteristics we know that one psychopathic characteristic of course is low neuroticism the Tennessee to stay calm in stressful situations that's one indication but did she have any of the other characteristics is it possible that was important was a psychopath we see this one study that analyzed the available information on Borden and tried to figure out how she would score on an instrument called the psychopathy checklist revised also known as the PCL our I'll put a reference for this article and every source I used in the description for this video now this instrument has 20 items that are linked to psychopathy now this is an interesting article but it was scored with the presumption that Lizzie was guilty of the murders which means that her guilt or innocence was not independent of the psychopathy score rather if she was considered guilty the psychopathy score would be higher so I don't think this is a really logical way to calculate the score but I can appreciate this perspective looking at the instrument as if she's guilty with this limitation of mine though I'll review the 20 items and scored Lizzie as if her involvement the murders is really unknown like we don't know she's guilty or not guilty these scores the article scores and my scores can then be compared to the scores of other female offenders including female murderers so as I go through the items I'll give the article score and my score now each item on the PC L R can be scored with a zero of one or two zero means that the item doesn't apply it all one we see a partial match or mixed information and two we see a reasonably good match first let's take a look at the PCL our items where no evidence supported endorsement so these are items where Lizzie would score a zero according to the article here we see superficial charm grandiosity excitement-seeking poor behavioral control promiscuity early behavioral problems a lack of long-term goals being impulsive being irresponsible having several short-term marital relationships juvenile delinquency and a revocation of conditional release so for all these items I agree with how the articles scored them I also give busy a zero on these items next to look at the items that were endorsed either with a score of one or two again based on what the article says and I'll give my score as well so we see the remaining items of the PCL are are listed here the first pathological lying the article gave a score of one my score is also one this is based on her inconsistent statements to the police initially and at the inquest she was also suspected three years earlier of stealing money and jewelry from her parents home next item is being manipulative the article has endorsed this with a 1 because of Lizzie's alleged theft behavior and also alleged shoplifting that occurred five years after the crime in 1897 I'm putting a zero here even if she committed those crimes that's not necessarily manipulation the next item is a lack of remorse the article assigned a score of two saying that it's a reasonably good match my score is zero the lack of remorse was really based on her composure during the trial but if she was not guilty there was no need for a Morse next we have shallow effect the article gave her - based on the idea that she had a limited range of effect as a child and adolescent and as an adult during the trial I can appreciate the argument here but I'm gonna go with a 1 I think we have mixed results there next item is being callous or having a lack of empathy the article scored a 1 my score is 0 limited expression of emotion during the trial again would only matter if she was guilty parasitic lifestyle is the next item the article scored of 1 here I think this is really more situational her father was wealthy she volunteered that's really not what's meant by a parasitic lifestyle this lifestyle is when somebody really needs to work they need to earn money and they live off of other people and lounge around doing nothing meaningful I don't think the supplies in Lizzie's situation my score is a zero the next item is a failure to accept responsibility the article gave her one and I gave her a one as well the only reason I'm ok with the score of one is because she did lie about what happened during the time of the murders so something was going one there she clearly didn't accept responsibility for something although it's not clear if it was the murders the last item is criminal versatility the article scored it at a1 the article score is based on repeatedly shoplifting which is really not clear they also mentioned that she was accused of killing a pet cat this was never confirmed and after this of course they talked about the double parasite again that was not established my score is a zero so looking at this article the total score on the PC L R was a 10 I came up with a score of 3 so even using their score which I think overestimates Lizzy's psychopathy we see Lizzy barely gets into the mild range mild is 10 to 19 so she's at the bottom end of that range the average for a female in the general population is less than 5 the average for a female who survived trauma is 9 so this would be a little bit higher than those populations but incarcerated female murders score an average of 19 and female offenders in general typically range between 19 and 24 so based on the article Lizzie's score is not consistent with female criminals with the score that I gave her she would really just be average so that takes care of mental health and personality factors now moving to this idea of her guilt or innocence right was Lizzie Borden guilty of murder as I mentioned before this is hotly debated the law doesn't deal with constructs of guilty and innocent they deal with constructs of guilty and not guilty so to start with that question clearly she was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt that doesn't mean she didn't do it it just means that the prosecution failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt now looking at guilt versus innocence first I'll go through the factors that make her look guilty and then look at the factors that point to innocence so looking at guilty Abbey dying first was important right so the order of the murders really pointed the idea that Lizzy could have been responsible because Abby died first Andrew was a widower Lizzy would have received a smaller inheritance if Abby was the second to die Lizzy made it seem like whoever the real killer was that Andrew must have been the target but a perpetrator in that situation would have had no preference as to who died first and maybe they would have killed Andrew and let Abby live next item the testimony from Alice Russell indicated that Lizzie predicted something bad was going to happen so that doesn't look too good the testimony from Russell indicated that Lizzie burned her dress also looks highly suspicious we see the testimony from the pharmacist indicating Lizzie was trying to buy prussic acid we see inconsistent stories initially and at the inquest there's that missing note right that's suspicious as well if somebody else did it how did she not see the murder right that's a tough part in this case that house wasn't really large and if there was somebody killing two people in it especially concerning this idea that the murders took place an hour an hour and a half apart Lizzie surely would have seen at least one of those murders we see there was no forced entry and nothing was stolen another killer would have had to wait in the house for an hour or leave and come back I talked about that before who would have done either one of those and then we see this limited expression of emotion although I'm really not sure about this no one really knows how they're going to react in a situation like that what happened in this case was a very rare circumstance so again kind of putting too much stock in her reaction I think can mislead somebody it can lead somebody away from more reliable and valid evidence in this case now moving the factors that make Lizzie appear innocent so Alice Russell here was really a key witness if she was lying then crucial pieces of evidence would be gone if the discussion about predicting something bad happening and the burning of the dress came from separate witnesses that would be a lot more convincing interestingly Russell testified that immediately after the murders there wasn't a drop of blood anywhere on Lizzie's or close someone since Russell was a banned witness from Lizzy's point of view but she really helped her with that part now with that in mind we see no one actually noticed any blood on Lizzie Borden it's very hard to believe that she could commit this crime and not get blood anywhere on her clothes or on her body or somehow that she could have changed so quickly so she murdered Abby so she could clean up after that I suppose because the time but then she murders Andrew she had very little time to clean up the reports indicated that her hair wasn't even disheveled so a little hard to believe the theory of the crime indicates that Abby was killed with an axe but this occurred in such a manner worse Alvin did not here I find that to be a little unusual this house was that well built where from the second floor to the attic sound would not travel to that degree somebody being struck multiple times with an axe and falling to the floor this suggests perhaps that Sullivan was involved and of course that could mean that Lizzie Borden was not now if Lizzie's problem was really with Abby why kill Andrew how did she know Andrew was coming home an hour and a half early usually he came by later like for lunch was it originally her plan to wait two and a half hours and hope Sullivan would not discover Abby's body now I suppose it is possible that she made a decision to kill Andrew after killing Abby so she killed Abby that was her mission mission was complete and she sat there and thought well now what's she gonna do and then Andrew comes home and she decides to kill him so that's possible but seems a little bit unlikely now also pointing toward innocence I think fairly strongly would be the lack of psychopathy and the lack of narcissism we also see no history of rage and no history of violent behavior we're supposed to believe that somebody like this something with this personality escalated from nothing to a double parasite there's been aa discussion around the motive suggesting that the inheritance was the motive for the crime but in this case I don't really see a remarkable degree of motivation for see she wasn't getting a lot above and beyond what she already had by committing the murders she still had to split the inheritance with her sister in this case we also see no confession she doesn't slip even once when she's in jail all those people who visit her not one time does she say that she did it and of course I think most strongly pointing toward her innocence is the lack of any physical evidence whatsoever tying her to the crime police didn't even know if the hatchet had that they found was the murder weapon so laying all these factors of guilt or innocence what's my theory well of course there's no way to know for sure that's what makes this case so interesting but I would say that there's better than a 50% chance that she is guilty what really stands out for me is her inconsistent story her prediction that something bad was going to happen the fact that she was the only one there who could have done it based on what she said again she essentially exonerated Bridget Sullivan and the missing note so if she was guilty as I suspect the circumstances here were highly unusual again a double parasite which is rare to start with and this double murder committed by a person with no history of violence who is not psychopathic and who left no physical evidence so a good case could also be made for her innocence so that wraps up my thoughts on her guilt or innocence I'll kind of end this video with just a few notes about this case there's actually a lot of interesting things about this case the public was initially mortified that the police would consider charging a woman with murder especially a woman from a wealthy family that sentiment has certainly changed since 1892 the other note here is really the appeal of this case this case seems to ride on a Razors Edge right you could believe she's guilty or innocent and make a good case for either side so it's really a mystery believing in her guilt or her innocence means accepting something very unlikely must have happened I know whenever I talk about popular criminal cases there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 430,861

Keywords: Lizzie Borden, Andrew Borden, Abby Borden, Emma Borden, Bridget Sullivan, Dr. Bowen, John Morse, Alice Russell, five-factor model, antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, factor 1 psychopathy, factor 2 psychopathy, sociopathy, grandiose narcissism, Psychopathy-Checklist Revised, number 92 2nd St., Fall River Massachusetts

Id: j7UgEAnYz58

Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 13 2020