The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-30
UNsUspEcrrD INSANITY.

UNsUSPECTED INSANITY.
Andrew J. Borden, q rich man of Fall
River, and his wife, were found murdered
in their house on the morning of Friday,
August S. Both had been killed by
Ratchet, with which the murderer had
split their heads open, inflicting numerous
wounds. Mr.. Borden had been killed
while asleep on q sofa in the sitting room
on the first floor, while Mrs. Borden was
found lying face downward on the floor in
a spare bedroom in the second story, hav-
ing been struck from behind by the assas-
sin. Mr.. Borden was killed about II
O'Clock. while the condition Of Mrs. Bor-
denis body showed that she had been
killed at least an hour, and probably one
and half hours, before her husband.
Lizzie Borden, the daughter of the MUIR
dered man, has been arrested for the
crime, and is now in felon's cell in Taun.
ton. The district attorney expects to
show that the girls story concerning her
actions during the time that her father
and mother must have been murdered IL
untrue; the servant girl will testify that
the accused daughter was in the house
and not at the barn when her father was
killed. The state will show that the
daughter hated her stepmother most cor
daily and had been on bad terms with her
parents for a long time, and will plausibly
argue that q stranger, having murdered
Mrs. Borden, would not delay escaping q
full hour and q half in order to murder
Mr.. Borden without knowing when he
could arrive home; no robbery was
committed. By her own testimony the
daughter was in the house when the
mother was killed, and yet she did not
hear her fall, and the murderer was able
to enter and leave the house without being
seen by either the daughter or the servant
girl, or by persons who were outside the
house when Mr.. Borden was murdered.
Every possible clue to the murder has
been followed up, and has left the state
satisfied that the daughter committed the
crime, and probably under an insane inn
pulse, produced by long brooding over her
miserable life with her father and her
hated stepmother. Against this view her
friends point to her previous good char
acter and to her apparent sanity both be-
fore and since the murder. However, this
answer is by no means conclusive. Nor
cross, who tried to blow up Russell Sage,
had maintained spotless reputation from
youth up; was regarded as capable and
upright man of business, and his san.
ity had never been seriously sus.
pected. And yet Norcross tried to murder
man he had never seen. who had meyer
injured him. The crime of Norcross had
no sane motive behind it; it was the in
sane work, however. of q man whose SAN
ity never was impeached until his dead
body was found In the ruins of Sage's
Office.
If Norcross could do business for years
without having his sanity suspected until
he exploded his bomb in New York city,
why may not Lizzie Borden belong to the
class of unsupported homicidal lunatics?
Norcross had brooded all his life over his
failure to get rich. and finally, his brain
giving way, his lunacv took the
form of killing man notorious
for succeeding splendidly on the field
where Norcross had failed. Why may not
Lizzie Borden, brooding for years over the
cherries life she led with stingy, nom
sympathetic father and an equally hard
and avaricious stepmother, whom she
hated, have lost her mental balance, and,
hearing that her father was about to make
will disinheriting her, or leaving the
stepmother the bulk of his property. killed
both her parents. Of course this provoca-
ton would be too slight to prompt sane
person to commit SO awful crime, but as
Stunning, as the state does, that the girl
had become insane, only a spark was
needed to set her brain in q fame of
frenzy.
Whoever killed the murdered pair was
evidently insane; the head of Mr.. Borden
was hacked repeatedly. showing twelve
wounds. The object of the crime was not
robbery; the hour and a half which
elapsed between the murders was ample
to secure plumber, but none was taken.
There was nobody who had any hostility
to Mrs. Borden outside the house. and vet
the murderer kills her, makes no attempt
to escape, and then kills her husband
when it was not necessary to kill him to
escape, for he was asleep. Add
to this the fact that no person, sane or in
sane, was seen by anybody to enter the
house; that Lizzie Borden's story of her
actions is known to be false; that her
story that her mother left the house on re-
ceipt of a note from friend is false. and
it is entirely probable that the right party
has been arrested, an hysterical, moody
woman. who was then in a bodily state
favorable to insane action.
General Weaver is chronic sorehead.
In 1875 he was candidate before the Re.
publican convention of Iowa for the gov
ernorship of that state. He thought he