Sweet loving daughter... or ax murderer?

Meet Miss Lizzie Borden.

"Lizzie Borden took an ax, and gave her mother forty whacks; When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one!" 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.

Along with the gruesome nature of the crimes is the unexpected character of the accused... not a hatchet-wielding maniac, but a respectable, churchgoing, Sunday-school-teaching, spinster-daughter, charged with the murder of her parents.

The evidence against Lizzie was almost entirely circumstantial and the general public was passionately divided as to her guilt or innocence. But in the end, she was acquitted of any wrongdoing. And even today, people still argue whether or not she was guilty.

Let's look at a couple of excerpts taken from her handwritten will...

To maintain the integrity of the sample, the following images are large and will take a few moments to download. Thank you for your patience.

Figure 1

The slant...

Her handwriting has a strong rightward slant, which reveals her to be a very emotional person with a broad range of emotions from the highest high to the lowest low.

The spacing

Both the spacing of letters in each word and the spacing between the words themselves is very narrow, which reveals an impetuous person who overacts to everything. She gives in to her internal emotional pressure very easily.

If you were to draw a straight line under each word, you'd notice that her writing stays on the line. This straight line shows her ability to keep her emotions under tight control at all times. Once she sets her mind on something, nothing will deter her from accomplishing that goal.

Figure 2

Now, let's look at some specific's of Lizzie's handwriting...

Her "t-bar" is located ABOVE and off to the right of the stem.

Her "t-bar" seldom even touches the stem, which tells us that she was a dreamer... coming up with schemes and ideas so unrealistic, that she could seldom attain them.

The "t-bar" is far off to the right of the stem. This indicates her temper... she had a short fuse and a tendency to be sarcastic and hurtful toward others. This characteristic appears when she was frustrated because things didn't go her way and she would quickly lash out at anyone around her.

Her "i-dot" is far above the "i" stem.

This shows impatience... she wants things done her way in her time frame!

The humps on the letters "m" and "n" slant uphill.

The uphill slant indicates her fear of being rejected and ridiculed.

The loops in the letter "y" turn downward and some even double back over the lower stem.

The "y" letter has loops that are very lengthy with the loop ending with a downward turn. This trait signifies a person who is easily discouraged and tells us that Lizzie had a lack of success and major problems with her past relationships.

The lower loop that doubles back over the stem in the word "of" in both Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 tells us that she was persistent and didn't give up even when she had a temporary setback. Once she made up her mind to do something, she completed the task.

General conclusions:

Let's take an overall look at her personality... a schemer, bad temper, impatience, secretive, doesn't like being ridiculed, big imagination and total persistence.

Sure sounds like a time-bomb with the clock set to go off!

Till next time...