Lizzie Borden and Hyman Lubinsky

Author's Note: This essay was originally published in The Hatchet: The Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies. It develops a theory proposed by writer and cook David Lee Dickerson. Although the author does not necessarily subscribe to Dickerson's theory, she takes his position to elaborate upon it. The Hatchet allows an author to submit pieces it has published elsewhere after six months has passed.

The Lizzie Borden Conspiracy with Hyman Lubinsky

Lizzie Borden claimed to have missed her father's murder because she impulsively took a trip to the barn just before the time he was attacked and killed -- a trip that happened to last as long as the attack. At the inquest, she testified that she went to the barn to look for some sinkers for her fishing line. Ann Jones in Women Who Kill comments sarcastically on this alibi, writing, "She had been looking for lead to make some sinkers for her fishline, although she hadn't gone fishing for five years."

Hosea Knowlton found it an extraordinary coincidence that Lizzie would happen to take a trip to the barn just before someone slew her father, and questioned her closely and at length about this assertion at the inquest. The following exchange is from the inquest transcript:

Q. Whereabouts in the barn did you go?

A. Up stairs.

Q. To the second story of the barn?

A. Yes sir.

Q. How long did you remain there?

A. I don't know, fifteen or twenty minutes.

Q. What doing?

A. Trying to find lead for a sinker.

The trip was ultimately fruitless as she claimed to come back with only a "chip" she picked up from the barn floor. But just what caused her to take this trip to the barn in the first place? Knowlton pressed hard on this perplexing issue. She refers to one of the two farms in Swansea, Massachusetts that were owned by Andrew Borden:

Q. Can you give me any information how it happened at that particular time you should go into the chamber of the barn to find a sinker to go to Marion to fish the next Monday?

A. I was going to finish my ironing; my flats were not hot; I said to myself "I will go and try and find that sinker; perhaps by the time I get back the flats will be hot." That is the only reason.

Q. How long had you been reading an old magazine before you went to the barn at all?

A. Perhaps half an hour.

Q. Had you got a fish line?

A. Not here; we had some at the farm.

Q. Had you got a fish hook?

A. No sir.

Q. Had you got any apparatus for fishing at all?

A. Yes, over there.

Q. Had you any sinkers over there?

A. I think there were some. It is so long since I have been there; I think there were some.

Q. You had no reason to suppose you were lacking sinkers?

A. I don't think there were any on my lines.

Q. Where were your lines?

A. My fish lines were at the farm here.

Q. What made you think there were no sinkers at the farm on your lines?

A. Because some time ago when I was there I had none.

Q. How long since you used the fish lines?

A. Five years, perhaps.

Q. You left them at the farm then?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you have not seen them since?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. It occurred to you after your father came in it would be a good time to go to the barn after sinkers, and you had no reason to suppose there was not abundance of sinkers at the farm and abundance of lines?

A. The last time I was there there were some lines.

Q. Did you not say before you presumed there were sinkers at the farm?

A. I don't think I said so.

Q. You did say so exactly. Do you now say you presume there were not sinkers at the farm?

A. I don't think there were any fish lines suitable to use at the farm; I don't think there were any sinkers on any lines that had been mine.

Q. Do you remember telling me you presumed there were lines, and sinkers and hooks at the farm?

A. I said there were lines I thought, and perhaps hooks. I did not say I thought there were sinkers on my lines. There was another box of lines over there beside mine.

Q. You thought there were not sinkers?

A. Not on my lines.

Q Not sinkers at the farm?

A. I don't think there were any sinkers at the farm. I don't know whether there were or not.

So this most convenient trip to the barn was prompted by the vague thought that there might not be sinkers on fish lines that Lizzie had not seen for five years.

Another factor about which Knowlton pressed was just how long Lizzie spent on this odd errand. Lizzie claimed to have spent "fifteen or twenty minutes" in the barn (75).

Q. Should you think what you have told me would occupy four minutes?

A. Yes, because I ate some pears up there.

Q. Do you think all you have told me would take you four minutes?

A. I ate some pears up there (75).

Repeatedly questioned about how she could have spent some "fifteen or twenty minutes" in the barn, Lizzie indicates that she is the type of person who tends to be slow, saying, "I can't do anything in a minute" (77).

Another reason for doubting the barn story is that she appears to have given conflicting accounts of the purpose of the trip. At the inquest, Lizzie's friend, Alice Russell, testified that Lizzie told her she had gone to the barn to fetch "a piece of tin or iron to fix the screen" (150). In addition, at the inquest, Borden physician Dr. Seabury Bowen recalled her saying she had been "looking after some irons or tin" (150). Neighbor Adelaide Churchill testified at the trial that Lizzie said she went to the barn "to get a piece of iron."

It is important to recall that the jury never heard or read Lizzie's inquest testimony because the court ruled it inadmissible. However, the prosecution did its best to cast doubt on the tale of her fortuitous trip to the barn. Many students of the case, not having the limitations of knowledge imposed on the jury, believe the conflict between what she told Churchill, Russell, and Bowen and her testimony at the inquest expose her as a liar. They dismiss the story as an obvious fabrication.

Implausible as it may strike an observer, there are reasons to lend credence to Lizzie's story. While Jones notes that it had been years since she had gone fishing, Lizzie was in fact planning to take a trip that Monday which would involve an opportunity to fish. As Leonard Rebello writes in Lizzie Borden Past & Present, she "was to vacation with friends in Marion, Massachusetts, at the summer cottage of Dr. [Benjamin] Handy."

Perhaps the chief reason the jury may have believed the story of the barn visit is that an independent witness corroborated it. That vitally important defense witness was Hyman Lubinsky. Rebello writes that he was an immigrant from Russia. According to the trial transcript, Lubinsky testified on direct examination by the defense that he was an ice-cream peddler who worked for a "Mr. Wilkinson" whose store was at "42 North Main St." On the morning of the murders, Lubinsky claimed he went to the stable where his horse and ice-cream wagon were kept, left the stable "a few minutes after eleven" and drove by the Borden house where he "saw a lady come out the way from the barn right to the stairs from the back of the house." He further testified that she "had on a dark colored dress" and "was walking very slow" (1409). He said he could not identify the woman but could say she was not Bridget with whom he was familiar from a delivery made to her "two or three weeks before the murder" (1410). That he could not positively identify the woman may have made his testimony seem all the more believable. The statement that she walked "very slow" (1409) indicated that this was a woman who could indeed have been puttering in that barn, eating pears and looking for some item for as long as it took someone to slaughter her father and leave the premises unseen by her.

Hosea Knowlton sharply cross-examined Lubinsky who stumbled on some matters. At one point Lubinsky said he "went to the stable to give my horse dinner" (1411). Shortly after Lubinsky said that, Knowlton asked, "Did you put your horse up for dinner?" and Lubinsky answered, "No, sir" (1412). The following exchange illustrates the witness' confusion.

Q. Did you say a little while ago that you did put your horse up to dinner?

A. I didn't say I put him up then. I told you I put my horse up.

Q. Did you put your horse up, or didn't you put your horse up?

A. You ask me too fast. I put my horse up for dinner.

Q. What time did you put your horse up for dinner?

A. Between one and half past one.

Q. How long had you been peddling before that?

A. It might have been two and one half hours.

Q. Two hours before that time?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Are you pretty sure of that?

A. What do you mean by sure?

Q. Sure? I mean sure.

A. I don't know what you mean, -- sure -- that I put my horse up for dinner? (1412).

Later Lubinsky plaintively explains that he is having trouble with the questions "because not educated in the English language" (1415) and still later says, "You ask too fast; I can't understand what you mean" (1422).

The trial transcript records that Lubinsky's testimony as to the time he left was backed up by that of Charles E. Gardner who owned a stable at 129 Second Street at the time of the Borden murders and took the stand for the defense immediately after Lubinsky. He testified that Hyman Lubinsky's employer, Mr. Wilkinson, did indeed keep a horse and carriage at his stable and that Lubinsky picked it up "between five and ten minutes past eleven" (1423).

It is likely that Lubinsky's testimony, buttressed by Gardner's, figured heavily in the decision of the jury to accept Lizzie's seemingly unlikely alibi. Perhaps significantly, Ann Jones, who champions the proposition that Lizzie was acquitted simply because of gender and class bias, never even mentions Lubinsky and how his critical testimony backed up her barn trip story.

Just who was Hyman Lubinsky, someone who, seemingly by happenstance, became a pivotal witness in one of the most sensational and baffling murder cases in history? According to Lizzie Borden Past & Present by Leonard Rebello, Hyman Lubinsky was born in Russia to Jacob and Bessie Lubinsky, and was one of ten children. Rebello comments that there is some dispute about the year of his birth. Most accounts appear to indicate that he was born in 1876, making him 16 years old at the time of the Borden murders in 1892. However, Rebello notes that at least one newspaper in that year "reported Mr. Lubinsky's age as eighteen."

Rebello says the Lubinsky family immigrated to the United States in 1889, making him either 13 or 15 when he had to adjust to a new country. His family moved to a home on Spring Street in Fall River and Lubinsky would continue residing there until 1911 (88).

Many of the puzzles surrounding the Borden case are satisfactorily explained if we accept a theory put forth by one David Lee Dickerson that Hyman Lubinsky was a much greater player in this tragedy than he at first appears to have been. Dickerson believes Lubinsky and Lizzie conspired together in these murders. Lubinsky had the perfect excuse to be in the neighborhood since it was on his ice-cream route and, by his own testimony and that of Gardner, he was there at about the time Andrew Borden was killed. Dickerson thinks Lubinsky and Lizzie agreed that he would provide her with an alibi, saying he could not recognize her but supporting the idea that she was a person who moved in a slow, ponderous manner. However, Dickerson believes Lubinsky did far more than that: his ice-cream wagon provided the perfect vehicle to remove from the crime scene both the bloodstained garments of the killer and the murder weapon. Dickerson theorizes that Lubinsky used his wagon as the "getaway" vehicle for the telltale items and disposed of them while police were assiduously questioning Lizzie and others. Indeed, immediately after the slayings, Lubinsky may have been, as he testified he was, industriously selling ice cream from the wagon that also carried as part of its cargo the most damning evidence from what would become America's most lasting murder mystery.

Dickerson believes that Lizzie did the first-hand killing of her stepmother Abby Borden but that the killing of her father Andrew may have been done either by her or by her co-conspirator. If Lubinsky did the actual killing of Andrew, Lizzie to some extent followed the pattern of parricides by females noted by a Newsweek article, "When Kids Kill Their Parents," that said, "in the rare cases [of parricide] that involve daughters, they often recruit a male agent." In this case, Dickerson believes that even if Lizzie committed both slayings with her own hands, she recruited "a male agent" to provide her with an alibi and spirit away the most important evidence.

Lizzie could have let him in through either the side or back door and handed him the weapon to kill Andrew. Lubinsky may have brought a change of clothes with him or she could have had them waiting. If Lizzie killed her father, she may have met Lubinsky at either the side or back door where she handed him the stained clothes and the weapon, the clothes carefully folded over the weapon and perhaps already put in a bag which he took out to his innocuous looking ice-cream wagon.

They took a risk of being seen and were not. Both looked around to make sure the coast was clear and since no one was looking for anything, no one noticed them. This is by no means impossible. After all, Gardner testified that he drove a horse and carriage down Second St. about twenty or twenty-five minutes past eleven, during the time period in which a crowd would have been gathering in front of the Borden residence, but "never noticed anything." It would be even more likely that no one would notice a brief, apparently banal interaction before the hue and cry had gone up.

Of course, this leaves open the questions of how a relationship between Lizzie and Lubinsky formed in the first place, what type of relationship it was, and why Lubinsky would have been willing to jeopardize his own freedom to assist Lizzie in getting away with murder.

Lubinsky and Lizzie could have become acquainted. Lizzie was not a reclusive, shy type prior to the murders. Rather, she describes herself as someone who was out and about quite a bit. At the inquest she testified, "I am away so much myself."

It would have been easy to run into the ice-cream vendor as he made his way around Fall River. That the man was a foreigner or had some difficulty with the English language would hardly have been insurmountable barriers to forming a relationship. Rebello notes that Lizzie had taught Sunday school at Central Mission Sabbath School and quotes a Boston Daily Globe article that says that "connected with the church is a Chinese Sunday school and Miss Lizzie took one of the men to instruct. She had good success . . ." Thus, we can conclude that Lizzie was able to work closely and comfortably with someone whose background was very different than her own and that she was not put off by the difficulties people have in conversing in a language other than their native tongue.

At the time of the Borden slayings, Lizzie was 32, Hyman Lubinsky either 16 or 18, depending on what source is correct concerning the year of his birth. A friendship between a woman entering middle age and a teenaged boy may have had strong mother-son overtones with Hyman looking up to Lizzie as a kind of mother figure. Perhaps Hyman gave Lizzie, who like her sister would remain unmarried and childless, a chance to enact a maternal role. Coming from such a large family, he may have had a sense of being somewhat "lost" among his own siblings and felt neglected due to the lack of individual attention likely in a household with so many people.

There is also the possibility that there were romantic and sexual components to their relationship. The rash of recent well-publicized cases of adult women who have found themselves in legal trouble due to their unlawful relationships with teenage boys shows that sexual attractions between older women and minor boys are not uncommon and can be very strong.

Yet, in an era in which an unmarried pregnancy may have been more to be dreaded than a trial for double murder, it seems unlikely the two would have had a sexual relationship. They may have had no sexual activity per se but a friendship tinged with flirtatiousness. It is probable that the adolescent Lubinsky experienced a certain incoherent Oedipal yearning for the older woman, a yearning all the more powerful for being nameless and ill understood in that pre-Freudian era. As a young, financially struggling immigrant with all the insecurities those circumstances tend to entail, he would have been entranced and deeply flattered at affectionate, caring attention from an older, upper class American woman.

Lizzie for her part may have detected in young Lubinsky someone ripe for recruitment into the plot she was formulating. After all, as a young, low-income male Lubinsky possessed some of the major demographic characteristics associated with persons who are statistically OVER-represented IN violent CRIMES (although it should go without saying that the majority of young, low-income males are not dangerous). Perhaps a major reason she may have wanted him as a crime partner was that she detected the usefulness of that ice-cream wagon.

Why would Lubinsky have agreed to both provide this friend with an alibi and spirit away telltale evidence when the risk to him was so enormous? Teenagers are often not risk aversive but are notoriously daring and young Lubinsky may have had a sense of adventure in aiding in the cover-up of the murders.

It is also possible that he felt the slayings were justified. David Lee Dickerson believes Lizzie was probably an incest victim. Here he agrees with the theory articulated by Marcia R. Carlisle in her essay, "What Made Lizzie Borden Kill?" Dickerson points to the extreme brutality of the murders as suggesting a fury triggered by sexual violation and Carlise finds "an impressive body of circumstantial evidence to suggest, in that bloody morning's work, the awakening rage of the incest survivor."

Carlisle notes, "In Heroes of Their Own Lives, published in 1988, that Linda Gordon analyzed the case records of one of the many child-protection organizations at the turn of the century. She identified one hundred cases of incest. . . . About one-quarter of the episodes took place in households in which the mother was absent. In another 36 percent of cases the mother was 'weakened' by illness or fear of violence from the male in the household."

The Borden household would appear to be one at risk for sexual molestation. Andrew's first wife, mother to both Emma and Lizzie, died in 1863. At the time she passed away, Emma was 12 and Lizzie almost 3.

Carlisle quotes from a study done by Denise Gelinas in the 1980s that relates "conditions under which incest is most likely to occur." Gelinas found that "a father may turn on his children when the mother is unavailable and his sense of entitlement is strong or when he has sustained an important loss. Children between the ages of four and nine are particularly vulnerable because they are trusting, deferential to authority, and eager to please and because they cannot always distinguish between proper and improper actions. The likelihood of incest can also increase if there is a strong sanction against extramarital sexual activity."

Sarah Borden may have been sickly for some time before her death, which might have made her, according to Carlisle, "sexually unresponsive to her husband." Carlisle does not point it out but her death had to have been "an important loss" to Andrew. Carlisle believes that Andrew, whom she thinks was "an intensely private and rigid man," was probably reluctant to seek satisfaction in an extramarital affair or with prostitutes and that as "provider and patriarch he may also have expected his needs to be met in his own home."