On August 4, 1892, a 70-year-old American man and his second wife were brutally murdered at home. At that time, the murderer chopped their heads more than ten times with an axe. The scene was very bloody and cruel. .
In addition, there was no sign of outsiders breaking into the house, and no property was lost. At that time, there were only two daughters and maid of the rich man.
Afterwards, the police investigated and determined that the rich man’s second daughter was suspected of committing a major crime and was also the only suspect in the case. The police arrested her three days after the incident, and almost a year later, She was taken to court.
But no one thought that even though the rich man’s second daughter often didn’t say anything in the beginning and was contradictory when receiving inquiries, the court ended the case in just 90 minutes. The second daughter of the rich man was declared innocent.
The reason for this result is that on the one hand, it is due to insufficient evidence; on the other hand, because the jury members at the time were all male, everyone did not believe that the second daughter of the rich could do such a cruel thing.
Although the second daughter of the rich man was acquitted, except for the members of the jury, almost everyone in the area believed that the second daughter of the rich man was the murderer, and even developed a horrible nursery rhyme based on her. .
This horrible nursery rhyme is "Liz Bolton Holding the Axe" from " Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes". I don't know if you have heard of it:
"Liz Bolton takes the axe and chops She killed her father forty times. When she realized what she had done, she chopped off her mother forty-one times."
It is hard to imagine that such a horror case could turn into a nursery rhyme, and also because of who is the real one. The issue of murder has been debated for more than 100 years, and it is still a mystery to this day, so this case is also called "the most perfect murder in history."
So why do people think Liz Bolton is the murderer? How did Liz Bolton escape from crime? Hello everyone,I’m studying history and knowing today. Today, let’s talk about the real case behind this horrible nursery rhyme—the murder of Liz Bolton.
Liz Bolton was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, USA in 1860. Her father Andrew Bolton was a well-known local banker. She also had a sister Ai who was 10 years older than her. Mar. Bolton, this is definitely a happy family in the eyes of outsiders.
But this is not necessarily the case for Liz Bolton, because her mother died less than 3 years after she was born, and her father married a second wife three years after her mother died. Abby Dufie Gray.
Like many reorganized families, the relationship between Liz Bolton and stepmother Abby is not good, because they think that the reason why the stepmother married to the father was to covet the father's money.
Therefore, the two of them have never shown good looks to their stepmother. Although they live in the same house, they often quarrel and rarely even sit at the same table to eat.
Together with their father Andrew Bolton, they are not only grotesque, but also very stingy. They have a lot of restrictions on the sisters, so since Liz Bolton was a child, their family relationship with their father and stepmother has been very serious. nervous.
Moreover, this strained relationship became more and more serious as Liz Bolton grew up day by day, especially in 1892, when the murder occurred, when the tension between them and their father and stepmother deteriorated to a freezing point.
At the beginning of this year, his father Andrew didn't know why he transferred his own property to the sister of their stepmother Abby, which made the Liz Bolton sisters angry.
In their eyes, they are the father’s daughters. Everything about the father should be theirs, but they didn’t get anything. They felt that they were inferior to outsiders, so they both had a fight with their father and stepmother at home. .
Later, in order to appease them, his father, who had always been stingy, gave them a property left by his grandfather, which temporarily restored the family's peace.
However, although Liz Bolton was 32 years old at the time, and her sister Emma Bolton was 42 years old, they could not move to the grandfather's property.
Because the sisters have never been married, and the American social situation at the time did not allow unmarried women to live alone, so no matter how reluctant they were, they had to live with their father and stepmother.
is also for this reason. The sisters later discussed that since they could not move in, they sold the house, so they sold the grandfather’s house to their father again for $5,000 ( (Equivalent to today's 150,000 US dollars).
Although the Liz Bolton sisters received a huge sum of money, they did not alleviate the conflicts in the family. Instead, the sisters were more guarded against their father and stepmother, and they were afraid that the stepmother would get more property.
Maybe it was because of the tossing about the sisters, or maybe he was old, their father actually bought an axe in June of that year, and then used this axe to secretly save Li All the pigeons raised by Z Bolton were killed.
As for the reason, it is very simple and rude. My father said that he did not want the children around him to enter the home to capture because of the existence of these pigeons, which would affect the normal life of their family.
The death of the pigeons made Liz Bolton extremely uncomfortable. In her opinion, apart from her sister, these pigeons are the only ones she cares about in this family. She did not expect her father to be so cold-blooded.
In this way, in Liz Bolton's heart, resentment accumulated, and her father Andrew was 70 years old at the time. She and her sister were very worried that the family property would be taken over by the stepmother after their father died. The conflict between the stepmother continued to escalate.
Especially after July, the two of them had a big quarrel with their father and stepmother, and within a few days, their family suffered from bizarre food poisoning. At that time, the whole family was vomiting and diarrhea.
This made Liz Bolton more suspicious of her stepmother. They thought it was her stepmother who poisoned them. Of course, the stepmother also suspected them. But after seeing the doctor, they thought it was just ordinary food poisoning. .
Because the weather at that time was very hot, the food spoiled very quickly, and people generally did not have refrigerators at that time, so this kind of food poisoning occurred from time to time.
can be explained by the doctor,It is also difficult to relieve everyone's suspicion of each other. The whole family also suffered from vomiting and diarrhea for a few days, causing everyone to feel very bad. Liz Bolton's sister left home directly and went to live with relatives.
In this way, in this situation where everyone is very impatient, the time has come to the day before the incident, which is August 3, the day Liz Bolton’s uncle John Venecom Moss Suddenly came to visit their family and stayed at home that night.
Uncle came here because he wanted to discuss some business issues with their father Andrew, but with Andrew's death the next day, no one knew what the uncle and Andrew discussed.
The time came to August 4, which is the day of the incident. Uncle John left their home at around 8:45 after having breakfast at 7 am to visit other relatives.
Liz Bolton said that because she was unwell, she had been lying in her room on the second floor without going downstairs to send her uncle, and she did not eat breakfast that day.
At about 9 o'clock, the stepmother Abby went downstairs and simply ate breakfast, and then arranged the task of cleaning the windows for Maggie the maid, and went up to the second floor alone to tidy up the room where her uncle lived.
Father Andrew went out to take care of the business at 9:15 in the morning and did not return until 10:50. The maid wiped the windows for an hour and a half outside, and did not finish cleaning the windows until 10:30, and then went in alone. Rest in the attic on the third floor.
Because the maid was cleaning the windows outside, the father was out and the sister was not at home, so in theory, only the stepmother and Liz Bolton were in the room from 9:15 to 10:30.
At 10:50, his father Andrew returned home from the outside, but when he was about to enter the house, a very strange phenomenon occurred, that is, the door of the house was locked inside, which also made him unable to open with the key. The door of the room.
This situation is very abnormal, because generally speaking, during the daytime, the door is not locked from the inside at all at home, so father Andrew began to knock on the door vigorously.
The maid soon heard a knock on the door,Then he quickly came down from the third floor and opened the door. After his father Andrew entered the house, he simply babbled and lay down on the sofa on the first floor to rest, and the maid returned to the third floor to rest.
But before the maid had a rest, at 11:10, she suddenly heard Liz Bolton's eager cry: "Maggie is coming. Father is dead. Someone broke in and killed him.
After hearing this, Maggie quickly came down from the third floor, but she saw that Andrew had died tragically on the sofa, and then Liz Bolton asked Maggie to go upstairs to see if her stepmother Abby was there, but Maggie just went upstairs. , He screamed in surprise.
Because after she opened the guest room on the second floor, she saw Abby lying face down on the floor, blood shed all over the floor, and also a tragic death. After learning the news, Liz Bolton hurried out of the house. Go to the neighbor, Mrs. Churchill, and ask her to help call the police.
When such a tragedy happened in the local area, the police rushed to the scene immediately. After investigation, it was found that Andrew, who died on the sofa on the first floor, was chopped off by an axe on the front of his head 11 times, and there was no trace of struggling. He was hacked to death in his sleep.
And Abby, who died in the guest room on the second floor, was chopped off by an axe on the back of her head 17 times. According to her face down on the ground, it can be judged that she had found the murderer before her death. And tried to avoid it.
Moreover, from the blood coagulation level at the scene, the police also judged that Abby's death should be around 9:30, and Andrew's should be around 11:00.
Furthermore, based on the fact that the two dead were chopped off with more than a dozen axes on their heads and there was no loss of property in the room, the police also judged that this tragedy was not an ordinary murder.
Especially cutting so many axes, it also shows that the murderer is taking revenge. Then who would hate the Andrews so much? The police believe that although Andrew offended many people in the mall, no one would do such a thing.
After the incident, the police conducted on-site investigations and visits, and one by one, they determined all the people who had hatred with the Andrew and his wife and their positions at the time of the incident. As a result, all those people were excluded.
That ruled out this, leaving only those who could profit from the Andrews’ deaths,There is no doubt that they are relatives of the Andrews, but at the time, except for Liz Bolton, all the other relatives had an alibi.
And when the incident happened, only the maid Maggie and Liz Bolton were near the house, and the maid Maggie had no motive to kill, so the police listed Liz Bolton as the number one suspect and launched an investigation, because she was the only one at the same time. Have the time and motivation to commit the crime.
Furthermore, after questioning Liz Bolton, the police found that Liz Bolton had very confusing logic when describing the situation on the day of the crime. Not only did the foreword fail to follow, the testimony was also contradictory.
For example, during the time when her stepmother Abby was killed, Liz Bolton said at the beginning that she heard strange noises at home, which were very low, like rubbing sounds and painful groans.
However, Liz Bolton later denied her statement. She said she heard nothing, which is very strange, because the stepmother's head was chopped with 17 axes and fell heavily on the second floor. on the floor.
The maid, Maggie, was cleaning the windows outside, and it might be excusable to say that she didn't hear anything, but Liz Bolton was in the house at that time, and the house was made of wood, and the soundproofing effect was not good. Why? Maybe you didn't hear anything?
And when the host Andrew came back at 10:50, the door of the house was locked from the inside, and the maid said that he did not lock it herself, and Liz Bolton also said that he did not lock it herself, then this This matter is interesting, who can lock the door? Can only be the murderer hiding in the house!
In other words, the murderer killed Liz Bolton’s stepmother Abby at about 9:30, and stayed in the house until Andrew came back and suddenly killed Andrew who was sleeping on the sofa on the first floor. die.
So why can this murderer so calmly judge the time when the male host Andrew returns? And the maid Maggie also provided a detail, that is, when she went downstairs to open the door to the host Andrew at 10:50, she heard a strange sound from the second floor.
The sound was similar to the murmur and laughter of a person covering his mouth. The maid said that the sound was very similar to that of Liz Bolton, but Liz Bolton did not admit that he had made that sound afterwards.
And when the police asked Liz Bolton what she was doing after her father Andrew came back, Liz Bolton's statement was very strange. She initially said that when her father came back, she was reading in the study, and then she changed her words. I iron my clothes in the restaurant myself.
She said that when she learned that her father came back, she took the initiative to greet her father on the first floor, and her father asked her stepmother Abby in the first place. Liz Bolton replied to her father, because someone came to the house. Stepmother Abby said that her friend was sick, so stepmother Abby went out to visit her friend.
Actually, at this point, there is a very obvious loophole, because according to the police investigation, no one came to Liz Bolton’s house that day, so the stepmother Abby did not see anyone at all, let alone go out, Li This statement of Z Bolton is obviously a lie.
Furthermore, Liz Bolton also said that when he got to the first floor, he helped his father Andrew to replace his leather shoes with slippers. After that, his father had been lying on the sofa to rest. However, the police found out that Andrew was on the couch after Andrew was killed. He still wore leather shoes after being killed.
Later, the police asked Liz Bolton where she was when her father was killed. Liz Bolton said that she was not in the house, but went to the warehouse at the back of the house to find a plumb for fishing. .
And when she was looking for a plumb in the attic, she suddenly heard a special noise in the room, and seemed to hear someone calling for help, so she ran back to the room for the first time, only to find that she had The murdered father.
However, when the police investigated the attic of the warehouse, it was found that the attic was full of dust and there were no footprints. It should have been a long time since no one went up, so Liz Bolton’s The argument is also untenable.
And on the night after the Andrews were killed, she came to accompany Liz Bolton’s friends and discovered that Liz Bolton was hiding in the kitchen and burning a piece of clothing. After discovering this strange situation, her My friend provided this information to the police.
Liz Bolton’s explanation for this was that the clothes were stained with dye and could not be worn at all, so they destroyed the clothes. Since the clothes had been completely burned, the police had nothing to do. .
However, after a comprehensive investigation by the police, they believed that Liz Bolton’s all sorts of weird behaviors, as well as the inconsistent and contradictory testimonies of Liz Bolton, just showed that Liz Bolton was the murderer. Arrested Liz Bolton.
Liz Bolton always insisted that she was wronged, and in the process of investigating the entire case, there were many doubts. For example, according to the maid and neighbors, on the day the Andrews were killed, Liz Bolton was wearing a blue dress.
However, after the crime, they did not find any blood on Liz Bolton's clothes, and the Andrews were killed by an axe. It stands to reason that a lot of blood will be splashed on the murderer’s clothes, Liz. Bolton's clothes were very clean.
What needs to be clarified here is that the dresses worn by American women at that time were very complicated. The process of putting on and taking off was very time-consuming and needed the help of others. Therefore, if Liz Bolton was the murderer, she killed her father. After Andrew, there was no time to change clothes.
Moreover, the police found a new axe with a broken handle in the basement. Although there was no blood on it, the police suspected that the axe was a murder weapon, but the police could not produce any strong evidence to prove that the axe was a murder weapon.
As the case continued to ferment, a pharmacist soon came to testify against Liz Bolton. He said that a few days before the incident, Liz Bolton had asked him to buy hydrogen cyanide. Liz Bolton told him at the time that he wanted to wash the leather.
But the pharmacist did not believe Liz Bolton's words. He believed that Liz Bolton bought this highly toxic drug because of another plan, so he did not sell it to Liz Bolton.
However, the testimony of the pharmacist does not prove that Liz Bolton wanted to use hydrogen cyanide to poison his father and stepmother, and the autopsy report did not find any poison residues, so this clue The same broke.
Although the evidence is not so sufficient, people at the time believed that Liz Bolton was the murderer, so the horror nursery rhyme mentioned at the beginning of the article was also rumored.
So, Liz Bolton was formally prosecuted by the prosecutor on December 2 of that year. The prosecutor also believed that Liz Bolton had killed his father and stepmother.But they did not have decent evidence in their hands.
For example, the broken axe provided by the police has no blood stains on it, and it has never been able to prove that it is a murder weapon; and the clothes that Liz Bolton burned the next day could not prove that she wore it when she committed the murder. .
Even during the time when Liz Bolton’s father was killed, someone confirmed that he did see Liz Bolton walking to the warehouse. This became an alibi of Liz Bolton, of course. Not enough.
However, when the defense suggested that if Liz Bolton killed her father and stepmother, she should have been splashed with a lot of blood, the prosecutor unexpectedly put forward a very absurd conjecture.
The prosecutor said that Liz Bolton secretly hacked and killed her father and stepmother without wearing any clothes, so she couldn't find any blood on her body.
Obviously this statement is too ridiculous. We don’t say how long it takes to wear clothes. At that time, the house didn’t even have running water. Even if she was not wearing clothes, blood would splash on her face and hands. It was also very difficult for her. Clean up in a short time.
The prosecution’s statement not only failed, but also increased all the jury’s sympathy for Liz Bolton. Then a more dramatic scene appeared. The prosecutor took the heads of Liz Bolton’s father and stepmother. As an exhibit, it was presented to the court.
And when Liz Bolton saw the heads of his father and stepmother, he fainted on the spot, which exacerbated the sympathy of the jury members. At that time, all the jury members were men.
After seeing all the insufficient evidence and Liz Bolton’s performance, they thought that Liz Bolton, a weak woman, could not do such a cruel thing. As for Liz Bolton when he gave testimony The reason for the inconsistency and volatility.
Many members of the jury believed that this was caused by the doctor injecting too many tranquilizing drugs into Liz Bolton's body at the time, and those drugs would make Liz Bolton nonsense. Speech and insanity.
It is for the above reasons that after the formal trial of the case on June 20, 1893, the jury passed the acquittal of Liz Bolton in just 90 minutes.
Although Liz Bolton was acquitted, people still think Liz Bolton is the murderer, and some people tout this case as "the most perfect murder in history."
But in fact, after research, people believed that the case was not necessarily perfect. The reason why no strong evidence was found was because the US police did not act at the time. They did not seriously investigate the scene. It is said that the local police did Several police officers who were negligent in this case were dealt with.
Although this case was still being investigated by the police for a period of time, no new evidence was found, nor any clues about the suspect.
Over time, this case has finally become an unsolved case. Various good people have also put forward their own guesses. Some people think that the maid Maggie may be the murderer, and her motive for the murder was the discord between the master and the servant.
Some people think that the murderer was Liz Bolton's uncle. He suddenly visited and lived at home the day before the incident. No one knew what he had chatted with Andrew. After all, all the claims were made by the uncle himself afterwards.
Therefore, it is suspected that the uncle may quietly return to commit the crime after leaving. Following this line of thinking, some people say that the eldest daughter Emma Bolton did it, because she can also quietly come back to commit the crime.
But it is obvious that these claims are untenable, especially when someone proposed that it was the illegitimate son of the victim Andrew who came back to kill, which pushed this absurd speculation to the peak.
But no matter who the real culprit is, people still regard Liz Bolton as the main suspicion. In the next 100 years, this storyline has been put on the stage and the big screen many times. In the story, the real murderer is Liz Bolton.
Liz Bolton in reality, after being acquitted, inherited all of his father’s inheritance together with her sister—more than 300,000 US dollars (equivalent to today’s 10 million US dollars), and then moved Leaving the local area, and changed his name.
Later, the two sisters had a huge disagreement in 1905. The older sister Emma Bolton moved out of Liz Bolton's residence. Since then, the two sisters have stayed away from each other.
The reasons for the separation of the two sisters are different. Some people say that perhaps Liz Bolton took the initiative to confess to her sister that she could not accept the fact that she killed her father and stepmother and left.
It is also said that in 1905, Liz Bolton had a very close relationship with an actress at the time, Nancy O’Neill, and her sister could not accept it, so she left alone. Of course, there is no definite evidence for any claim, until the death of Liz Bolton in 1927, which became a permanent mystery.
Who killed the Andrews? Is Liz Bolton really innocent? What do you think? Welcome to leave a message to discuss, if you like, don’t forget to like, follow, and comment, thank you!
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