[OMINOUS MUSIC]
 Some Victorians believe that
a crime scene photograph wasn't
always necessary
because the murderer's
face could be captured on
the retina of the victim.
Could the eyes of the dead hold
the key to solving a murder?
In the 17th century,
a Jesuit friar
called Christopher
Scheiner claimed
to observe a faint image
on the retina of a frog he
dissected and started a
whole new scientific pursuit,
optography.
The idea was taken up in
the 1870s by the German
physiologist Wilhelm Kühne.
His experiments with
rabbits and frogs
aren't for the faint-hearted.
He tied these poor
creatures up and forced
them to stare at bright
objects for hours at a time
before decapitating them
and removing their eyes.
Kühne then cut the
eyeballs in half.
And using an alum solution
with sulphuric acid
to fix the pigment
into an image,
he created what he
called an optigram.
Intriguingly, one
optigram appeared
to show a barred
window that a rabbit
had been forced to stare at.
The Victorians quickly latched
onto the idea that optography
could be used as a tool
in forensic investigations
and an image of
the murderer's face
could be found burned into the
eyes of the hapless victim.
Murderers even began
destroying their victims'
eyeballs, just in case.
Despite our fascination
with optography,
no murders have ever been solved
using this strange and gruesome
process.
[OMINOUS MUSIC]
I need to get a better sense of
the layout of the Borden house
at Fall River--
the occupants, their
movements, and their alibis.
Brian's going to talk
me through the timeline.
 7 o'clock in the
morning, we have
Andrew, John, and Abby having
breakfast in the kitchen.
And then at 8:45, the first
person to leave is John.
 John Morse left the house
after breakfast that morning,
and he seemed to
have an alibi out
of an Agatha Christie novel.
He claimed that he had
been riding on a horse
car with six priests.
The street car conductor
did not remember him,
but did remember the priests.
The police were able to confirm
that John Morse had, indeed,
gone to visit other
relatives some distance
from the Borden household.
And so he seemed
to be in the clear.
BRIAN: 9:15, Andrew
leaves the house.
And the other thing
we must remember
is Emma is not there at all.
She's away.
WOMAN 1: Historian Dr.
Stefani Koorey is a specialist
on Victorian Fall River.
STEFANI KOOREY: Emma
is in Fairhaven.
She's visiting a friend who
happens to be a seamstress.
She's going to be
fitted and measured,
and clothes are being
made for her there.
She's been in Fairhaven
for a number of days
and is not due to come back
for a number of more days.
 The next relevant
thing is 9:30.
Abby-- Andrew Gordon's wife, the
stepmother of Lizzie and Emma--
goes upstairs to carry on doing
some cleaning in the guest room
that John has occupied.
And at this point, we also
know that Bridget, the maid,
is sent out to do
some window cleaning.
WOMAN 1: OK.
 Then we come to 10:45.
Andrew comes back into the
house from doing his business.
He then goes into
the sitting room
and lies down on the sofa
to have a little nap.
The maid, Bridget, goes
upstairs to her loft bedroom,
and she has a bit of a rest.
Now we have to rely on Lizzie's
statement to the police.
She tells them that
after Andrew came home,
she leaves the house through the
back door and goes to the barn
to look for some lead
weights for a fishing trip.
When she comes back
in at 11:15, she's
horrified to find
her father bludgeoned
to death on the
drawing room sofa,
and she calls for Bridget.
 So what happens at that point?
 Well, the police
arrive, and they
start to look around the house.
Abby's body is found
in the guest bedroom.
 And it's here that
police and doctors
make a significant discovery
that will have a major bearing
on the murder investigation.
STEFANI KOOREY: The police
investigating the crime found
something immediately suspect.
They looked at
Abby, and they found
her blood to be coagulated.
It was dark.
It was sticky.
It was dried on the carpet.
It had happened a while ago,
whereas Andrew's, believe
it or not, was still drooping.
It was still dripping,
so it was fresh.
His death was very close
to when he was discovered.
So you have this
difference in time.
 That's a critical observation.
It appears that Abby is killed
first, then Andrew perhaps as
much as an hour or two later.
That's a really big time
window, and the police don't
know what to make of that.
WOMAN 2: Once it became clear
that a fair amount of time
had elapsed between
the two deaths,
it became unlikely that
the killer was an outsider.
It was a small house,
and there weren't
very many places to hide.
WOMAN 1: The finger of
suspicion now points
towards the members of the
household, one in particular,
however, unlikely.
STEFANI KOOREY:
Lizzie Borden ticks
all the boxes of conventional
upper-middle class femininity.
She is a churchgoing woman.
She even teaches a
Sunday school class.
And the thought that
she would so brutally
kill her father
and her stepmother
seemed almost unbelievable.
But she seemed oddly
composed for someone who
had discovered such a tragedy.
And that coolness was thought
to be suspicious by the police
and by many others.
WOMAN 1: Against all odds, as
the investigation gathers pace,
Lizzie becomes
the prime suspect.
Her evidence at the Borden's
inquest is her downfall.
 In the inquest where Lizzie
Borden was not represented
by counsel, she gave
inconsistent answers
as to her whereabouts that day.
She couldn't remember
if she was upstairs,
if she was in the barn.
She had different
answers depending
on when the question was asked.
Because of that, she said some
things that made people think,
well, she must be guilty.
WOMAN 1: At the
close of the inquest,
Lizzie is arrested
and incarcerated
in the county jail.
Fall River is in shock.
Surely, a gentle woman
of Lizzie's standing
could not have committed
these brutal murders.
[OMINOUS MUSIC]
