Did They Really Do It?: From Lizzie Borden to the Twentieth Hijacker

In this speculative true crime offering, author and part-time murder investigator Rosen tackles nine of history's most infamous court cases. He includes the 1865-69 case against Dr. Samuel Mudd, thought to have conspired with John Wilkes Booth in Lincoln's assassination; the highly publicized Rosenberg espionage trial in 1954; the two-part investigation into the Ku Klux Klan's involvement in the murders of Civil Rights workers in Mississippi; and the recent court battle against Zacharias Moussaoui. Reexamining the original crime scenes and using eyewitness testimony and FBI files, Rosen aims to present well-thought out and systematic answers to questions of guilt. In his summary of the case against Lizzie Borden, accused of hacking her parents to death with an axe, Rosen considers modern criminological information on patricide and pronounces her guilty, though he conjectures that given a history of abuse and the unpleasant cultural context of Borden's status as a spinster in 19th century Massachusetts, an innocent verdict might be the result in a contemporary retrial. Although some of his pronouncements sound like incredulous statements from someone who's decided the verdict before hearing the evidence, Rosen's book admirably presents cases in their historical context, illustrating how cultural shifts can affect judicial pronouncements. Photos.