Did They Really Do it?: From Lizzie Borden to the 20th Hijacker

by Fred Rosen

From Abraham Lincoln's assassination to 9/11 and beyond, the guilt or innocence of many of the United States' most famous criminals remains in doubt. Looked at in the context of their era, Did They Really Do It? investigates each case anew. The book begins with Dr. Samuel Mudd. He was convicted as part of the group of Confederates who conspired to murder President Lincoln in 1865. It was Mudd who set John Wilkes Booth's ankle which Booth broke when he leaped to the stage at Ford's Theater after mortally wounding Lincoln. Claiming he never knew Booth, Mudd was sentenced to prison. While serving time, a Yellow Fever epidemic broke out, killing the prison doctor. Taking over, Mudd became a hero and President Johnson pardoned him in 1869. To his dying day, Mudd claimed innocence in the assassination plot. The last chapter focuses on Zacaharius Moussai, the alleged 20th hijacker in the "9/11" terrorist conspiracy who claims innocence. On the basis of a new investigation, this book proposes a dispassionate conclusion that Moussai is innocent. Other well known cases like Lizzie Borden, the alleged double ax murderess, and Bruno Richard Hauptmann, executed for killing the Lindbergh baby, are explored.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, History, Crime, Mystery

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2006

About the author

American true crime author and former columnist for the Arts and Leisure Section of The New York Times.

Rosen's published works in the genre include Lobster Boy, There But For the Grace: Survivors of the 20th Century’s Infamous Serial Killers and When Satan Wore a Cross.

He is also the winner of Library Journal’s Best Reference Source 2005 award for The Historical Atlas of American Crime, and has written many other works of historical non-fiction including Cremation in America, Contract Warriors and Gold!.

Reviews

[Aimee Massey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love true crime and I cannot lie, and I've heard Fred Rosen is a good writer, so I was excited to read this one. Boy, was I ever disappointed. I made it one and a half chapters in before I gave up in frustration.
The book is littered with typos and mangled sentences. If Rosen used an editor, he needs to get his money back. If he didn't, he should have.
Much more problematic than the typos were the factual errors. If we're going to make intelligent conjectures about real-life whodunits, we need the facts, as many and as accurate as possible. And Rosen's factual errors are insulting to the intelligence: in his chapter on Lizzie Borden, he not once but twice says that Lizzie was the oldest daughter of Andrew Borden. This is not true; her sister Emma was older by ten years.
How can I take anything in this book seriously if such a glaringly obvious mistake made it into print? I have no time to waste with that kind of thing, and no author who does that is allowed to waste my time.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

What the name says -- he briefly describes various famous cases from the Lindburgh baby kidnapping to the 20th hijacker and then gives his opinion of whether or not they were guilty of the crime. A quick read. I found the case of Doctor Mudd and the Lincoln conspiracy the most interesting.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a major factual error on page 17. If such a glaring error couldn’t be caught, how can I believe in the rest of the book?

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since many Goodreads participants indicated that an editor was needed for Rosen's Did They Really Do It?: From Lizzie Borden to the 20th Hijacker, I am inclined to believe that this was a self-published book where an editor and/or proof reader were not available to help him with these tasks because in addition to the change in writing styles, there are also several typographical errors throughout the book. And since Rosen teaches, another possibility is that he also used students to research, develop and write some of the copy. Regardless, you can't help but be fascinated by some of the accounts of these people and their notorious tales highlighted within these pages. These are fascinating reads if you can get past the point that the copy is problematic and riddled with errors and in some cases contradictory information. Rosen is more than obsessed with the Dr. Samuel Mudd conviction from his involvement with John Wilkes Booth and Booth's assassination of President Lincoln he devotes an additional chapter and two appendices to the task of exonerating Mudd. Those pages could have been better spent in replacing those sections with accounts of others like the O.J. Simpson case, Amanda Knox, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Guy Cabell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not normally in the habit of criticizing books, but this one really disturbed me. It is rather poorly edited, with a lawyer in the Lizzie Borden trial alternately depicted as working on the prosecution side and then on the defense side. The author says that Pretty Boy Floyd never killed anyone, a few paragraphs after mentioning that Floyd was responsible for the murder of two other criminals in Kansas City. It has also been well established that Floyd murdered a sheriff in Oklahoma. Too much of the analyses are based on opinion and not on fact. The author states unequivocally that Floyd was not at the Kansas City Massacre, highly implying that he knows exactly where Floyd was at that moment, but he never reveals where that was. It's opinion, not fact, and based on an apparent admiration of Floyd, who was most certainly a murderer. The fact is that we don't know if Floyd participated in the massacre or not, and will never know.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was more interesting to me from a historical aspect than from the actual crimes, investigations and trials. It amazed me to see how things have changed in America. In this book you will read about people like Dr. Samuel Mudd who aided and patched up John Wilkes Booth after he shot the President, the Rosenbergs, Pretty Boy Floyd, Lizzie Borden and others. I did find it odd that a book published by an imprint of Avalon would have so many typos. It is almost like the book was not proofed or edited. However the errors will not interfere with your enjoyment of the book, unless that type of thing drives you crazy.

[Paula Frew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did They Really Do It?

The author digs into the depths of popular crimes in history. He invites you in with him and explores the crimes with you, then gives you his conclusion and invites you to form your own opinion.

[Angelica Chavez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts were rather dry, particularly the very-detailed account of the Lincoln assassination.

[cathey dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful

The interlinking of the past atrocities and how each one played out was very thought provoking to say the least.

[Eva Müller · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is also available on my blog

It feels a bit like the author picked out some true-crime cases that interested him and then tried think of something that could link them together and came up with 'Did they really do it?' even though in some cases that is not the most burning question. A more accurate link is probably that in most cases the circumstances and the time had huge influences on the trial and the verdict.

And if Rosen had just gone down that road, delved deeper into the Rosenbergs, Zacarias Moussaoui etc. and thrown out Lizzie Borden, the Boston Strangler and Bruno Hauptmann which all feel like badly done filler this might have been a much better book. Instead, we get a very mixed bag (ranging from 'hey this tastes nice, I'll try another' to 'I want to throw up after trying this').
So, according to Rosen, Lizzie Borden did kill her father and step-mother. The proof? She never married.



Yes, you see Lizzie was abused. Physically by her step-mom and her father didn't do anything about it or sexually by her father and the step-mom didn't know/care/do anything. Or perhaps both. He isn't quite clear on that. But that's why she killed both. And then ha suddenly decides that she was sexually abused and that's the reason she never married. Because as we all know that is the only reason why a woman would never marry. All others just have to throw herself at the first guy that comes along...



And that is actually all the "proof" we get for his conviction that Lizzie Borden was a killer which is...weak.

When it comes to Bruno Hauptmann he thinks that he was rightfully convicted for abducting and (accidentally) killing Charles Lindbergh Jr. He might have had a partner but that's not what the chapter is about. The chapter is actually about Lindbergh Senior's antisemitism and support for Hitler. Now I'm not saying these things should be ignored because of what Lindberg did and what happened to him but it has no relevance for the question of whether Hauptmann was innocent. The abduction happened in 1930. Lindbergh only declared his sympathy for Hitler and his views years after that. There is no connection between that and the death of his child and therefore no need to spent over a third of the chapter on it.

Now the chapter on the Boston Strangler really does take the cake for 'useless filler-chapter'. Yes Albert DeSalvo did commit some of the murders but not all of them. (He reaches that conclusion not by a meticulous study of the sources but because by now there has been DNA-testing done that exonerates him in one case). So the Boston Stranger were most likely Stranglers. How many were there? Which murders were most likely to be DeSalvo's doing? Who knows or cares? But apparently the author has a minimum page-count he needs to reach...



And that is a shame because the chapters that are more about how time and circumstances like the Red Glare, racism and antisemitism or the post 9/11 chaos influenced the courts: they're pretty good. Though to come back to one of my initial complaints: One of the chapters is about three murdered civil rights activists in 1960s Mississippi and from the way the case is presented I didn't get the impression that there was ever the question 'did they really do it?' The problem was rather that due to racism, the way the justice system worked back then, more racism and even more racism it wasn't possible to get convictions for everybody that was involved in the murders. At least that's how I (who had never heard of this case before this book) understood it. So either there were more doubts than the author let on which means he did a bad job at presenting the case, or the case was pretty clear-cut. In that case he did a bad job when he decided to include it in a book that's supposed to be about cases where there's doubt about the true guilty party.

If that book was a paper that got handed in for grading it would come back with 'missed the topic'...

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes one see famous cases in different lights, so if you agree with the theories proposed or not, it is a good read for any true crime fan. I wrote a letter to the author telling him I enjoyed the book but have never in my life read a book with so many spelling errors, punctuation errors, etc. in it. Whoever edited it did a shitty job and I thought it was unfair to the author.

[Jennifer Giles Hinojosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book definitely raises some interesting questions but lacks something in the details. Some of the author's conclusions come across as childish in the way they are written. The editing was poorly done but could be overlooked. The crimes covered were very popular crimes in history so it did keep me interested.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting. It has a lot of different stories of killers from history. I found it very enlightening...however...it was edited terribly! Some words were wrong or spelled wrong and it took me a couple of looks to be sure as to what the author was saying at various times.

[Thena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. Some parts didn't interest me at all, but others were opposite. It was written in a way that didn't seem overly professional, but it was still a nice easy read. Don't know if I would recommend this however.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author adds nothing new to these cases except an overly snarky attitude. In the chapter 'Was Bruno Framed? about the Lindbergh baby case, he is exceptionally harsh in reference to H. Norman Schwarzkopf, yet his name is repeatedly spelled Schwartzhopf.

[David Withun · Rating 3 out of 5]

-

[Jennie Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

quite interesting

[Rena Sherwood]

I knew I was in trouble when Fred Rosen's main argument for why Lizzie Borden DID do it was, "Does a bear shit in the woods?" (p. 54 in the paperback edition.)

Gee, I was kinda hoping for an in-depth look at the evidence, interviews with witnesses -- that sort of silly thing. I wanted too much, I suppose.

But I finally gave up on this book during the Lindbergh Baby chapter. Usually, it's referred to as the "Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Case." Fred "Einstein" Rosen here refers to it as the "Lindbergh Kidnapping Baby Case."

You have to be careful about those sneaky kidnapping babies.



And then I read about how the pair of pilots before Lindbergh's historic flight managed to cross the Atlantic in the amazing time of "sixteen hours and twenty-seven minutes." And then went on to read (you can follow along on p. 79):

"Lindbergh trumped them.
On May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took just 33 1/2 hours to fly 1000 miles alone, from Roosevelt Field on Long Island to Orly Field in Paris..."



Really? 33 is less than 16? When did this happen? Why wasn't I notified?

I wondered if something was wrong with my glasses, so I had my Mom read the page. She also read the astounding news that 33 is less than 16.

That's when I decided to give up on the book. It was like getting caught in public watching a particularly bad episode of Drunk History. It just gets to the point where you embarrass yourself by watching it.

No stars for this mess.