- [Narrator] On this special Halloween edition of Rhode Island PBS Weekly, we look at the dark side of local horror writer, HP Lovecraft.

- His literary work is often infused with his own paranoias and xenophobia and racism, - [Narrator] And take an overnight visit to Fall River.

- I'm sleeping tonight in what used to be Lizzie Borden's bedroom.

- [Narrator] Then the history of witch trials in Connecticut.

- 13 convictions and 11 people actually hanged.

9 women and 2 men.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Good evening, welcome to Rhode Island, PBS Weekly.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

In this season of Halloween, the spirit of Rhode Island author HP Lovecraft still lingers.

- But for some, the memory of Lovecraft's horror stories is both painful and filled with disdain.

Tonight, another look at the literary icon's dark whirls, and his even darker personal side.

(eerie music) - He has this famous quote, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown."

- [Pamela] Fear creeps throughout the pages of some 66 short stories written by HP Lovecraft.

His supernatural tales published in pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s earned the author the title, Father of Cosmic Horror, a potion of weird literature, science fiction and fantasy.

- He's a large reason why I ended up going into the academic field that I'm in, in biology, studying marine organisms that are every bit as strange as some of the stuff that he's described.

- [Pamela] URI marine biology professor, Dr. Niels Hobbs, is keeping the author's legacy alive inside the historic arcade building downtown Hobbes is executive director of the non-profit Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council.

It's part bookstore, part curiosity shop, crammed with oddities and eerie items.

This is headquarters for Lovecraft fans worldwide.

- Every day we have people come from around the country, generally from around the world who read often in their own language, in Chinese, in Portuguese, in German and Italian read Lovecraft, and immediately, you know, found much of the same love that people in the US have found.

(eerie music) - [Pamela] But those possessed with reading Lovecraft also have to come to grips with something more sinister than his imaginings.

The author had a chilling monster inside, bigotry.

It is no secret in his writings.

- This artistic gift to write these incredible stories, his literary work is often infused with his own paranoias and xenophobia and racism.

- [Pamela] The author, not well known in his own lifetime, has been reincarnated as a major influencer today.

Social media has inspired TV shows like "Stranger Things" and "Lovecraft Country."

- A number of artists, Stephen King, you know, again, writes fiction, and very clearly credits Lovecraft as being the first major influence.

And role playing games like, you know, tabletop role playing games, more recently, video games.

There are many that are directly drawn from Lovecraft's fiction.

- [Speaker] What is it you desire?

(monster screeches) - If you dig down deep, what is it about his writing and his stories that is so frightening?

- There's this sense of hopelessness and helplessness.

Unlike so many other stories where it's a matter of, you know, maybe there's a murderer in the house, or, you know, a slasher film or something like that where there's an identifiable human villain.

In Lovecraft's fiction, the villain is simply the carelessness of the cosmos.

(dramatic music) - [Pamela] And while he wrote about the cosmos, Lovecraft's own life is deeply rooted in the city of Providence.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born there in 1890.

An only child, his grandfather's library became his great companion.

- He had kind of a rough childhood.

Both of his parents had issues with mental illness, which almost certainly he probably bore some of that, And living very poor, I think, you know, he kind of felt to some extent very much on the fringes of society.

- Lovecraft dropped out of high school, eventually finding his passion in prose, starting as a ghost writer for famed magician Harry Houdini.

The most famous character conjured up in Lovecraft's stories is the city of Providence itself.

The East Side is a museum of Lovecraft from the homes he lived in, to the places he described in devilish detail.

The Fleur-de-Lys building is where the famous monster Cthulhu was born.

This home on Benefit Street was the setting for his story, "The Shunned House," and on the same street in this house is where Edgar Allen Poe spent time years before Lovecraft.

Poe was courting and briefly engaged to Providence poet Sarah Whitman.

- Edgar Allen Poe greatly influenced Lovecraft.

They walked the same paths, they visited the same libraries.

- [Pamela] Poe's life and Lovecraft's intersect here at Brown University's John Hay Library.

Special collections curator, Heather Cole, says rare artifacts include a lock of Poe's hair, and one of the only known photographs of Poe.

- This is a daguerreotype taken in Providence.

- [Pamela] And there are also thousands of Lovecraft's letters, sketches, and handwritten manuscripts in the collection.

- We have people visit the library from literally all over the world, from Australia and Japan and Europe, South America, almost on a weekly basis.

- How do readers contend with the genius versus the racist?

- You can't take them apart.

You can't just enjoy his stories and not contend with the racism.

My students introduced me to this phrase, a problematic fave.

Where it might be an artist or a musician, somebody who has done some things that we don't condone as a society or as individuals, but yet there is something within their work that you can still enjoy just as long as you're kind of acknowledging that problematic nature of the work.

- [Pamela] The problematic nature of the author's work has come back to haunt him.

It has caused a nightmare for the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council, which raised the funds to commission this statue.

- One of my reasons for making art in the first place is I like to create a presence.

I want you, even if you're in a dark room, to feel that someone's there.

- [Pamela] This life-size presence, a 600 pound bronze, was sculpted by local artist Gage Prentiss.

The city of Providence approved its placement downtown, but the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council scrapped its unveiling until this complex, controversial figure can find a home elsewhere.

- Currently, he is a house guest.

This is a nice, safe place for him to stay until he finds a permanent home on private property.

Because we were going to have two plaques for the statue, one discussing his contribution to arts, media, and the world, and the other, discussing his historic footprint and impact, including his racism.

- It doesn't belong in a public space because you're being honored when you're put on particularly government property, and he deserves no honor in anyone's lifetime.

You can't outrun his level of homophobia and racism and sexism and, you know, just unbelievable belief patterns.

- [Pamela] Providence civil rights activist Ray Rickman often lectures devotees of Lovecraft on the flaws of the famous author.

He has read volumes of Lovecraft letters.

- So Lovecraft hates women, hates Italian Americans, hates people from India, hates African Americans, hates Mexicans.

Have I got everybody?

He just, I'm talking about hatred.

- [Pamela] In his letters, Lovecraft liberally uses the N word.

He describes Jewish people as hooked nose and swarthy and calls New York's Chinatown, "A mess of stewing, mongrel flesh."

Bringing Lovecraft's letters to light for some of his most ardent fans has not been easy.

Three years ago, Rickman was invited to speak at the Biennial Lovecraft convention called Necronomicon.

- I was nervous.

I spent a lot of time writing that speech, and I thought I'd go in the room with the 300 people and they'd throw eggs or something at me.

It was the opposite.

They gave me a standing ovation.

They were so glad that someone had set the record straight.

But I live across the street from Lovecraft's last house and he comments, he uses it to talk in his books, and so the tourists come to see the house, and when I see them, I run out there and I give them a tirade.

- [Pamela] Rickman says readers nowadays must look at authors from William Faulkner to Dr. Seuss through different lenses.

He keeps a couple copies of Lovecraft at his stages of Freedom Bookstore in Providence, especially for fans who come to town.

What do you think is most important for people to know when we look at this story of this man?

- I think appreciate the literature if you want, and despise all of his political beliefs.

And they were defined, and I don't think he had a single political belief that you would say, "That's good."

And then you can read the literature.

If you start having trouble with what I just said, go read the letters and you go, "Whoa."

- [Pamela] And that's a legacy Lovecraft has taken to the grave at Swan Point Cemetery.

- I still enjoy his fiction, but I also, you know, that is tempered very much by acknowledging that at least this one really large aspect of his personal life is completely untenable and unforgivable.

(upbeat music) - Up next, it was one of the most notorious murders in American history.

The victims, Andrew and Abby Borden, were found hacked to death in their home in Fall River.

Suspicion eventually fell on Andrew's daughter, Lizzie Borden.

The crime scene is now a popular bed and breakfast where contributing reporter David Wright spent the night back in 2021 as he tried to unlock this enduring mystery.

(rain spattering) (bell ringing) - [David] Seven bedroom, three and a half bath, Victorian, loaded with history.

- [Suzanne] It's an unusual piece of real estate, but it's very much a niche.

- Easily the most famous house in Fall River, asking price $2 million.

Suzanne St. John is the listing agent.

Is it hard to sell a crime scene?

- It's interesting to sell a crime scene.

I mean, everybody knows Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother 40 whacks.

Or did she really?

You're not gonna know until you take the tour.

But it's world known.

It was actually fairly easy to sell it.

We put it on the market on a Monday, and we had probably four offers on Friday.

- Wow, even at 2 million?

- Even at 2 million, yes.

- [David] That's because the Lizzie Borden house has a unique draw.

It may be the only bed and breakfast in New England that's also a crime scene.

Do people get a discount for staying in the murder room, or do they pay extra?

- That's the most requested room, no, no.

I would not sleep there, but yeah.

- And is it haunted?

- You could be the judge of that, you could be the judge.

- Yikes.

We spent the night at the Lizzie Borden BnB along with amateur historian Shelley Dziedzic.

- This is the door he came through.

- [David] She's published a number of Lizzie Borden books, runs a popular website, and for 25 years, Shelley was a tour guide here.

She's no shrinking violet.

- And contact, probably the first or second stroke, you were gone.

- [David] The year was 1892, August 4th.

Lizzie Borden was 32 years old living at home.

It was she who discovered her dad's body around lunchtime on this couch where Andrew Borden had laid down for a nap just a short while before.

- Lizzie said, "I came back from the barn.

I was out there for a while."

She came in, she said, "I put my hat on the table, and I discovered father."

This clearly had just happened and the blood was still flowing.

It was bright red and she was alone.

My reaction would be to run to the front door, open it, and scream blue murder.

- Yes, and never come back into the house.

- But she didn't.

Most people would want to get out.

- [David] Only after police and neighbors finally arrived was the second body discovered, Abby Borden, Lizzie's stepmother found upstairs.

- As far as we can determine, there's only one one way in and out of this room.

But she saw her assailant for sure.

- [David] Killed hours earlier, apparently while making the bed.

- The thinking is the assailant might have straddled, the killer straddled the body, perhaps grabbed the head by the hair and wailed away at that.

So the majority of the blows are when she's on the floor.

- And how many times was she struck?

- Oh, 19.

- So not 40, but plenty.

- But plenty.

- [David] The brutality of the crime only slightly exaggerated by that old jump rope song.

♪ Lizzie Borden took an ax ♪ ♪ And gave her mother forty whacks ♪ - And if you think of it, she got about twice as many whacks as Mr. Borden.

There's 10, 11, I think 11 was the final verdict on him and 19 for her.

So this was a double whammy.

- [David] Even 19 whacks suggests a whole lot of hatred, all of which is not so comforting as night falls and the evening gloom sets in.

So I'm sleeping tonight in what used to be Lizzie Borden's bedroom, and Abby Borden's bedroom where she was killed, the mother, the stepmother is just a few feet that away.

Andrew Borden was killed just downstairs.

I learned what's apparently an old saying today, which I firmly believe now, and that is I don't believe in ghosts, but that doesn't mean I'm not scared of them.

Sweet dreams.

This BnB gives new meaning to R-I-P, rest in peace.

Well, I did hear some voices in the night, but I'm pretty sure it was just the other guests.

Lizzie Borden was not immediately a suspect, but there were details of her story that didn't add up.

Her alibi was thin.

There were no signs of a break-in or robbery.

And Lizzie was later observed burning a blue dress that she claimed was stained with paint.

- It makes no sense, it doesn't fit.

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

- [David] A hundred years before OJ Simpson, a hundred years before the Menendez brothers.

- I'm just a normal kid.

- Oh, Erik, you're a normal kid who killed your parents.

- I know.

- The Lizzie Borden case was the original trial of the century.

The trial took place in this New Bedford courthouse almost a full year after the crime.

This was a brutal murder in Victorian New England, and the suspect was a woman.

So you can imagine the attention it drew from the news media.

It was huge.

In the absence of modern forensics and with plenty of unanswered questions, there was no shortage of what today might be referred to as fake news.

But it was a sensational trial.

And in the end, the jury deliberated for just over an hour before rendering a verdict of not guilty.

- In the court of law, she was acquitted.

But in the court of public opinion here in the city, many people thought she was guilty.

- [David] Lizzie and her sister inherited everything.

They moved to this mansion in a fancier neighborhood of Fall River.

Maplecroft is also for sale, fully furnished.

- This is the original wallpaper or said to be that Lizzie had picked out.

Apparently, she liked the color blue.

- [David] Here, Lizzie Borden lived out the rest of her days and in what seems like the ultimate irony.

- Lizzie left a note in her will, "I wish to be buried at my father's feet."

- [David] Lizzie Borden will spend eternity right beside the two people she's accused of murdering.

- And there she is at her father's feet.

- So this is dad.

- This is Lizzie.

- And this is Lizzie Borden.

- And this would be Lizzie's head here.

And the casket goes out this way.

So she is indeed at her father's feet.

- [David] And more than a century later, that element of unsolved mystery is what makes Lizzie Borden Fall River's biggest tourist attraction bar none.

- In 2019, we had over 18,000 people walk through this house.

Now, that could be people that were either on a tour or that could be people that were spending the night.

- 18,000?

- 18,000 people through the door from all over the world.

- Folks like Lisa Smith and her family who came all the way from Knoxville.

- What brought you here today?

- It's on my bucket list because I did a paper in college on Lizzie Borden, so I learned a whole lot more today than I did in my papers.

- [David] Do you think that the jury did the right thing?

If you were on the jury, how would you vote?

I would vote that she did it because from what I hear, she kept changing the story three times.

- Well, I can make a case either way.

- [David] For her part, our expert is inclined to agree.

Shelley says it's just not plausible that some random stranger committed this crime, - And why wasn't Lizzie murdered?

If this was a homicidal maniac just off on a spree, why would he leave her sitting in the kitchen having cookies and coffee and walk right by her?

- They talk about Occam's razor.

I guess, in this case, Occam's hatchet, - Occam's hatchet.

- The simplest explanation is generally the truth.

- Murder is generally a pretty simple thing.

It's people that make it complicated.

I think it was Agatha Christie said, "Who had the motive, the weapon, the opportunity?"

- And she had all three.

- She had all three.

(upbeat music) - Finally, tonight, we take another look at the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century in which 19 New Englanders were executed.

Few people know the witch hysteria actually started 45 years earlier in Connecticut.

In our continuing My Take series, historian and author Beth Caruso gives us her take on these alleged witches and the families who have worked to exonerate their loved ones centuries later.

- Connecticut was the first colony that had witch executions.

However, many people in Connecticut do not even know about them.

My name is Beth Caruso, and this is my take on witches.

In New England, there were mostly women who were targeted as witches.

And back in those days, these women, these alleged witches, many were healers, many were people who spoke up for themselves, who did not take flack, who did not fit into the Puritan box of what it was to be a good woman.

It also had to do with women's roles with fertility.

Those women who did not have as many children were viewed with suspicion, that they would be jealous of the other women.

There were men who were sometimes accused of witchcraft as well, but they were often associated with women.

So it was largely due to misogyny of the time, or it was due to some type of community panic, an epidemic, animals dying, and the community didn't understand it and was looking for someone to blame.

There's several differences between Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The Salem witch trials are well documented and well studied.

Arthur Miller, in his play "The Crucible," really brought attention to the Salem trials.

There has been no such play or any type of movie like that in Connecticut.

The history of those trials hasn't been as well known among the populace itself.

It hasn't been taught in schools as much.

In Connecticut, there were a total of 35 people indicted for witchcraft, 13 convictions, and 11 people actually hanged, 9 women and 2 men.

Alice Young is significant because she was the very first person to die for witchcraft crimes in New England, and actually in all the colonies.

It happened during the time of an influenza epidemic.

And during that epidemic, it just so happened that there were four children living right next door to Alice Young who died that year, while Alice Young's only daughter lived.

And once that execution happened, the witch accusations flew up and down the Connecticut River Valley.

In fact, Connecticut, the first seven people accused of witchcraft were also indicted and later hanged.

So seven for seven, it was pretty brutal.

We need to learn from our history.

Unfortunately, it's repeating right now.

There are conspiracy theories that abound, Pizzagate, QAnon that talk about certain targeted groups drinking the blood of children, satanic connections.

All these things are lies, all these things are untrue.

And they follow the same energy, the same pattern of those witch hunts back in the 1600s.

The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a group of people who want to fight the unjust reputations of the people who were alleged witches.

Most of these people are descendants of the people who died for witchcraft crimes, and their ancestors have had to deal with stigma for many decades, many centuries.

They want the historical record corrected through exoneration in Connecticut.

In the course of writing my book that I found out my husband is actually related to Lydia Gilbert, Windsor's second witch trial victim.

And so for my sons and for my husband, it's important for me that her story gets out and that people understand she wasn't a witch.

My name is Beth Caruso, and that was my take on witches.

- That's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We'll be back next week with another edition of Rhode Island PBS Weekly.

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and X, and visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly.

Or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)