In the 1800s, the story of ax-wielding
spinster Lizzie Borden was a national phenomenon. But did the infamous Borden, who has been portrayed by Christina Ricci and
Chloë Sevigny, actually butcher her parents? Here's everything you never knew about
Lizzie Borden and her infamous ax spree. Born in 1860, Lizzie Borden was the youngest
child of Andrew and Sarah Borden. Tragically, Lizzie's mother passed away when
the girl was just 2-years-old, and she spent most of her life with her stepmom,
Abby. Decades later, at the age of 32, Lizzie had become a prominent figure in her hometown of Fall
River. She was energetic and outgoing, especially compared to her 41-year-old wallflower sister
Emma. In addition to teaching Sunday school, Lizzie kept herself busy singing in a church choir
and delivering baskets and bouquets to the sick and poor. She campaigned against alcohol as a
member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, worked at a charity hospital, and served as
the secretary treasurer for the Christian Endeavor Society. She even prepared turkey
dinners on Christmas for underprivileged kids. Neither of the Borden sisters was
married, which was unusual for the time. As a result, Lizzie and Emma lived at
home with their 70-year-old father, Andrew. He started off as an undertaker
before making it big in real estate and the banking business. But even though he
was one of the wealthiest men in Fall River, most described Andrew as a notorious
penny-pincher. As for his second wife, the 63-year-old Abby, most sources claim she
didn't really get along with her stepdaughters. With a stingy dad and a stepmother she didn't
like, Lizzie wasn't crazy about her home life, and as it turns out, Lizzie's relationship
with her parents was about to get even worse. On August 4, 1892, Bridget "Maggie"
Sullivan, maid to the Borden family, woke up with a serious case of nausea and vomited
after preparing breakfast. However, she wasn't the only one suffering from stomach sickness. Both
Andrew and Abby Borden had been violently ill, and Mrs. Borden had gone to the family physician
the day before claiming she'd been poisoned. That morning, Sullivan was ordered to wash all the
outside windows, leaving Lizzie and her stepmother in the house alone. Meanwhile, Andrew was running
errands, Emma was meeting friends in another town, and their uncle and houseguest, John
Morse, was visiting other relatives. However, things got weird a little before 11.
Andrew had just returned home, and as Sullivan went to let him in, she heard laughing coming from
upstairs. The maid wasn't sure what was so funny, but shortly after Andrew stepped inside,
Lizzie came downstairs and said Abby had received a note from a sick friend and
had gone to visit. With his wife gone, Andrew settled down on the living room sofa
and quickly fell asleep for the last time. According to The New York Times, the maid was
woken from a nap by Lizzie Borden's screams, and she rushed downstairs to see what
was the matter. She was met by Lizzie, who told her that an intruder had attacked her
father. Lizzie sent the maid to fetch Dr. Bowen and her good friend Alice Russell, which left
Lizzie alone in the house for several minutes. As for Andrew, it was determined he'd been
struck 11 times by an ax or hatchet. Later, Abby Borden was found lying dead in the upstairs
guest room, the victim of 18 or 19 vicious blows. During their investigation, the
police found the head of a hatchet, minus the handle, down in the basement, and
while it was treated as the murder weapon, it seemed pretty clean for something just used
to butcher two people. Because of how sick the Bordens had been, their stomachs were sent
away for testing, but no poison was identified. Almost immediately, the police focused on
Lizzie, the only other person thought to have been in the house at the time of both murders.
After all, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing in her direction. For instance,
according to a clerk at a local drug store, Lizzie had come in the day before the murders hoping to
buy prussic acid, which is incredibly poisonous. She claimed she wanted it for cleaning purposes,
but the timing seemed suspicious in retrospect. "Sometimes, Alice, I have a feeling that
something terrible is going to happen there." Others wondered how Lizzie could've been
inside for Abby's murder and not have heard the sounds of a vicious attack, especially
since the Borden house wasn't that big. Alice Russell, Lizzie's friend, claimed
Lizzie had recently mentioned that she was worried that something bad
might happen to her father. There was also the issue of the note Lizzie
said Abby Borden received that morning, asking her to visit a sick friend. The
police couldn't find it anywhere. Plus, the timing just didn't work. Abby was killed at
around 9:30, and Andrew was murdered at about 11. If a stranger had committed the crimes, they
would've had to wait inside for 90 minutes, or have left in between the murders and
then come back, which seems highly unlikely. When Lizzie was questioned at a coroner's inquest
several days later, things didn't go well, as her testimony appeared to
be full of contradictions. Coupled with the circumstantial evidence,
her statements soon landed her behind bars, kicking off one of the most
sensational trials in American history. The trial started on June 5, 1893. At one
point, the prosecution dramatically revealed Andrew and Abby's skulls, prompting Lizzie
to faint in the courtroom. Things only got worse for the state when the judges ruled that
Lizzie's inquest testimony was inadmissible, in part because she hadn't had a
lawyer at the time and partly because she'd been questioned while under
the influence of doctor-prescribed morphine. The judges also threw out testimony
about her trying to purchase prussic acid. As for the defense team, they did a great
job of getting the state's witnesses to contradict themselves, as well as discrediting
several of the prosecution's biggest arguments. For example, the state claimed that the reason
no one ever found the handle of the murder weapon was that Lizzie had burned the shaft
because it was covered in blood. Of course, this was impossible to prove. The defense also
pointed out how clean the hatchet head had been, and how unrealistic it would have been for
Lizzie to wash the murder weapon and hide her bloody clothes in the few minutes between killing
Andrew Borden and calling for Bridget Sullivan. When the state argued that maybe Lizzie
committed the crime in the nude, the defense laughed the theory out of court, as Lizzie was
considered a respectable lady. Lizzie's lawyers also found witnesses who'd seen a suspicious
character in the vicinity of the Borden house, and handymen who'd been working in
the loft shortly before the crimes, calling the police's evidence into question. Andrew Borden was one of the wealthiest men
in Fall River, with an estate worth about $7 million by today's standards, but he was also
incredibly stingy. As a result, the Bordens lived in a house without electricity or running water.
There weren't even any bathtubs or toilets. "Excuse me father." Things got even worse when Andrew
gave a house to Abby's sister in 1887. Evidently, Emma and Lizzie thought their
father preferred his in-laws over his own flesh and blood, and this allegedly made
things pretty icy in the Borden household. Plus, the Borden girls never liked their stepmom.
To this day, most people who believe Lizzie was guilty hold to the theory that money and hatred
of her stepmom led to her committing the murders. "My father is a complicated man
and he was known to be difficult." However, it should be noted that not
everyone thinks that Andrew was as greedy as the history books suggest. According
to journals kept by one of Lizzie's lawyers, it appears that Andrew and
his daughter were at least somewhat close. As explained by Michael Martins,
curator of the Fall River Historical Society, "Andrew Borden was apparently quite
concerned about his daughters' well-being." Andrew also paid for Lizzie to tour
Europe a few years before the murders, suggesting that he could be generous at times. Lizzie Borden's trial lasted two weeks, and by
the end of it, it was looking like she might walk away clean. The defense had successfully
stopped key prosecution witnesses from testifying and had painted Lizzie as a virtuous
woman incapable of such a massacre. In fact, before sending the jury off to
deliberate, one of the judges reminded them to consider Lizzie's "Christian
character" while discussing her fate. When the jury of 12 men returned after just 90
minutes, they pronounced Lizzie Borden not guilty. Lizzie let out a yell after hearing the verdict, and it was a sentiment reflected by much
of the media. The New York Times reported, "It will be with a certain relief to every
right-minded man or woman who has followed the case [...] that the jury at New Bedford has not
only acquitted Miss Lizzie Borden of the atrocious crime with which she was charged, but has done
so with promptness that was very significant." While it's fair to say the state
failed to prove Lizzie's guilt, it's also fair to say that the all-male jury
was probably influenced by certain attitudes of the day. As many have pointed out, people
in 1893 couldn't believe a woman like Lizzie, a Sunday school teacher from a wealthy
family, could commit such a ghastly deed. Lizzie walked out of that courtroom a free woman, and the murders of Andrew and Abby
Borden are unsolved to this day. After the trial, Lizzie Borden put
her father's money to good use, buying a house in an upper-class neighborhood.
And unlike her previous digs, Lizzie's new home, which she called Maplecroft, came equipped
with four bathrooms, per The New York Times. In addition to buying a new house, Lizzie
changed her name to "Lizbeth" and visited big cities like Boston and New York, but she
could never really shake her old reputation. While she was found not guilty, people
in town still had their suspicions, and slowly but surely, everyone in Fall River
turned their backs on Lizzie Borden. Nobody would sit near her at church, and she became something
of a ghoul for the local children, who would hurl rocks and eggs at her house. And then, of
course, there was that notorious jump rope rhyme. Regardless of what the jury said, the rest of the
world still thought she had blood on her hands. Eventually, Lizzie became sick, and after a year
of health problems, the notorious woman passed away in June 1927. She was buried next to her
murdered parents. No one attended her burial. There are several theories
about who "really" killed Andrew and Abby Borden, or
why Lizzie might have done it. Author Edward Radin suggested that maybe the maid,
Bridget Sullivan, went ax crazy after she was ordered to wash the windows because it was hot
outside and she felt ill. Meanwhile, a theory from author Arnold Brown suggested that Andrew
allegedly had an illegitimate son named William who slaughtered Andrew after the businessman
refused to comply with his financial demands. But perhaps the wildest theory of all suggested
that Lizzie suffered a seizure caused by menstruation, and this sent her into a fugue
state where she unknowingly diced up her dad. Though Lizzie Borden quietly shuffled
off this mortal coil in 1927, her legend has lived on for decades. Borden
has appeared in multiple movies and TV shows, including an episode of The Simpsons, a
made-for-TV movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery, and Lifetime's The Lizzie Borden
Chronicles, starring Christina Ricci. But to get the best glimpse of Lizzie's life,
it's best to visit Massachusetts and check out the Fall River Historical Society. It houses
a multitude of Lizzie Borden paraphernalia, including notes from Lizzie's defense team, slides
containing samples from Abby Borden's stomach, and the alleged murder weapon itself.
Plus, you can spend an evening at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, located
inside the infamous murder house itself. If you want to stay the night, you can sleep
in the guest room where Abby Borden's body was discovered, and if you arrive in August, you might
get to watch actors reenact the crime. Many people who've stepped inside claim the house is haunted,
full of wandering spirits who've been trapped inside ever since the murders took place in 1892.
Regardless, the locale attracts visitors annually, as the world remains fascinated by
the life and legacy of Lizzie Borden. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about
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