Lizzie Borden made history when she was accused of murdering her parents with a hatchet. Was she the real murderer? The mystery is still unsolved even she has become part of popular culture as the killer. Borden was born on July 19, 1860 in Fall River, Massachusetts, so today would be her birthday, which is the perfect excuse for a Gloomy Sunday post dedicated to her story.
Lizzie and her sister Emma still lived with their father and stepmother (Andrew Borden and Abby Durfee Gray) when Lizzie was in her early 30s and Emma in her early 40s. Their father was wealthy and they had servants and anything they needed. The drama unfolded on August 4, 1892. Lizzie found her father’s mutilated body in the sofa (with 10-11 hatchet blows) and alerted the maid. Some minutes later Abby was found dead in their bedroom, killed in the same manner with 19 hatchet blows.
Emma was out of town so she was never a suspect but police soon felt something was wrong with Lizzie and she was under suspicion. Lizzie didn’t help herself at all when a few days later she burned a dress saying she stained it with paint. Of course, police thought it was the dress she was wearing while committing the murders.
She was arrested a week later and questioned. After the trial she was acquitted in June 1893. Who committed the murders, to this day no one knows! Could be Lizzie, could be a stranger, could be another member of the household…
So why was she a suspect?
- She burned a stained dress days after the murders.
- Both parents died in different rooms at different times (90 minutes apart) and Lizzie was the only one in the house when Abby was killed, if it was a stranger who wanted to kill one of them why go searching for the other? And why Lizzie wasn’t killed?
- Lizzie said she was downstairs when Abby was killed but didn’t hear anything.
- She (and Emma) never forgave his father for marrying Abby soon after their mother died.
- There were no signs of forced entry
- Lizzie tried to buy poison the day before the murders (for cleaning she said), but the man at the store would not sell it to her. Lizzie denies this story.
- A hatchet was found in the basement, it was clean.
- Lizzie told a neighbor that she thought someone was trying to kill her father.
- After the bodies were found she wanted to stay alone in the house.
- There was a family argument the week before the murders and Lizzie went to another house for a few days.
Who else could have been?
- Andrew was a wealthy unpopular business man who owned a lot of properties and a bank, he had many enemies. Once Lizzie explained that he used to behead her pigeons! Yes, he was that kind of cruel man.
- Benjamin J. Handy said at the trial he saw a man outside the home that morning at 9 and then again at 10:30 (times of the murders).
- At the trial Emma said Lizzie’s burned dress really stained with paint (not blood as police suspected) and that she told Lizzie to destroy it.
SOME EXTRA LIZZIE BORDEN FACTS:
- There’s a B&B in her former house, you can visit and have a Lizzie tour: Lizzie Borden House, Bed & Breakfast Museum. Supposedly it’s haunted.
- There’s a band called Lizzy Borden.
- Lizzie Borden made an appearance on The Simpsons in the episode “Treehouse of Horror IV”. Martin also dresses as Lizzie in the episode “Cape Feare”:
- A Living Dead Doll was inspired by her.
- There’s a folk Lizzie Borden rhyme:
Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
- Also there’s an opera based on her story.
- In March 2012, the Borden case was back in the headlines with the discovery of the handwritten journals of Andrew Jennings, Lizzie’s defense attorney. The journals, contained newspaper clippings and interview notes he made.
- There’s a mini-series with Christina Ricci as Lizzie Borden: The Lizzie Borden Chronicles.
A super interesting related site: The Trial of Lizzie Borden.
