Did Lizzie Borden Kill Her Parents? | Historic Mysteries Did Lizzie Borden Kill Her Parents? November 11, 2011 3443 Views Lizzie Borden is one of the most infamous suspected murderers in United States history. She is so infamous in fact that a gruesome rhyming song about her murdering her parents with whacks from an axe is still sung by the local children today. The fact is that she was acquitted of the Fall River, Massachusetts murders and is therefore innocent in the eyes of the law. However, no one else was ever charged with the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Borden and some of the evidence indicates that it could have been Lizzie, after all. Lizzie Borden was two-years-old when her mother died. Roughly three years later, her father — Andrew Jackson Borden — married Abby Durfy Borden. Rumor has it that, when she was in her twenties, Lizzie had a falling out with her stepmother that was never resolved. There were also rumors that she was angry with her father regarding property he was bestowing on Abby’s family that Lizzie thought should rightfully belong to her sister Emma and herself.

Later, Lizzie would deny that she was on bad terms with her parents, as would the family maid and Emma. Because of a break-in not long before the murders in question, there was much to-do about the locking of doors in the Borden household. They locked both the outside doors and the inside doors whether they were home or not. More rumors suggested that this was because Lizzie was suspected of being the thief. Whether the rumors were true or not, they painted Lizzie in a bad light. Hannah Gifford also claimed that Lizzie called her stepmother mean. So, there seems to be a motive and a suspicion of bad character on Lizzie’s part. Another suggested motive is that Mr. Borden killed a group of pigeons that Lizzie had been tending in the barn loft. During the week of the Borden murders, everyone in the house became ill. Abby told her doctor that she suspected she had been poisoned. Lizzie allegedly told a friend that she thought her father had enemies, that she had seen suspicious people near the house and that she feared something “would happen.” Abby’s doctor said the family had been stricken with food poisoning.

Interestingly, a local chemist later claimed that Lizzie had attempted to buy poison from him, saying she was going to use it for cleaning. He did not sell it to her. On the morning of August 4, 1892, Lizzie came downstairs in the Borden home around 9 a.m., according to her testimony and the testimony of their maid — Bridget Sullivan. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Borden left, Bridget vomited outside of the house and then the three women in the house, Lizzie, Bridget and Mrs. Borden began going about their chores. Mr. Borden arrived home sometime around 11 a.m. and Bridget let him in the house, as the door is locked and he forgot his key. She later claims she heard Lizzie laugh from upstairs at that time. Lizzie claims that she was downstairs in the kitchen when her father came home. Shortly after Mr. Borden came home, Lizzie shouted to Bridget, who was trying to take a nap in her upstairs room. She told her that her father was murdered. He had, in fact, been struck with a hatchet 11 times on a sitting room couch. Bridget was sent to grab a doctor.

As the police and others begin to arrive, Bridget was sent upstairs to look for Mrs. Borden, whom Lizzie claimed had said she was going out, but was unsure whether she had or not. Mrs. Borden was found beneath the bed in the spare room upstairs. She was struck with a hatchet 19 times. Police did a thorough search of the house, but the only evidence they found was a hatchet in the cellar. The hatchet’s handle was broken off, but there was nothing else linking it to the murders. There was no bloody clothing in the house, nor did Bridget note that Lizzie wore bloody clothing. Nonetheless, there were no other suspects. Lizzie was indicted on November 31, 1892 and the case goes to trial in June of the following year. The trial of Lizzie Borden lasted 15 days. The jury found her not guilty as most of the evidence against her was hearsay and a lack of other evidence pointing to someone else being in the house. Modern suspicions have pointed to the maid and the sister Emma. However, Emma was out of town and it would seem that Bridget was simply ruled out.

Lizzie claimed she was in the barn when the murder of her father took place, so, if she is telling the truth, someone else could have entered the house while she was out, but it would seem Mrs. Borden was murdered while she was still in the house. Lizzie Borden will forever be remembered as the girl who killed her parents, simply because there is no way to prove she did not. Sources Shelly Barclay Shelly Barclay writes on a variety of topics from animal facts to mysteries in history. Her main focus is military and political history. She is a writer for the Boston History Examiner, Military History Examiner and the Boston American Revolution History Examiner. She also writes for a local historical society newsletter. Shelly was a professional cook for 10 years and still has a passion for food. She cooks and writes about cooking nearly every day. She produces a wide variety of content, on top of her niches. Shelly is a stepmother, a former military, current veteran wife, sister of four and aunt of seven (so far). Related Articles She was proved to be innocent in the eyes of the law M. Kiki D. W. English does have too many rules!

did Andrew die after the parents die, or before? i’m pretty sure it was after… Melissa McCoy I honestly dont know if Lizzie Borden killed her parents or not. However, I do find it interesting that during the trial while Lizzie was kept in a holding cell; another axe murder took place in that town. This time a girl was chopped up…same style…with a hatchet. I also have read about Andrew having an illegitimate son who was known to hack horses to death and could do so, with almost no blood splattered. In the book I read about this son, he was considered crazy and Lizzie and her sister were supposed to be very afraid of him and tried not to mention him at all to others, out of fear. Lizzie could`nt have killed that girl with an axe while she was in a holding cell and seems like I remember reading that Andrew`s son knew the girl who was killed. Anyway, there is a possibility that this Illegitimate son could of done all the killings instead of Lizzie. Or, I could be wrong! LOL Up to you to decide!!

Follow Us 9 Things You May Not Know About Lizzie Borden - History in the Headlines 9 Things You May Not Know About Lizzie Borden August 3, 2012 By Barbara Maranzani Share this: 9 Things You May Not Know About Lizzie Borden Author 9 Things You May Not Know About Lizzie Borden URL Google Shortly before noon on August 4, 1892, the body of Andrew Borden, a prosperous businessman, was found in the parlor of his Fall River, Massachusetts, home. As neighbors, police and doctors arrived at the scene, the body of Abby Borden, his wife, was discovered in an upstairs bedroom. A week later, Andrew’s younger daughter, Lizzie, was arrested for the double murder. In an era when women were considered the “weaker” sex and female murderers were nearly unheard of, the trial—and subsequent acquittal—of Lizzie Borden made her a media sensation. Officially, the case remains unsolved, but Lizzie Borden may very well have taken an ax and ended her parents’ lives on that sweltering summer day.

Now, more than 120 years later, explore nine fascinating facts about the long-dead suspect. 1. Many people might have wanted to see Andrew Borden dead. The gruesome murders shocked the community, but many in Fall River were perhaps not entirely surprised that Andrew Borden had met an untimely end. With a net worth of almost $10 million in today’s money, Borden was one of the wealthiest—and most unpopular—men in town. Frugal to a fault, he was a self-made man who had become the head of one of the town’s largest banks and a substantial property owner. The dour businessman had also made many enemies on his rise to the top, and rumors swirled that Andrew and Abby had perhaps been killed as revenge for Andrew’s shady business dealings. Lizzie Borden circa 1889. 2. The case revealed some skeletons in the Borden family closet. The initial investigation focused outside of the immediate family and included local businessmen, neighbors and even the family maid, an Irish immigrant named Bridget Sullivan. Police soon realized that Andrew’s daughter, Lizzie, had as much to gain as anyone by the death of her father.

Andrew’s tightfistedness extended to his own family—despite his wealth, the Borden home lacked even the most basic of conveniences, including indoor plumbing. Andrew’s remarriage to Abby Gray after the death of his first wife had soured his relationship with Lizzie and her older sister, Emma. The women, already in their 30s and considered spinsters by society, grew increasingly frustrated and resentful, with Lizzie in particular often exhibiting signs of mental instability. Lizzie’s actions in the days after the murders also raised eyebrows: She gave contradictory answers to questions and burned a dress that she claimed had been stained while doing housework, which police considered the destruction of evidence. On August 11, Lizzie was arrested for the murders. 3. The lack of forensic evidence played a key role in the case. Despite their belief in Lizzie’s guilt, investigators faced an uphill battle in convicting her. There was no physical evidence linking her to the murders. A hatchet had been discovered in the basement of the Borden home, but its blade was clean and the handle had been broken off—by Lizzie, according to police. The police’s reluctance to use any sort of forensic testing also hampered the investigation.

Fingerprint testing was then in its infancy and was never conducted as part of their inquiry. They did, however, establish that Lizzie had unsuccessfully attempted to purchase prussic acid, a highly poisonous liquid, in the days before the murders. Though investigators regarded this as evidence of an earlier failed attempt to kill her parents, they were unable to present it at trial. Two journals kept by Lizzie Borden’s lawyer surfaced in March. (Bill Greene/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) 4. Andrew and Abby Borden made an appearance at the trial—sort of. The gruesome nature of the crimes, combined with the wealth of the Borden family, proved irresistible to newspaper publishers. Miles of ink were spilled as papers around the world printed hundreds of stories describing the deaths in lurid detail, speculating on possible motives and even alternative perpetrators. By the time the trial began in June 1893, Lizzie Borden had become a media sensation, and the proceedings themselves took on a circus-like air. The prosecution, faced with a lack of forensic evidence tying Lizzie to the murders, surmised that she had perhaps committed the crime while naked to avoid leaving behind physical clues.

The presence of the hatchet-riddled skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden shocked those in the courtroom, leading to a dramatic—and perhaps well-timed—swoon by Lizzie. In what turned out to be a key moment, Lizzie’s defense team successfully pushed to have her contradictory testimony at the original inquest ruled inadmissible. Lizzie herself never took the stand, and the jury of 12 men deliberated for just 90 minutes before returning a verdict of not guilty. 5. The famous rope jumping rhyme got it wrong. Children who learn the chant may believe that it took 40 blows to kill Abby Borden, and another 41 to kill Andrew. Well, that’s not quite true. The coroner did confirm that Abby was killed first, but by 19 blows—not the 40 popularized in the rhyme. Andrew Borden received even fewer wounds, but the 10 or 11 blows that finished him off were quite gruesome, focused mainly on the head and completely destroying much of his face. So it turns out the nursery rhyme overstates by half the total “whacks” it took to complete the job. In another inaccuracy, no “ax” was ever found.

It seems more likely that the hatchet presented by the prosecution at trial was the true murder weapon, but “hatchet” and “whacks” simply don’t rhyme. A portrait of Lizzie Borden hangs on the wall of the former Borden home in Fall River. (Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) 6. Lizzie Borden struggled in her later life. Despite her newfound notoriety—and her neighbors’ whispers about her likely guilt—Lizzie remained in Fall River for the rest of her life. She and Emma inherited their father’s estate, gaining the financial freedom they had long craved. Lizzie bought a large house in one of the city’s most fashionable neighborhoods and spent her time traveling to Boston and New York to indulge in her love of theater. Just five years after the murder, Lizzie was briefly in the headlines again, when she was accused of—but not tried for—shoplifting. In 1905 the sisters became estranged over Lizzie’s relationship with actress Nance O’Neill, which Emma allegedly disapproved of. They rarely spoke in their later years but died within days of each other in June 1927.

Both sisters were buried besides their murdered parents in the family plot in Oak Grove Cemetery. 7. Lizzie Borden made an appearance on “The Simpsons.” A media sensation in its own day, the Borden murders continue to fascinate the public more than a century after they occurred. Lizzie and her family have been the focus of dozens of books, plays and films. In 1975 actress Elizabeth Montgomery, star of television’s “Bewitched” and also a distant relative of Lizzie, portrayed her in a television movie. Famed choreographer Agnes de Mille created a ballet about the trial, a new opera has been in the works and Lizzie even made a cameo on “The Simpsons,” in which she—along with other notorious figures such as Benedict Arnold, Richard Nixon and John Wilkes Booth—served in the jury during a trial over Homer Simpson’s soul. 8. New information may still come to light. In March 2012, the Borden case was back in the headlines when researchers at the Fall River Historical Society announced the discovery of the handwritten journals of Andrew Jennings, Lizzie’s defense attorney.

The journals, which contain newspaper clippings as well as interview notes Jennings made during his pre-trial preparation, may yield new insight into the crimes. The extremely fragile material is currently being preserved by the museum before its contents are made available to the public. 9. You can stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast. More than a century after the murders, Fall River, Massachusetts, continues to be a hot spot for those fascinated by the case. For the most daring aficionados, a night at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast provides the ultimate Borden experience. Guests can tour the property at 92 Second Street, watch an annual dramatization of the events, stay overnight in the bedrooms originally occupied by Lizzie, Emma and their parents, and even enjoy the same breakfast the family shared on the morning of August 4, 1892. Tags The Trial of Lizzie Borden The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Doug Linder (2004) The Borden home in Fall River, Mass. Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks, When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.

Actually, the Bordens received only 29 whacks, not the 81 suggested by the famous ditty, but the popularity of the above poem is a testament to the public's fascination with the 1893 murder trial of Lizzie Borden. The source of that fascination might lie in the almost unimaginably brutal nature of the crime--given the sex, background, and age of the defendant--or in the jury's acquittal of Lizzie in the face of prosecution evidence that most historians today find compelling. Background On a hot August 4, 1892 at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts, Bridget ("Maggie") Sullivan, the maid in the Borden family residence rested in her bed after having washed the outside windows. She heard the bell at City Hall ring and looked at her clock: it was eleven o'clock. A cry from Lizzie Borden, the younger of two Borden daughters broke the silence: "Maggie, come down!

Come down quick; Father's dead; somebody came in and killed him." A half hour or so later, after the body-- "hacked almost beyond recognition" --of Andrew Borden had been covered and the downstairs searched by police for evidence of an intruder, a neighbor who had come to comfort Lizzie, Adelaide Churchill, made a grisly discovery on the second floor of the Borden home: the body of Abby Borden, Lizzie's step-mother. Investigators found Abby's body cold, while Andrew's had been discovered warm, indicating that Abby was killed earlier--probably at least ninety minutes earlier--than her husband. The body of Andrew Borden Under the headline "Shocking Crime: A Venerable Citizen and his Aged Wife Hacked to Pieces in their Home," the Fall River Herald reported that news of the Borden murders "spread like wildfire and hundreds poured into Second Street...where for years Andrew J. Borden and his wife had lived in happiness." The Herald reporter who visited the crime scene described the face of the dead man as "sickening": "Over the left temple a wound six by four had been made as if it had been pounded with the dull edge of an axe.

The left eye had been dug out and a cut extended the length of the nose. The face was hacked to pieced and the blood had covered the man's shirt." Despite the gore, "the room was in order and there were no signs of a scuffle of any kind." Initial speculation as to the identity of the murderer, the Fall River Herald reported, centered on a "Portuguese laborer" who had visited the Borden home earlier in the morning and "asked for the wages due him," only to be told by Andrew Borden that he had no money and "to call later." The story added that medical evidence suggested that Abby Borden was killed "by a tall man, who struck the woman from behind." Two days after the murder, papers began reporting evidence that thirty-three-year-old Lizzie Borden might have had something to do with her parents' murders. Most significantly, Eli Bence, a clerk at S. R. Smith's drug store in Fall River, told police that Lizzie visited the store the day before the murder and attempted to purchase prussic acid, a deadly poison.

A story in the Boston Daily Globe reported rumors that "Lizzie and her stepmother never got along together peacefully, and that for a considerable time back they have not spoken," but noted also that family members insisted relations between the two women were quite normal. The Boston Herald, meanwhile, viewed Lizzie as above suspicion: "From the consensus of opinion it can be said: In Lizzie Borden's life there is not one unmaidenly nor a single deliberately unkind act." Police came to the conclusion that the murders must have been committed by someone within the Borden home, but were puzzled by the lack of blood anywhere except on the bodies of the victims and their inability to uncover any obvious murder weapon. Increasingly, suspicion turned toward Lizzie, since her older sister, Emma, was out of the home at the time of the murders. Investigators found it odd that Lizzie knew so little of her mother's whereabouts after 9 A.M.

when, according to Lizzie, she had gone "upstairs to put shams on the pillows." They also found unconvincing her story that, during the fifteen minutes in which Andrew Borden was murdered in the living room, Lizzie was out in the backyard barn "looking for irons" (lead sinkers) for an upcoming fishing excursion. The barn loft where she said she looked revealed no footprints on the dusty floor and the stifling heat in the loft seemed likely to discourage anyone from spending more than a few minutes searching for equipment that would not be used for days. Theories about a tall male intruder were reconsidered, and one "leading physician" explained that "hacking is almost a positive sign of a deed by a woman who is unconscious of what she is doing." On August 9, an inquest into the Borden murders was held in the court room over police headquarters. Before criminal magistrate Josiah Blaisdell, District Attorney Hosea Knowlton questioned Lizzie Borden, Bridget Sullivan, household guest John Morse, and others. During her four hours examination, Lizzie gave confused and contradictory answers. Two days later, the inquest adjourned and Police Chief Hilliard arrested Lizzie Borden.

The next day , Lizzie entered a plea of "Not Guilty" to the charges of murder and was transported by rail car to the jail in Taunton, eight miles to the north of Fall River. On August 22, Lizzie returned to a Fall River courtroom for her preliminary hearing, at the end of which Judge Josiah Blaisdell pronounced her "probably guilty" and ordered her to face a grand jury and possible charges for the murder of her parents. In November, the grand jury met. After first refusing to issue an indictment, the jury reconvened and heard new evidence from Alice Russell, a family friend who stayed with the two Borden sisters in the days following the murders. Russell told grand jurors that she had witnessed Lizzie Borden burning a blue dress in a kitchen fire allegedly because, as Lizzie explained her action, it was covered with "old paint." Coupled with the earlier testimony from Bridget Sullivan that Lizzie was wearing a blue dress on the morning of the murders, the evidence was enough to convince grand jurors to indict Lizzie for the murders of her parents.

(Russell's testimony was also enough to convince the Borden sisters to sever all ties with their old friend forever.) The Trial Borden trial jurors The trial of Lizzie Borden opened on June 5, 1893 in the New Bedford Courthouse before a panel of three judges. A high-powered defense team, including Andrew Jennings and George Robinson (the former governor of Massachusetts), represented the defendant, while District Attorney Knowlton and Thomas Moody argued the case for the prosecution. Before a jury of twelve men, Moody opened the state's case. When Moody carelessly threw Lizzie's blue frock on the prosecution table during his speech, it revealed the skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden.

The sight of her parents' skulls, according to a newspaper account, caused Lizzie to fall "into a feint that lasted for several minutes, sending a thrill of excitement through awe-struck spectators and causing unfeigned embarrassment and discomfiture to penetrate the ranks of counsel." For most of the two hours of Moody's speech, Lizzie watched from behind a fan as the prosecutor described Lizzie has the only person having both the motive and opportunity to commit the double murders, and then pulled from a bag the head of the axe that he claimed Lizzie used to kill her parents. The first several witnesses for the state testified concerning events in and around the Borden home on the morning of August 4, 1892. The most important of these witnesses, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Sullivan, testified that Lizzie was the only person she saw in the home at the time her parents were murdered, though she provided some consolation to the defense when she said that she had not witnessed, during her over two years of service to the family, signs of the rumored ugly relationship between Lizzie and her stepmother. "Everything was pleasant," she said.

"Lizzie and her mother always spoke to each other." (Other prosecution witnesses disputed Sullivan's assertion that all was fine between Lizzie and her stepmother. For example, Hannah H. Gifford, who made a garment for Lizzie a few months before the murders, described a conversation in which Lizzie called her stepmother "a mean good-for nothing thing" and said "I don't have much to do with her; I stay in my room most of the time.") Sullivan also testified that Andrew and Abby Borden experienced stomach pains on the day before the murder and told jurors that at the presumed time of Abby's Borden she was washing outside windows. She testified that she opened the door for Andrew Borden after he returned home from his walk about town, and then described hearing Lizzie's cry for help a few minutes after eleven o'clock. Several witnesses described seeing Andrew Borden at various points in town in the two hours before he returned home to his death. Household guest John Morse, age sixty, described having breakfast in the Borden home on the morning of the murders and then leaving the house to perform chores. The next set of witnesses described events and conversations after discovery of the murders. Dr.

Seabury Bowen, the Borden family physician summoned to the home by Lizzie in the late morning of August 4, recounted Lizzie's story about looking for lead sinkers in the barn and her contention that her father's troubles with his tenants probably had something to do with the murders. On cross-examination, Seabury agreed with the defense's suggestion that the morphine he prescribed for Lizzie might account for some of the confused and contradictory testimony she gave at the inquest following the murders. Adelaide Churchill, a Borden neighbor and another important witness, remembered Lizzie wearing a light blue dress with a diamond figure on it, but did not recall seeing any blood spots it. John Fleet, the Assistant Marshal of Fall River, recalled his interview with Lizzie shortly after the murders. Lizzie corrected him, he testified, when he called Abby Borden her "mother." "She was not my mother, sir," Lizzie replied, "She was my stepmother: my mother died when I was a child." The most compelling testimony came again from Alice Russell.

Russell described a visit from Lizzie the night before the murders in which she announced that she would soon be going on a vacation and felt "that something is hanging over me--I cannot tell what it is." Then, according to Russell, after describing her parents' severe stomach sickness (which she attributed to bad "baker's bread"), Lizzie revealed, "I feel afraid something is going to happen." Explaining her feeling, Lizzie told Russell that "she wanted to go to sleep with one eye open half the time for fear somebody might burn the house down or hurt her father because he was so discourteous to people." Turning his questioning to the Sunday after the murders, District Attorney Moody asked Russell about the dress burning incident. Russell recounted that when she asked Lizzie what she was doing with the blue dress, she replied, "I am going to burn this old thing up; it is covered with paint." On cross-examination, defense attorney George Robinson attempted through his questions to suggest that a guilty person seeking to destroy incriminating evidence would be unlikely to do it in so open a fashion as Lizzie allegedly did.

Russell also recounted a conversation with Lizzie about a note, which according to Lizzie's account, she received from a messenger on the morning of the murders summoning her to visit a sick friend. (Lizzie used the note to explain why she thought her mother had left the home and therefore didn't think to look for her body after discovering her father's. Despite a thorough search of the Borden home, the alleged note never was found.) Russell said she sarcastically suggested to Lizzie that her mother might have burned the note. Lizzie, according to Russell, replied, "Yes, she must have." A newspaper account of the prosecution case likened it to "a pigeon shooting match in which District Attorney Moody kept flinging up the birds and defying his antagonist to hit them, while the ex-Governor (defense attorney Robinson) constantly fired and often, but by no mean always, wounded or brought them down. Robinson's performance impressed reporters, with one writing that the ex-Governor "is certainly without equal in New York City as a cross-examiner." Robinson seemed any to "turn more or less to his own account" nearly every government witness, according to one trial account.

The defense made its case using, for the most part, the state's own witnesses. "There has never been a trial so full of surprises," wrote one reporter covering the trial, "with such marvelous contradictions given by witnesses called for a common purpose." The defense kept hammering at the contradictory testimony of key prosecution witnesses. The defense also explored holes in the prosecution case: Where, the defense asked, is the handle that supposedly broke off from the axe head that the state hauled into court and claimed was part of the murder weapon? The state had no answer. The defense also exploited the government's own timeline, which allowed from eight to thirteen minutes between Andrew Borden's murder and Lizzie's call to Bridget Sullivan, Robinson tried to suggest the difficulty of washing blood off one's person, clothes, and murder weapon of blood, and then hiding the murder weapon, all within that short span of time. The decisive moment in the trial might have come when the three-judge panel ruled that Lizzie Borden's inquest testimony, full of contradictions and implausible claims, could not be submitted into evidence by the prosecution.

The judges concluded that Lizzie, at the time of the coroner's inquest, was for all practical purposes a prisoner charged with two murders, and that her testimony at the inquest, made in the absence of her attorney, was not voluntary. Lizzie should have been warned, the judges said, that she had a right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to remain silent. The judges rejected the state's argument that Lizzie was only a suspect, not a prisoner, at the time of the inquest, and that anyway her statement should be admitted because it was in the nature of a denial rather than a confession. The prosecution rested its case on June 14 after one final defeat. The state wanted to have druggist Eli Bence recount for the jury his story of Lizzie Borden visiting a Fall River drug store on the day before the murders and asking for ten cents worth of prussic acid, a poison. With the jurors excused, each leaving the courtroom with a palm leaf fan and ice water, the state tried to establish through medical experts, druggists, furriers, and chemists, the qualities, properties, and uses of prussic acid.

The judges, after listening to the state's foundational case, concluded that the evidence should be excluded. The defense presented only a handful of witnesses. Charles Gifford and Uriah Kirby reported seeing a strange man near the Borden house around eleven o'clock on the night before the murders. Dr. Benjamin Handfy testified that he saw a pale-faced young man on the sidewalk near 92 Second Street around 10:30 on August 4. A plumber and a gas fitter testified that in the day or two before the murders they had been in the Borden's barn loft, casting doubt on police assertions that Lizzie's alibi was suspect because dust in the loft appeared undisturbed. Emma Borden, the older sister of Lizzie, was the defense's most anticipated witness. Emma testified that Lizzie and her father enjoyed a good relationship. She told jurors that the gold ring found on the little finger of Andrew Borden's body was given to him ten or fifteen years ago by Lizzie and he prized it highly.

Emma also insisted that relations between Lizzie and her stepmother were cordial, even as she admitted to lingering resentment herself over the transfer by her father of a Fall River home (which Emma called "grandfather's house") to Abby and her sister. The defense had also hoped that Emma might testify that the Borden's had a custom of disposing of remnants and pieces of dresses by burning, but the court ruled the evidence inadmissible. Summing up for the defense, A. V. Jennings argued "there is not one particle of direct evidence in this case from beginning to end against Lizzie A. Borden. There is not a spot of blood, there is not a weapon that they have connected with her in any way, shape or fashion." Following Jennings, Governor Robinson, in his closing speech for the defense, insisted that the crime must have been committed by a maniac or a devil--not by someone with the respectable background of his client. He said the state had failed to meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that it was physically impossible for Lizzie, without the help of a confederate, to have committed the crime within the timeline suggested by the prosecution.

Robinson ridiculed the theory that Lizzie might have avoided getting blood spots on her clothes by killing her parents while "stark naked," and argued that the murders might well have been committed by an intruder who passed out of the house undetected. After Hosiah Knowlton's able summing up of the prosecution's evidence, Justice Dewey charged the jury. According to one newspaper report, had the judge "been the senior counsel for the defense, making the closing plea in behalf of the defendant, he could not have more absolutely pointed out the folly of depending upon circumstantial evidence alone." It was, the newspaper said, a "remarkable" charge--"a plea for the innocent." Justice Dewey told jurors they should take into account Lizzie's exceptional Christian character, which entitled her to every inference in her favor. The jury deliberated an hour and a half before returning with its verdict. The clerk asked the foreman of the jury, "What is your verdict?" "Not guilty," the foreman replied simply. Lizzie let out a yell, sank into her chair, rested her hands on a courtroom rail, put her face in her hands, and then let out a second cry of joy.

Soon, Emma, her counsel, and courtroom spectators were rushing to congratulate Lizzie. She hid her face in her sister's arms and announced, "Now take me home. I want to go to the old place and go at once tonight." Aftermath Borden trial courtroom Papers generally praised the jury's verdict. The New York Times, for example, editorialized: "It will be a certain relief to every right-minded man or woman who has followed the case to learn 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 a promptness that was very significant.

The Times added that it considered the verdict "a condemnation of the police authorities of Fall River who secured the indictment and have conducted the trial." Not stopping there, the Times editorialist blasted the "vanity of ignorant and untrained men charged with the detection of crime" in smaller cities--the police in Fall River, the editorial concluded, are "the usual inept and stupid and muddle-headed sort that such towns manage to get for themselves." It is probably fair to say that, however likely it might be that Lizzie did murder her parents, the prosecution failed to meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The state's case rested largely on the argument that it was impossible for anyone else to have committed the crime. For the Borden jury that, and a few other suspicious actions on Lizzie's part (such as burning a dress), turned out not to be enough for a conviction. Had the defendant been a male, some speculate, the jury might have been more inclined to convict. One of the defense's great advantages was that most persons in 1893 found it hard to believe that a woman of Lizzie's background could have pulled off such brutal killings.

After the trial, Lizzie Borden returned to Fall River where she and her sister Emma purchased an impressive home on "the Hill" which they called "Maplecroft." Lizzie took an interest in theatre, frequently attending plays and often associating with actors, artists, and "bohemian types." Emma moved out of Maplecroft in 1905. Lizzie continued to live in Maplecroft until her death at age 67 in 1927. She was buried by the graves of her parents in Fall River's Oak Grove Cemetery. Lizzie Borden Murder Case Gets New Look With Discovery of Her Lawyer's Journals - ABC News ABC News Lizzie Borden Murder Case Gets New Look With Discovery of Her Lawyer's Journals By OLIVIA KATRANDJIAN WATCH Lizzie Borden Case Journals Discovered 0 Shares Email The notorious 19th-century trial of Lizzie Borden, a wealthy New England woman accused of killing her parents with an ax, is back in the spotlight with the discovery of her attorney's handwritten journals, providing fresh insight into the relationship with her father.

Borden was acquitted in 1892, and much of the evidence in the case ended up with Andrew Jackson Jennings, Borden's attorney. The two journals, which Jennings stored in a Victorian bathtub along with other evidence from the case, including the infamous "handless hatchet," were left to the Fall River Historical Society by Jennings' grandson, who died last year. The society received the fragile journals about a month ago but won't be exhibited until they are properly preserved, curator Michael Martins said. Each journal is about 100 pages. One contains a series of newspaper clippings, indexed using a lettering and number system that Jennings devised. The second contains personal notes that Jennings assembled from interviews he conducted. Some of the individuals interviewed are people mentioned in the newspaper clippings Jennings retained. "A number of the people Jennings spoke to were people he knew intimately, on a social or business level, so many of them were perhaps more candid with him than they would have been otherwise," Martins said. "But it's also evident that there are a number of new individuals he spoke to who had previously not been connected with the case." Martins and fellow curator Dennis A.

Binette published a book last year called "Parallel Lives" that included five photographs and 40 letters and documents in Borden's hand that had not been previously published. Borden was imprisoned in Taunton, Mass., for 10 months pending her trial, and several of the letters published in "Parallel Lives" were written from her prison cell. Borden, who was 32 at trial, has been portrayed as a cold, stoic individual who showed no emotion, but the letters show a sensitive, grieving side of her. Borden's father, Andrew Borden, became known as an evil man who did not provide for his daughters. But Martins says the journals and letters paint Andrew Borden differently. "You have to create villains in order to justify the murders, and Andrew Borden is portrayed as evil, but he gave his daughters a lot more than some other fathers were giving theirs," Martins said. Jennings' notes in his journals show he interviewed people who knew the Borden family intimately and were familiar with Andrew Borden's relationship with his daughters. "Lizzie Borden cared for her father very deeply," Martins said.

"There was a tremendous outpouring of grief in the letters, and that's a new side to the story." Because the journals are so fragile, Martins has been unable to read them in their entirety, but he said it's unlikely they include a "smoking gun" that would prove Lizzie Borden killed her father and stepmother. Instead, they provide insight into the character of Lizzie Borden, who, despite her acquittal, was deemed by the public to be a brutal ax murderess, evident in the twisted nursery rhyme: "Lizzie Borden took an Ax, And gave her mother forty whacks, When she had seen what she had done, She gave her father forty-one." "Most of what is known about Lizzie Borden is based on legend, innuendo and outright lies," Martins said. "Fact has been suppressed by fiction, and the fiction is much more interesting to a lot of people." 0 Shares Fourteen Reasons to Believe that Lizzie Borden Murdered Her Parents Fourteen Reasons to Believe Lizzie Murdered Her Parents 1. If not Lizzie, then who? Only Lizzie had a good opportunity to commit the murders.

At the time of her mother's murder (around 9:30 A.M.), household guest John Morse was visiting relatives, sister Emma was out of town, Andrew Borden was running errands around town, and maid Bridget Sullivan was outside washing windows. Only Lizzie was known to be in the house at the time of Abby Borden's murder. To commit both murders (Andrew Borden was murdered around 11 A.M.), an outside intruder would have either have had to hide in the house for 90 minutes or departed and then returned without being seen. 2. It looks like an inside job. Police found no signs of forced entry into the Borden home (despite the fact that the Borden's habitually locked their doors) and nothing appeared to have been stolen. No stranger was seen entering or leaving the Borden house on the morning of the murders. 3. Although Lizzie claimed to have been downstairs at the very time her mother was violently murdered upstairs, she said she heard no alarming noises--this despite her mother having been struck multiple times with an axe and falling to the floor. 4.

On August 3, the day before the murders, witnesses identified Lizzie Borden as having visited Smith's drug store in Fall River, where she attempted to purchase a poison, prussic acid. She explained that she needed the acid to clean a sealskin cape. The druggist refused to sell the prussic acid. 5. On the night before the murders, Lizzie visited a neighbor, Alice Russell, and told her that she feared that some unidentified enemy of her father's might soon try to kill him. 6. Lizzie told police that while she was alone in the house with her mother on the morning of the murder, a messenger came to the door with a note summoning her mother to visit a sick friend. Lizzie told people that she assumed her mother had left. Despite a thorough search of the Borden home, no such alleged note ever was found. 7. When Bridget Sullivan came back inside after having finished washing outside windows, around 10:30 A.M., she reported hearing a muffled laugh coming from upstairs. She assumed that it was Lizzie making the noise. (Lizzie, of course, denied being upstairs during this time period between her mother's murder and her father's murder.) 8.

At the time of the murder of Andrew Borden, Lizzie claimed to have been in the loft of the backyard barn for 15 to 20 minutes looking for lead sinkers for a fishing excursion. Police found the loft so stiflingly hot that it was difficult to believe anyone would voluntarily remain in such a place for as much as 20 minutes. They also found no footprints in the loft that could substantiate Lizzie's story. 9. Lizzie had a strained relationship with her step-mother. They usually ate their meals separately. Some theorize that Lizzie resented the fact that her father transferred a Falls River property to Abby's sister, rather than to her. Police noted that during her interview, Lizzie insisted that Abby be described as her "step-mother," not her mother. 10. Although Lizzie appeared to have a somewhat better relationship with her distant and forbidding father, there were problems there as well. Lizzie was outraged, for example, when her father beheaded pigeons in the barn loft for which she had built a roost. (Her father thought the pigeons attracted neighborhood boys, who broke into the barn to hunt the pigeons.) 11.

In the week before the murders, following an apparent family argument, Lizzie and her sister Emma left Fall River by coach for New Bedford. When Lizzie returned, she chose to stay in a rooming house for four days, rather than in her own room in the family residence. 12. In 1891, cash and jewelry were stolen from the master bedroom in the Borden home. It was an open secret that Lizzie was suspected as having been the thief. Lizzie also had been accused by several local merchants of shoplifting. (Yes, murder is far different that stealing--but it does suggest that Lizzie was hardly a model daughter.) 13. Immediately after the discovery of her parents' bodies, Lizzie sent various persons who came to help off on various errands. It seems strange that a woman would choose to remain alone in a house if she thought a murderer still might be nearabouts on the loose. 14. On August 7, three days after the murders, Alice Russell observed Lizzie burning a blue corduroy dress in a kitchen fire. When asked about it, Lizzie explained that she chose to destroy the dress because it was stained with old paint.

Borden parents found dead - Aug 04, 1892 - HISTORY.com Borden parents found dead Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden are found hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home. Andrew was discovered in a pool of blood on the living room couch, his face nearly split in two. Abby was upstairs, her head smashed to pieces; it was later determined that she was killed first. Suspicion soon fell on one of the Bordens’ two daughters, Lizzie, age 32 and single, who lived with her wealthy father and stepmother and was the only other person besides their maid, Bridget Sullivan, who was home when the bodies were found. Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged with the double homicide. As a result of the crime’s sensational nature, her trial attracted national attention. Lizzie Andrew Borden was born on July 19, 1860. Her mother died when Lizzie was a young girl and her father, who became a bank president and successful businessman, married Abby Gray, who helped raise Lizzie and her older sister Emma.

The sisters reportedly despised their stepmother and, as adults, argued with their father over money matters. Lizzie claimed she was in the barn at the time of the murders and entered the house later that morning to find her father dead in the living room. The evidence that the prosecution presented against Borden was circumstantial. It was alleged that she tried to buy poison the day before the murders and that she burned one of her dresses several days afterward. And, although fingerprint testing was becoming commonplace in Europe at the time, the Fall River police were wary of its reliability, and refused to test for prints on the potential murder weapon–a hatchet–found in the Bordens’ basement. The fact that no blood was found on Lizzie coupled with her well-bred Christian persona convinced the all-male jury that she was incapable of the gruesome crime and they quickly acquitted her. Lizzie, who inherited a substantial sum after her father’s death, moved from the murder site into a different home, where she lived until her death on June 1, 1927. Today, the house where the Borden murders occurred is a bed and breakfast. Despite Lizzie Borden’s acquittal, the cloud of suspicion that hung over her never disappeared.

She is immortalized in a famous rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks; When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. Related Videos Lizzie Borden Took An Axe: 5 Things You Should Know SHARE Tune in tonight Lifetime is taking a stab at one of America’s oldest murder mysteries for this week’s original Lifetime movie, Lizzie Borden Took an Axe. It’s the story of Lizzie Borden, the girl who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. Though she was acquitted of the murder in 1892, for many, the question of her guilt remains unanswered to this day. That’s where Lifetime is stepping in. Reviews aren’t great, with the Los Angeles Times saying that it veers into “camp” and The Washington Post complaining that the movie is “tedious.” But there’s no question that the story is an enduringly bloody tale and is bound to entertain. We won’t spoil the movie’s take on the “whodunnit” question, but here are some crazy things you should know about Lizzie Borden before you watch tonight. 1.

For the novices out there, she killed her parents with an axe…or did she? The trial was so sensational, in part, because the murder was so bloody. Lizzie’s parents were hacked to death with a hatchet, so it was the trial of the century. 2. One of her father’s eyeballs was chopped cleanly in half. Enough said. 3. You may have sung a fun little children’s rhyme about the murder. Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one. The rhyme isn’t quite right, however: Her father got up to 10 or 11 whacks, her mother 19. 4. Lizzie stuck around town after the murders. She inherited her parents’ money, moved into a large modern house in a different neighborhood, and lived until age 66 in relative isolation. But she wasn’t done making headlines: in 1897, she was accused of shoplifting in Providence, Rhode Island. 5. Status? Unsolved. Whoever killed the Bordens didn’t leave many clues.

A murder weapon was never convincingly identified, including the hatchet that was found in the Borden’s basement. Lizzie burned one of her dresses shortly after the murder, saying she’d gotten paint on it, but no bloody clothing was ever found. And, there were no direct eyewitnesses. No one else was ever charged for the murders. Lizzie Borden - Did She Murder Her Parents With an Axe? Lizzie Borden About Lizzie Borden Dates: July 19 , 1860 - June 1, 1927 Known for: famous -- or infamous -- for allegedly murdering her father and stepmother in 1892 (she was acquitted), and memorialized in the children's rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks And when she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one Also Known as: Lisbeth Borden, Lizzie Andrew Borden Lizzie Borden Biography Lizzie Borden was born in, and lived her life in, Fall River, Massachusetts. Her father was Andrew Jackson Borden, and her mother, Sarah Anthony Morse Borden, died when Lizzie was less than three years old.

Lizzie had another sister, Emma, who was nine years older. Another daughter, between Emma and Lizzie, died in infancy. Andrew Borden remarried in 1865. His second wife, Abby Durfree Gray, and the two sisters, Lizzie and Emma, lived mostly quietly and uneventfully, until 1892. Lizzie was active at church, including teaching Sunday School and membership in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). continue reading below our video What are the Seven Wonders of the World In 1890, she traveled abroad briefly with some friends. Family Conflict Lizzie Borden's father had become comfortably wealthy, and was known as tight with his money. The house, while not small, had no modern plumbing. In 1884 when Andrew gave his wife's half-sister a house, his daughters objected and fought with their stepmother, refusing thereafter to call her "mother" and calling her simply "Mrs. Borden" instead. Andrew tried to make peace with his daughters, in 1887 giving them some funds and allowing them to rent out his old family home.

In 1891, tensions in the family were strong enough that, after some apparent thefts from the master bedroom, each of the Bordens bought locks for their bedrooms. In July of 1892, Lizzie and her sister Emma went to visit some friends; Lizzie returned and Emma remained away. In early August, Andrew and Abby Borden were struck with an attack of vomiting, and Mrs. Borden told someone that she suspected poison. The brother of Lizzie's mother came to stay at the house, and on August 4 , this brother and Andrew Borden went into town together. Andrew returned alone and lay down in the sitting room. Killings The maid, who had earlier been ironing and washing windows, was taking a nap when Lizzie called to her to come downstairs -- Lizzie said that her father had been killed while she (Lizzie) went to the barn. He had been hacked in the face and head with an axe or hatchet. After a doctor was called, Abby was found, also dead, in a bedroom, also hacked many times (the later investigation said twenty times, not forty as in the children's rhyme) with an axe or hatchet.

Later tests showed that Abby had died 1-2 hours before Andrew; because Andrew died without a will, this meant that his estate, worth about $300,000 to $500,000, would go to his daughters, and not to Abby's heirs. Lizzie Borden was arrested. Trial of Lizzie Borden Evidence included a report that she'd tried to burn a dress a week after the murder (a friend testified it had been stained with paint), and reports that she had tried to buy a poison just before the murders. The murder weapon was never found for certain -- a hatchet head that may have been washed and deliberately made to look dirty was found in the cellar -- nor any blood-stained clothes. Lizzie Borden's trial began June 3 , 1893. It was widely covered by the press locally and nationally. Some Massachusetts feminists wrote in Borden's favor. Townspeople split into two camps. Borden did not testify, having told the inquest that she had been searching the barn for fishing equipment and then eating pears outside during the time of the murders. She said "I am innocent.

I leave it to my counsel to speak for me." Without direct evidence of Lizzie Borden's part in the murder, the jury was not convinced of her guilt. Lizzie Borden was acquitted on June 20 , 1893. After the Trial She remained in Fall River, buying a new and bigger home she called "Maplecroft," and calling herself Lizbeth instead of Lizzie. She lived with her sister Emma until they had a falling-out in 1904 or 1905, possibly over Emma's displeasure at Lizzie's friends from the New York theater crowd. Both Lizzie and Emma also took in many pets, and left part of their estates to the Animal Rescue Leauge. Lizzie Borden died at Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1927, her legend as a murderess still strong. She was buried next to her father and stepmother. The home in which the murders took place opened as a bed-and-breakfast in 1992. Two books which each revived public interest in the case: Edmund Pearson, The Trial of Lizzie Borden, 1937: finds Lizzie Borden guilty of the murders. Edward D.

Radin, Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story, 1961: finds Lizzie Borden innocent of the murders. More women's history biographies, by name:

Question: What weapon did Lizzie Borden allegedly use to kill her parents?
Answer: Axe