The Borden Murders: Was Lizzie A Murderer or Wrongfully Accused?

 

“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.”

If you are a fan of true crime, chances are you have heard of Lizzie Borden. It is one of the most talked about crimes of all time. What happened on the day in question? Who was in the house and had the opportunity and motive? Did Lizzie get off with murder?

The Discovery

August 4th, 1892

Lizzie discovered her father, Andrew Borden’s body, on the couch, thirty minutes after he returned to the house from running morning errands. After that, the maid Bridget Sullivan discovered the body of her stepmother, Abby Borden, lying on the bedroom floor. Both victims had suffered fatal blows to the head from a hatchet.

Early Life

Lizzie Andrew Borden was born to Sarah and Andrew Borden on July 19th, 1860, in Fall River Massachusetts. Her father had grown up in moderate conditions and as a young man he struggled, but made himself wealthy. The Borden’s lived humbly for a wealthy family and did not have indoor plumbing. The area in which they lived was more affluent, while other wealthy families in the area lived in a more fashionable neighborhood known as “The Hill.”

Both Lizzie and her sister Emma had a very religious upbringing, attending church. Lizzie was involved in several church activities, which included teaching Sunday School. She was also part of religious organizations and social movements.

Three years after Sarah passed away, Andrew remarried a woman by the name of Abby Gray, who Lizzie always referred to as “Mrs. Borden”. They had convinced Lizzie that Abby only married Andrew for the money. Lizzie and Emma never ate meals with Abby and Andrew, either. They seemed very distant. Lizzie had built a roost for pigeons, but Andrew killed this with a hatchet, convinced it was drawing children to the residence. Some say this upset Lizzie, which she very well could have been. Would that lead to murder, though?

Tension in the household grew, as Andrew was giving away gifts of real estate to Abby’s family, and Lizzie viewed this as confirming her fears. A family argument in July resulted in both Lizzie and Emma taking extended vacations in New Bedford. A week before the murders, Lizzie stayed at a local rooming house for four days before returning home. The girls purchased the house from their father for a dollar the week before the murders. While the night before the murders, her uncle John Morse visited the house and invited her to stay for a few days to discuss business with Andrew. It is said that their conversations, which included the transferring of property, made the situation within the house even worse. While several days before the murders, the entire family had become ill. Abby feared someone poisoned them because Andrew was not a popular man in Fall River.

The Murders

Morse had arrived at the house on August 3rd, sleeping in the guest room. At breakfast, those Abby, Andrew, Lizzie, John, and the maid were all present. Emma had been off visiting friends out of town. After breakfast, John and Andrew went into the sitting room and chatted for an hour. Some say that this conversation grew in anger before John left to buy some oxen and visit family. Andrew went for his walk after nine. Cleaning the guest room was usually Lizzie and Emma’s regular chore, Abby went in there between nine and ten-thirty in the morning. It is said that Abby was facing her killer. The first blow hit her in the head's side, cutting her just above the ear. This caused her to turn and fall. The killer struck her about seventeen more times in the back of the head, which killed her.

Andrew returned home around ten-thirty in the morning to find that his key wouldn’t work in the door. So he knocked to get in. The maid tried to open the door to find it jammed. She swore she heard Lizzie laughing from the top of the stairs. This would mean that because Abby was already dead, and she could view her body from upstairs that Lizzie already knew she was dead. Lizzie, of course, denied this and claimed she thought Abby had visited with a sick friend that morning, which is what she had told her father when he came home that morning.

It was around eleven-ten in the morning when Lizzie yelled to the maid: “Maggie, come quick! Fathers dead! Someone came in and killed him.”

Andrew Borden was slumped on the couch in the downstairs sitting room, struck ten or eleven times with a hatchet. They even split one of his eyes in two, which suggested he was asleep when he was attacked. He was also still bleeding, so someone attacked recently. We believe that the time of death was eleven in the morning.

Inconsistencies

They believed almost immediately that Lizzie handled the murders. Not only was she acting strangely, but she was saying some pretty bizarre things that lead to many questions. At first, she told them she heard some noises before entering the house and yet two hours later she claimed she heard nothing before stumbling upon her father’s body. She stated she thought Abby was visiting a sick friend but then sent the maid and a neighbor upstairs to look for her. They didn’t make it all the way up the stairs before discovering the body. Lizzie was too calm and poised, but despite her behavior and changing stories, they did not check her for bloodstains.

The police found two hatchets, two axes, and a hatchet head in the basement. The hatchet head they claimed had to be the murder weapon as it appeared the handle was recently broken and they deliberately placed the dust. It was suspected that Lizzie had poisoned the family days before, as there were claims of her purchasing hydrocyanic acid in a diluted form from the local drugstore. She claimed she was using it to clean her furs, but they said this substance wouldn’t work. However, no traces of this nor any poison were found in the victim’s stomachs.

Her uncle John, this entire time, was reported to callously be eating an apple and rumors flew that he had slept in the same murder-site room that very night. Lizzie was seen entering the cellar that night, with a friend, and when she returned, she was alone and seen cleaning something.

On August 5th, John left the house and was surrounded by a mob of hundreds of people and was escorted back to the house by police. Soon after, Lizzie was told she was a suspect and was later seen tearing up a dress. She admitted to thinking of burning the dress as it had been covered in paint. It was never determined if this was the dress she was wearing on the day of the murders.

The question we have to ask is if Lizzie would have had time to commit these murders? She had a ten-minute window between killing her father and calling for the maid. A brutal attack like that would have had severe blood splatter, so then why did the maid report no blood on Lizzie? So, maybe Lizzie simply changed her clothes? Impossible, in 1892, the amount of clothing a woman wore on a daily basis took hours to get in and out of, and usually always required more than one person to put them on. Unless the maid was in on it, it would have taken Lizzie much longer than ten minutes to change her clothing.

Other Suspects

Lizzie’s uncle John Morse

He had rarely met with the family after his sister died but was staying in the house during the murders. Although, he provided an “Absurdly” perfect and “Over detailed” alibi for the murder of Abby Borden.

William Borden

A man that was thought to be Andrew’s illegitimate son, is rumored to have been trying to extort money from the family. Yet, later confirmed that this man was not Andrew’s son.

Emma Borden

Though she had a solid alibi being in Fairhaven, which was about fifteen miles from Fall River, it has been believed that Emma visited the house to kill her parents before traveling back to Fairhaven.

Stranger/unknown murderer

There is also the possibility that no one in the house that day committed the murders and that someone off the street, perhaps upset with Andrew, came into the house and killed them both. But why would a stranger leave everyone else alive?

Trial and Acquittal

The trial took place in New Bedford and started on June 5th, 1893. Just five days before the trial, another axe murder occurred in Fall River. They found Bertha Manchester hacked to death in her kitchen. The similarities between the murders were striking, and it was noted in the trial. However, Bertha’s killer was later caught and convicted in 1894 and was not in Fall River at the time of the Borden Murders.

They questioned the hatchet head to being the actual murder weapon because it had no handle. This was argued that they had removed the handle because they have covered it in blood. One officer claimed they had found the handle near the hatchet head while another claimed they had not found it. While they found no bloody clothing, a witness claimed she had seen Lizzie tearing up and burning a dress she claimed was covered in paint. The defense never challenged this statement.

Lizzie’s whereabouts were unclear on the day of the murder. While the maid claimed she had seen Lizzie at ten fifty-eight in the morning when she left her downstairs with her father. (Why didn’t the maid notice that Abby Borden was dead). Lizzie claimed she had been in the barn for at least thirty minutes, and a witness stated he saw Lizzie leaving the barn and heading to the house around eleven-o-three in the morning. Three minutes after Andrew Borden was murdered and seven minutes before Lizzie discovered his body.

They had removed the heads of the victims during the autopsy and brought them into the courtroom as evidence. Upon seeing them this way, Lizzie fainted. They tried to use hydrocyanic acid, but the judge ruled that this had no connection to the murders. The Jury deliberated on June 20th, 1893 and after an hour and a half, they acquitted Lizzie of all charges.

Lizzie and her sister Emma inherited not only her father's wealth but Abby’s as well. This was because Abby had died first, and everything went to Andrew who died after, and it was all passed to the sisters. Lizzie moved to a modern home in “The Hill” neighborhood and had several live-in maids. They brought her name back into the light when she was accused of shoplifting in Providence, Rhode Island. Emma left the house in 1905, after having a fight with Lizzie after she had thrown a party for actress, Nancy O’Neill. She never saw her sister again.

Death

Lizzie died of pneumonia on June 1st, 1927 in Fall River. She never had her name cleared of her parent's murders.

The Borden house is now a museum and operates as a Bed and Breakfast in 1890s styling. (It’s rumored to be haunted). They preserved pieces of evidence used in the trial including the hatchet head at the Fall River Historic Society.

They memorialized the murders in a popular skipping rope rhyme. The writer of this rhyme was an anonymous writer looking to sell Newspapers or the anonymous “Mother Goose”. There is a lesser-known second verse of this popular rhyme it goes like this:

“Andrew Borden now is dead, Lizzie hit him on the head. Up in heaven, he will sing, on the Gallows she will swing.”

Who killed the Bordens? We’ll never know.