Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father, Andrew Borden, and stepmother, Abby Borden, in 1892

NEED TO KNOW

• Lizzie Borden was accused of brutally killing her father and stepmother in 1892 but was found not guilty
• The trial captivated the nation, with circumstantial evidence and societal biases playing key roles
• The century-old story was brought to life again in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on Netflix

Lizzie Borden’s name has been linked to the gruesome ax-murders of her father and stepmother for over a century — even though she was acquitted of all charges against her.

In August 1892, Lizzie’s father, Andrew Borden, and stepmother, Abby Borden, were discovered dead in their Fall River, Mass. home. The crime shocked the community for its brutality, as both Andrew and Abby were bludgeoned to death, and its boldness, occurring in the middle of the day on a busy street. But even more astonishing than the murders itself was the police’s prime suspect in the slayings: the Borden’s younger daughter, Lizzie, who was 32 years old at the time and living at home. 

With mounting circumstantial evidence, police arrested Lizzie in the days following the killings and charged her with double-murder. The case went to trial in June 1893, and Lizzie was found not guilty, but the stigma of the slayings would follow her for the rest of her life. 

The story of Lizzie Borden has been immortalized in nursery rhymes, books, songs, television shows and movies and now, it will be brought to life in the fourth installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster on Netflix on Sept. 17.

Here is everything to know about the true story behind Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.

Lizzie’s biological mother died when she was 2 years old

Lizzie was the youngest of three daughters born to Andrew and Sarah Borden. Eldest daughter Emma was born in March 1851, followed by Alice in May of 1856 and, finally, Lizzie on July 19, 1860. However, Lizzie never met her middle sister Alice, as she died just shy of her 2nd birthday in March of 1858. 

Tragedy struck the Borden family again when Lizzie was a toddler. On March 26, 1863, Sarah died at the age of 39 from uterine congestion and spinal disease, according to The Herald News.

When Sarah was on her deathbed, Emma made her mother a promise to always look after “baby Lizzie,” who was nine years her junior, per Smithsonian Magazine.

Andrew remarried Abby Durfee Gray in 1865

Following Sarah’s death, Andrew was left to raise his two young daughters, Emma and Lizzie, in their hometown of Fall River, where he was a wealthy businessman. He did so for two years until June 6, 1865, when he married his second wife, Abby Durfee Gray, per The Herald News.

Abby was 37 years old at the time of their marriage, and effectively became the stepmother of Emma and Lizzie, who were 14 and 4 at the time.

There are varying accounts of the relationship between Abby and the Borden girls. By some reports, tension existed between them from the start with Emma and Lizzie eating meals separately from their father and stepmother and refusing to call Abby “mother,” instead referring to her by her first name or Mrs. Borden, according to the 2016 book The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century.

In one reported instance, when a dressmaker called Abby the girls’ mother, Lizzie responded by snapping, “Don’t call her that to me. She is a mean thing and we hate her,” per American Heritage.

But Lizzie later painted their relationship in a much different light. She would go on to testify that she and Abby were “quite cordial” with “very kindly feelings” toward one another, according to The Borden Murders.

“We were friendly, very friendly,” Lizzie said of her and Abby’s relationship.

Lizzie and Emma never married and remained living at home

Both Lizzie and Emma grew up cultured and well-educated, according to The Borden Murders. Andrew paid for Emma to attend Wheaton Female Seminary (now known as Wheaton College) as a teenager, per The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies, and sent Lizzie on a months-long tour of Europe when she was 30.

Despite these opportunities, both girls opted to remain living with their father into their adult years with neither marrying or leaving the home.

As a young woman, Lizzie was active in both their community and church. She taught Sunday School for the children of Chinese immigrants, was the secretary of the local Fruit and Flower Mission and served as treasurer of the local Young Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Lizzie also helped cook the church’s annual Christmas dinner for the town newsboys, and volunteered in the Good Samaritan Charity Hospital, according to American Heritage.

Behind her benevolent exterior, Lizzie was reportedly known to have a fiery temper. A former Fall River city marshal reportedly described her as “a woman of bad disposition;” another Fall River citizen claimed, “Lizzie is known to be ugly.”

An alleged Borden family feud erupted over a property purchase in 1887

Though Andrew was a successful businessman, he was notoriously frugal. The family lived in a modest home on Second Street with no indoor plumbing or gas lighting. Lizzie longed to live in Fall River’s well-to-do neighborhood known as The Hill, according to Smithsonian Magazine, and she and her sister were frequently at odds with their father over financial matters.

This friction came to a head in 1887, when Andrew purchased a home for Abby for her half-sister to live in. Emma and Lizzie reportedly learned of the property purchase from “outsiders,” and not their father or stepmother, which left them feeling angry and hurt. They also reportedly resented Abby for the financial influence she had over Andrew.

“What he did for her people he ought to do for his own children,” Lizzie allegedly said at the time. According to American Heritage, Andrew bought Lizzie and Emma a home to rent out in hopes of placating them.

Abby and Andrew Borden were found bludgeoned to death on Aug. 4, 1892

Shortly after 11 a.m. on Aug. 4, 1892, Lizzie seemingly made a horrific discovery at their Second Street home. She claimed that upon coming in from the barn, she found her father lying dead in a pool of blood in their sitting room. He had been viciously attacked seemingly while asleep, struck multiple times in the face with a sharp, ax-like instrument, The Herald News reported.

Lizzie yelled for their housemaid, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, who was resting in her third floor bedroom. She sent the housemaid to fetch a nearby doctor, but the physician across the street was out visiting patients. Lizzie then told Bridget to go get her close friend, Alice Russell, from down the street.

Soon, Bridget returned with Alice as well as the Bordens’ physician, Dr. Seabury Bowen, who had returned from his house calls. A neighbor, Adelaide Churchill, also came over after hearing Lizzie’s distress. Dr. Bowen confirmed that Andrew was deceased, after feeling for a pulse, according to The Borden Murders.

“Physician that I am and accustomed to all kinds of horrible sights, it sickened me to look upon the dead man’s face,” Dr. Bowen said of the crime scene, per The Herald News.

In the chaos, the women realized that no one had seen Andrew’s wife, Abby. Lizzie said that Abby left that morning on an errand to visit a sick friend, but had returned at some point as she “heard her come in,” per The Borden Murders. 

Bridget and Adelaide went to search the house for Abby, and discovered her bludgeoned body on the floor of the second-story guest bedroom. Upon examination, it was determined that she was killed first, approximately 90 minutes prior to Andrew, according to Britannica.

Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged in the double murder on Aug. 11, 1892

In the days following Andrew and Abby’s murder, Lizzie emerged as the primary suspect in the slayings. She and the housemaid were the only two surviving individuals home at the time of the killings, and Lizzie’s inconsistent statements to the police raised immediate red flags. For instance, Lizzie made several contradictory claims about her whereabouts during the killings telling officers that she was in the backyard, in the barn looking for a piece of iron and in the barn eating pears, according to American Heritage.

Lizzie’s clothes were spotless when the bodies were discovered but police later found a bucket of blood-soaked clothes in the basement, CBS News reported. Lizzie also burned a dress in the kitchen stove in the days following the double murder. Both instances raised suspicions with authorities, but Lizzie had simple explanations: The bloody rags were because she was menstruating and she burned the dress because it got stained with paint.

Two pharmacists at a nearby drug store also claimed that, the day prior to the murders, Lizzie had come in seeking to purchase prussic acid, a deadly poison only available with a doctor’s prescription. She claimed she needed it to put an edge on a seal-skin cape, but the pharmacist had never heard of that usage and refused to sell it to her.

A potential murder weapon was also located in the cellar of the Borden home. Police found a hatchet head hidden in a box of dusty tools which was seemingly deliberately covered in a layer of ash. It was missing its handle, and had a blade that appeared consistent with the size of the wounds found on Andrew and Abby.

Armed with the mounting circumstantial evidence, police arrested Lizzie on Aug. 11, 1892, following a three-day inquest, according to Smithsonian Magazine. She was sent to county jail, where she spent the next nine months awaiting trial.

Lizzie Borden was acquitted in June 1893

Lizzie’s trial began on June 5, 1893, 10 months after the brutal slayings of her father and stepmother. The trial attracted a massive crowd, including women’s groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and suffragists, showing up in support of Lizzie, per Smithsonian Magazine.

The prosecution spent nine days making their case, laying out how the evidence (though largely circumstantial) pointed toward Lizzie. They claimed that the dimensions of the hatchet head found hidden in the basement matched the size of the blows sustained by Abby and Andrew, and called on medical experts who claimed that a woman of ordinary build and strength, such as Lizzie, had the physical ability to commit the murders, according to CBS News.

The defense spent two days presenting witnesses to poke holes in the prosecution’s case. One of their star witnesses was Lizzie’s older sister Emma, who testified that it had been her idea, not Lizzie’s, to burn the allegedly paint-stained dress in the days after the killings.

In addition to the lack of concrete evidence, the prosecution had to work against the notion at the time that a woman could not feasibly commit such a heinous crime. The Boston Globe wrote at the time that it was improbable “that a woman of refinement and gentle training … could have conceived and executed so bloody and butchery,” per American Heritage.

The jury of 12 men delivered a “not guilty” verdict after less than two hours of deliberations though they reportedly came to the unanimous decision immediately and only waited the two hours so as not to appear hasty. The decision was met with cheers from the crowd.

Lizzie Borden went on to live a quiet, isolated life on The Hill in Fall River 

Following her acquittal, Lizzie remained in Fall River. She and her sister Emma used money they inherited from their father’s sizable estate to purchase a nearly 4,000-square-foot Queen Anne-style mansion on The Hill, the elegant neighborhood both sisters had longed to live in, according to Boston Magazine. They named the house Maplecroft, and lived there together until 1905, when Emma moved out following an argument with Lizzie.

Though Lizzie was cleared in the eyes of the law, society was a different story. The once-active church member found herself shunned by both her congregation and the townspeople. In an attempt to shake off the stigma surrounding her, Lizzie changed her name to Lizbeth, The Herald News reported, however, it did little to affect her public perception.

As a result, Lizzie became increasingly reclusive over the years. Even as she retreated, Lizzie found herself plagued by neighborhood pranksters and curious onlookers attempting to get a peek at the supposed ax-murderer, according to Smithsonian Magazine. When she did leave Maplecroft, Lizzie enjoyed traveling to Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. She frequented fine restaurants and the theater, though, as the years went on, she left Fall River less and less.

She was accused of shoplifting in 1897

Almost four years after her acquittal, Lizzie had a second run-in with the law in February 1897. The trouble began when a Providence jeweler that Lizzie was known to frequent allegedly had two pieces of painted porcelain go missing, The Herald News reported.

When a woman later brought in one of the missing pieces to be repaired, she informed the store clerk that she had received it as a gift from Lizzie.

Police issued an arrest warrant for Lizzie and paid her a visit at Maplecroft, where they located the second piece of missing painted porcelain. However, Lizzie maintained that she paid for the pieces and the store eventually dropped the matter. The arrest warrant was never served.

Lizzie and Emma had a falling out in 1905, and allegedly never spoke again

Emma stood by Lizzie’s side through her arrest, trial and acquittal but an argument between the two sisters in 1905 would sever their relationship permanently. The spat reportedly began over Lizzie’s friendship with actress Nance O’Neil, according to NewEngland.com. At the time, acting was considered a morally corrupt career, but Lizzie was unbothered and frequently hosted parties for Nance and other actors at Maplecroft.

Emma was supposedly deeply troubled over this scandalous activity at their home, and moved out. At the time, the Boston Sunday Herald reported that “after repeated disagreements, Lizzie A. Borden and her sister, Emma Borden, have parted company,” per The Borden Murders. The two allegedly never spoke or saw each other again.

Lizzie Borden died at Maplecroft on June 1, 1927

Estranged from her sister Emma and socially isolated, Lizzie rarely left Maplecroft in her later years. As her health declined, she had a surgery in 1926 to remove her gallbladder, The Herald News reported but her condition never improved.

Lizzie remained ill for the next year, until she died at her home on June 1, 1927, from heart disease and acute bronchitis. She was 66 years old.

Lizzie was buried in the Borden family plot in Fall River’s Oak Grove Cemetery, next to her father and stepmother, according to The Herald News. Emma, who died nine days after her sister on June 10, 1927, is also buried there.

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