The Unbelievable True Story of Lizzie Borden.. She Was a Sunday School Teacher Who Hacked Her Parents to Pieces. Or Did She?

Introduction: The Silence in the House on Second Street

The morning of August 4, 1892, dawned heavy and sweltering over Fall River, Massachusetts, a bustling textile mill town grappling with the social upheavals of the Gilded Age. Inside the modest, locked-down home at 92 Second Street, a house conspicuously lacking the modern amenities its owner could easily afford, a tense quiet simmered. This was the home of Andrew Jackson Borden, one of the city’s wealthiest and most notoriously frugal men. At approximately 11:10 AM, that oppressive silence was shattered by a single, frantic cry that would echo through the annals of American crime. “Maggie, come down!” shouted 32-year-old Lizzie Borden to the family’s Irish maid, Bridget Sullivan. “Come down quick; Father’s dead; somebody came in and killed him”.

Bridget, whom the family called “Maggie,” rushed downstairs to a scene of unimaginable horror. Andrew Borden lay slumped on the sitting room sofa, his face a bloody ruin, hacked almost beyond recognition by at least ten blows from a hatchet-like weapon. The room itself, however, showed no signs of a struggle; he had been attacked in his sleep. The nightmare deepened shortly thereafter when a neighbor, searching for a sheet to cover the body, went upstairs and made an even more grisly discovery. In the guest bedroom lay the body of Abby Durfee Gray Borden, Lizzie’s stepmother. She had been dead for at least an hour and a half, her 210-pound frame face down in a pool of blood, her head brutally mutilated by 18 or 19 savage blows.

At the center of this maelstrom stood Lizzie Borden: a prim, respectable, unmarried woman of 32, known throughout Fall River as a devout Sunday school teacher and a dedicated member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The immediate aftermath of the discoveries thrust her into the national spotlight, posing a question that horrified and fascinated the public in equal measure: Could this paragon of Victorian womanhood be responsible for one of the most brutal and audacious double murders the country had ever seen?.

A Fortune in a Frugal Cage: The World of the Bordens

The Borden household was a pressure cooker of resentment, social ambition, and stifling frugality, reflecting the deep-seated class and cultural anxieties of its time. The family’s internal conflicts were not merely domestic squabbles; they were a manifestation of the broader tensions gripping a rapidly industrializing America, where old Yankee Protestant families felt their status threatened by a changing social landscape. Fall River was a prosperous industrial town, but one starkly segregated between the native-born New England Yankees and the new immigrant laborers who worked in the cotton mills. Lizzie’s deep-seated frustrations were fueled by her father’s refusal to use his considerable wealth to insulate the family from a world he no longer dominated, making the murders a potential, if horrific, act of upward social mobility.

The Patriarch – A Study in Contradiction

Andrew Jackson Borden was a man of significant wealth and standing in Fall River. A descendant of an influential local family, he had built a fortune valued between $300,000 and $500,000—the equivalent of over $10 million today—through shrewd investments in textile mills, real estate, and banking. He served as a bank president and sat on the boards of several other financial institutions and businesses. His rise was a testament to his business acumen, though he was also seen as a dour, ruthless financier who had made many enemies.

Yet, Andrew was legendarily “penurious”. He chose to live in a modest house on the unfashionable Second Street, a neighborhood increasingly populated by the Catholic immigrants who worked in the city’s mills. This was a source of profound embarrassment for Lizzie, who longed to live among the city’s elite in the leafy, “silk-stocking” enclave known as “The Hill”. Most galling of all, Andrew refused to install modern conveniences like indoor plumbing or electricity, technologies that were common features in the homes of the wealthy at the time. The Borden home, a symbol of their social station, was instead a cage of outdated austerity.

The Daughters – Spinsters in Waiting

At 32 and 41, respectively, Lizzie and her older sister Emma were unmarried and lived at home, a common arrangement for women of their class but one that likely bred a unique kind of frustration. Outwardly, Lizzie was a model of Victorian propriety. She was an active member of the Central Congregational Church, taught Sunday school to the children of recent immigrants, and participated in numerous charitable organizations, including the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Christian Endeavor Society. Her civic engagement was such that at only 20, she was named to the board of the Fall River Hospital.

Emma, by contrast, was quieter and fit the stereotype of a reclusive spinster. On her deathbed, her mother had made her promise to always look after “baby Lizzie,” a role Emma seemed to have dutifully fulfilled for decades.

The Stepmother – An Unwelcome Presence

The family dynamic was further complicated by the presence of Abby Borden. Andrew married her three years after the death of his first wife, Sarah, when Lizzie was just a toddler. The relationship between Lizzie and her stepmother was, by all accounts, cold and strained. Lizzie believed Abby, the daughter of a pushcart peddler, had married her father solely for his wealth and social status. She pointedly referred to her as “Mrs. Borden” and corrected anyone who called Abby her mother, a detail police noted with interest after the murders. The family was so fractured that the sisters rarely took meals with their parents.

The Boiling Point – Money and Resentment

Tensions within the home frequently revolved around money. In 1887, Andrew transferred a rental property to Abby’s sister, which angered his daughters. In response, Lizzie and Emma demanded and received the house they had lived in before 1871, which they purchased from their father for a symbolic dollar. Just weeks before the murders, in a curious transaction, they sold this property back to him for $5,000. Another incident, symbolic of Andrew’s disregard for Lizzie’s feelings, occurred when he beheaded pigeons in the barn with a hatchet. Lizzie had recently built a roost for the birds, and their slaughter was a source of great upset.

Omens and Poisons: The Days Before the Ax Fell

The days leading up to the murders were thick with ominous signs and unsettling events. These occurrences, when viewed in sequence, suggest a clear pattern of premeditation that was either missed or deliberately ignored during the subsequent trial. The attempt to acquire poison was not an isolated act but likely the first stage of a murder plot that, upon failing, forced a pivot to a far more brutal and visceral method.

A Household Struck by Sickness

In early August, the entire Borden household—Andrew, Abby, and Bridget Sullivan—was struck by a severe and violent stomach illness, characterized by persistent vomiting. Lizzie later claimed to have felt merely queasy. Abby became so alarmed that she visited the family physician, Dr. S.W. Bowen, expressing her fear that the family had been poisoned. Andrew was not a popular man, and she worried his enemies were targeting them. Dr. Bowen, however, dismissed her concerns, attributing the sickness to poorly stored mutton that had been eaten over several days.

A Foreboding Conversation

On the evening of August 3, the night before the murders, Lizzie paid a visit to her friend, Alice Russell. During their conversation, Lizzie spoke with a sense of dread, telling Russell she felt “that something is hanging over me”. She expressed fears that an unknown enemy of her father’s might try to harm him or burn the house down, citing his “discourteous” nature as a reason for his unpopularity. This conversation can be interpreted as a calculated attempt to plant the idea of an external threat, a classic misdirection tactic to deflect future suspicion.

The Attempt to Buy Prussic Acid

The most damning event occurred earlier that same day. Lizzie Borden was positively identified by Eli Bence, a clerk at Smith’s drug store, as having attempted to purchase ten cents’ worth of prussic acid, also known as hydrogen cyanide, a fast-acting and deadly poison. She claimed she needed the substance to clean a sealskin cape. Bence, finding the request suspicious, refused to sell it to her without a prescription. This incident, linking Lizzie directly to an attempt to acquire poison just 24 hours before her parents were murdered with an entirely different weapon, strongly suggests a calculated plan. When Plan A (poison) failed, both because the family only became ill and because she could not obtain more, the killer was forced to resort to Plan B: the hatchet. The court’s later decision to exclude this testimony from the trial was a critical blow to the prosecution’s ability to establish premeditation.

An Hour and a Half of Hell: Reconstructing the Murders

The events of August 4, 1892, unfolded with a chilling and methodical timeline that makes the theory of an outside intruder seem almost impossible. The ninety-minute gap between the two murders points overwhelmingly to a killer who was comfortable and familiar with the house, its occupants, and their routines—an insider.

The day began around 7:00 AM with a normal breakfast for Andrew, Abby, and John Morse, Andrew’s brother-in-law who had stayed the night. After the meal, Morse established his alibi by leaving the house at approximately 8:48 AM to visit other relatives, with plans to return for lunch. Andrew departed for his morning business rounds shortly after 9:00 AM, leaving only Lizzie, Abby, and the maid, Bridget Sullivan, in the locked house.

Sometime around 9:30 AM, Abby went upstairs to the second-floor guest room to make the bed. At the same time, Bridget went outside into the yard to begin the hour-long task of washing the ground-floor windows. It was during this window, between 9:30 and 10:30 AM, that Abby was ambushed and brutally murdered. The forensic investigation concluded she was first struck on the side of the head, causing her to fall face-down, before her killer delivered another 17 blows to the back of her head.

For the next hour and a half, Abby Borden’s body lay undiscovered while her killer remained inside the house. Around 10:30 AM, Bridget finished her outdoor chores and came inside, locking the screen door behind her. Minutes later, Andrew Borden returned home. Finding the door locked, he knocked for entry. As Bridget fumbled with the jammed lock, she testified that she heard a “muted laugh” or “giggle” from the top of the stairs, which she assumed was Lizzie. This is one of the most damning pieces of testimony in the entire case; at that moment, Abby’s corpse was lying just feet away, and her body would have been visible to anyone standing on the second-floor landing.

Lizzie then came downstairs and, around 10:40 AM, spoke with her father. She told him that Abby had received a note summoning her to visit a sick friend and had left the house. This note was never found, and no messenger was ever identified. After their brief conversation, around 10:55 AM, Andrew lay down on the sitting room sofa for a nap, and Bridget, her chores complete, went up to her small room in the third-floor attic to rest. Within minutes, at approximately 11:10 AM, the killer struck again. Andrew was attacked as he slept, receiving 10 or 11 savage blows to his head that left his face unrecognizable and split one of his eyes in two. The attack was so recent that when he was discovered, his wounds were still flowing with fresh blood. It was then that Lizzie cried out to Bridget, setting in motion the discovery of the horrific scene.

The Investigation: A Web of Lies and a Burning Dress

The investigation into the Borden murders was a study in contradictions, hampered from the outset by police ineptitude and the powerful social codes of the Victorian era. The deference shown to Lizzie as an upper-class woman directly impeded a proper search for evidence, creating the very “reasonable doubt” that would later secure her freedom. Her social status acted as an effective shield, deflecting scrutiny at critical moments when a more rigorous investigation might have uncovered damning proof.

Lizzie’s Demeanor and Alibi

Witnesses who arrived at the chaotic scene were struck by Lizzie’s remarkable, almost unnerving, composure. While neighbors and friends were distraught, Lizzie remained calm, did not shed a tear, and her hands were steady. This self-control was seen by many as unnatural for a grieving daughter in an era when women were expected to swoon or become hysterical in the face of tragedy.

Her alibi for the time of her father’s murder was immediately suspect. She claimed to have been in the barn loft for 15 to 20 minutes, searching for lead sinkers for a future fishing trip. Police investigators found this highly improbable. The loft was stiflingly hot on the August day, and a search of the area revealed no footprints in the thick layer of dust on the floor, indicating no one had been up there recently. Furthermore, her story shifted under questioning; at various times she claimed to be in the backyard, eating pears in the loft, or looking for the sinkers.

The Crime Scene and Police Incompetence

The investigation was compromised from the very beginning. Most of the Fall River police force was attending their annual picnic, leaving a single officer to respond to the initial call. The house was soon overrun by dozens of officers, doctors, neighbors, and curiosity-seekers, who trooped in and out, contaminating what should have been a sealed crime scene. While this was only the second time in history that crime scene photographs were taken (the first being for the Jack the Ripper case), the handling of physical evidence was haphazard.

Critically, police performed only a cursory search of Lizzie’s bedroom. They later admitted at trial that they did not conduct a proper search because Lizzie was “not feeling well,” a shocking dereliction of duty born of deference to her gender and social class.

The Evidence (or Lack Thereof)

In the cellar, police found two axes and a hatchet-head with a handle that appeared to be freshly broken. This hatchet-head was considered the likely murder weapon, particularly because the ash and dust on it seemed to have been deliberately applied to make it look as if it had been stored for a long time. However, the case for this weapon was severely weakened when a Harvard University chemist testified at trial that his analysis found no traces of blood on it or any of the other tools recovered from the house.

During the search, Lizzie herself pointed out a pail of bloody rags in the cellar, calmly explaining that they were from her menstrual cycle. In the deeply repressed Victorian era, this explanation was enough to halt any further inquiry from the male officers, who, due to social taboos, did not inspect the rags or question her further.

The Burning Dress

Perhaps the most incriminating act occurred three days after the murders. On Sunday, August 7, Alice Russell was visiting the Borden home when she witnessed Lizzie systematically tearing up a blue corduroy dress and burning the pieces in the kitchen stove. When questioned, Lizzie claimed the dress was old and had been ruined by a paint stain. This act of destroying potential evidence, witnessed by a close friend, became a cornerstone of the prosecution’s circumstantial case against her.

The Trial of a Victorian Woman

Lizzie Borden was arrested on August 11, 1892, and her trial began in the New Bedford courthouse in June 1893. It was an immediate national sensation, a forerunner of the modern media-circus trials that would later captivate the public. Newspapers across the country dispatched reporters, and the press in Fall River itself became deeply divided, with working-class Irish papers assailing Lizzie’s guilt and the “house organ” of the city’s elite defending her innocence. The trial was not merely about murder; it was a battle of narratives fought in the court of public opinion.

The Prosecution’s Case (Hosea Knowlton & William Moody)

The prosecution, led by District Attorney Hosea Knowlton and future Supreme Court Justice William H. Moody, faced an uphill battle. Their entire case was built on a web of circumstantial evidence; they had no direct proof, no confession, and no murder weapon definitively linked to the crime. They argued that Lizzie was the only person with both the motive—a deep-seated hatred for her stepmother and a desire to inherit her father’s fortune—and the opportunity to commit both murders. They presented her inconsistent alibi, her strange and calm demeanor, the attempt to buy poison, and the damning act of burning the dress as proof of a guilty conscience. The prosecution pointed to her unnatural lack of emotion as a sign of guilt, contrasting it with the expected hysteria of a grieving daughter. They also had to contend with the baffling question of how the killer avoided being spattered with blood, suggesting Lizzie possessed a unique “cunning and deftness” to commit the crime and remain clean. In a moment of high drama, the prosecutors presented the actual skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden as evidence, causing Lizzie to faint in the courtroom.

The Defense’s Strategy (Andrew Jennings & George Robinson)

Lizzie’s defense team, which included former Massachusetts Governor George D. Robinson, was brilliant. They systematically dismantled the prosecution’s case by highlighting the lack of physical evidence and the fact that no bloody clothes were ever found, arguing this was definitive proof of her innocence. To counter the prosecution’s claim of opportunity, they suggested an unknown intruder could have hidden in the house or entered through an unlocked door. Their primary strategy, however, was to appeal to the jury’s Victorian sensibilities. They portrayed Lizzie not as a potential killer, but as the very ideal of a gentle, pious, Christian woman who was physically and morally incapable of such a monstrous act. Her calm demeanor, which the prosecution painted as guilt, was reframed by the defense as a sign of strong character, nerve, and self-control. Robinson’s closing argument perfectly captured this strategy when he asked the all-male jury, “To find her guilty, you must believe she is a fiend. Does she look it?”.

The defense team successfully explained away Lizzie’s confused testimony at the inquest by arguing it was the side effect of morphine prescribed by her doctor to calm her nerves. They also neutralized the story of the burning dress by having Emma Borden testify that the dress was indeed old and stained with paint, making its destruction seem reasonable.

The Acquittal

The defense was aided by key judicial rulings. The judge deemed the evidence of Lizzie’s attempt to buy prussic acid inadmissible, ruling it was too remote in time to be connected to the murders. Furthermore, the judge’s final instructions to the jury were overwhelmingly favorable to the defense, dismissing Lizzie’s inconsistent statements as normal under the circumstances and reminding them that a “strong probability of guilt” was not enough to convict. On June 20, 1893, after deliberating for just over an hour, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all counts. Upon hearing the verdict, Lizzie sank into her chair and later told reporters she was “the happiest woman in the world”.

The Prisoner of Maplecroft: A Life Sentence of Suspicion

Lizzie Borden won her freedom in a court of law, but she lost her life in the court of public opinion. Her acquittal was not a restoration of her former existence but the beginning of a new, gilded imprisonment. She achieved the wealth and social status she had seemingly killed for, only to discover it was a hollow victory. The very act that gave her the financial means to live as she pleased also erected impenetrable social walls around her, condemning her to a life sentence of suspicion and isolation in the very mansion that was meant to be her prize.

A New Life of Wealth

Immediately following the trial, Lizzie and Emma inherited their father’s substantial estate. They left the grim house on Second Street and purchased a large, elegant Queen Anne-style mansion in the fashionable “Hill” district that Lizzie had always coveted. She named the house “Maplecroft” and began insisting that people call her “Lizbeth,” in an attempt to shed her infamous past. The sisters lived a lavish life, employing a large staff and enjoying all the modern conveniences their father had denied them.

Social Ostracism

Despite her legal innocence and newfound wealth, Fall River society turned its back on her completely. Former friends abandoned her, and when she attended the Central Congregational Church, fellow congregants refused to sit near her, leaving her isolated in a sea of empty pews. She eventually stopped attending. Maplecroft became a target for local children, who would throw eggs and gravel at the house and ring the doorbell as a prank. Lizzie became a recluse, rarely leaving her home and, when she did, traveling in a carriage with the shades drawn. Her isolation was compounded in 1897 when she was accused, though never charged, of shoplifting in Rhode Island.

The Final Break with Emma

Lizzie found solace in the theater and developed a close, intense friendship with an actress named Nance O’Neil. The relationship was the subject of much gossip, with many speculating it was romantic. In 1905, Lizzie threw a lavish party at Maplecroft for O’Neil and her theater company. For Emma, who had stood by her sister through the trial and initial ostracism, this was the final straw. She abruptly moved out of the house and never spoke to Lizzie again. When asked by a newspaper why she left, Emma would only say that “conditions became absolutely unbearable”.

Final Years and Death

Lizzie Borden lived the remaining 22 years of her life as a wealthy but profoundly lonely figure inside the walls of Maplecroft. After a year of illness, she died from complications of pneumonia on June 1, 1927, at the age of 66. In a final, strange twist, her estranged sister Emma died just nine days later. Lizzie was buried in the Borden family plot in Oak Grove Cemetery, her grave marked with her chosen name, “Lisbeth Andrews Borden”.

Conclusion: The Enduring Mystery of Lizzie Borden

Though Lizzie Borden was acquitted, she has remained the prime suspect for over a century. The sheer improbability of an outside intruder committing both murders ninety minutes apart, coupled with her motive, means, and suspicious behavior, creates a compelling case for her guilt. Nevertheless, the lack of a murder weapon or bloody clothes has allowed other theories to persist.

Alternative Suspects

While most evidence points to Lizzie, speculation has occasionally turned to others who were present or had a connection to the family.

• Bridget Sullivan: As the only other person known to be in the house, the family maid has been considered a suspect or an accomplice. Skeptics question how she could have been resting in the attic and heard nothing of the brutal attack on Andrew Borden on the first floor. A persistent rumor suggests Lizzie paid her to leave the country after the trial.
• John Morse: Lizzie’s maternal uncle had an alibi, as he was visiting other relatives at the time of the murders. However, his visit was suspiciously timed, and some have theorized he may have conspired with Lizzie in the plot.
• An Unknown Intruder: The defense successfully planted the idea of a mysterious killer. Several witnesses reported seeing a strange man near the property, and a farmer later told police he encountered a man with a bloody hatchet in the woods miles from town. This “Wild Man” theory, though unsubstantiated, helped create the necessary reasonable doubt for the jury.
• Emma Borden: Though she was 15 miles away on vacation, some theories suggest Emma could have secretly returned to commit the murders, perhaps out of the same resentments that motivated Lizzie, who then covered for her sister.

The Legacy in Popular Culture

The Lizzie Borden case marks a pivotal moment in the intersection of American crime, media, and gender politics. Its legacy endures not because the crime was unsolved, but because it transformed into a cultural text onto which society projects its anxieties about female agency, class resentment, and the fallibility of justice. The trial was one of the first to be sensationalized by the national media, setting a template for public consumption of true crime that continues to this day.

The story’s notoriety was cemented by the macabre children’s skipping-rope rhyme that emerged soon after: “Lizzie Borden took an axe / And gave her mother forty whacks / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father forty-one”. Though factually inaccurate in almost every detail—it was her stepmother, with a hatchet, and with far fewer blows—the rhyme’s gruesome simplicity ensured the story’s immortality.

The saga has been endlessly reinterpreted in books, a ballet (Fall River Legend), an opera, and numerous films and television shows. The latest is Netflix’s true-crime anthology series Monster, which will devote its fourth season to the case. The murder house itself has been commercialized into a tourist attraction and a notoriously “haunted” bed and breakfast, where morbidly curious guests can sleep in the very rooms where Andrew and Abby Borden were slaughtered.

Ultimately, the question of whether Lizzie Borden did it has become secondary to what her story represents. It is a foundational American myth—a dark fairy tale of Victorian repression, familial strife, and the terrifying violence that can erupt from behind a respectable facade. The schism between the legal verdict and the verdict of public opinion has left a permanent space for doubt and fascination, ensuring that the ghost of Lizzie Borden, and the unanswered questions of that hot August morning, will continue to haunt the American imagination.