Episode 19: Lizzie Borden
“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 infamous story of Lizzie Borden is summarized with this simple, yet dark rhyme that most people can probably recite. Interestingly enough, this little poem cannot be further from the truth.
In Fall River, Massachusetts, the Borden home was occupied by 32-year-old Lizzie Borden, her older sister Emma, her father Andrew and his wife Abby, and their maid, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan. The Borden’s were extremely well-off for their time, and lived a comfortable yet frugal life. It was known that Emma and Lizzie were never truly fond of their step-mother, but the family lived in civility anyways. On this particular morning, a lot of people would question how civil that home life really was.
The morning of August 4th, 1892 started off like any other- breakfast and chores. A houseguest, John Morse, was staying at the Borden home, and he had left to purchase a pair of oxen from town. Andrew Borden left to take his daily morning walk, leaving just Lizzie, Abby and Maggie home, as Emma was out of town. It was around 9am when Abby retreated upstairs to spruce up the guest room. Unfortunately, this is where she met her demise: Abby was struck 18 times over the head and face with a hatchet (as opposed to the 40 whacks with an axe in the rhyme) and left bleeding on the floor next to the bed.
It was around 10:30am when Andrew Borden returned home, and unknowingly to him or anyone else in the household, Abby lay dead just a few feet away. Usually after his morning walks, Andrew enjoyed a good nap, and so his loving daughter Lizzie set him up on the couch to get in a quick snooze. Not half an hour later, Andrew was found dead by Lizzie, his blood still warm and dripping. He had been struck 11 times in the face and head with a hatchet, just like Abby had been (again, as opposed to the axe and the 41 times as the rhyme suggests).
The news of the deaths of the Borden family quickly became the talk of town, and the question of whodunnit weighed heavily on the minds of the townspeople. Almost synonymously, they decided that Lizzie herself was the perpetrator and soon thereafter, she was arrested with some fairly damning evidence to back up the claim. Although the rhyme tells us that Lizzie did the crime, she was ultimately found not guilty of the heinous and brutal murders of her father and step-mother, and the case remains cold to this day.
Image sources:
wikipedia.com - “Lizzie Borden”