﻿“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father 41.” I’m sure many of you remember hearing this rhyme during your childhood,
or maybe even singing it yourself, but did you know it was based on a real event?
Today we’re taking a look into the life of Lizzie Borden, a woman suspected of brutally murdering
her father and step-mother with a hatchet, however there was never enough evidence to fully prove
either her guilt or her innocence, either dooming a poor woman to an undeserved life of harassment,
or allowing a cold-blooded axe murderer to roam around free.
Lizzie Borden’s father Andrew Borden came from a family full of old money, however his parents
weren’t smart with money themselves. This led Andrew to value modest spending regardless of
wealth, a trait that he carried with him for the rest of his life, and a trait that very
well may have led to his later death. He worked as the manager of a bank, and eventually found great
prosperity in a multitude of side businesses which include the make and sale of furniture, caskets,
textiles, and property development. Andrew would end up with a fortune of $300,000, which
with inflation is about the modern equivalent of $9,000,000 in 2020. He ended up marrying a woman
named Sarah Anthony Morse and had three daughters, with Emma Borden being the oldest, Lizzie Borden
being the youngest, and their middle child Alice who ended up passing as a baby. Emma was older
than Lizzie by about ten years, meaning that she remembered the gravity when their middle sister
had died, and when their Mother became deathly a short while after Lizzie was born, Emma knew how
serious the situation was. When it became obvious that Sarah was not going to make a recovery,
Emma swore to herself and her mother that she would take care of her youngest sister, who was
only three years old at the time. Three years after Sarah’s death, Andrew married again, this
time to a woman named Abby Durfee, much to the chagrin of both Emma and Lizzie. Emma had a very
tumultuous relationship with her step-mother and outright refused to call Abby mother. Lizzie also
had a rough relationship with Abby, because as far as Lizzie was concerned, Emma filled the role
of mother. During her later murder trial, Lizzie would repeatedly state that she dearly loved her
dad and was close to him, however he didn’t have particularly close relationships with either of
his children as he was often busy at the bank or one of his many lucrative side businesses.
Andrew was also somewhat resented by the sisters for the state they lived in. While their house
certainly wasn’t bad by any means, it did not have indoor plumbing or electricity despite the
fact that that was relatively affordable for the time. It also didn’t help that the other members
of the extended Borden family were living rich and lively lives in an affluent area of town known as
The Hill. Emma and Lizzie were forced to stand back and watch as their cousins were given every
luxury money could afford, went out to parties and theater, and had a plethora of friends.
School wasn;t the escape from their father’s house that the girl’s hoped it would be. For Lizzie in
particular, teachers noted that she was very aloof and lonesome, however she would have incredibly
tense and dramatic mood swings that we have since learned is common in children who lose a parent
at a young age. Lizzie didn’t really have friends at school, or outside of school for that matter,
with the exception of a neighbor girl named Alice Russell with whom she was incredibly close. With
little else to do to entertain herself, Lizzie began to dedicate herself to religion and charity,
earning a reputation around town for being unbelievably generous and kind hearted, as well
as a devout and dedicated Sunday School teacher. The older the girls got, the more strained their
relationship with their father and step-mother began. While she had never been in the girls’
good graces to begin with, Lizzie began to suspect that her step-mother was just using
her father for his money. This really came to a head when Andrew bought a house and gave it
to Abby’s half-sister free of charge, which was a much more generous gift than he had
ever given either of his two girls, causing them to be enraged at their father’s actions.
Seeing the rift this was causing, Andrew tried to make it up to the girls by giving them the deed to
his childhood home, however at the time women weren’t allowed to live alone without a man,
so the deed was basically worthless and the girls sold it back to him for $5,000.
While they saw that their father had made some sort of effort, however, the damage to their
relationships had already been done. By 1892 Lizzie and Emma were 32 and 42
respectively, and both unmarried. This made them “spinsters”, and were considered by society to
be too old to ever marry, leaving them to a life of being trapped in their father’s house.
By this point it must have been dawning on the girls that if anything happened to their father,
which was becoming more and more likely given his advanced age, his entire fortune would go to Abby,
leaving both girls in an even worse state then they were currently in. The two had to find a
way out of their father’s house, and fast. Lizzie would continue to occupy her time by
devoting herself to the care of animals, and even had a small family of pigeons
on their property that she was raising and was incredibly fond of. In June of 1892 her father
purchased a hatchet and killed all of Lizzie’s pigeons in order to save some money on meat,
breaking Lizzie’s heart in the process. On August 2nd, 1892, the entire Borden family
reported feeling sick, and Abby even went to her local doctor to see if she had been poisoned,
however he assured her it was likely that the whole family had just eaten some rotten meat.
It is worth noting however that if Abby’s first concern was that she had been poisoned,
it’s likely something or someone had given her the idea that someone was coming after her life.
The next day Lizzie and Emma’s Uncle, John Morse, the brother of their birth mother,
came to stop by and stay for the night, and for whatever reason that night Lizzie would
end up running to tell Alice that she was fearful something awful was about to happen to her family.
Tragically, her fears were not unfounded. According to their John,
he woke up at 6AM the next day and ate breakfast with Andrew and Abby at around 7AM before taking
off at 8:30AM. Emma was out of town at this point and Lizzie said she was still feeling ill
and decided to stay in bed without greeting anyone in the family. Andrew left for work at 9:00AM,
but ended up feeling ill himself and returned home later to take a nap, however when he came home the
front door was locked from the inside and he had to be let in by their maid. At some point after
Andrew left but before he returned from work, Abby retired upstairs to their bedroom and the
maid went to take a nap in her attic bedroom as she had also been nauseous and vomiting all day.
When Andrew laid down to take a nap on the couch, Lizzie allegedly went into the barn to search for
some lures for an upcoming fishing trip. It was during this ten or fifteen minute period that
disaster struck. Someone snuck in and massacred a sleeping Andrew Borden, completely decimating his
head with 11 axe blows to the face. Lizzie then returned to the living room at around 11:10 AM
only to find her Father’s dead body, which caused her to scream out to the maid “Maggie, come quick!
Father’s dead. Somebody came in and killed him.” Andrew Borden had still been sleeping when his
attacker struck, evidenced by the way one of his eyeballs had been cut clean in half,
indicating he didn’t put up a struggle. His wounds were still fresh and bleeding, and the family
doctor who arrived at the scene suggested this must mean the attacks had happened very recently.
The police arrived and searched the house where they found the body of Abby Borden.
She had been in one of the guest rooms, and had been facing her killer at the time of the attack
before she was hit just above the ear with a hatchet, causing her to fall to the ground.
The attacker then stayed and hit the woman 17 more times in the back of the head, ensuring
that she was dead. Based on the appearance of Abby’s wounds, she had to have been killed
before her husband, likely around an hour or so earlier between 9:30 AM and 10:00 AM. The police
took Lizzie in for questioning where they stated she couldn’t keep her story straight, frequently
changing her answer to the same question, however she had been given morphine before
every interview they had with her and was likely struggling to focus on her surroundings.
Lizzie was arrested for the death of her parents on August 11th, but her trial would not occur
until June 5th of the following year. At the trial it was pointed out she suspiciously burned a dress
not long after the murders, however Lizzie claimed this was because she had rubbed up against wet
paint. The prosecution also had a witness testify that Lizzie had tried to buy hydrochloric acid
the day before the murders, however not only did this have nothing to do with the case because no
one was burned or poisoned, but Lizzie told them she was planning on using it to clean a coat.
There was no definitive evidence proving her innocence or her guilt, and after only an hour
and a half of deliberation the jury found her not guilty, with many of the men on the jury
stating they couldn’t see such a charitable woman and Sunday school teacher being a cold blooded axe
murderer. Despite being acquitted for the murders, Lizzie was still treated like an outcast by the
rest of the town, and when she and her sister used their inheritance to buy a mansion in The Hills,
it was frequently egged and a target for children to come by and taunt. Lizzie ended
up getting really into the local theater and had an infatuation with a local actress named Nance
O’Neill, with whom many historians believed she was likely having a lesbian affair with.
After a party Lizzie had thrown for Nance, she and Emma got into a fight that led to Emma moving out,
leaving Lizzie to spend the last of her days alone in her mansion. Lizzie Borden died on June 1st,
1927 of pneumonia, and was buried next to her sister who died nine days later. It’s
likely that we’ll never truly know whether or not Lizzie was the person who killed her parents, but
let us know down in the comments what you think about the case, and who you think is responsible
for the crime. If you enjoyed the video then smash that like button and hit the subscribe
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