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Sept. 14, 2026

Terrifying & True | Lizzie Borden: The Axe Murders, Trial and Unsolved Mystery

Terrifying & True | Lizzie Borden: The Axe Murders, Trial and Unsolved Mystery
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Terrifying & True

Key Takeaways

  • On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered hours apart inside their locked Fall River, Massachusetts home.
  • Despite falling under immediate suspicion for the axe murders, Lizzie Borden was tried and ultimately acquitted of the crimes in 1893.
  • Investigators struggled with a lack of conclusive forensic evidence, including no eyewitnesses, no definitively identified murder weapon, and no bloodstained clothing linking Lizzie to the attacks.
  • The case remains one of America's most enduring true crime mysteries, permanently cemented into folklore by the famous nursery rhyme.
  • Renewed public interest in the historical record continues to question whether Lizzie Borden committed the murders, escaped conviction due to reasonable doubt, or was an innocent bystander to an unsolved crime.

Lizzie Borden, the 1892 Fall River axe murders, and the trial that became one of America's greatest unsolved mysteries.

With Netflix's Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story bringing renewed attention to the case, Terrifying & True returns to Fall River, Massachusetts, and the locked Borden home at 92 Second Street.

On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were killed hours apart inside the house. Suspicion fell on Andrew's daughter Lizzie, yet investigators found no eyewitness, no conclusively identified murder weapon, and no bloodstained clothing tying her to the attacks. Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted in 1893.

This historical true crime documentary reconstructs the murder timeline, disputed barn alibi, missing note, prussic acid allegation, burned dress, handleless hatchet, trial testimony, acquittal, and the nursery rhyme that turned a complicated case into American folklore.

Inside this episode:

  • The Fall River axe murders of Andrew and Abby Borden
  • The evidence against Lizzie Borden and the weaknesses in the case
  • The 1893 Lizzie Borden trial, acquittal, and major alternate theories
  • What Netflix's Monster dramatizes - and what the historical record supports
  • Did Lizzie Borden commit the murders, escape conviction because of reasonable doubt, or become the permanent face of a crime someone else committed?

We're telling that story tonight.

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🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Frequently Asked Questions

When did the Lizzie Borden murders happen?

The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden took place on August 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Was Lizzie Borden convicted of the murders?

No, Lizzie Borden was tried in 1893 and acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother.

What weapon was used in the Lizzie Borden case?

While the exact murder weapon was never conclusively identified, a handleless hatchet found in the basement became known as the alleged weapon, though no blood was found on it.

WEBVTT

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In Fall River, Massachusetts, Abby Borden lies murdered upstairs while

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her husband returns home and rests on the sofa below.

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Minutes later, Andrew Borden is dead too. No stranger is seen,

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no weapon is proven, and the only person ever tried

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walks free. So, who was inside the Borden's home?

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What you are about to hear is believed to be real.

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Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record, this is

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Terrifying and True.

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August 4th. 1892, Fall River, Massachusetts. The city hall bell

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has just struck 11 when Bridget Sullivan hears Lizzie Borden

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calling from below. Maggie, come quick! Bridget has been lying

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fully dressed in her attic room, trying to escape a

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pounding headache and the heat. She runs downstairs. Lizzie is

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waiting near the back door. but she stops Bridget before

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she can enter the sitting room. Andrew Borden is on

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the sofa. He had returned from his morning walk only

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a short time earlier, carrying a small parcel. Now, he's dead,

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killed so violently that there can be no mistake about

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what happened. Someone entered his ordinary house in the middle

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of a busy city, approached a resting man and struck

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him again and again. Or perhaps the killer was already inside.

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The front door had been locked three different ways. Bridget

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had spent much of the morning washing windows around the

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house and said she saw no stranger arrive. Lizzie said

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she had been in the barn. Emma Borden was away

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Abby Borden, Andrew's wife, was supposedly out visiting a sick friend.

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Then a neighbor climbs the stairs. From the landing, she

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can see beneath the bed in the guest room. A

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woman lies face down on the floor. Abby never left

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the house. Her body is cold. Andrew's is still warm.

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The same home has held two murder scenes for more

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than an hour, and during that interval, people have moved

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through its rooms without realizing that one of the dead

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was already upstairs. There's no obvious intruder, no clear escape,

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no conclusive weapon, and the only person tried for the

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crime will walk free. More than a century later, the

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house still seems to ask the same question. Who was

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inside with the Bordens? Fall River in 1892 was a

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city built on cotton, steam, and sharp divisions. Mill whistles

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governed the working day. Immigrant laborers crowded into neighborhoods near

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the factories, where the city's established Yankee families measured one

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another by church, ancestry, property, and address. Wealth climbed uphill.

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The broad streets and larger homes of the fashionable district

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known simply as The Hill looked down toward the mills,

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the river, and the dense commercial center below. Andrew Jackson

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Borden had enough money to live there. He had invested

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in real estate, banks, and mills, building a fortune through

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the same qualities that made him difficult to romanticize. Caution, discipline,

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and an almost aggressive dislike of waste. Yet, he remained

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at 92 2nd Street, only a block from the business district,

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in a narrow house that did not advertise what he owned.

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That decision mattered very much to his daughters. Emma Borden

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was 41. Lizzie was 32. Neither had married and both

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still lived under their father's roof. Their birth mother, Sarah,

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had died when Lizzie was a small child. Andrew later

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married Abby Durfee Gray, who had spent nearly 27 years

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as their stepmother by the summer of 1892. Abby was

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64 by then. She had kept the household, maintained family ties,

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and lived with the Borden daughters for most of Lizzie's

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remembered life. Popular retellings flatten the household into simply a miser,

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a hated second wife, and two trapped daughters waiting for

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an inheritance. The record is much less tidy. Bridget Sullivan,

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the family's only live-in servant, testified that she had not

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witnessed open warfare. Meals were shared. Ordinary conversation continued. Emma

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later insisted that relations were cordial, but cordial is not

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the same as close. At some point, both daughters stopped

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calling Abby mother. Lizzie corrected people who used the word.

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She was Mrs. Borden. Money had sharpened the distance. Several

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years before the murders, Andrew bought an interest in a

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house for Abby's family. Emma admitted at the trial that

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the transaction caused trouble between Andrew, Abby, and the daughters.

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Andrew later gave Emma and Lizzie their grandfather's Ferry Street property,

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then bought it back from them shortly before the murders

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for $ 5, 000. No surviving record proves that inheritance was a

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murder motive. Andrew apparently left no will that anyone could produce,

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and his daughters were his natural heirs. Still, property had

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become the language through which this family expressed fairness, loyalty,

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and resentment. In a house where feelings were rarely announced,

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deeds and keys could say plenty, and there were keys everywhere.

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The Second Street house had originally been built for two

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families— The Bordens occupied the whole building, but its divided

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design remained. Rooms connected in awkward sequences. Bedrooms could be

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reached by one staircase, but blocked from another. Andrew and

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Abby kept their bedroom locked. Lizzie's room opened into Emma's.

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Bridget slept alone on the third floor. The exterior doors

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were guarded by Bolts, spring locks, hooks, and keys. Bridget

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testified that the back door had two spring locks and

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a bolt. The front door could be secured three different ways.

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Some of this caution followed a daytime theft from the

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house in 1891 when cash and jewelry disappeared while family

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members were home. The result was a strange domestic fortress. crowded, compartmentalized,

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and full of people who could remain physically close while

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living in separate worlds. Bridget Sullivan had entered that world

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in 1889. She was an Irish immigrant, 26 years old

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at the time of the trial, and responsible for cooking, washing, ironing, sweeping,

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and much of the heavy work that kept the household running.

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Emma and Lizzie called her Maggie, though her name was Bridget.

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On Wednesday, August 3rd, Bridget had reason to think something

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was wrong, but not necessarily of the criminal variety. Andrew

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and Abby were suffering from stomach trouble. Abby consulted Dr.

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Seabury Bowen, the physician across the street, telling him she

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feared they might have been poisoned. Bowen found no convincing

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signs of poison and suspected simply spoiled food. Later testing

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found nothing of concern in the victim's stomach or in

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the household milk. That evening, John Minicum Morse arrived to

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stay overnight. Morse was the brother of Lizzie and Emma's

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late mother. His visit would later feed suspicion because... Any

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unexpected guest near an unsolved murder will of course attract theories.

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But Morse had visited before, and the available evidence places

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him away from the house during the killings. Lizzie spent

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part of that evening with her friend, Alice Russell. According

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to Russell's trial testimony, Lizzie spoke of an upcoming trip,

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but said she felt depressed. Something she believed was hanging

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over her. She talked about the household illness, her father's

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habit of dealing harshly with people, and her fear that

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someone might hurt him or burn the house down. Those

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words can sound like prophecy after the fact. They can

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also sound like anxiety in a family that had been sick, robbed,

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and increasingly suspicious of outsiders. The distinction is very important.

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Russell remembered a foreboding conversation, but did not hear a confession.

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Morning arrived without resolution. Nothing in the quiet house announced

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that morning had become a macabre countdown. Bridget came downstairs

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shortly after six with a dull headache. She lit the stove,

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brought in the milk, and prepared breakfast. Abby appeared first

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and gave instructions. Andrew came down soon after. John Morse

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joined them. Lizzie did not. The meal was simple and,

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in hindsight, infamous. Mutton broth, mutton, Johnny Cakes, coffee, and

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cookies included. It is often blamed for the household illness,

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but the exact cause was never established. Andrew, Abby, and

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Morse ate together. Lizzie came down later for coffee and cookies.

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It appeared like another ordinary Thursday. Morse left around nine

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to visit relatives across town. Andrew prepared for his usual

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morning round of business. Bridget began clearing the dining room.

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Abby told her to wash the windows. Bridget later said

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she last saw Mrs. Borden at about nine o'clock. Abby

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was dusting downstairs. Other testimony placed her next in the

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guest room, where she was straightening the bed Morse had used.

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The room sat at the front of the second floor.

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separated from the rest of the family's private bedrooms by

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the peculiar architecture of the house. Lizzie's whereabouts during the

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next stretch of time were never established with certainty. Bridget

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took her pail and brush outside. She moved around the building,

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talking briefly across a fence and returning repeatedly to the

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barn for water. She saw Lizzie near the back entry,

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She did not see a stranger come to the house.

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But Bridget also admitted that a careful person could pass

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through the screen door without making enough noise to attract

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her attention. That narrow possibility would become the opening through

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which every intruder theory had to squeeze. Inside, Abby entered

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the guest room. She began the small, ordinary work of

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straightening a bed used by a family visitor. Before Andrew

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returned home, another person was in that room. And the

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House of Locks failed to keep the danger out. No

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witnesses saw Abby Borden attacked. The physical evidence showed that

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the first blow came from behind, near the junction of

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her neck and back. She turned or fell. The remaining

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injuries were concentrated on her head as she lay face

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down between the bed and the dressing case. That's as

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far as the record can take us. There is no

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reliable account of a struggle or documented cry heard by

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a neighbor in and no proof of what Abby saw

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before the attack began. The room itself suggested interruption. Pillow

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shams had been placed on the bed. Ordinary housework had

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stopped in the middle of an ordinary morning. The autopsy

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recorded 19 cutting injuries, one at the back of the

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neck and 18 to the head. It's terrible enough without

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the rhyme about adding 40 whacks. Medical witnesses later believed

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Abby died well before Andrew. Their estimates varied, but the

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condition of the bodies, the blood, and digestion all pointed

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toward a gap of roughly an hour to an hour

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and a half. For most of that interval, Abby remained upstairs, undiscovered.

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Andrew Borden, meanwhile, was walking through Fall River, His movements

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were witnessed at banks, businesses, and shops. He conducted errands,

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spoke with acquaintances, and headed home sometime before 11. Nothing

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in that public routine suggested he knew his wife was

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dead or believed anyone in his household was in danger.

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When he reached 92 2nd Street, his key would not

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open the front door. Bridget was inside, washing the windows.

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She heard him trying the lock and went to help.

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The door was held by a spring lock, a bolt,

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and a key lock. As she struggled with them, she

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muttered and irritated, Then Bridget heard Lizzie laugh from above.

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That moment has been argued over for more than a century.

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Bridget placed Lizzie either near the top of the stairs

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or in the upstairs entry. The guest room containing Abby's

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body was also on the second floor, but the house's

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divided plan prevented a simple conclusion about what Lizzie could

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see from where Bridget had heard her. It was suspicious.

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It was not, however, an eyewitness account of murder. Andrew

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entered carrying a small parcel. Lizzie came downstairs and asked

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whether he had brought in any mail. Then, according to Bridget,

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Lizzie told him Abby had received a note summoning her

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to visit someone who was ill. No messenger was identified.

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No sick friend came forward. No note was ever found.

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The note solved an immediate problem for anyone who wanted

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Abby's absence to seem normal. It told Andrew not to

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go looking for his wife. It told Bridget that Mrs.

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Borden was away. Later, when Andrew was found dead and

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Abby could not be located, it delayed the realization that

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the house contained another victim. But the source of the

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story was Lizzie. Andrew went upstairs briefly, then returned to

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the sitting room. He removed his outer coat and settled

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on the sofa. It was a short horsehair lounge, not

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quite long enough for him to stretch out comfortably. His

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head rested near the parlor doorway. Daylight entered through the

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freshly washed windows. Bridget continued working. Lizzie brought an ironing

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board into the dining room. She asked whether Bridget planned

208
00:18:59.880 --> 00:19:04.170
to go out that afternoon. She mentioned a sale on

209
00:19:04.509 --> 00:19:13.910
dress goods. The conversation was domestic, casual, and almost strangely ordinary.

210
00:19:14.910 --> 00:19:19.299
Bridget felt sick. The headache she had carried since waking

211
00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:24.980
had worsened, and she had already vomited outside earlier that morning.

212
00:19:25.859 --> 00:19:29.230
Once the windows were finished, She climbed to her attic

213
00:19:29.289 --> 00:19:34.960
room and lay down without removing her clothes. The city

214
00:19:35.019 --> 00:19:40.839
hall clock struck eleven. Bridget said she remained awake. She

215
00:19:40.900 --> 00:19:46.190
heard no footsteps, no struggle, no opening door, and no

216
00:19:46.670 --> 00:19:52.150
screen door slam. A few minutes later... Lizzie called her downstairs.

217
00:19:53.089 --> 00:19:56.569
Andrew had been struck ten times on the left side

218
00:19:56.609 --> 00:20:00.500
of his face and head. There were no defensive wounds

219
00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:03.740
described on the rest of his body, and no sign

220
00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:07.980
that the sitting room had been ransacked. He appeared to

221
00:20:08.019 --> 00:20:13.220
have been resting, when the attack began. Lizzie stood near

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00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:16.480
the back of the house. She did not lead Bridget

223
00:20:16.579 --> 00:20:20.079
to the body. In fact, she warned her not to

224
00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:23.259
enter the sitting room and sent her across the street

225
00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:29.980
for Dr. Bowen. The doctor was away. Bridget returned, questioned

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00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:33.490
whether she had left the screen door hooked, and later

227
00:20:33.549 --> 00:20:37.569
testified that Lizzie said she had been in the backyard,

228
00:20:38.069 --> 00:20:43.400
heard a groan, and found the door standing open. That

229
00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:49.740
account did not remain entirely stable. Lizzie would also say

230
00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:54.059
she discovered her father after returning from the barn, where

231
00:20:54.119 --> 00:20:57.789
she had gone to look for metal for fishing sinkers

232
00:20:58.029 --> 00:21:04.089
or a screen repair. The barn became her alibi and

233
00:21:04.269 --> 00:21:09.160
one of the prosecution's favorite targets. Police thought the loft

234
00:21:09.259 --> 00:21:15.650
was oppressively hot and its dust insufficiently disturbed. The defense

235
00:21:15.769 --> 00:21:20.230
produced workers who had recently been there, weakening the claim

236
00:21:20.289 --> 00:21:25.569
that the floor preserved a perfect record of movement. Lizzie's

237
00:21:25.650 --> 00:21:30.839
exact purpose in the barn shifted in retelling, but changing

238
00:21:30.920 --> 00:21:37.380
language does not automatically prove a changing story. Witnesses summarize,

239
00:21:37.890 --> 00:21:45.009
Questioners rephrase and memory hardens unevenly, under pressure. What never

240
00:21:45.109 --> 00:21:51.849
changed was the narrow timeline. If Andrew died shortly after 11,

241
00:21:51.849 --> 00:21:55.799
there may have been only minutes between the final blows

242
00:21:55.950 --> 00:22:00.420
and Lizzie's call to Bridget. A killer inside the house

243
00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:04.799
needed to leave without being heard or hide while neighbors

244
00:22:04.920 --> 00:22:10.170
and doctors gathered. A guilty person remaining inside needed to

245
00:22:10.210 --> 00:22:16.230
conceal a bloodied weapon, remove or cover any stains, compose herself,

246
00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:24.799
and summon help. Both possibilities are difficult. But neither is impossible.

247
00:22:25.700 --> 00:22:30.460
That tension is what drives the entire case. Neighbor Adelaide

248
00:22:30.539 --> 00:22:35.480
Churchill came over when she saw Lizzie in distress. Dr.

249
00:22:35.539 --> 00:22:41.230
Bowen soon arrived. Alice Russell was summoned. People entered, crossed rooms,

250
00:22:41.390 --> 00:22:46.599
moved objects, questioned Lizzie and began doing what frightened people

251
00:22:46.740 --> 00:22:52.079
do before anyone has established control of a newly discovered

252
00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:57.849
crime scene. At first, the emergency centered on Andrew. Then,

253
00:22:58.509 --> 00:23:04.250
someone asked where Abby was. Lizzie repeated that her stepmother

254
00:23:04.289 --> 00:23:08.240
had gone out after receiving a note saying, But she

255
00:23:08.339 --> 00:23:13.609
also suggested that Abby might have returned. Bridget and Mrs.

256
00:23:13.710 --> 00:23:18.230
Churchill went upstairs to look. They did not have to

257
00:23:18.329 --> 00:23:23.549
enter the guest room to understand. As Mrs. Churchill reached

258
00:23:23.630 --> 00:23:27.369
the landing, her line of sight passed beneath the bed.

259
00:23:28.250 --> 00:23:31.400
On the far side, she could see a woman's clothing

260
00:23:31.940 --> 00:23:35.990
and the shape of a body on the floor. Abby

261
00:23:36.029 --> 00:23:40.329
had been only a few rooms away while Andrew came home,

262
00:23:41.089 --> 00:23:47.009
while Bridget fought with the locks, while Lizzie laughed upstairs,

263
00:23:48.009 --> 00:23:51.809
while the ironing board was opened, and while the household

264
00:23:52.390 --> 00:23:59.210
discussed shopping. The second body transformed the case. This was

265
00:23:59.289 --> 00:24:03.799
not a sudden attack on Andrew by someone slipping through

266
00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:08.890
an open door. The killer had struck once, waded through

267
00:24:08.970 --> 00:24:13.700
the rhythms of the house, and struck again. Or two

268
00:24:13.779 --> 00:24:18.359
killers had entered the same locked home without being seen.

269
00:24:19.359 --> 00:24:23.420
There was no obvious theft, nothing to explain why a

270
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:29.309
stranger would remain nearby after killing Abby. No one reported

271
00:24:29.390 --> 00:24:34.920
a bloodstained figure fleeing into a busy second street. Searches

272
00:24:35.049 --> 00:24:40.650
found axes and hatchets, but none could be conclusively tied

273
00:24:41.150 --> 00:24:44.890
to the wounds. Police had a house full of locks,

274
00:24:45.329 --> 00:24:49.730
an uncertain screen door, a missing note, and two separated

275
00:24:49.829 --> 00:24:55.039
windows of death. They also had one adult who appeared

276
00:24:55.119 --> 00:24:59.460
to be present for both. By nightfall, the question was

277
00:24:59.539 --> 00:25:03.180
no longer whether the danger had entered the Borden house

278
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:14.970
or It was whether the danger had ever left. The

279
00:25:15.029 --> 00:25:19.730
Fall River Police began with a problem modern investigators would

280
00:25:20.150 --> 00:25:28.839
recognize immediately. The scene was not secured. Relatives, neighbors, doctors, officers,

281
00:25:29.059 --> 00:25:35.329
and undertakers moved through the house... Lizzie changed into a rapper.

282
00:25:36.089 --> 00:25:41.019
Bridget ran errands, objects were touched, and the bodies were

283
00:25:41.099 --> 00:25:46.380
examined and moved. Searches unfolded in stages rather than under

284
00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:51.980
one controlled command. Critics at the time accused the department

285
00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:58.650
of hesitation and confusion. Some believed Lizzie received gentler treatment

286
00:25:59.089 --> 00:26:03.779
because she was a respectable Yankee woman. from a prominent family.

287
00:26:04.539 --> 00:26:08.589
Her supporters believed police had fixed on her because they

288
00:26:08.710 --> 00:26:13.329
couldn't find anyone else. Both complaints have a degree of

289
00:26:13.470 --> 00:26:17.890
truth to them. Investigators searched for what such a crime

290
00:26:18.210 --> 00:26:22.880
ought to leave behind. Blood, a weapon, and a path

291
00:26:22.940 --> 00:26:28.420
of escape. They found almost none of it. Eyewitnesses who

292
00:26:28.779 --> 00:26:33.710
saw Lizzie after Andrew's discovery did not describe visible blood

293
00:26:33.809 --> 00:26:39.289
on her hair, face, hands, or clothing. Chemical testing found

294
00:26:39.410 --> 00:26:44.589
no blood on the blue dress, shoes, or stockings collected

295
00:26:44.670 --> 00:26:49.369
by police. A tiny spot on a white underskirt could

296
00:26:49.430 --> 00:26:53.769
not be identified conclusively and very well might have had

297
00:26:53.869 --> 00:27:00.349
an innocent explanation. That absence helped the defense, but deepened

298
00:27:00.450 --> 00:27:06.150
the mystery. Medical testimony suggested an assailant positioned close to

299
00:27:06.170 --> 00:27:11.970
the victims would probably receive splatter. If Lizzie committed the murders,

300
00:27:12.549 --> 00:27:16.349
where were the clothes she wore? Where did she clean

301
00:27:16.410 --> 00:27:21.630
herself up? Where was the weapon? The cellar contained several

302
00:27:21.839 --> 00:27:26.740
axes and hatchets. One small hatchet head had no handle

303
00:27:27.299 --> 00:27:32.029
and appeared dusty or coated with ash. It became the

304
00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:38.069
object most commonly identified as the possible murder weapon. Yet

305
00:27:38.289 --> 00:27:42.230
testing found no blood on it. The break in the

306
00:27:42.269 --> 00:27:47.450
handle could not be reliably dated. An expert allowed that

307
00:27:47.509 --> 00:27:52.099
a tool might be cleaned thoroughly but said quickly removing

308
00:27:52.180 --> 00:27:57.170
blood from the Rough broken end would have been extremely difficult.

309
00:27:58.019 --> 00:28:02.700
Even the prosecution didn't prove that this hatchet killed Andrew

310
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:08.859
and Abby. The Fall River Historical Society still describes it accurately,

311
00:28:09.579 --> 00:28:15.069
the alleged murder weapon. Police returned again and again to

312
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:18.910
Lizzie's account. She said she had been in the barn

313
00:28:18.990 --> 00:28:24.049
while Andrew was killed. She gave uncertain answers about what

314
00:28:24.150 --> 00:28:28.430
she sought there, how long she stayed, when she last

315
00:28:28.529 --> 00:28:32.710
saw Abby, and whether she had been upstairs before her

316
00:28:32.789 --> 00:28:39.339
father returned. Her inquest testimony contained reversals that look devastating

317
00:28:39.480 --> 00:28:44.900
on a printed page, but it came under unusual conditions.

318
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:49.299
Lizzie was questioned for hours without her lawyer, She was

319
00:28:49.380 --> 00:28:54.299
already the focus of the investigation. Dr. Bowen had prescribed

320
00:28:54.420 --> 00:28:58.869
morphine beginning the day after the murders, doubled the dose

321
00:28:58.990 --> 00:29:03.970
on Saturday, and continued it through the inquest. At trial,

322
00:29:04.029 --> 00:29:08.829
Bowen agreed that the drug could contribute to confusion or

323
00:29:09.190 --> 00:29:16.150
impaired memory. Morphine does not explain every contradiction. it does

324
00:29:16.230 --> 00:29:20.200
mean the transcript should not be read as a calm,

325
00:29:20.440 --> 00:29:27.440
voluntary interview recorded under modern safeguards. On August 11th, at

326
00:29:27.500 --> 00:29:31.809
the end of the inquest, Lizzie was arrested. She pleaded

327
00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:36.269
not guilty and was taken to jail in Taunton. The

328
00:29:36.309 --> 00:29:43.920
public story hardened quickly. Newspapers predicted rumors, character judgments, diagrams, motives,

329
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:48.650
and theories about how a woman could kill without staining

330
00:29:48.710 --> 00:29:54.450
her clothes. Then came the dress. On Sunday morning, three

331
00:29:54.529 --> 00:29:58.390
days after the murders... Alice Russell entered the kitchen and

332
00:29:58.470 --> 00:30:03.269
saw Lizzie preparing to burn a light blue Bedford cord dress.

333
00:30:04.150 --> 00:30:08.029
Lizzie said it was stained with paint. Russell warned her

334
00:30:08.089 --> 00:30:15.710
that destroying clothing would look suspicious. And it did. To prosecutors,

335
00:30:16.009 --> 00:30:21.329
the fire was consciousness of guilt, a blood-stained garment disappearing

336
00:30:21.390 --> 00:30:25.039
before police could seize it. To the defense, it was

337
00:30:25.490 --> 00:30:31.539
an inexpensive faded work dress damaged by paint. Emma testified

338
00:30:31.599 --> 00:30:35.039
that she had urged her sister to destroy it. The

339
00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:39.220
act was done openly after multiple searches of the house.

340
00:30:40.079 --> 00:30:44.900
There is no surviving fabric to test. The dress is

341
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:49.710
therefore both one of the case's most suspicious facts and

342
00:30:49.869 --> 00:30:56.190
one of its least resolvable. Another allegation involved prussic acid,

343
00:30:56.769 --> 00:31:02.150
an old name for hydrogen cyanide. A drugstore clerk said

344
00:31:02.250 --> 00:31:06.480
Lizzie tried to buy a small amount the day before

345
00:31:06.559 --> 00:31:12.859
the murders, supposedly to clean a seal-skin cape. He refused

346
00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:17.640
without a prescription. No poison was found in Andrew, Abby,

347
00:31:18.259 --> 00:31:23.470
or the milk they drank. The allegations suggested preparation, or

348
00:31:23.630 --> 00:31:28.980
at least an unexplained interest in a lethal substance, immediately

349
00:31:29.059 --> 00:31:34.200
before two deaths. Yet the trial judges excluded it after

350
00:31:34.240 --> 00:31:39.670
the prosecution failed to establish the necessary connection and foundation.

351
00:31:40.630 --> 00:31:44.569
The jury never heard it. The jury also never heard

352
00:31:44.690 --> 00:31:49.829
Lizzie's inquest answers. The three judges ruled that, although the

353
00:31:49.890 --> 00:31:54.589
proceeding was called an inquest, Lizzie was effectively being treated

354
00:31:54.750 --> 00:31:59.150
as a prisoner accused of murder. She had been compelled

355
00:31:59.230 --> 00:32:03.220
to answer without counsel or a meaningful warning that she

356
00:32:03.299 --> 00:32:09.279
could remain silent. Her testimony was therefore not voluntary enough

357
00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:13.839
to place before the jury. Those rulings removed two of

358
00:32:13.900 --> 00:32:20.829
the prosecution's sharpest weapons. The prosecution could never recover from both.

359
00:32:21.910 --> 00:32:27.549
The trial opened in New Bedford on June 5, 1893.

360
00:32:27.549 --> 00:32:32.690
Lizzie entered a courtroom packed with reporters and spectators. Her

361
00:32:32.730 --> 00:32:38.470
defense included family attorney Andrew Jennings and former Massachusetts governor

362
00:32:38.789 --> 00:32:44.539
George Robinson. District attorney Hosea Knowlton and William Moody led

363
00:32:44.579 --> 00:32:50.240
the prosecution. The jury consisted of 12 men. The state

364
00:32:50.329 --> 00:32:56.130
built a case from accumulation. Lizzie was present. She had opportunity.

365
00:32:56.730 --> 00:33:00.869
Her relationship with Abby was strained. She gave the false

366
00:33:00.970 --> 00:33:04.950
or unexplained story of a note. She placed herself in

367
00:33:05.009 --> 00:33:09.829
a barn police doubted she entered. She had spoken ominously

368
00:33:09.910 --> 00:33:14.730
the night before. She burned a dress. No credible intruder

369
00:33:14.779 --> 00:33:20.119
had been found. One fact alone might be innocent. Together,

370
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:27.170
prosecutors argued, they formed a shape. But the defense kept

371
00:33:27.269 --> 00:33:32.309
breaking that shape apart. Bridget had admitted someone could enter

372
00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:37.869
quietly through the screen door while she worked outside. Witnesses

373
00:33:37.950 --> 00:33:42.579
reported unfamiliar men near the property, though none could be

374
00:33:42.650 --> 00:33:47.400
connected to the crime. Recent visitors to the barn challenged

375
00:33:47.460 --> 00:33:52.869
the theory about untouched dust. Family conflict was real, but

376
00:33:53.309 --> 00:33:58.559
testimony about daily life was mixed. The note was missing,

377
00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:02.940
but that did not prove Lizzie invented it. The burned

378
00:34:03.019 --> 00:34:07.140
dress looked terrible, but the state could not show it

379
00:34:07.240 --> 00:34:13.969
carried blood. Most importantly, there was no direct witness, conclusive weapon,

380
00:34:14.230 --> 00:34:19.940
or meaningful blood evidence tying Lizzie to either body. The

381
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.789
trial also revealed the assumptions of its era. Prosecutors had

382
00:34:24.829 --> 00:34:29.429
to persuade men that a church-going unmarried woman of Lizzie's

383
00:34:29.530 --> 00:34:34.809
class could carry out a ferocious physical attack. The defense

384
00:34:34.949 --> 00:34:40.460
benefited from the opposite belief. Robinson spoke as though brutality

385
00:34:40.519 --> 00:34:46.570
itself made Lizzie an unnatural candidate. The presiding judge instructed

386
00:34:46.650 --> 00:34:51.900
jurors to consider her Christian character and reviewed the circumstantial

387
00:34:51.980 --> 00:34:59.099
case in language widely seen as favorable to the defense. Class, ethnicity,

388
00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:03.719
and gender did not erase the evidence. They shaped which

389
00:35:03.940 --> 00:35:09.780
evidence felt imaginable. At one of the trial's most disturbing moments,

390
00:35:10.369 --> 00:35:16.699
the victim's skulls were produced in court. Lizzie fainted. Reporters

391
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:22.500
treated her collapse as sympathy, strategy, or proof according to

392
00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:27.380
the verdict they had already reached. Lizzie never testified before

393
00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:32.650
the jury. On June 20th, the jurors returned their decision.

394
00:35:33.789 --> 00:35:40.429
Not guilty. The courtroom erupted. Lizzie wept and asked to

395
00:35:40.469 --> 00:35:45.090
go home. Legally, the result was not a declaration that

396
00:35:45.190 --> 00:35:49.610
nothing suspicious had happened. It was a judgment that suspicion,

397
00:35:49.929 --> 00:35:55.050
however powerful, had not become proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

398
00:35:56.269 --> 00:36:00.389
That was the correct question for the jury. It was

399
00:36:00.469 --> 00:36:05.849
not the question the country wanted answered. The verdict told

400
00:36:05.989 --> 00:36:10.050
Fall River that Lizzie Borden could not be punished for

401
00:36:10.090 --> 00:36:16.179
the murders. It did not, however, tell anyone who brutally

402
00:36:16.300 --> 00:36:28.639
killed Andrew and Abby. A not guilty verdict closed the prosecution,

403
00:36:29.300 --> 00:36:33.059
but it did not close the house. The case against

404
00:36:33.179 --> 00:36:38.840
Lizzie remained powerful because it begins with opportunity. She was

405
00:36:38.889 --> 00:36:43.360
the person whose movements during both likely murder windows remained

406
00:36:43.460 --> 00:36:49.619
most substantially uncorroborated. She supplied the story that Abby had

407
00:36:49.699 --> 00:36:54.320
left after receiving a note. She gave inconsistent accounts of

408
00:36:54.380 --> 00:36:59.349
her movements. She burned a dress. She had acknowledged strain

409
00:36:59.449 --> 00:37:04.989
over family property, and no outsider was ever connected convincingly

410
00:37:05.510 --> 00:37:10.860
to the crime. Those facts explain suspicion. but they don't

411
00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:16.860
complete a murder case. No witness saw Lizzie attack anyone.

412
00:37:17.559 --> 00:37:20.860
No blood trail led from either victim to her room,

413
00:37:21.380 --> 00:37:26.219
the cellar, the barn, or a wash basin. No proven

414
00:37:26.300 --> 00:37:29.969
murder weapon was found. No one established where she could

415
00:37:30.010 --> 00:37:33.469
have hidden stained clothing and cleaned herself in the brief

416
00:37:33.590 --> 00:37:39.730
interval after Andrew's death. The medical timeline was an informed estimate.

417
00:37:40.380 --> 00:37:45.230
not a stopwatch. An acquittal can be legally sound even

418
00:37:45.309 --> 00:37:51.269
when a defendant remains the strongest suspect. That uncomfortable space

419
00:37:51.389 --> 00:37:56.769
is where the Borden story lives. The intruder theory also

420
00:37:56.869 --> 00:38:01.380
survives because the house was not sealed as perfectly as

421
00:38:01.480 --> 00:38:07.199
its locks suggest. Bridget worked outside, crossed the yard, and

422
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:11.349
admitted a careful person could enter through the screen door

423
00:38:12.030 --> 00:38:16.710
unseen the first killing could have occurred while Abby was

424
00:38:16.789 --> 00:38:21.809
upstairs and the household was scattered but then the theory

425
00:38:21.869 --> 00:38:26.889
becomes harder an intruder had to remain in or near

426
00:38:26.969 --> 00:38:32.150
the house while Andrew returned Bridget moved through rooms and

427
00:38:32.250 --> 00:38:36.230
Lizzie appeared on both floors the killer then had to

428
00:38:36.289 --> 00:38:40.909
attack Andrew and leave without being noticed on a busy street.

429
00:38:41.949 --> 00:38:46.429
Nothing valuable appears to have been taken. No clear enemy,

430
00:38:46.860 --> 00:38:52.300
hired killer, or prowler was tied to both victims. Possible

431
00:38:52.380 --> 00:38:57.980
is not the same as persuasive. Other suspects have accumulated

432
00:38:58.340 --> 00:39:05.360
ever since. John Morse, Bridget Sullivan, unknown laborers, secret relatives...

433
00:39:05.250 --> 00:39:11.280
family enemies, and various combinations of accomplices. Most theories begin

434
00:39:11.340 --> 00:39:14.679
with a gap in evidence and then fill it in

435
00:39:14.940 --> 00:39:20.260
with a story. A strange alibi becomes a conspiracy. An

436
00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:26.250
immigrant servant becomes an invisible co-killer. A rumor repeated decades

437
00:39:26.329 --> 00:39:34.719
later becomes motive. The more dramatic explanations— incest, epilepsy, menstrual madness,

438
00:39:34.980 --> 00:39:39.079
a naked killer, a sexual affair between Lizzie and Bridget—

439
00:39:39.860 --> 00:39:45.139
lack reliable contemporary support. They tell us more about what

440
00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:49.820
later generations needed the crime to mean than— what happened

441
00:39:50.039 --> 00:39:56.460
on August 4th. This doesn't make every theory equally impossible, though.

442
00:39:57.119 --> 00:40:02.460
It means the honest label remains unsolved. After her acquittal,

443
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:07.250
Lizzie returned to Fall River with Emma. The sisters inherited

444
00:40:07.309 --> 00:40:11.210
their father's estate and bought the kind of house Andrew

445
00:40:11.269 --> 00:40:16.469
had declined to provide. A large residence on French Street,

446
00:40:17.269 --> 00:40:23.320
on the hill. They called it Maplecroft. Lizzie increasingly used

447
00:40:23.380 --> 00:40:29.000
the name Lisbeth. She furnished the house, employed servants, traveled,

448
00:40:29.380 --> 00:40:34.699
attended the theater, and formed friendships beyond the respectable circle

449
00:40:34.780 --> 00:40:40.820
that had defended her. The move can be read as triumph, compensation,

450
00:40:41.019 --> 00:40:45.989
or simply a woman spending money that legally belonged to her.

451
00:40:46.989 --> 00:40:52.159
What it did not buy was acceptance. Fall River remembered.

452
00:40:52.940 --> 00:40:59.920
Children repeated the rhyme. Neighbors whispered. Invitations narrowed. The acquitted

453
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:03.610
woman lived only a short distance from the scene, but

454
00:41:04.010 --> 00:41:08.190
the distance between Lisbeth Borden and the city around her

455
00:41:08.829 --> 00:41:14.469
became impossible to measure in blocks. Her friendship with stage

456
00:41:14.590 --> 00:41:21.989
actress Nance O'Neill attracted gossip. In 1905, Emma abruptly left Maplecroft.

457
00:41:22.610 --> 00:41:27.269
The sisters never reconciled publicly, and Emma never gave a

458
00:41:27.329 --> 00:41:33.210
complete explanation that settles the matter. Later, writers have connected

459
00:41:33.269 --> 00:41:37.489
the break to O'Neill, to Lizzie's social life, or even

460
00:41:37.590 --> 00:41:42.710
to a revelation about the murders. None has been proved,

461
00:41:43.289 --> 00:41:47.090
and that uncertainty repeated the pattern of the case itself.

462
00:41:48.039 --> 00:41:53.239
An observable event, a missing explanation, and a crowd ready

463
00:41:53.659 --> 00:41:58.659
to supply one. Lizzie remained at Maplecroft until her death

464
00:41:58.739 --> 00:42:05.300
from pneumonia on June 1st, 1927. She was 66 years old.

465
00:42:06.409 --> 00:42:10.570
Emma died nine days later in New Hampshire. They were

466
00:42:10.610 --> 00:42:14.289
buried in the Borden family plot at Oak Grove Cemetery

467
00:42:14.869 --> 00:42:19.519
near Andrew and Abbey. Even death could not restore the

468
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:24.920
family's private identities. Andrew became the father on the sofa.

469
00:42:25.639 --> 00:42:30.219
Abby became the stepmother beneath the bed. Emma became the

470
00:42:30.300 --> 00:42:35.349
sister who left. Bridget became Maggie, the maid in the attic.

471
00:42:35.909 --> 00:42:41.050
And Lizzie became the woman with the axe. The nursery

472
00:42:41.110 --> 00:42:44.849
rhyme did most of the work. It changed Abby from

473
00:42:45.050 --> 00:42:50.269
stepmother to mother. transformed a likely hatchet into an axe,

474
00:42:50.730 --> 00:42:58.000
and inflated 29 documented cutting injuries into 81 wax. It

475
00:42:58.039 --> 00:43:04.300
gave the murders rhythm, simplicity, and a guilty verdict. A

476
00:43:04.380 --> 00:43:08.030
child could memorize in seconds what a jury had refused

477
00:43:08.090 --> 00:43:14.150
to declare after weeks of testimony. That's why the rhyme matters.

478
00:43:15.090 --> 00:43:21.269
It's not evidence. It's a machine for turning uncertainty into folklore.

479
00:43:22.469 --> 00:43:26.210
The Second Street house became part of that folklore as well.

480
00:43:26.969 --> 00:43:31.489
Visitors now come to study the rooms, sleep near the

481
00:43:31.550 --> 00:43:37.650
murder sites, and hear accounts of footsteps, voices, moving objects,

482
00:43:38.230 --> 00:43:44.739
and unseen presences. Those experiences belong to witnesses and to tourism.

483
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:49.780
They're not proof that Andrew or Abby remain in the building.

484
00:43:51.019 --> 00:43:55.769
The documented horror doesn't need a ghost. For more than

485
00:43:55.809 --> 00:44:01.369
an hour, one victim lay upstairs while ordinary life continued below.

486
00:44:02.110 --> 00:44:06.579
A door was unlocked. Windows were washed. A father came home.

487
00:44:06.679 --> 00:44:10.599
A servant climbed to her room. Someone moved through the

488
00:44:10.659 --> 00:44:16.469
house with knowledge no one else possessed. Every new adaptation

489
00:44:16.949 --> 00:44:26.550
rearranges those movements. Plays have made Lizzie repressed, liberated, monstrous, romantic, abused, rebellious,

490
00:44:26.730 --> 00:44:31.880
or wrongly condemned. Films have given her motives the trial

491
00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:37.500
never established. Books have convicted and acquitted her again. In 2026,

492
00:44:37.500 --> 00:44:43.539
Netflix's Monsters The Lizzie Borden story brings the case to

493
00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:49.159
another enormous audience. Its official premise imagines a repressed daughter

494
00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:54.780
and rebellious maid escaping into fantasies of sex, power, and

495
00:44:54.880 --> 00:45:03.360
revenge before the murders. That is dramatic interpretation. The surviving

496
00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:09.150
record does not establish a romance or murder conspiracy between

497
00:45:09.309 --> 00:45:14.880
Lizzie and Bridgette. A series may explore that possibility. A

498
00:45:14.929 --> 00:45:19.469
documentary must keep the label attached. And perhaps that's the

499
00:45:19.510 --> 00:45:24.710
real reason Lizzie Borden never seems to disappear. The case

500
00:45:24.869 --> 00:45:30.010
offers just enough evidence to suspect and just enough absence

501
00:45:30.110 --> 00:45:35.360
to reinvent. You can make Lizzie a calculating killer, a

502
00:45:35.420 --> 00:45:40.260
trapped Victorian woman, a victim of prejudice, an emblem of

503
00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:46.239
female rage, or a monster built by newspapers. The empty

504
00:45:46.340 --> 00:45:52.579
spaces accept almost any shape. But Andrew and Abby do

505
00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:58.900
not belong to those reinventions. They were two people killed

506
00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:04.480
in their home. Their murderer was never lawfully identified. Their

507
00:46:04.599 --> 00:46:10.519
injuries became a joke and a rhyme. Their rooms became attractions.

508
00:46:11.070 --> 00:46:15.030
and their deaths became supporting material in the legend of

509
00:46:15.110 --> 00:46:21.289
the daughter who survived them. Return finally to the landing.

510
00:46:22.230 --> 00:46:25.989
Look beneath the guest room. The most famous woman in

511
00:46:26.050 --> 00:46:32.590
the story is not there. Abby is. Downstairs, Andrew is

512
00:46:32.670 --> 00:46:37.699
still expected home. Bridget is still washing windows. The front

513
00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:42.639
door is still locked three ways. Somewhere within that short

514
00:46:42.780 --> 00:46:47.059
distance between the guest room and the sofa, the truth

515
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:52.579
is moving through the house. The jury let Lizzie Borden go.

516
00:46:53.480 --> 00:46:59.940
History never did. And the killer, whoever it was, left

517
00:47:00.699 --> 00:47:10.980
without a name. Lizzie Borden took an axe. and gave

518
00:47:11.059 --> 00:47:15.699
her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done,

519
00:47:16.429 --> 00:47:22.369
she gave her father forty-one. Andrew Borden now is dead.

520
00:47:22.949 --> 00:47:26.619
Lizzie hit him on the head. Up in heaven he

521
00:47:26.679 --> 00:47:30.880
will sing. On the gallows she will swing.

522
00:47:34.219 --> 00:47:38.230
Terrifying and True is narrated by Enrique Couto. It's executive

523
00:47:38.269 --> 00:47:42.829
produced by Rob Fields and bobbletopia.com and produced by Dan

524
00:47:42.869 --> 00:47:46.269
Wilder with original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you

525
00:47:46.309 --> 00:47:48.889
have a story you think we should cover on Terrifying

526
00:47:48.949 --> 00:47:53.429
and True, send us an email at weeklyspooky at gmail.com.

527
00:47:53.630 --> 00:47:54.889
And if you want to support us for as.

528
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Little as $ 1 a month, go to weeklyspooky.com slash join.

529
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Your support for as little as $ 1 a month keeps.

530
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The show going.

531
00:48:02.349 --> 00:48:04.369
And speaking of, I want to say an extra special

532
00:48:04.409 --> 00:48:07.469
thank you to our Patreon podcast boosters, folks who pay

533
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a little bit more to hear their name at the

534
00:48:09.130 --> 00:48:11.980
end of the show. And they are Johnny Nix, Kate

535
00:48:12.099 --> 00:48:16.639
and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Eshkewi, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford,

536
00:48:16.719 --> 00:48:19.860
Karen Wemet, Jack Kerr, and Craig Cohen. Thank you all

537
00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:22.360
so much, and thank you for listening. We'll see you

538
00:48:22.440 --> 00:48:25.940
all right here next time on Terrifying and True.