Did Lizzie Borden Take an Axe?
One of the first things that comes to mind when it comes to spooky, creepy, mysterious, is Lizzie Borden. I feel like just about everyone knows her name and what she was accused of, although she was acquitted. She even became a cute little rhyme to sing and jump rope to:
Lizzie Borden took an axe. She killed her mother with 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she killed her father with 41. Andrew Borden is now dead. Lizzie hit him on the head. Up in heaven he will sing. On the gallows she will swing.
For those of you who might not know her story, I’ll give you a recap of her family’s axe murder story that has lasted through the last century and has been made into TV shows and movies. (My personal favorite is the movie, then series, with Christina Ricci as Lizzie. She does creepy like no other.)
Lizzie Andrew Borden was born July 19, 1860 in Fall River, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Andrew and Sarah Borden. Sarah Borden passed away in 1863, leaving Lizzie (3 y/o) and her older sister Emma (12 y/o) without a mother. Before her death, Sarah asked her older daughter, Emma, to look after Lizzie for her. Emma took that to heart and was a big part of Lizzie’s upbringing.
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| Lizzie Borden |
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| Emma Borden |
Three years after the passing of his wife, Andrew remarried to Abby Durfee Gray (age 37) in order to provide a mother figure to his daughters. Emma however, did not like her father's new wife, and taught Lizzie to not like her either. It is said that the pair referred to their step-mother as “Mrs. Borden.” Multiple people: their next door neighbor, Mrs. Churchill; their maid Bridget Sullivan; and their dress maker, Mrs. Hanna Gifford; also stated that the girls rarely ate their meals with their parents. Mrs. Gifford stated that Lizzie had said very harsh things about her step-mother, and called her a “horrid old thing.”
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| Andrew and Abby Borden |
Emma and Lizzie were very jealous of Abby getting monetary gifts from their tight-pocketed father. Andrew had purchased a home for Abby’s sister, and they made a big to-do about it, wanting him to buy homes for them as well. He did sell them a rental house for $1, to which they sold back to him later for $5,000. A big controversy in Lizzie’s trial was whether or not she was cordial with Abby, but that was never fully decided.
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| The house where the murders happened |
About a year before the murders happened, Lizzie was caught shoplifting from a local store in Fall River. Soon after this incident, the Borden home fell victim to robbery. It happened in the middle of the day when Abby, Emma, Bridget, and Lizzie were home. It is rumored that Lizzie, and maybe Emma, were behind it. Both of them, but especially Lizzie, resented their frugal lifestyle. They knew that Andrew had the funds for them to live a much more lavish life, but he was too tight pocketed to allow them to do so. Following the incident, all doors in the house - indoor and outdoor - were kept locked from then on.
A few days before the murders, the members of the household - minus Emma who was out of town - fell ill. Around that same time, Lizzie had tried to purchase poison (prussic acid) from the drug store. She claimed to want to use it to put an edge on a seal skin coat. The store keeper would not make the sale. Whether she wanted the poison to kill her parents, or wanted it for the reasons she claimed, only God knows. I will put it out there that women are known to use poison when trying to kill someone. (Check out the story of aqua tofana for an example!) It’s worth a mention as it makes Lizzie look awfully suspicious. In her defense though, the food and milk in the house was tested for poison and they confirmed that they were clean.
The same day that Lizzie tried to purchase the poison she visited one of her friends, Alice Russel. She talked about how she was afraid the family had been poisoned. She confessed that her father had enemies and she had seen strange people hanging around their house. She did not say who any of those people were, but was afraid that someone would do something. Genuine concern, or setting the scene?
The day of the murders Emma was out of town, visiting friends in Fairhaven. It was just Lizzie, Andrew, Abby, John Morse (Sarah’s brother, Emma and Lizzie’s uncle), and their maid, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan at the house. (Maggie was the name of the previous maid. Emma and Lizzie did not bother to learn her actual name. During the trial, when either of then spoke of Bridget they said Maggie.)
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| Bridget Sullivan |
John had arrived the night before the murders unannounced and with no luggage with him. The next morning he rose to have breakfast with Andrew and Abby at 7 am. He left the house around 8:45 am to go visit his niece and nephew. His nephew wasn’t there, but he visited with his niece until 11:20, then returned to the Borden residence. When he returned to the house the authorities were already there attending to the murders. He did not go right inside, he went and ate a pear from the tree, claiming to not have realized anything had happened. When it was seen that he was there he was only then informed of the murders.
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| John Morse |
Lizzie arose just before 9 am, but after her uncle John had already left. She spoke shortly to her father before he left to go to town and run his daily errands. Some time after this, and before Andrew returned home after 10 am and before 11 am, Lizzie claims that her step-mother had said she was going to go visit a sick friend.
When Andrew returned home, Bridget let him into the house, and he went to lie down on the sofa in the sitting room as he was still recovering from being sick. Bridget claims that Lizzie was at the top of the stairs because she heard a laugh when she had a hard time with the lock. Lizzie denies this. Bridget said that she left Lizzie and Andrew in the sitting room for the second floor at 10:58 am.
Lizzie said that she did not know when Andrew got home, but that she had seen him before he was murdered. After he got home, she decided to go out to the barn for 15 to 20 minutes. When she returned inside - she called for Bridget because she had found her father murdered. The police were called for around 11:15 am.
Later that same day, Abby’s body was found in the guest room where she had been tidying up from John Morse staying there. She had been absent for all of the commotion downstairs as they were dealing with Andrew’s body. Bridget and Mrs. Churchill went upstairs to go get a sheet, and discovered that Abby had been murdered too. Due to the amount of blood coagulation, they think she had been dead for an hour longer than Andrew. It should be noted that knowing what we do now, the sun coming through the window, the blood would coagulate faster, moving up the timeline of her death. (Talked about in: Curious Life and Death Of…)
Autopsies on the Borden couple happened one week after death. Andrew was a healthy 70 year old. There were no signs of abuse on his body, just wounds on the left half of his face that most likely penetrated into his brain. The brain has liquified by this time due to decomposition. His face was essentially split in two from the 11 blows to his head.
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| Andrew Borden's skull |
Abby was also a healthy 63 year old upon her death. She suffered no abuse on the front half of her body, all of the trauma was in her back half. She received 18 blows. She most likely never saw them coming at her.
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| Abby Borden's skull |
Because they were both stabbed repeatedly, their murders would be classified as a crime of passion. Whoever killed them knew them and had feelings of anger against them. It is theorized that whoever killed them, but mainly Andrew, had been molested by them because of the damage to their faces. They did not want them (Andrew and Abby) to see the “monster” they had become.
Over the course of the next few days there were many people who thought Lizzie had been acting oddly. They claimed that she didn’t cry or act distraught, and “was speaking in a detached manner”. You have to take in consideration though, her doctor had been giving her quite a bit of morphine, more than what is considered legal in this day in age. She was high for all the questioning of her - making it understandable why she was changing her story as things were being asked of her in different ways.
The police made their decision of Lizzie the day of the murders. It didn’t help that Lizzie was caught burning a paint-stained dress (on her sister's orders) a couple of days later. The woman who made the dress (Mrs. Gifford) even put on record that it had been stained with red paint soon after it had been made. It was a huge thing in the trial of trying to decide what Lizzie was wearing at the time of the murders.
The trial was one of the first crimes that was spread nation-wide. All of the major newspaper outlets sent journalists to cover the trial. This caused a lot of lies and misinformation to be spread. Things that made Lizzie look guilty and that she had been fighting with her sister. It’s something that we see a lot of now, making things up for the story/attention. The internet now makes it much worse.
Lizzie allowed the house to be searched more than once. She mentioned a pail in the cellar that was soaking menstrual rags. They were examined by the doctor and an officer collected them as evidence. She also gave the clothing she was wearing as evidence. There was a spot of blood the size of a pin head on the underskirt that came from outside the skirt. No other blood or spattering was found on her clothes. She didn’t come across as she had anything to hide. They found a hatchet with a broken handle in the house that they suspected to be the murder weapon.
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| Possible murder weapon |
If you follow the timeline, Lizzie does not have enough time to kill both her father and stepmother from when the maid had seen her before the murders to after - I think it was possible to have seen Lizzie in between the two. Bridget did not hear anything to indicate the brutal murders that had happened. You would think that Lizzie would have had splatter marks from the blood if she had done them. You would also think that she would have made some sort of noise as she exerted the force to use an axe to kill them. Then when Abby fell to the floor; she wasn’t a small woman - there would have been a thud. Or some yell of satisfaction or horror upon finally avenging her abuse. (More on that later.) This all depends on Bridget’s honesty when testifying though - she could have lied about what she heard to protect the murderer.
When searching for witnesses there were several accounts of an unknown man acting strangely around the Borden residence and in town that day. Some people described seeing the man having a red face and crazy eyes.
Just because Lizzie’s dress did not get covered in blood splatter, doesn’t mean that she didn’t take precautions to prevent that. She had a dress that was already known to have red paint stains. Did she put that dress on over the one she was wearing that day to protect her clothes, then burn the evidence a couple days later?
Another theory is that she could have put on Andrew’s jacket backwards - like an apron. When Andrew was found, his jacket was balled up under his head like a pillow. He was a very frugal and proper man, you wouldn’t think that he would mess up his nice going out jacket by balling it up under his head. Lizzie, or whoever did it, used it like an apron, then purposely placed it under his head. Or maybe the jacket doesn’t have anything to do with the crime.
There is a very little known fact about this case. While Lizzie was in custody for the trial, there was another axe murder in Fall River, similar enough for jurors to make note of it. Bertha Manchester was found hacked to death in her kitchen. They concluded that a Portuguese immigrant, Jose Correa de Mello was guilty. They also believed he was not in Fall River when the Borden’s were killed. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t potentially working for the same person who orchestrated the Borden’s murders.
So who would have the motive to want to kill Andrew and Abby Borden? There were a lot of people that could have. Anyone who did business with Andrew and got mad about paying rent, other bills, or any number of things could have. In the suspect list, there are several associates and tenants. There are rumors that Andrew had an illegitimate son, William (Billy) Borden, who could have killed them for not being in his life.
Emma and Lizzie have major possible reasons for wanting their parents dead. First, money. Abby needed to be killed first so that the estate would not go to her and her family. With her dying first, the estate goes to Emma - who shared it with Lizzie. They resented their father for the frugal life he made them live, and keeping the lavish life he could have given them.
Because of the violent nature of the murders, the house is now known for its hauntings. More than one medium has walked though there and learned about the sexual abuse Andrew inflicted on his daughters. Because of them only knowing the abuse from their father - Emma and Lizzie would perform sexual acts with each other because that is how they perceived love. Amy from Dead Files stated that the incest between the sisters was usually initiated by Emma.
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| Emma and Lizzie Borden |
Suffering from the abuse for years, being stuck in the house with Andrew, Lizzie finally snapped. Amy talked about a part of Lizzie breaking off and staying in that house. It was a crazy part of her, the part of her that was suppressed for years before it exploded because she could no longer take it.
The axe murders where not the first murders in the Borden family, or their house. Lizzie's great uncle's (Lawdwick Borden) second wife (Eliza Darling Borden) had three babies very close together. It's speculated that she had some major post-partum depressions, something that wasn't really understood or talked about back then. She killed two of her three children by drowning them in the cistern, then committed suicide. Soon after Lawdwick also committed suicide, leaving their only remaining child, Maria, orphaned.
There was another Borden that was murdered - Sarah Cornell. She was found hanged on the flagpole of John Durfee. There was scars on her abdomen, indicating that she might have attempted an abortion, but she was still pregnant for the autopsy. They thought it was suicide, but after learning of the baby and finding a note she left behind they thought differently. Among her possessions she said if something happened to her, to suspect Reverend Mr. Avery. He was their main suspect - and thought him to be the potential father of her baby - but was acquitted for her murder.
So is there something in the house that drives people to murder, or some sort of curse on the family? I think that it's a combination of the two. Discovery + shock doc, they had several pieces of evidence that there is a demon in the house.
Now that I have laid all of the evidence out, who do we think killed them? Did Lizzie Borden take an axe and kill her parents? I’ll give you my opinion: yes and no. I think Lizzie knew about the murders, helped the murderer, and was probably at least one of the masterminds behind it. I do not think she actually gave the blows that took the lives of her parents. I also think that Emma knew about the plan to kill their parents, maybe even help set things up for it. She just wanted to be away when it happened so she would not be suspected.
Who do I think her accomplice was? Her uncle John Morse - and for a few reasons. After the death of his sister, Sarah Borden, he rarely visited the Borden's, then he showed up the day before they died. He acted strangely upon returning back to the house, claiming to not have noticed anything out of the norm going on.
Abby’s brother-in-law (her sister's husband), George Fish, stated that he believed Lizzie and John planned the murders, but then hired someone to carry them out. It wouldn’t take that much to get his niece to lie about how long he was there, or if he was there at all. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he just so happened to unexpectedly show up the day before the murders.
One of the YouTube people that I watch - Glam and Gore - went to the Borden House, which has been turned into a bed and breakfast, to do an investigation. During a spirit box session a very distinct voice came through saying “It was John.” Hearing that sent shivers down my spine. Check out that video here!
After Lizzie was acquitted she moved to a home in the wealthy neighborhood - they named it Maplecroft. She changed her name to Lizbeth to distance herself from the story. She made friends with an actress she had seen perform and had parties at her new house. She became estranged from her sister Emma and never talked to her again. When Lizbeth (Lizzie) was 66 she past away from pneumonia. Emma passed a few days later.
Had this happened in modern day, we would know for sure who killed Andrew and Abby Borden. We could use DNA analysis, test blood, find fingerprints… All of the luxury of modern technology. Because that time did not have the tools that we do now, they were unable to convict anyone. This means that there will always be stories and theories about what happened, but it will always be a mystery.
You could make a drinking game of every time I say “murder” in this post, but I wouldn’t recommend it as you would probably have alcohol poisoning before finishing. 😂
Sources:
One August Morning: The True Story of Lizzie Borden by Troy Taylor (available on Audible)
Dead Files season 1 episode 9
Ghost Adventures google says season 5 episode, but it's season 6 episode 4 on Discovery +.
The Curious Life and Death Of... Season 1 episode 1
The Curse of Lizzie Borden shock doc on Discovery +
Kindred Spirits season 2 episode 1 and season 3 episode 10
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