Did Lizzie take a whack at it?: The Murder of Andrew and Abby Borden

Disclaimer: This story contains some graphic descriptions about the murder case of Andrew and Abby Borden. Some readers might find some details disturbing. There will also be a brief mention of alleged SA. Also there will be photos of crime scene recreations. Reader discretion is advised.

Lizzie Borden took an axe

She gave her mother forty whacks

When she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one

This dark nursery rhyme is based on a true crime case, but unlike the rhyme, the count is a little different and to this day, many do not know that this particular individual was acquitted during a gruesome murder trial. This woman’s name was Lizzie Borden. To this day, her trial still perplexes many people familiar with this case.

Meet the Bordens and Others

Here are brief bios of the people involved in this case:

Lizzie Borden- 32 years old, was a school teacher who lived in a family home in 1892. She shared a room with her older sister, Emma. Her biological mother, Sarah Borden, died when she was two years old. 

Emma Borden- Lizzie’s 42-year-old sister. When she was ten, she witnessed the death of her stillborn sister Alice and the death of their mother. On her deathbed, her mother made Emma promise to watch over Lizzie. Throughout their childhood, Emma acted as a sister/maternal figure to Lizzie. 

Andrew Borden- Father of both Lizzie and Emma. He had a notorious reputation for being stingy despite being well-off. They lived in a less lavish house despite having money and not installing plumbing. 

Abby Borden Was both Lizzie and Emma’s stepmother. When there was an inheritance dispute, as Abby was allowed to make confident financial decisions a few years before the murder, Lizzie started referring to Abby as Mrs. Borden. 

Bridget Sullivan-  The Borden’s live-in maid who was an immigrant from Ireland. Despite hiring her, Andrew had a substantial prejudice against the Irish. He did not even trust her due to her heritage, so much so that he did not let her clean the second floor where their rooms were. This was out of a stereotypical fear of that time people believed the Irish steal.

John Morse- Was Andrew’s first wife Sarah’s brother. The uncle of Lizzie and Emma. He was also one of Andrew’s closest friends throughout his life. At the time of the Borden's murder he was a guest there to visit family.  

Timeline of Events 

All of the times given are from various source points and witness statements.

August 2nd 1892

Morning: Abby and Andrew both wake up feeling sick. Abby expresses concern to a doctor that she may have been poisoned. 

August 3rd 1892

Morning- According to drug store owner Eli Bence, Lizzie tried to buy some poison. She was denied a purchase.

Afternoon- Visitor John Morse arrives to stay with the Bordens.  That afternoon, Lizzie also visits Alice Russell and ominously brings up that weird things are going around and she is paranoid that someone is trying to poison her father. She also claimed someone was lurking around the property as of late and quote, “I’m afraid but someone will do something.”

The Fateful Day- August 4th, 1892

6:15 AM: Bridget heads downstairs to start a fire on the kitchen stove to prepare breakfast and bring the milk in from outside.

6:20 AM: John Morse heads to the sitting room.

7:00 AM Abby, Andrew and John are having breakfast.

7:30 AM Bridget cleans the dishes after eating breakfast.

8:45 AM John leaves the house. Bridget feels sick at this time and goes outside to vomit. 

9:00 AM Andrew leaves the house and takes the letters Lizzie asked him to mail.

9:30 AM Abby heads to the 2nd floor to clean. Bridget heads outside to clean the windows. 

11:00 AM Andrew returns home with a small parcel. He has trouble getting in as the front door is locked and is the only accessible area of the house to enter. After banging on the door for a bit, Bridget answers the door. A laugh was heard from upstairs from her as she answered the door. Lizzie briefly appears in the dining room, saying that Abby has gone out. No one else claimed to have witnessed Abby leaving. At the time of the murder, Lizzie claimed she went to the barn to look for sinkers for her upcoming fishing trip. 

11:15 AM Around this time, Lizzie screams to Bridget, “Somebody has killed father!”.

 Crime Scene

Why did it take so long for the police to come to the crime scene?

When the murder took place, the Fall River police were attending a clambake. This was announced in the local paper. Maybe publishing the police being out of town is not the wisest thing to do. Indeed, I will not give criminals any ideas (sarcasm). 

Autopsies 

Both autopsies of Abby and Andrew were performed inside the Borden home. Unlike many tall tales, they did not use dining room tables in Victorian homes to perform the autopsies. Instead, they would bring in an autopsy board and put the body on it. One is hanging on the wall in the dining room at the Borden’s house, but it was not used for the Bordens. I thought I’d add that in as a lovely part if you ever plan to spend the night at the house and eat breakfast with it next to you.

Abby- Abby had a total of 15 blows to the back of her head. She was found face down on the floor in the guest bedroom next to the bed. Her hair had to be shaved off for the gashes to be examined during autopsies. Likely, she never saw it coming. 

Andrew Andrew was found with whacks to the face, laid back on the chair. He had a coat rolled under his head, acting as a pillow and wore shoes. Lizzie claimed she removed his shoes when he came home so he could relax.

So, according to the infamous nursery rhyme, Abby received 40 and Andrew 41; that information is entirely false as you just read their autopsies.

There was another problem with the autopsies and photos taken. The bodies were tampered with.  Due to weird Victorian priorities, a photographer thought a rich man like Andrew should not be seen without his shoes. The photographer put shoes on the corpse and rolled a jacket underneath to support Andrew’s head. For some weird reason, the gashes on his face were deemed not immodest to be shown in a photograph.

The same problem was with Abby; her dress was fixed not to show her undergarments. These “fixes” would later hinder the investigation further. The actions of the police in its handling of the investigation would publicly be criticized in the local newspaper a couple of days after the murders. 

The House Layout

The house layout plays a crucial role in this case as it illustrates the feasibility to everyone's alibi. I will also leave out the floor plan below to help gain a better picture. 

Now, let's get to the breakdown of how it all went.

Lizzie and Emma’s Room

Emma’s door to Andrew and Abby’s bedroom was blocked by furniture. Due to this, Andrew would have had to open the front door from outside to get into the house. 

The Guest Room

This was the room that John was staying in at the time.  When investigators walked up the stairs to investigate, they were a few steps off the landing when they peered to see the body of Abby lying on the floor next to the bed. 

The Basement

In the basement, officers came across a wash basin with a bucket with bloodied rags next to it. When Lizzie was asked about this, she responded, “The fleas were biting.” For those who do not know what that means, to put it bluntly, it was the 1800’s Victorian girl code for “I’m on my period.” Before sanitation products, women used rags to help with their monthly visitors. After that revelation, the gentleman officers never touched that subject again, even with a ten-foot pole. Later on, however, Bridget claimed she never saw the pail earlier in the week, but it was too late. 

Their search would turn its attention to something else found in a toolbox nearby, a broken-off head of an ax. 

After some inspection of the ax, there was a shadow of doubt cast on whether or not if this was the actual murder weapon. 

Suspects

Andrew supposedly was known to have enemies around. However, nothing was stolen. 

Before I talk about the main gal herself, I should go in the order of suspects to rule out some and an additional timeline. 

Emma

As mentioned in the timeline, Emma was out of town on the day of the murder. There would have been no way for her to be in Fall Rivers and back to her guest’s home in the amount of time given.

Bridget 

Neighbors also backed Bridget’s alibi as they talked to her while she was outside at the time of one of the murders.

John Morse

John was out of the house visiting a relative. However, there is some speculation about his alibi, which I will discuss later in this article. 

Last but not least, Lizzie

The only person in the house at the time of the murders close to Abby and Andrew was Lizzie herself. Lizzie took her father’s shoes off so he could relax in the living room.  Though learning what the police did with the crime scene, it’s possible she was telling the truth with that statement. There was no blood other than a pin-prick-sized drop, which she claimed to be from a tick bite. Also, Lizzie kept changing her story around, contradicting one previous statement to the next. 

What probably hindered the investigation further was the fact throughout the ordeal, Lizzie was given morphine to calm her nerves, which could have been another contributing factor of changing her stories. Knowing the police meddled with the crime scenes would further make it difficult to prove whether or not Lizzie was guilty. 

Potential Motives

Money.  Lizzie did not like that she and her family lived in a smaller house despite having plenty of money. On top of Andrew’s frugal nature, it is possible she got fed up with Abby being allowed to handle assets more. Returning to the earlier family dynamic description a few years after Abby’s death, she referred to her as Mrs. Borden. During the investigation, further suspicion arose in how she talked about her stepmother, Abby. When an investigator referred to Abby as her mother, she coldly responded, “She is not my mother-she is my stepmother.”

Another motive that could have soured Lizzie’s relationship with her father was that she built a roost for the pigeons she kept in May of that year. Out of concern that the pigeons might attract local children on the property to hunt them, he decided to take an axe and kill them. Lizzie, the animal lover she was obviously, was distraught by her father's cold actions. To some people, this could have been a little motivation for Lizzie to do an eye for an eye punishment or in this case, an axe for an axe. 

Lizzie Taken into Custody 

On August 11th, Lizzie Borden was arrested on suspicion of murder. She was taken away peacefully. Due to Lizzie’s gender and not having a proper facility for her privacy in Fall Rivers, she was taken to Taunton, which was eight miles from Fall Rivers. While held over the year before her trial, she was allowed to have her furniture in for comfort and food brought into the prison.  

Trial

Lizzie’s trial would take place in the New Bedford Courthouse. The jurors were all men. 

The defense argued that Lizzie would not have it in her to commit such a heinous crime due to her seemingly pious character and the fact she was a woman. Her team called character witnesses to testify on Lizzie’s behalf. Her local church pastor described her as someone too virtuous to do such a thing. 

Lizzie fainted at the sight when the skulls were presented to the court. The prosecution would come under heavy criticism, calling the display ghoulish.

The Verdict

Fifteen days after the trial started, a verdict was reached. The court found Lizzie Borden not guilty! As it was read, Lizzie fainted.

While this ruling is an outrage by many, there is also to consider how badly police botched the investigation. The way they fumbled the evidence could have inadvertently covered any clues the killer left behind. 

Post trail and reactions

The skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden used in the trial were reburied in a box on top of each of Borden’s vaults. 

After Lizzie was acquitted, Lizzie and Emma took her inheritance and purchased a large mansion called Maple Croft in Fall Rivers. Despite the community treating her as an outcast, she chose to stay there. 

Years later, she and her sister would drift even further apart. Emma had more conservative views than her sister, who often hung around actors or people that her sister would disapprove of. In 1905, Lizzie threw a party for her friend actress Nance O'Neil, and a blowout happened between her and her sister, to which Emma left Maplecroft and made no contact with her sister. 

There were also rumors going around about Lizzie being a lesbian due to her close friendship with Nance. It was never confirmed whether or not they were in a romantic relationship nor if Lizzie was a lesbian. 

In 1913, Lizzie donated $30,000 to set up a local Animal Rescue League for a friend. Lizzie and Emma love animals, and in the Borden house are photos of Lizzie sitting with one of her pet dogs.  According to the tour guide, the funds still come from Borden’s estate. The Animal Rescue also has pictures of Lizzie and Emma on the wall, recognizing them as benefactors. 

In 1927, Lizzie passed away at 67 and was buried in the family plot along with Emma, Andrew, and Abby. Emma passed away eight days after her sister. For Lizzie’s sake, she had better tell the truth; otherwise, it would be an awkward place to be buried for eternal rest. 

The cemetery has painted arrows on the pavement for guests who want to see the Borden’s graves. My mom commented, “If Lizzie did it, it would be really awkward to be buried with the family members you killed.”

Speculation

There is some speculation that Lizzie might not have delivered the blows herself, but someone else was involved. Critics of John’s alibi felt his story was too well rehearsed and suggested he had a hand in it. Tour guides from the Lizzie Borden house suggest the real killer was John Moore. A year after the trial an axe was discovered on a nearby neighbor's roof, but any potential DNA that would have been on it would have already been washed away by countless rainy days. One theory to this if he did it was he could have thrown it on one of the roofs out of plain sight. 

Some darker theories scholars would come up with years later for motivation was that her father physically and sexually abused Lizzie. Fed up with all of the abuse, she took it out on him by killing both him and Abby. Besides getting into arguments, there is little evidence supporting this theory. 

There is additional speculation Lizzie had accomplices or people who knew about it, including Bridget and Emma. Some believe Emma knew something would happen and did not want to be near it when it happened, which is why she was out of town. 

Another speculation comes from the 1984 novel Lizzie, which states that she and Bridget are secret lovers and that Abby and Andrew have caught them. This would have then resulted in Lizzie killing both of them. Also, there is no evidence of that kind of relationship between them, as Bridget would go on to marry a man.

Lizzie gave Bridget $1000 before returning to Ireland, then moving back to the US, purchasing a nice plot of Montana, and marrying a man. This caused speculation about whether Bridget was a part of it as well. Also, on her deathbed, she allegedly confessed to her sister that she changed her testimony to protect Lizzie. 

Also, while the broken-off axe was not the murder weapon, there was another axe found near Borden's home. On the neighbor's rooftop the following summer after the murder, an axe was found. Some believe that when the killer was finished with the evil deed committed, they threw the axe on the roof to discard evidence. Whether or not it was the actual murder weapon it would not have been easy to prove. As mentioned, it was found on the roof for a year after the murders; any evidence on the axe would have been washed away from rain and a year of exposure. 

After thoughts

Learning about this case, I found an interesting parallel. While in the 1800s, a shocking verdict like Lizzie Borden was unheard of by people of that time; it was all too familiar to a millennial. This case is the 19th-century version of OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony. We all know that those two cases also had shocking verdicts. 

One documentary episode of 48 Hours did a mock trial with jurors being both men and women who have never heard of Lizzie Borden. The results also came up inconclusive. After visiting the Lizzie Borden house and talking to the tour guides, I can see why, if one were to analyze the case today, they would be unsure as well. 

Who do I think did it?

This is just personal thought, but I think either Lizzie did it or was an accomplice. Based on how Abby was found it looked like she had her guard down as the blows were in the back of her head. If it was a break in there would be more of a reaction and defensive wounds in the front likely arms and hands trying to block the attack. Whoever was in that room was someone Abby knew and felt comfortable letting her guard down to turn her back and continue straightening up the room. Same with Andrew as it looked like he didn’t have time to react and probably knew the person. 

Closing 

Today, the debate remains the same as in 1892. Did Lizzie do it? Many people still believe that Lizzie was found guilty even though the court found her innocent. Though there is documentation of Lizzie being let free, much of the media, either movies or television shows, often show a biased depiction of her wielding the axe. In truth, we do not know for sure if she did so. 

Here’s my question to you: do you think she did it?

The bloody crime also left the home with many ghostly tales. We will be talking about said ghost stories and spending the night at Lizzie Borden's house! Spoiler: her family are not the only ghosts in the house.