Lizzie Borden

American woman accused of murdering her parents

• Born: July 19, 1860
• Birthplace: Fall River, Massachusetts
• Died: June 1, 1927
• Place of death: Fall River, Massachusetts

The legend holding that Lizzie Borden was an axe murderer has endured despite the fact that Borden was acquitted of the August 4, 1892, murder of her father, Andrew Jackson Borden, and stepmother, Abby Durfee Gray Borden.

Early Life

Born on July 19, 1860, Lizzie Andrew Borden and her older sister, Emma Lenora, were raised by their stepmother, Abby, and their father, Andrew. Lizzie’s mother, Sarah Morse, died when Lizzie was an infant; two years later, Andrew married Abby Durfee Gray, who cared for the Borden girls for thirty years. By 1892, Lizzie was thirty-two and Emma was forty-two years of age. Unmarried, both sisters continued to live in the Borden house on 92 Second Street, one of the busiest streets in Fall River, Massachusetts.

The Borden name was influential in Fall River. The eighth generation of Bordens in the town, Andrew owned numerous properties, served as bank president, sat on the board of directors of three other banks, and was the director of several businesses. He was worth a half-million dollars (a multimillionaire by contemporary standards) and was a man of high social standing, known for his considerable wealth as well as for his penurious nature.

Lizzie was an active member of her church, a Sunday school teacher, a participant in a variety of women’s groups, a leader of the town’s Christian Endeavor Society, and a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). At only twenty years of age, Lizzie was named to the board of the Fall River Hospital. She devoted herself to community work and was recognized for her efforts.

Life’s Work

On Thursday, August 4, 1892, there were five people in the Borden’s small house on Second Street: Andrew, Abby, Lizzie, Bridget Sullivan (the family servant), and John Vinnicum Morse (Lizzie and Emma’s maternal uncle). Morse had unexpectedly arrived the prior evening; he brought no valise but intended to spend several nights. Emma had been staying in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, visiting friends.

Members of the Borden household had been ill, supposedly from eating spoiled meat. Abby seldom left the house but had visited family physician Seabury Bowen on Wednesday, August 3, with a story about an anonymous note; she believed someone was poisoning the family. Lizzie also told friend Alice Russell that she thought that the family’s milk was being poisoned. During the inquest that followed the murders of Abby and Andrew, the prosecution brought forth Eli Bence, a druggist who claimed that Lizzie unsuccessfully attempted to purchase prussic acid in his pharmacy the day before the murders. Lizzie denied Bence’s claims, stating that she remained home all day Wednesday, leaving only briefly that evening to visit Russell, who would later testify that on Wednesday night a distraught Lizzie predicted that an ominous event would soon transpire in the Borden house.

By 9:30 or 10:00 Thursday morning, Abby lay face down on the floor of the upstairs guest bedroom, mortally wounded by nineteen axe or hatchet wounds delivered to the back of the scalp. By all accounts, Lizzie was the only individual in the house between 9:30 and 10:45. Lizzie testified that she saw no one and heard nothing. Sullivan indicated that she was outside the home, washing windows at Abby’s request. Morse told authorities that he left the house that morning around 8:45 to visit another niece in town and returned approximately forty-five minutes after the murders were discovered.

Lizzie alleged that early that morning Abby claimed to receive a note asking her to visit a sick friend; however, no note was ever discovered, nor did anyone come forward with information about the note despite a $5,000 reward posted by the Borden sisters.

Andrew reportedly returned home around 10:45 that morning. He greeted his daughter and reclined on a sofa in the sitting room. Shortly before 11:00 a.m., Sullivan retired to her third-floor room to rest. Lizzie testified that, supposing her stepmother had left the house, she wandered to the barn and searched the second story of the building for lead for a sinker for Monday’s possible fishing excursion. She also ate some pears in the barn, remaining there for a span of fifteen or twenty minutes. Upon her return to the house, she discovered her father’s prone body in the sitting room. He had been struck by eleven axe or hatchet wounds and was so disfigured by the blows that he was virtually unrecognizable to Bowen, the family physician. The time was approximately 11:00 or 11:15 a.m. Lizzie cried for Bridget, asking her to find Bowen. Attracted by the commotion, neighbor Adelaide B. Churchill ran to the house at Lizzie’s request and stayed with her until the doctor arrived. Shortly after Bowen’s arrival, Abby’s bludgeoned body was discovered upstairs.

Four legal hearings ensued: the inquest (the only proceeding in which Borden testified), the grand jury hearing, a preliminary hearing, and the murder trial itself. Denied counsel, Lizzie testified without representation at the inquest and, at the conclusion of this testimony, was arrested and held without bail in Taunton Jail for ten months awaiting trial. George D. Robinson and Andrew J. Jennings, friends of the Bordens, represented her. Robinson, former governor of Massachusetts, was hired for a fee of $25,000.

The trial began on June 7, 1893. Charged with first-degree murder, Lizzie, if found guilty, faced death by hanging. William H. Moody and Hosea M. Knowlton prosecuted for the state. (Moody would later be appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1906.) Three justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Court presided at the trial, one of whom faced criticism for his charge to the jurors in what many suggest was a prodefense bias. The jury comprised white, middle- to upper-class men. (Working-class men, many of them foreign-born immigrants who worked in Fall River factories, were excluded from serving on the jury despite the fact that they were naturalized citizens. Women were also excluded.) Lizzie did not testify in her defense, and her inquest testimony was excluded from the trial’s proceedings.

The prosecution claimed that Lizzie’s motive had been both avarice and hatred, arguing that she had committed parricide not only out of loathing for her stepmother but also to prevent Andrew from changing his will to Abby’s favor. The prosecution pointed to one event as representative of the tension between Lizzie and Abby. Five years prior to the murder, Andrew bought half of a two-dwelling home in Abby’s name for her sister. Lizzie’s own testimony at the inquest indicated that both daughters took umbrage at their father’s generosity, particularly as it was directed toward his wife’s family rather than his daughters. Lizzie testified that she ceased calling Abby “mother” about that time but noted that their relationship was cordial.

The defense referred to Lizzie’s stellar reputation in Fall River society to refute the prosecution’s claims. The defense also noted that the Borden home had been burglarized twelve months before the murders and that the barn had been broken into twice, thus introducing the possibility of an anonymous assailant. The defense continued to stress that Lizzie was not capable of such a fiendish deed.

The prosecution argued that Lizzie, alone in the house with the victims, had ample opportunity to commit parricide. The defense refuted the prosecution’s claims, pointing to the lack of blood on the accused. Churchill testified that when she arrived at the Borden house, no blood spotted Borden’s dress nor was her hair disheveled. However, contradicting testimonies surfaced regarding Lizzie’s attire during the time of the murder as well as which articles of clothing were turned over to the police. Russell complicated matters by testifying for the prosecution that three days after the murders, Lizzie burned a skirt in Emma and Russell’s presence, complaining of irremovable paint stains. Lizzie denied that the burned skirt was the one worn during the murders.

The defense refuted the claim that Lizzie had the opportunity to commit the murders by questioning the actions of the police who interviewed her after the crimes. The defense also questioned the lack of a murder weapon, which was never found but was believed to be a handleless hatchet smeared with dust or ash that was found in the Borden basement. However, a microscopic examination of the blade revealed no traces of blood. The handle was never recovered.

After only one hour of deliberation, the jury declared Lizzie “not guilty.” Newspaper reports claimed that jurors needed only ten or fifteen minutes to decide but waited another forty-five minutes to inform the court out of respect to the prosecution. Accounts also reported that prosecutor Knowlton, a reluctant litigator, clapped at the verdict.

Because Andrew died intestate, Lizzie and Emma inherited nearly a half-million dollars in cash and real estate. With this considerable wealth, the Borden sisters bought a large new house in a fashionable section of Fall River. Lizzie called the house Maplecroft and renamed herself Lizbeth. She traveled widely, associated with popular actor Nance O’Neal, and continued to live in Fall River until her death on June 1, 1927. The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden remain unsolved.

Significance

Lizzie Borden has become a part of American legend. For over a century, verses, songs, stories, dramas, and a ballet have been devoted to her. There is an enduring interest in Lizzie and the Fall River murders because she was such an unlikely murderer. The story of a dutiful daughter and Sunday school teacher brutally murdering her wealthy parents with an axe commanded much attention in the press during her legal proceedings.

Lizzie has retained legendary status perhaps in part because of widespread media coverage. The murder of Fall River’s socially prominent Bordens was startling, and the arrest of their daughter was even more shocking. The advent of yellow journalism encouraged media attention. Over forty newspapers exploited the case; all of them devoted their attention to the gruesome details of the brutal double murder, and all of them questioned jurisprudence in the United States. Many, including the Boston Herald, The New York Times, and the New York Herald, portrayed Lizzie as a defenseless woman victimized by an inept police department. Only the Fall River Globe, condemning the Bordens as elite oppressors, consistently depicted Lizzie as guilty.

After her acquittal, Lizzie’s image as a helpless woman maltreated by Fall River police was countered to such a degree that the name of Lizzie Borden eventually became synonymous with a female axe murderer. Children, blissfully unaware of Lizzie’s acquittal, continue to sing the famous rhyme about her taking an axe to her parents.

Bibliography

Brown, Arnold R. Lizzie Borden: The Legend, The Truth, The Final Chapter. Nashville, Tenn.: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991. Brown argues that the Bordens were murdered by Andrew’s illegitimate son. The appendix contains Lizzie’s testimony at the inquest.

Hoffman, Paul Dennis. Yesterday in Old Fall River: A Lizzie Borden Companion. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2000. In this book aimed at afficionados of the Lizzie Borden saga, Hoffman aims to alleviate confusion about the many people involved in her case. He has compiled an alphabetical listing of more than 650 people, with information about their lives and connections to the murders.

Kent, David. Forty Whacks: New Evidence in the Life and Legend of Lizzie Borden. Emmaus, Pa.: Yankee Books, 1992. Kent demystifies myths surrounding Borden and attempts to provide a balanced treatment of the Borden case.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Lizzie Borden Sourcebook. Boston: Branden, 1992. This book contains clippings from forty-three newspapers and shows the images of Lizzie generated by the media.

Lincoln, Victoria. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. New York: International Polygonics, 1986. The author suggests that Lizzie committed the murders during an epileptic seizure initiated by her menstrual period.

Pearson, Edmund. Trial of Lizzie Borden. New York: Doubleday, 1937. Pearson argues that Borden was guilty of the murders.

Porter, Edwin H. The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders. Portland, Maine: King Philip, 1985. This book, initially published in 1893, was the first book about the Lizzie Borden case. Porter was a reporter for the Globe and was present at the trial.

Radin, Edward D. Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. Radin theorizes that Bridget Sullivan committed the murders.

Schuetz, Janice. The Logic of Women on Trial: Case Studies of Popular American Trials. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. This book contains a chapter on the Borden trial and argues that class and gender informed Borden’s acquittal despite compelling evidence against her.

Spiering, Frank. Lizzie. New York: Dorset Press, 1984. Spiering claims that Emma committed the murders in order to avoid being disinherited and that Lizzie stood trial for her sister.