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Charged with 3 counts of murder after her friend Alice Russel claimed to have witnessed her burning a dress {Dec.1}

 

On a hot afternoon in Falls River, Massachusetts an unspeakable crime occurred. A crime so horrible that it would be remembered forever in a jump rope rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks And when she saw what she had done She gave her father 41

 

Lizzie Borden was born in July 1860 to Andrew Jackson Borden, a prominent citizen of Fall River Massachusetts and Sarah, who died when Lizzie was almost three years old. Sarah’s death left Andrew with full guardianship of his little daughter Lizzie and her older sister Emma. In 1865 he married a woman named Abby Gray, and they lived a peaceful life. In her adult years Lizzie was known as a spinster, she attended church frequently even teaching Sunday school. Andrew had become wealthy but in the process had also become quite tight with his money, not caring to live as nice as they could have for a family of their stature and this infuriated the girls. In the 1880′s against his daughters opposition, Andrew bought his wife’s half-sister a home and this made the girls take a disliking to Abby as they fought constantly about it. Though Andrew tried to mend his broken family it only got worse. Supposedly someone began stealing from the home so they each put locks on their doors. It is also said that Andrew would only be leaving Lizzie and Emma a small sum of money upon his death and everything else to Abby including property that would be split up between her relatives.

 

In August 1892 Lizzie returned home from an extended trip with her sister visiting friends (Emma stayed behind) and while home a peculiar thing happened. One day after finishing breakfast they all became violently ill, Abby suspected they had been poisoned but it was not followed up. On August 4th Lizzie’s uncle came to visit and he and Andrew went to town. Andrew returned alone and fell asleep downstairs on the couch, his coat and shoes still on. The maid was said to be upstairs doing errands until she decided to take a nap. She was awaken by Lizzie screaming that her father had been killed, come quick. Lizzie stated that she had gone out to the barn and someone had come in and killed her father. Andrew Borden had been killed with a hatchet or axe which crushed his head and cleanly split his left eye. It was not until the doctor arrived that they found Abby Borden upstairs, stumped forward. She had been murdered by the same weapon except her blows had been delivered from behind, most likely while she was making the bed. Lizzie claimed that her father must have been murdered while she went out to fetch something in the barn but then how could she explain her step-mothers death? According to the doctor she had died 1-2 hours before Andrew. Eventually Lizzie was charged with murder due to her friends testimony as well as a store clerks who testified that she tried to buy poison from him days before the murders. She was charged with the murder of her father, mother and both of them in a trial that lasted fourteen days. Later, she was found not guilty due to insufficient evidence.

 

It has been over a hundred years since these bloody murders and still no one knows if Lizzie killed her parents or some mad man did. The former maid was said to have delivered one last message on her death bed, “Lizzie did it.”

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* The Borden’s maid is stated to have said that Lizzie committed the murders and she had been protecting Lizzie from prosecution.

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A landmark since the axe murders, the house on 92 Second Street is currently a bed and breakfast. It is open to all of those who think themselves brave enough to sleep in the room of the murdered, Abby Borden or the accused Lizzie Borden. You also have the choice of sleeping in the room of the others who dwelled in the Borden home. Each of the rooms have been made to look the same as they did the exact day of the murders. And if you make it through the night without wimping out, in the morning you get a breakfast similiar to the one eaten on that fateful day in 1892. Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast also offers collectibles and memorabilia of Fall River and The Borden’s.