Lizzie Borden Took An Axe...
This past weekend I had an occasion to make a stop in Fall River, Massachusetts. The only possible reason to visit this city is to take a look at the site of one of the most notorious murders in U.S. city, the deaths by hatchet of prominent citizen Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby, which occurred on August 4, 1892. Arrested for the crime was Borden's daughter, Lizzie.
Fall River, once fashionable, is now a somewhat rundown mid-size city, but the home where the Bordens lived, built in 1845, is still there, and operates as a bed and breakfast. I didn't stay the night, but I did take the tour and purchase a few items from the gift shop. The tour was very thorough, lasting about forty-five minutes, with almost every detail of the murders and their aftermath fully explained.
These are the facts: on the hot morning of August 4, Mrs. Borden, who was Lizzie's stepmother (Lizzie's sister Emma was away visiting friends) was making up a bed in the guest room, where Lizzie's Uncle John was staying (John was also out visiting and had an airtight alibi). Someone clubbed Abby to death with a hatchet, striking her nineteen times and leaving her face down on the floor. The maid, Bridget Sullivan, had been washing windows and gossiping with the maid next door, and saw no one strange enter or exit the house.
Some forty-five minutes later, Andrew returned home from doing some business. He went into the first floor parlor, completely unaware that his wife lay dead upstairs. He made himself comfortable on the sofa and sometime later was also axed in the head, receiving twenty-one blows to the face and head. Lizzie discovered the body and yelled up to Bridget, who wasn't feeling well and was lying down in her room on the third floor, that someone had killed her father.
Eventually Mrs. Borden's body was discovered, and the police made a thorough search of the house. They found a few handle-less hatchets but none were ever definitely proved to be the murder weapon. A few days later, after making contradictory statements about her whereabouts, Lizzie was arrested for the crime. She had said she was in the barn out back, eating pears and looking for weights to use for fishing lines.
A trial followed, but there was little physical evidence to link her to the crime. Most importantly, there was no blood on her dress or her person (although she was spotted burning a dress a few days after the murder). At that time, it was pretty much unthinkable that a genteel woman such as Lizzie could be capable of such a vicious crime. She was freed and used her sizable inheritance to move into a mansion in the fashionable district of town (her father was a miser--the house didn't have any modern luxuries such as electricity or toilets) and lived until 1927.
There have been many sensational crimes in American history, but this one certainly is one of the better known, and it probably stems from a bit of doggerel that was written during the trial, of unknown authorship: "Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one." The number of blows is off by one-hundred percent, but the the damage was done to Lizzie's reputation. I would imagine almost all children, even today, have heard that song, and would also imagine that most people assume she had been convicted of the crime.
Most experts today conclude that she did commit the murders, out of a hatred for her stepmother, perhaps because she feared her father's inheritance would go to the stepmother, or a combination of both. There was little opportunity for a stranger to enter the house, kill Mrs. Borden, then hide in the house for ninety minutes before killing Mr. Borden. One chilling detail is that when Mr. Borden came home, Bridget had to unlock the door for him. Bridget had trouble with the lock and swore, and she heard laughter from the stairway landing above. If that was Lizzie, she would have easily seen that Mrs. Borden was dead in the guest room. But how to explain the lack of blood on Lizzie? A TV movie in the seventies postulated that she may have committed the murders in the nude and washed herself clean for the police arrived!
The macabre certainly makes for good tourism. I doubt this is an American peculiarity, given the cottage industry that exists over Jack the Ripper. I must admit I'm fascinated by this stuff (I took the Jack the Ripper tour in London), and it was a bit creepy to be standing in the rooms where axe murders took place. Supposedly the house is haunted, but I didn't see any ghostly apparations.
Fall River, once fashionable, is now a somewhat rundown mid-size city, but the home where the Bordens lived, built in 1845, is still there, and operates as a bed and breakfast. I didn't stay the night, but I did take the tour and purchase a few items from the gift shop. The tour was very thorough, lasting about forty-five minutes, with almost every detail of the murders and their aftermath fully explained.
These are the facts: on the hot morning of August 4, Mrs. Borden, who was Lizzie's stepmother (Lizzie's sister Emma was away visiting friends) was making up a bed in the guest room, where Lizzie's Uncle John was staying (John was also out visiting and had an airtight alibi). Someone clubbed Abby to death with a hatchet, striking her nineteen times and leaving her face down on the floor. The maid, Bridget Sullivan, had been washing windows and gossiping with the maid next door, and saw no one strange enter or exit the house.
Some forty-five minutes later, Andrew returned home from doing some business. He went into the first floor parlor, completely unaware that his wife lay dead upstairs. He made himself comfortable on the sofa and sometime later was also axed in the head, receiving twenty-one blows to the face and head. Lizzie discovered the body and yelled up to Bridget, who wasn't feeling well and was lying down in her room on the third floor, that someone had killed her father.
Eventually Mrs. Borden's body was discovered, and the police made a thorough search of the house. They found a few handle-less hatchets but none were ever definitely proved to be the murder weapon. A few days later, after making contradictory statements about her whereabouts, Lizzie was arrested for the crime. She had said she was in the barn out back, eating pears and looking for weights to use for fishing lines.
A trial followed, but there was little physical evidence to link her to the crime. Most importantly, there was no blood on her dress or her person (although she was spotted burning a dress a few days after the murder). At that time, it was pretty much unthinkable that a genteel woman such as Lizzie could be capable of such a vicious crime. She was freed and used her sizable inheritance to move into a mansion in the fashionable district of town (her father was a miser--the house didn't have any modern luxuries such as electricity or toilets) and lived until 1927.
There have been many sensational crimes in American history, but this one certainly is one of the better known, and it probably stems from a bit of doggerel that was written during the trial, of unknown authorship: "Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one." The number of blows is off by one-hundred percent, but the the damage was done to Lizzie's reputation. I would imagine almost all children, even today, have heard that song, and would also imagine that most people assume she had been convicted of the crime.
Most experts today conclude that she did commit the murders, out of a hatred for her stepmother, perhaps because she feared her father's inheritance would go to the stepmother, or a combination of both. There was little opportunity for a stranger to enter the house, kill Mrs. Borden, then hide in the house for ninety minutes before killing Mr. Borden. One chilling detail is that when Mr. Borden came home, Bridget had to unlock the door for him. Bridget had trouble with the lock and swore, and she heard laughter from the stairway landing above. If that was Lizzie, she would have easily seen that Mrs. Borden was dead in the guest room. But how to explain the lack of blood on Lizzie? A TV movie in the seventies postulated that she may have committed the murders in the nude and washed herself clean for the police arrived!
The macabre certainly makes for good tourism. I doubt this is an American peculiarity, given the cottage industry that exists over Jack the Ripper. I must admit I'm fascinated by this stuff (I took the Jack the Ripper tour in London), and it was a bit creepy to be standing in the rooms where axe murders took place. Supposedly the house is haunted, but I didn't see any ghostly apparations.
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