Lizzie Andrew Borden was born on July 19th, 1860 in Fall River Massachusetts, United States. Lizzie was suspected of killing her father and stepmother Andrew and Abby Borden in 1892. The Lizzie Borden case is intriguing because it’s still up for debate whether she actually killed them or not, as she was ultimately found not guilty, but people still don’t seem to believe it.
Lizzie was the daughter of a businessman who was married for the first time in 1865, three years after Lizzie’s mother died. She was popular and engaged in charitable work. In contrast, her father was gloomy, unfriendly, and immensely wealthy. Lizzie also had an older sister named Emma Borden, and they were both always at odds with their father and stepmother, mostly over financial matters.
On a Thursday morning August 4th, 1892 Mr. Borden left home to conduct his business, leaving his wife, Irish maid Bridget Sullivan, and Lizzie and Emma. While he was away, it is said that “Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks when she saw what she had done, she gave him forty-one,” a rhyme about her case that kids use to skip rope. In reality, she hit her mother 19 times and her father 10-11 times. According to her testimony, Lizzie discovered her father dead, repeatedly struck in the head with a sharp object. Upstairs his wife’s body was found, even more brutally mutilated; examination proved that her death had preceded her husbands by an hour or so. It was found that Lizzie had tried to purchase Prussia acid (a poison) on August 3rd, and a day after her father’s funeral, Lizzie burned a dress on the kitchen stove because according to her and her sister Emma, “it was stained with paint.” Due to these suspicions, along with her hatred towards her stepmother, Lizzie was a major suspect.
A key witness to the crime was Bridget Sullivan, a maid for the Bordens. She testified that she was in her third-floor room, resting from cleaning windows when just before 11:10 am. She heard Lizzie call out to her from downstairs, “Maggie, come quick! Father’s dead. Somebody came in and killed him.” Sullivan was called Maggie, the name of an earlier maid.
On June 20th, 1893, because the majority of the prosecution’s case had been composed of circumstantial evidence, she was let out and found not guilty. Lizzie spent the rest of her days in Fall River excluded from society until her death on June 1st, 1927. To this day the Lizzie Borden case of her stepmother and father being murdered has been unsolved. There are many different conspiracies about the case and who committed the crime. Still, they say that the house where the murders were committed is haunted by the ghosts of Andrew and Abby Borden, but it has since been transformed into a lovely bed and breakfast.
