The Lizzie Borden Murder Mystery

Very quietly, a murderer stalked the rooms of a wealthy mans house in Fall
River, Massachusetts, on a hot day in August. At the perfect moment, two
murders were carried out. One was upstairs in a guest room; The lady of the
house, Mrs. Abby Borden was struck 19 times with an axe or a hatchet while
she was cleaning, and straightening the bed. The second happened downstairs
nearly an hour and a half later; Mr. Andrew Borden was struck 11 times with
the same weapon while napping on a sofa. Just as quietly, the murderer slipped
out of the house while a servent, Bridget Sullivan, slept in a third floor bedroom,
and the daughter of the victims, Lizzie Borden, walked from the barn into the
kitchen. Six days later, Lizzie Borden, the prosecution's prime suspect, was
arrested for the murder of her parents.

The day began early, when Bridget Sullivan, the live in
house keeper arose around 6 a.m. to begin her chores.
She was slow to rise though, because the household had
recently become ill from a case of food poisening, and
Bridget was not immune to the heaving in her stomach.
Breakfast began aroung 7, and Andrew, Abby, and Lizzie's
Uncle John , who had arrived the afternoon before to stay
the night, sat down to eat. Johns left at about 8:45, anda
few minutes later, Lizzie came down, but did not eat,
saying that she still felt ill.

At 9 a.m. Mr. Borden left for work, and at that same time, Abby instructed
Bridget to wash the windows, inside and out. She then went upstairs to the
guestroom to straighten up where John had slept. It is estimated that at
about 9:30 a.m. Abby was killed by the unknown assailant. During the time
that Abby was being murdered, Lizzie was possibly down in the kitchen trying
to iron. She might also have been eating cookies, down in the celler or
reading a magazine. (Lizzie apparantly was everywhere that morning.)

Shortly after 10:40, Mr. Borden returned home, and laid down for a nap on
the sofa. At 10:55, Bridget finished the windows, and went upstairs to lay
down. Minutes after, Andrew Borden was struck and killed from behind, still
laying on the sofa, his shoes just beside him on the floor so as not to soil the
fabric. Lizzie later told police that she was outside in the barn looking for
fishing sinkers at the time of his death. She did not find any, and re-entered
the house. On her way up the stairs, she saw her father's bloody body, and
called quickly to Bridget to go for help, saying only that "father had been hurt."

Neighbors arrived first, when Lizzie was asked where her mother was, she only replied "I don't know
where she is." Abby Borden often went out in the mornings, and did not always wait to inform Lizzy of
where she was going. After a lot of chaos, questions began flying around. Where was Mrs. Borden?
Finally, a neighbor, Mrs. Churchill, volunteered to look upstairs for her. She and Bridget climed the stairs
slowly, and at the top, they saw the body of Abby lying on the ground in the guest room (which was
visible from the top of the stairs). Mrs. Churchill screamed, and Bridget ran into the room, and thrust open
the curtains to see better. Both then rushed downstairs to spread the news.

Author's Note:

I first want to say that this was not an easy story to write. Not because of lack of material, as some of
you know. There are literally hundreds of Lizzie Borden Links and articles on the internet right now. There
are also books written on the subject, and pieces of the subject written in books, and while I certainly
cannot claim to have read every tangible piece of information written on Lizzie, I can claim to have gone
through a few, as well as quite a few different websites, the links of which I will add below. As for
whether I think Lizzie really did commit the murders dictated below in my story, I still cannot say. Even
after reading all that I have, and brainstorming possible theories and such, I have to admit that the more I
read, the more confused I get! There is so much to say that Lizzie could have pulled off this crime, while
at the same time, so much to say that she couldn't possibly. The crimes themselves were an act of rage.
You do not have that much passion if you are a hired killer. You must hate the person, certainly to keep
on striking them in the head with an axe at least ten times after they are dead. And while you could argue
that Mr. Borden was not well liked at all, and even somewhat hated, the question that begs to be asked is
this; If you are angry at Mr. Borden, enough to kill him, why would you sneak into the house just after he
left, kill his wife by 19 blows on the head with an axe, wait until he returns an hour and a half later, kill him
by hitting him 11 times in the head with an axe, and then not kill his daughter, or the live in maid who could
have possibly heard something? Why would any "third man" do that? The prosecution was sure that he
wouldn't, and that's why they charged Lizzie with the crime.

I know that a lot of people think that the maid did it. Some think that she and Lizzie did it together. Still
others think that Emma traveled home that morning, and hacked her parents. One thing is for sure.
Nobody talked. Nobody ever said a word about what realy happened on 2nd Street that day. I guess
after long enough, you just figure that the past is past, and that's where it belongs. Some reports say
that Lizzie stopped attending church after the murders, because of all the gossip surrounding her, but
that Emma became a devoted church goer. What that means, I don't know. Maybe nothing more than
Emma just wasn't hounded as much as Lizzie was, and therefore could go as she pleased. Maybe Emma
felt the need to redeem her soul for something. Who knows? It is interesting that the two sisters
became so distant from each other. They didn't live far apart, and so far as I read, neither ever married.
What kept them apart I wonder?

* Lizzie Andrew Borden was born on July 19, 1860 to Sarah and Andrew Borden.

* Sarah Borden died of uterine congestion in March 1863.

* Andrew marries Abby Durfee (36 year old spinster) in 1865.

* Andrew (aged 69) and Abby Borden (aged 64) are murdered on August 4th, 1892.

* Lizzie's sister Emma (aged 40 at the time of the murders) was out of town visiting friends when her
father and step-mother were kiled. She returned quickly, and supoerted Lizzie during her trial. After
Lizzie was aquited, they moved in together in the 'fancy' part of town, in a large house which Lizzie
named Maplecroft. Emma lived there with Lizzie until about 1904, and then moved out.

* Bridget Sullivan (called Maggie by Lizzie) was a 26 year old Irish immigrant who had been working for
the Borden's since 1889. Her testimony in the Lizzie Borden trial did not damage or help to exonerate
Lizzy. Soon after, she returned to Ireland. A few years later, she moved back to the U.S. to Butte,
Montana where she married and died in 1948.

* Lizzie did not call Abby Borden 'mother' even though that's what she had been for most of her life.
She called her "Mrs. Borden."

* Lizzie was a 32 year old spinster at the time she was arrested for murdering her parents.

* Lizzie, Emma, Abby and Andrew all lived together in the second street house prior to the murders.

* It took just one hour for the jurors to acquit Lizzie.

* Borden hired a dream team of lawyers for her defense, including Massachusetts's Govenor, George
Robinson.

* The prosecution found no witnesses, and could never positively identify the murder weapon. They
also could never produce a clear motive for Lizzie to murder both her parents, and never did they find
any clear cut evidence (like bloody clothes) that she was the murderer. They based their case on
circumstantial evidence.

* There were a number of suspects, including Lizzie's Uncle John, but he had a pretty solid alibi.
Emma Borden was also a suspect, as was the maid and a supposedly illegitimate son of Andrew.

* On August 7th, 3 days after the murders, Lizzie was witnessed burning a dress in the kitchen stove.
When asked why she was doing it, she simply said that the dress had paint on it, and it was now
useless. It was because of this that Lizzie was finally arrested. (She had been under home arrest,
though the maid is said to have been able to come and go as she pleased.)

* She confided in her friend Alice Russell the night before the murders, "I feel as if I wanted to sleep
with my eyes half open -- with one eye open half the time -- for fear they will burn the house down
over us and "I am afraid somebody will do something. I don't know but what somebody will do
something

* Lizzie did not testify at her trial. She had been charged with three counts of murder. The murder
of her father, the murder of her step-mother, and the murder of both of them.

* Lizzie gave a long testimony after her arrest, but before she was formally charged, so it was not
admitted into evidence in the trial. In this testimony Lizzie continuously contradicts herself, and could
have severly harmed her trial.

* Lizzie, during her house arrest just after the murders, had been able to cart bloody clothes, and
bloody rags into the basement in order to clean them, the polite victorian men looking the other way,
because Lizzie had been on her period.

* Lizzie had been so upset after her parent's muders that her docter prescribed her morphine to calm
her.

* Lizzie Borden suffered from psychomotor epilepsy, a strange seizure of the temporal lobe that
occurred during her menstrual cycle. The petit mal seizure of psychomotor epilepsy has one distinct
symptom: a brownout in which patients carry out their actions in a dream state, aware of every
action without knowing what they are doing

* Lizzie, during the trial had been pictured by the press as a frustrated, reclusive spinster, when she
was anything but. Lizzie was a generous doner to charities. She taught a sunday school class,
classes for Chinese men and for young women in the mills. She was an elected member of the Fall
River Hospital (which was unusual for women), a member of the Fruit and Flower Mission, a volunteer
group that took fruit and flowers to hospital patients. She kept in touch with her high school
teachers, and would pass along concert tickets to be given anonymously to deserving students.
She paid for friend's much needed operations, moved in with them, and nursed them back to health.
Lizzie was also a great lover of animals, and later in life became a great activist.

* Lizzie died on June 1st, 1927 at the age of 67, leaving behind an estate worth over 1 million
dollars, after a long illness from complications with the gall bladder.

* Emma died 9 days later as the result of a fall down the back of her stairs in Newmarket, Mass.
The sisters were reported to have not spoken since about 1904.

* Both girls were buried in the family plot next to their long dead parents..

* Bridget Sullivan died in 1948, more than 20 years after the borden sisters.

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