Lizzie Borden

Lizzie Borden took an axe,

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

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1st June 1927

Lizzie Borden Dies Of Pneumonia

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The Lizzie Borden murder case, is one of the most famous in American criminal history.

New England’s crime of the Gilded Age, captivated the national press.

And the horrible identity of the murderer, was immortalized by the children’s rhyme, passed down across generations.

While there is no doubt that Lizzie Borden committed the murders, the rhyme is not quite correct.

Sixty-four-year-old Abby, was Lizzie’s stepmother, and a hatchet, rather than an axe, served as the weapon.

Fewer than half the blows of the rhyme, actually battered the victims.

19 rained down on Abby and ten more rendered 69-year-old Andrew’s face unrecognizable.

Still, the rhyme does accurately record the sequence of the murders, which took place approximately an hour and a half apart, on the morning of the 4th August 1892.

Part of the puzzle of why we still remember Lizzie’s crime, lies in Fall River, Massachusetts, a textile mill town 50 miles south of Boston.

Fall River was rocked, not only by the sheer brutality of the crime, but also by who its victims were.

Cultural, religious, class, ethnic, and gender divisions in the town would shape debates over Lizzie’s guilt or innocence—and draw the whole country into the case.

In the early hours after the discovery of the bodies, people only knew that the assassin struck the victims at home, in broad daylight, on a busy street, one block from the city’s business district.

There was no evident motive—no robbery or sexual assault, for example.

Neighbors and passersby heard nothing.

No one saw a suspect enter, or leave the Borden property.

Andrew Borden was no ordinary citizen.

Like other Fall River Bordens, he possessed wealth and standing.

He had invested in mills, banks, and real estate.

But Andrew had never made a show of his good fortune.

He lived in a modest house, on an unfashionable street, instead of on “The Hill,” Fall River’s lofty, leafy, silk-stocking enclave.

Thirty-two-year-old Lizzie, who lived at home, longed to reside on The Hill, with the more affluent members of society.

She knew her father could afford to move away, from a neighborhood increasingly dominated by Catholic immigrants.

On the day of the murders, Lizzie claimed that she came into the house from the barn, and discovered her father’s body.

She yelled for the Bordens’ 26-year-old Irish servant, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, who was resting in her third-floor room.

She told Maggie that she needed a doctor, and sent the servant across the street to the family physician’s house.

He was not at home.

Lizzie then told Maggie to get a friend down the street.

When questioned about the murders, Lizzie’s answers to different police officers shifted.

Her inability to summon a single tear, aroused police suspicion. Then an officer discovered that Lizzie had tried to purchase deadly prussic acid, a day before the murders, in a nearby drugstore.

Lizzie became their number one suspect.

The heap of inconsistencies in Lizzie’s testimony, led her into a patch of seeming self-incrimination.

Lizzie did not have a defense lawyer during what was a closed inquiry.

But she was not without defenders.

The family doctor, who staunchly believed in Lizzie’s innocence, testified that after the murders he prescribed a double dose of morphine to help her sleep.

Its side effects, he claimed, could account for Lizzie’s confusion.

Her 41-year-old spinster sister Emma, who also lived at home, claimed that the sisters harbored no anger, toward their stepmother.

With her sister Emma 15 miles away on vacation, Lizzie and Bridget Sullivan, were the only ones left at home with Abby after Andrew left on his morning business rounds.

Bridget was outside washing windows, when Abby was slaughtered in the second floor guest room.

While Andrew Borden was bludgeoned in the first floor sitting room shortly after his return, the servant was resting in her attic room.

Unable to account consistently for Lizzie’s movements, the judge, district attorney, and police marshal determined that Lizzie was “probably guilty.”

Lizzie was arrested on the 11th August, one week after the murders.

The judge sent Lizzie to the county jail.

This privileged suspect, found herself confined to a cheerless 9 ½-by-7 ½ foot cell, for the next nine months.

Lizzie’s arrest provoked an uproar, that quickly became national.

Women’s groups rallied to Lizzie’s side, especially the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and suffragists.

Lizzie’s supporters protested that at trial, she would not be judged by a jury of her peers because women, as non-voters, did not have the right to serve on juries.

Lizzie could afford the best legal representation throughout her ordeal.

When her trial started, the small courtroom above the police station, was packed with Lizzie’s supporters, particularly women.

At times they were buoyed by testimony, at others unsettled.

For example, a Harvard chemist reported that he found no blood on two axes and two hatchets, that police retrieved from the cellar.

Lizzie had turned over to the police, two days after the murders, the dress she allegedly wore, on the morning of the 4th August.

It had only a minuscule spot of blood on the hem.

Her attorneys stressed, that the prosecution offered no murder weapon and possessed no bloody clothes.

As to the prussic acid, Lizzie was a victim of misidentification, they claimed.

In addition, throughout the Borden saga, her legion of supporters was unable to consider what they saw as culturally inconceivable~ a well-bred virtuous Victorian woman, could never commit patricide.

Alice Russell, was Lizzie’s close friend.

Shortly after Andrew had been killed, Lizzie sent Bridget Sullivan to summon Alice.

Then Alice had slept in the Borden house for several nights, after the murders, with the brutalized victims stretched out on mortician boards in the dining room.

She testified that on the Sunday morning after the murders, Lizzie pulled a dress from a shelf in the pantry closet, and proceeded to burn it in the cast iron coal stove.

The grand jury indicted Lizzie the next day......

Lizzie’s demeanor in court, which District Attorney Knowlton perhaps failed to fully anticipate, also surely influenced the outcome.

Here lies a gender paradox of Lizzie’s trial.

In a courtroom, where men reserved all the legal power, Lizzie was not a helpless maiden.

She only needed to present herself as one....

Her lawyers told her to dress in black.

She appeared in court tightly corseted, dressed in flowing clothes, and holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand, and a fan in the other.

One newspaper described her as “quiet, modest, and well-bred,” far from a “brawny, big, muscular, hard-faced, coarse-looking girl.” Another stressed that she lacked “Amazonian proportions.”

She could not possess the physical strength, let alone the moral degeneracy, to wield a weapon with skull-cracking force.

Moreover, with her father’s money in hand, Lizzie could afford the best legal team to defend her.

Half of the jurors on Lizzie's case, were farmers; others were tradesmen.

Some with daughters approximately Lizzie’s age.

Not surprisingly the jury quickly decided to acquit her.

The courtroom audience, the bulk of the press, and women’s groups, cheered Lizzie’s acquittal.

Two months after the innocent verdict, Lizzie and Emma moved to a large Victorian house on The Hill, finally Lizzie was living where she had always wanted to be.

Four years after her acquittal, a warrant was issued for her arrest.

She was charged with shoplifting and apparently made recompense for her crime.

Lizzie enjoyed her new life, as one of the elite, on 'The Hill'.

She travelled frequently, making trips to Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C.

She entertained in style, and loved attending the theatre.

In 1904, Lizzie and her sister Emma, had a huge falling out.

Although they reconcilled, tensions were fraught between the two, once close sisters.

Emma finally left the house in 1905, and evidently the sisters never saw each other again.

Lizzie died of pneumonia on 1st June 1927, in Fall River.

Funeral details were not published, and only a select few attended.

Nine days later, Emma died from chronic nephritis, in a nursing home.

They were both interred next to their father......

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Source~smithsonianmag

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https://ko-fi.com/thetudorintruders

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Lizzie Borden in 1889.