Lizzie Borden

Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was a New England spinster who was tried for the brutal axe murders of her father and stepmother in the late 19th century. Although she was acquitted, she has remained a notorious figure, and dispute over whether she was guilty continues to this day.

Before the murder

Lizzie Andrew Borden was the youngest child of Andrew Jackson Borden and Sarah Morse Borden. Andrew was a well-to-do banker who owned considerable property in his home town of Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie's mother died when Lizzie was two and half years old. When Lizzie was five years old, Andrew married Abby Durfee Grey. It was rumored that Lizzie and her older sister Emma (who was out of town at the time of the murders) never felt warmly towards their stepmother. Both sisters admitted during their testimony that there was considerable ill-feeling when, a few years prior to the crime, Andrew put a piece of property in Abby's name. Prior to the rift, Emma Borden referred to her father's wife as "Abby", while Lizzie politely called her "mother". After Andrew Borden's first transfer of property into his wife's name, his daughters stopped acknowledging Abby altogether.

The murder and the trial

On August 4, 1892, Lizzie Borden discovered the body of her father at the home at 92 Second Street in Fall River. She called to the family's maid Bridget Sullivan (who had been resting in her third floor room) to "come downstairs...father is dead...somebody got in and murdered him." After the arrival of family friend Alice Russell and Dr. Bowen, neighbor Adelaide Churchill asked Lizzie where her mother was. "I don't know," Borden replied, continuing on "but what if she's been killed, too, for I thought I heard her come in." Russell suggested that someone look for Mrs. Borden, and Sullivan and Churchill were sent to the second floor. The two returned shortly thereafter confirming that Lizzie's stepmother was indeed upstairs and dead as well.

Both Bordens had been slain by multiple axe blows. Although the exact weapon was not named, and witnesses saw no trace of blood on Lizzie moments after the murder, a contingent case was mounted against her. At the inquest, a local pharmacist claimed that Lizzie attempted to purchase prussic acid from him a day before the crime. Then, at the grand jury hearing, incriminating evidence came from her friend, Alice Russell, who testified that Lizzie burned a stained dress, the defense claiming it was paint-stained, three days after the murders. But the most damning evidence came at the trial, when medical experts appeared to prove that Abby Borden was killed approximately an hour and a half before her husband, making it seem that the perpetrator was more likely to have been a member of the household than an outsider.

The preliminary hearing was held in late August 1892, and the grand jury heard testimony in late November and early December of the same year. The trial of Lizzie Borden began on June 5, 1893 and lasted 13 days. A turning point in the trial was the unveiling of the victims' skulls; Lizzie fainted and won much sympathy from the all-male jury, who acquitted her on June 20, 1893, after only 68 minutes of deliberation.

Public reaction

The trial received a tremendous amount of national publicity, a relatively new phenomenon for the times. It has been compared to the later trials of Bruno Hauptmann and O.J. Simpson as a landmark in media coverage of legal proceedings.

The case was memorialized in a popular jump-rope rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one.

The anonymous rhyme was made up by a writer as an alluring little tune to sell newspapers even though in reality her stepmother suffered 19 blows, her father 10 — some believe that this has served to ensure Lizzie Borden's place in American folklore.

Later life

Apparently Lizzie was a great lover of the theater, animals, and poetry. Above her fireplace in Maplecroft was emblazoned the following:

And old-time friends & twilight plays

And starry nights, and sunny days

Come trooping up the misty ways

When my fire burns low.

Many Fall River residents still believed in her guilt. As a result, she was ostracized to some degree. Lizzie and her sister Emma lived apart from 1905 until their deaths in 1927.

Lizzie Borden died of complications from gall bladder surgery on June 1, 1927, at the age of sixty-six. Emma died nine days later. One-seventh of Lizzie's considerable estate was left to the Animal Rescue League of Fall River and the remainder to those friends and servants who stayed loyal to her over the years.

Legacy

Despite her acquittal, Lizzie Borden remains in popular imagination as a brutal murderess. This is due in part to the following:

The murders were never solved.
For a number of years, on the anniversary of the murders, the more sensational press re-accused her of the crime.
The infamous doggerel endured, insinuating her guilt into the public mind thereafter.

The home where the murders occurred is now a bed and breakfast which enjoys considerable popularity. The house is also open for daily tours. Ongoing work has restored the home to a close approximation of its 1892 condition. "Maplecroft," the mansion Lizzie bought after her acquittal, on then-fashionable French Street is privately owned, and only occasionally available for touring.

Genealogically speaking

This infamous New England spinster was distantly related to the American milk manufacturer Gail Borden (1801-1874) and Robert Borden (1854-1937), Canada's Prime Minister during World War I.

Artistic depictions

A number of books expounding different theories have been written about the crime. These include:

Brown, Arnold R. Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991. ISBN 1558530991
de Mille, Agnes. Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1968.
Kent, David Forty Whacks: New Evidence in the Life and Legend of Lizzie Borden. Yankee Books, 1992. ISBN 0899093515
Kent, David The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook. Boston: Branden Publishing Company, 1992. ISBN 0828319502
King, Florence. WASP, Where is Thy Sting? Chapter 15, "One WASP's Family, or the Ties That Bind." Stein & Day, 1977. ISBN 0552993778 (1990 Reprint Edition)
Lincoln, Victoria. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967. ISBN 0930330358
Masterton, William L. Lizzie Didn’t Do It! Boston: Branden Publishing Company, 2000. ISBN 0828320527
Pearson, Edmund Lester. Studies in Murder Ohio State University Press, 1999
Spiering, Frank. Lizzie: The Story of Lizzie Borden. Dorset Press, 1991. ISBN 0880296852
Sullivan, Robert. Goodbye Lizzie Borden. Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene Press, 1974. ISBN 0140114165

There is a scholarly journal published on Lizzie Borden, Fall River, and Victorian era America:

The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies. PearTree Press.

There is also a 1975 film adaptation of the crime:

starring Elizabeth Montgomery.

She was the subject of the operas Lizzie Borden (1965) by Jack Beeson and Lizbeth by Thomas Albert.

Ballet Theatre commissioned Fall River Legend with choreography by Agnes de Mille, who chose as subject matter the Lizzie Borden case.

Lillian Gish played "Effie Holden," a character based on Miss Borden in 1933's Nine Pine Street.

Rick Geary used the device of a fictional journal written by a Fall River contemporary of Lizzie as the basis of his comic book "The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Massachusetts, 1892." NY: NBN Pub., 1997. It was an entry in his series "A Treasury of Victorian Murder."

Miss Borden also appears as a character in Monkeybone (2001), Joe Killionaire (2004), and Saturday the 14th Strikes Back (1988), played by Shawnee Free Jones, Alice Alyse, and Lauren Peterson, respectively.

Blood Relations by Sharon Pollock premiered at Theatre Tree, Edmonton Canada in 1980. The play is set in 1902, with its "dream thesis" set in 1892, at Fall River, Massachusetts. It explores the events leading up to the trial.

Borden was depicted in The Simpsons episodes "Treehouse of Horror IV" (1993), and "Cape Feare" (same year).

A figure of Borden appears on Captain Spaulding's 'Murder Ride' in Rob Zombie's film House of 1000 Corpses.

Lizzie was the topic of The Chad Mitchell Trio's aptly named "Lizzie Borden/You Can't Chop Your Poppa Up in Massachusetts." It was written by Michael Brown for "New Faces of 1952."

She was also the subject of the cockney knees-up style song "Oh, Mother Borden" by late 80s UK musical satirists The Dubious Brothers.

The Disney Channel show Smart Guy alluded to the Borden murders in an episode in which Yvette and a few friends pretend to be axe murderers and chant the well-known rhyme.

Angela Carter wrote a short story, entitled "The Fall River Axe Murders", on the events leading up to the murders.

Alexander Woollcott of The New Yorker magazine, was fascinated by Lizzie and commented on her during his 1930's radio broadcasts. He was the inspiration for the Sheridan Whiteside character in the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hartplay The Man Who Came to Dinner including his interest in the Borden murders.

The song She Took An Axe by the thrash metal band Flotsam and Jetsam tells Lizzie's story, portraying her as a demon inspired woman, treating the subject with humour.

In Mary Higgins Clark novel, No Place Like Home, the main character is compared to Lizzie Borden for having killed her mom as a child

Alice Cooper on his 1978 album "From the Inside" recorded the song (We're all) Crazy, and recites part of the rhyme.

An episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents entitled The Older Sister retold the Borden story, implicating another family member.

The Angel episode, I've Got You Under My Skin, claims that Lizzie Borden was possessed by an ethros demon, supposedly explaining the murders.

In Avram Davidson's short story The Deed of the Deft-Footed Dragon, an exiled Tong enforcer kills the elder Borden and his "concubine".

Adoptions of the name

Because of the fame and infamy, several women have later adopted the name "Lizzie" or "Lizzy Borden"; see Lizzy Borden for a list.

External links

1860 births | 1927 deaths | American folklore | People from Massachusetts | Unsolved murders