Lizzie Borden

BORDEN, LIZZIE

The trial of Lizzie Borden shows the effect that
public opinion can have on the life of an accused
person, regardless of the outcome of a fair trial.
Lizzie Borden was born July 19, 1860. She
was a plain, outspoken woman who lived with
her father, stepmother, and sister in a house on
Second Street in Fall River, a small industrial city
located in southeastern Massachusetts.
According to local rumors, the Borden family
was not noted for its harmonious relationships.
Andrew Borden was a quiet, unpleasant
man who had two daughters, Lizzie and Emma,
by a previous marriage, and who had married
his present wife in 1865. Neither Lizzie nor
Emma favored the union and animosity existed
among the three Borden women.
On August 4, 1892, the residents of Fall River
were shocked and frightened by the brutal ax
murders of Andrew Borden and his wife. The
killings were committed at the Borden home in
daylight. Emma Borden was out of town, but
Lizzie discovered her father’s body on the couch
in the living room; she immediately sent a servant,
Bridget, for help. Upon their return, Bridget
and a neighbor found the body of Lizzie’s
stepmother in an upstairs bedroom.
The town was in an uproar and the newspapers
seized the opportunity to sensationalize an
already lurid story. Lizzie became the prime suspect,
and throughout Fall River, speculation
spread about her actions on that fatal day, suggesting
that Lizzie attacked her stepmother and
afterward carefully cleaned the ax and changed
her clothes. She then did her normal housework
until her father returned from town to take a
nap on the couch. While he slept, Lizzie killed
him, and again cleaned the ax and her clothing.
Chemical tests did not provide any substantial
evidence because the alleged murder weapon,
the ax, was cleaned so thoroughly.
The story of the murders was embellished
with continued fragmented reports of Lizzie’s
behavior. One source claimed that Lizzie was
devoid of any emotion when the corpses were
found; another witnessed Lizzie in the act of
burning a dress shortly after the murders were
committed; still another stated that the suspect
had attempted to purchase poison as recently as
one day before the killings. The condemning
public showed Lizzie no mercy, and some
unknown rhymer composed a grotesque verse
relating the events. The still familiar rhyme
reads as follows:
Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.
An inquest was held five days after the discovery
of the murders, and Lizzie was subsequently
arrested. The trial began in New
Bedford,Massachusetts, in June 1893, and lasted
thirteen days. Those days were filled with contradictory accounts of the crime, but the main
point of contention concerned Lizzie’s assertion
that she was in the barn at the time the murders
were committed, between 11:00 A.M. and 11:15
A.M. An ice cream vendor corroborated Lizzie’s
story by testifying that he had seen the defendant
leaving the barn at the aforementioned
time. The defense attorney argued brilliantly on
his client’s behalf—the evidence was mostly circumstantial—
and the jury found Lizzie Borden
not guilty of the murder of her parents.
Lizzie Borden was acquitted by the jury but
not by the public. After her death on June 1,
1927, in Fall River, she was still not exonerated
in the public mind; she is famous only in connection
with the bloody events of August 4,
1892.

FURTHER READINGS
Hoffman, Paul Dennis. 2000. Yesterday in Old Fall River: A
Lizzie Borden Companion. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic
Press.
Masterton, William L. 2000. Lizzie Didn’t Do It! Boston:
Branden.
Ortiz, Catalina. 1997. “Defense Has the Edge: New Trial,
Same Verdict: Lizzie Borden ‘No Murderer.’” Chicago
Daily Law Bulletin 143 (September 17).
Robertson, Cara W. 1996. “Representing “Miss Lizzie”: Cultural
Convictions in the Trial of Lizzie Borden.” Yale
Journal of Law & the Humanities 8 (summer): 351–416.