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45 - Lizzie Borden - Axe Murderer (Part 01) · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 3: Hi, everybody, and welcome to Who Did What Now? The
1:13
Speaker 3: history podcast That's not your history class with me? Your
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Speaker 3: host Katy Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. Well,
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Speaker 3: it's been a week or two. I've not been well.
1:26
Speaker 3: That's why there was no episode. Last week. I was
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Speaker 3: pretty sick. I've been getting migraine. I was so unwell
1:34
Speaker 3: that it got to the point that I had a
1:36
Speaker 3: panic attack at work. Now, I'm usually very good at,
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Speaker 3: you know, containing that, and I have pretty good coping mechanisms.
1:46
Speaker 3: I manage my condition pretty well because I have ADHD
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Speaker 3: in anxiety, and as such, I'm usually fairly good. I
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Speaker 3: keep myself on an even keel, especially in a work environment.
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Speaker 3: And fortunately, everything just came to a head. Nothing quite,
2:03
Speaker 3: says Employee of the Month, quite like being quadled by
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Speaker 3: your boss on the storeroom floor. My boss is amazing
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Speaker 3: by the way, she's cool. And obviously, because you know,
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Speaker 3: anxiety ADHD, so on and so forth, I automatically think
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Speaker 3: of the worst case scenario. So I'm like, oh, no,
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Speaker 3: they're gonna think I'm a fucking idiot. I you know,
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Speaker 3: I can't handle stuff, and that I'm not gonna be
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Speaker 3: able to have the responsibilities, so on and so forth.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 3: But like it's so, things were really bad for me.
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Speaker 3: My anxiety has been kicking my ass for a week
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Speaker 3: or two, and so there was just no there was
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Speaker 3: no episode last week. That being said, I was checking
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Speaker 3: my reviews today because I'm always asking everyone to like
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Speaker 3: rate review five star on Apple podcasts and on Spotify,
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Speaker 3: and when you like read a review on Apple Podcasts,
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Speaker 3: it really pushes that podcast with an episode like up
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Speaker 3: the algorithm. I don't know why, it's just what Apple does.
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Speaker 3: So I was doing that, I actually cried, I'm so
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Speaker 3: full of emotions and stuff right now. I actually cried
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Speaker 3: because I'm like so full of emotion right now, and
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Speaker 3: like not like a bad cry, Like it was very cathartic.
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Speaker 3: It was like a release cry, and it made me
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Speaker 3: feel really really good. And up until like this afternoon,
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Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna I was just going to be recording
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Speaker 3: an apology instead of an episode because I didn't know
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Speaker 3: I was going to be fit for it. And I
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Speaker 3: was like, you know what, No, these have been amazing.
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Speaker 3: I've had a bit of event got on my notes here.
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Speaker 3: I'm just going to power through. I'm just gonna power through. Also,
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Speaker 3: I seem to have talked quite a bit, so this
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Speaker 3: is actually going to be a two parter, but I'm
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Speaker 3: going to try and get them released, like basically one
3:43
Speaker 3: after the other as soon as possible. But there's just
3:45
Speaker 3: like a lot going on. Okay, Furthermore, I made my
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Speaker 3: favorite joke I have ever made in my life, and
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Speaker 3: it is so niche. It's it's peak millennial, especially peak
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Speaker 3: millennial anyone who follows British politics, you know. I was
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Speaker 3: watching the Jubilee and there's Boris, the current Prime Minister
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Speaker 3: of England, who is a fucking buffoon who lands in
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Speaker 3: shit and somehow always comes out smell and the roses,
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Speaker 3: and he's going into like the cathedral and he's being bored.
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Speaker 3: So I made this joke. Boris is going in, he
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Speaker 3: turns to his wife. Are they boring me?
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Speaker 4: Oh?
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Speaker 3: Now they're saying boos woos, which is based on The
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Speaker 3: Simpsons where mister Burns is being booed and Smothers goes.
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Speaker 3: They're saying boo earns, boo earns. So I made the joke.
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Speaker 3: I did it on Twitter and nobody paid attention, and
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Speaker 3: I'd put it on TikTok and then people responded, and
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Speaker 3: then some people responded with hands moment sort of, I
4:48
Speaker 3: was saying boo res. It just tickled me so much.
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Speaker 3: I'm so proud I laughed at it. I thought I
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Speaker 3: was really funny. I know, I've technically just stolen someone
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Speaker 3: else's joke. It made me chortle so much and it
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Speaker 3: was so perfect that I just I'm laughing now. Oh
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Speaker 3: but anyway, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking quite
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Speaker 3: your gibber jabber in fact me, in fact you, I will.
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Speaker 3: But first we've got to get our source on. So
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Speaker 3: our sources are Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the
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Speaker 3: Century by Sarah Miller, The Trial of Lizzie Borden by
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Speaker 3: Camra Robertson, Lizzie Borden, The Legend, The Truth The Final
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Speaker 3: Chapter by Arnold R. Brown. We also have our favorites
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Speaker 3: History dot com, Smithsonian dot com, and one of my
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Speaker 3: new favorite things, Lizzie Andrew Bordon dot com. Are you
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Speaker 3: saying comfortably good? Then let's begin. So I know that
5:45
Speaker 3: a lot of my American and Canadian followers will probably
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Speaker 3: know that's rhyme, or at least the first verse of it.
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Speaker 3: As far as I can tell, not many people know
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Speaker 3: of the second verse, like I didn't even know about
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Speaker 3: the first one until like a few years ago. But
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Speaker 3: it goes as such, Lizzie Borden took an axe and
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Speaker 3: gave her mother forty wax. When she saw what she
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Speaker 3: had done, she gave her father forty one. This is
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Speaker 3: basically one of those I want to call it a
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Speaker 3: skipping rope rime, like you do the skip and on
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Speaker 3: the beat and you jump in anyway, the second verse goes,
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Speaker 3: Andrew Borden now is dead. Lizzie hit him on the
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Speaker 3: head up in heaven. He will sing on the gallows.
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Speaker 3: She will swing now. I don't know about you, but
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Speaker 3: I think the first verse is just punch her. I
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Speaker 3: think all in all, that kind of encompasses the whole story,
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Speaker 3: and we don't really need a second verse, but it exists,
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Speaker 3: and I wanted to share that with you. And before
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Speaker 3: I get into like the niitty gritty of this case.
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Speaker 3: When I was doing research, and I was like in
6:48
Speaker 3: and out of forms and stuff as well, just to
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Speaker 3: get away sort of idea of what everyone's perception of
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Speaker 3: the case was, because that's fascinating to me. Seeing if
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Speaker 3: there was any like newspaper clippings or bits and pieces
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Speaker 3: that hadn't been put anywhere else. It's always a good
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Speaker 3: place to go. What I noticed is that people who
7:06
Speaker 3: are like super into the Lizzie Boarding case. Are very
7:09
Speaker 3: similar to like reparologists and people who are super into
7:14
Speaker 3: hate h Cholmes, Like, it's a very similar vibe. You know,
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Speaker 3: people have an opinion, it is their opinion, and they
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Speaker 3: are very direct with that. There's no swaying for them,
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Speaker 3: regardless how much evidence is provided to the alternative. And
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Speaker 3: you know, you've got your people who are like pro
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Speaker 3: summer anti and then you've got the conspiracy theorists who
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Speaker 3: are always fun but sometimes stress injuicing. And the way
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Speaker 3: people obsess over the Lizzie Boarding case. I hadn't actually
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Speaker 3: seen except for the Ripper slayings, the White Chapel martyrs, Like,
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Speaker 3: I really haven't seen as much sort of fervor for anything.
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Speaker 3: And there's conspiracy theorists and there's other theories flying about
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Speaker 3: the place. So there's like a load of theories just
8:01
Speaker 3: swirling around about who could have done it, why they
8:04
Speaker 3: did it, so on and so forth, and they are
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Speaker 3: interesting to fucking mental, and they go from like silly
8:12
Speaker 3: to interesting to absolutely bonkers, absolutely bonkers. But we'll get
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Speaker 3: into that at the end. But you know, I did
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Speaker 3: struggle with like do I tell the murder first and
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Speaker 3: then tell the background or do linear, and I did
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Speaker 3: decide just to go chronological as much as possible, because
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Speaker 3: fuck it, let's just do it. Okay, Because this is
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Speaker 3: the story of Lizzie Borden, it makes sense to start
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Speaker 3: with Lizzie, and so we shall. Lizzie Andrew Borden. That's right.
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Speaker 3: Her middle name was Andrew. Lizzie Andrew Borden was born
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Speaker 3: in the nineteenth of July eighteen sixty informing Over, Massachusetts,
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Speaker 3: to Andrew Jackson Bordon and his wife, Sarah Anthony Borden.
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Speaker 3: Lizzie was the youngest of three children in the Bordens
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Speaker 3: would have together. I'm going to assume that woman having
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Speaker 3: her father's name as her middle name was very common
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Speaker 3: in this time, or maybe some kind of family tradition,
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Speaker 3: because Sarah's dad was Anthony Anthony Morse, and obviously Lizzie's
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Speaker 3: dad was Andrew Jackson Bordon. Now Sarah and Andrew. They
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Speaker 3: had been married a couple of years, and they were
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Speaker 3: fairly well on when they started having kids. So their
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Speaker 3: oldest Emma Lenora Bordon. She's born in eighteen fifty one,
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Speaker 3: and four years later, Sarah gives birth to Alice Esther
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Speaker 3: Bordon So Alice Tragically, she passes away at one and
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Speaker 3: a half on what was referred to as dropsy of
9:37
Speaker 3: the brain. Effectively, there was flu build upon her brain
9:40
Speaker 3: at hydros ofphalis and if it's untreated, it's fatal. Unfortunately
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Speaker 3: for Alice, that was the case. Two years after Alice
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Speaker 3: is passing, Lizzie Andrew Borden is born. So by the
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Speaker 3: time Lizzie is born, her older sister Emma is nine,
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Speaker 3: and when Emma's eleven and Lizzie is just shy of
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Speaker 3: her third birthday, their mother, Sarah passes away from uterine
10:03
Speaker 3: congestion and spinal disease. Now I'm not a doctor by
10:07
Speaker 3: any stretch of the imagination, but I did a wee
10:10
Speaker 3: bit of research because I've seen uterine congestion show up
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Speaker 3: in like quite a number of female deaths, and as
10:17
Speaker 3: far as I can figure out, it's kind of like
10:19
Speaker 3: having varicose veins, but in your pelvis. It's really fucking painful.
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Speaker 3: It's excruciating. And it was actually a more common condition
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Speaker 3: in premenopause women than it was in women who had
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Speaker 3: gone through the menopause, which is what it is in
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Speaker 3: modern terms. But uterine congestion was used as this blanket
10:38
Speaker 3: term back in the day for like a bunch of
10:40
Speaker 3: different stuffs just down there in the lady area. And
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Speaker 3: Sarah's uterine congestion could have been anything from a miscarriage
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Speaker 3: to degenerative scoliosis, to even syphilis or some other aggressive
10:56
Speaker 3: sci Now anything else about her condition, I actually couldn't
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Speaker 3: find information on like at all. Now, being a woman
11:07
Speaker 3: in the past, we don't really have that much information
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Speaker 3: on Sarah, on their biological mom We don't have that
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Speaker 3: info because why would we Why would we have it? Na?
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Speaker 3: I mean, there are two things that we can say
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Speaker 3: about Sarah Anthony Borden. One is that she died of
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Speaker 3: relatively natural causes. And two, on her deathbed, she charged
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Speaker 3: her daughter Emma with looking after baby Lizzie. And Emma
11:37
Speaker 3: must have been like elevenish about this time. So Emma,
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Speaker 3: being the lady of the house, effectively she took it
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Speaker 3: upon herself to be the mother figure for Lizzie. So
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Speaker 3: I guess it's time to talk about Andrew Borden. So,
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Speaker 3: Andrew Jackson Borden, he was effectively a self made man.
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Speaker 3: So even though his family we're descendants of sort of
12:02
Speaker 3: higher classes and sort of Native Yankees of the area,
12:06
Speaker 3: not native peoples of the area, because that would be
12:10
Speaker 3: indigenous people, and they certainly were not thoughts. But he
12:13
Speaker 3: came from high stock, good stock, good stock. That being said,
12:17
Speaker 3: he didn't actually grow up with a silver spoon in
12:19
Speaker 3: his mouth. I mean, he'd be lucky to have a
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Speaker 3: spoon at all. Really, he did not grow up in
12:25
Speaker 3: a financially stable environment, let's just put it that way.
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Speaker 3: So Andrew he's got a head for business, and Falls
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Speaker 3: River it is very much an industrial textile town. So
12:37
Speaker 3: he starts off with this furniture company, which does pretty well,
12:41
Speaker 3: and he also has a casket company. That's right, coffins caskets,
12:47
Speaker 3: because in fairness, it's a business that's never gonna wet,
12:51
Speaker 3: a business until such times as we found and were
12:54
Speaker 3: convenient way to dispose of human your minds. I mean,
12:56
Speaker 3: you're always gonna have customers. So these do really well
13:00
Speaker 3: and he makes money from that. So then he's like
13:02
Speaker 3: investing in real estate. He's buying properties. He ends up
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Speaker 3: ordering like textile mills, becomes the president of Union Savings
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Speaker 3: Bank and a director of the Durfy Sale Deposit and
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Speaker 3: Trust company, and so whenever he earned like so much
13:16
Speaker 3: money from businesses, he was able to invest that straightway
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Speaker 3: into new things. Like the man always had access to cash,
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Speaker 3: Like he was never in debt. He never owed anybody anything,
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Speaker 3: so like he would be able to pay for things
13:29
Speaker 3: up front. There was no credit needed. It was just there.
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Speaker 3: He always had access to cold, hard cash. And you know,
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Speaker 3: you may be thinking, oh, that's a really smart businessman.
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Speaker 3: You know that's really good, that's thinking smart. Well Andrew
13:42
Speaker 3: here he was frugal to the point of tom fuckery.
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Speaker 3: He didn't believe in frivolity and excess spending, right, spending
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Speaker 3: for leisure just wasn't a thing for him. Like, I
13:55
Speaker 3: give that some people live to work and they're obsessed
13:58
Speaker 3: with finances, but it's always good to like live a
14:02
Speaker 3: little too, maybe a wee bit home comforts, some might say,
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Speaker 3: but like throughout his entire life, Andrew just doesn't stop working.
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Speaker 3: We don't really have much information about him apart from
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Speaker 3: the fact that he was maybe a bit weird. He
14:17
Speaker 3: is like one of the wealthier people in False River,
14:21
Speaker 3: Like he's not the wealthiest, he's not the richest person there,
14:23
Speaker 3: but he is one of them. And he has like
14:26
Speaker 3: the right and he has the cough cough right ancestry cough.
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Speaker 3: He doesn't really involve himself in like what someone of
14:42
Speaker 3: his status should be. Now, remember when I said through
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Speaker 3: to the point of tom fuckery. Well, his house didn't
14:51
Speaker 3: have gas so like gas lights, didn't have that throughout
14:54
Speaker 3: the house. And it's a weird fucking house. I'm going
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Speaker 3: to talk about the house in a Minute's weird fucking house.
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Speaker 3: Before I do, let's add another character who may or
15:02
Speaker 3: may not be one of the actual nicer people in
15:06
Speaker 3: this story, and that is Abby Durfy Gray. So she
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Speaker 3: marries Andrew Jackson Boordon three years after Sarah dies. And
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Speaker 3: at this point Abby is like effectively an old maid.
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Speaker 3: She's in her thirties this point. But Andrew and Abby
15:22
Speaker 3: they don't have any kids together throughout their entire marriage. Now,
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Speaker 3: it could be that Abby had already gone through the menopause.
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Speaker 3: Perhaps she was sterile. Perhaps I don't know, something happened
15:34
Speaker 3: to Andrew's spermcount. Who's to say, maybe they just didn't
15:38
Speaker 3: have sex, or I don't know, maybe Abbe knew her
15:40
Speaker 3: way around the condom. I don't know, because Andrew's a
15:43
Speaker 3: fairly practical man. It's been suggested more than once that
15:46
Speaker 3: their marriage was a marriage of convenience. So Andrew felt
15:49
Speaker 3: like he needed a wife, someone to like run the
15:52
Speaker 3: household and be the mother to his children, and Abby
15:56
Speaker 3: really needed security. Really soa they were always kind of
16:01
Speaker 3: circling the rim of debt, like they were always struggling financially,
16:05
Speaker 3: and Abby, as I said, was like an old maid.
16:08
Speaker 3: At this point, she was seen as not viable match
16:11
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. So it actually makes sense.
16:14
Speaker 3: It's like a pretty good deal for the both of them.
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Speaker 3: She gets, you know, safety, security, somewhere to live, and
16:20
Speaker 3: he gets, you know, a replacement wife has a So
16:24
Speaker 3: what's fing to me as well, is like we don't
16:26
Speaker 3: know how well they knew each other beforehand, or how
16:29
Speaker 3: long they've been courting or whatever. Like Andrew was fairly
16:31
Speaker 3: well known in Falls River. He was like he owned businesses,
16:35
Speaker 3: he was directors of the banks and trusts and shit.
16:38
Speaker 3: So you know of this man and you marry into that,
16:41
Speaker 3: and then you don't have a pot to piss in,
16:43
Speaker 3: Like it's it's so weird a member of high society,
16:47
Speaker 3: or he should be. So you marry in and then
16:51
Speaker 3: you move into this cold, dark, dank, depressing, weird, weird house,
17:00
Speaker 3: like that's gonna be a it's gonna be something.
17:04
Speaker 4: Right.
17:05
Speaker 3: So they get married, and from the get go, like
17:08
Speaker 3: because Lizzie's so small, for most of her life, she
17:11
Speaker 3: does refer to Abby as mother, like that's what she
17:16
Speaker 3: called her. It's not so much that she thought that
17:18
Speaker 3: she was her mother, Like it was always made very
17:22
Speaker 3: clear to her that Abby was her stepmother. Now, whether
17:27
Speaker 3: this was because they were trying to be an honest household,
17:31
Speaker 3: or if this was because Emma very much played the
17:35
Speaker 3: mothering role and you know, wasn't gonna let anybody take
17:38
Speaker 3: that away from her, maybe, who's to say, or whether
17:41
Speaker 3: they wanted to ensure that she knew who her biological
17:43
Speaker 3: mother was, or because Emma she was like really involved
17:47
Speaker 3: in this mothering role that she really saw herself as
17:50
Speaker 3: mother to Lizzie as opposed to sister. And Abby was
17:54
Speaker 3: there just to kind of do the other stuff, the
17:56
Speaker 3: sort of running of the household, so on and so forth.
18:00
Speaker 3: Now this house, this house is fucking weird, man. So
18:05
Speaker 3: it's three stories. The top story is like the maid's quarters,
18:10
Speaker 3: and the you know, the top floor, So I think
18:13
Speaker 3: it's called the second story in America, and then the
18:16
Speaker 3: first floor because like in sort of Europe, the first
18:20
Speaker 3: floor is the first floor off of the ground, so
18:22
Speaker 3: you'd have ground floor, first floor, second floor. But anyway,
18:27
Speaker 3: the very top floor that was the maid's quarters, and
18:31
Speaker 3: the middle floor was where the bedrooms were, so you
18:33
Speaker 3: had the master bedroom, Abby's dressing room, the guest room,
18:39
Speaker 3: Lizzie's room, Emma's room. Now, the weird thing about this
18:42
Speaker 3: is there's no hallway upstairs, Like I don't know if
18:46
Speaker 3: he was trying to save money on hallway space or whatever,
18:49
Speaker 3: but like all the rooms kind of lead into each other,
18:52
Speaker 3: which is I don't know, I find that really creepy
18:55
Speaker 3: and weird that someone can just walk into your room
18:59
Speaker 3: from their room mmm mm hmm. And they were like
19:02
Speaker 3: a front and a back staircase, so like one staircase
19:06
Speaker 3: led up to the master bedroom and the other staircase
19:09
Speaker 3: led up to like Emma and Lizzie's rooms. So effectively,
19:12
Speaker 3: if you wanted to, we could quite easily avoid the
19:17
Speaker 3: you know, somebody if they stayed in the opposite side
19:20
Speaker 3: of the of the floor to you. If you managed
19:23
Speaker 3: to lock a door downstairs, it was like the kitchen
19:26
Speaker 3: and living area, and then there was a basement, and
19:28
Speaker 3: the basement was where the flushing toilet was. Now, the
19:32
Speaker 3: flushing toilet is the only piece of like plumbing in
19:37
Speaker 3: that house. Like that's it. So there wasn't water access
19:41
Speaker 3: to water. There was no washroom upstairs or anything like that.
19:43
Speaker 3: You just had a loo, which you know, is better
19:47
Speaker 3: than an outhouse or a hole in the ground or
19:50
Speaker 3: a latrine pit. Bit still, like most people who were
19:54
Speaker 3: of their social class at the time, they had running
19:58
Speaker 3: water in their house. They had gas heating and gas
20:02
Speaker 3: lighting the boardings did not like he didn't see the
20:05
Speaker 3: point in wasting money on it because apparently light, heat,
20:09
Speaker 3: and cleanliness are too expensive. What Andrew, now, come on,
20:17
Speaker 3: Andrew also didn't like spending money on leisurely things. Smithstnan
20:22
Speaker 3: Is called weird fucking house down by the river. They're
20:27
Speaker 3: close at the bottom of the hill. The people of
20:30
Speaker 3: their social standing, the wealthy residents of the higher society,
20:35
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. So like the wealthy residents
20:39
Speaker 3: the you know, the higher society, the Native Yankee Massachusettians,
20:44
Speaker 3: that's what a Massachusetts people call themselves. Like you've got
20:49
Speaker 3: like Floridians for Florida and New Yorkers for New York
20:53
Speaker 3: is what did Massachusetts people call themselves? So they all
20:58
Speaker 3: the rich folk, effectively, they all lived up on the hill,
21:01
Speaker 3: you know, away from like the businesses and the textile
21:05
Speaker 3: mills and all that and the burdens. They still lived
21:08
Speaker 3: down at the bottom of the hill. And because of
21:10
Speaker 3: where they lived, a lot of the people in their
21:13
Speaker 3: neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods were immigrants. So you had
21:18
Speaker 3: lots of poor or working class immigrants, quite a lot
21:22
Speaker 3: of them, like Catholic immigrants from like Portugal and Ireland
21:26
Speaker 3: and things like that. And they're all in this sort
21:28
Speaker 3: of the basin of the town effectively. So when Lizzie
21:32
Speaker 3: and Emma were growing up, there's things that should have
21:35
Speaker 3: happened with them because of their social standing. It was
21:38
Speaker 3: like they should have had like katalians and coming out parties,
21:41
Speaker 3: and in order for them to have worthy suitors and
21:45
Speaker 3: to be married off, you know, well, it's kind of
21:48
Speaker 3: the thing they did back then, especially in the Victorian era,
21:52
Speaker 3: Like that's what women did, especially high society women. They
21:55
Speaker 3: found husbands. But Andrew, he really wasn't interested in this.
21:59
Speaker 3: He wasn't into socializing. He wasn't into you know, spending
22:03
Speaker 3: the money on like outfits for like balls and galas
22:06
Speaker 3: and doing all that kind of stuff. So the girls
22:09
Speaker 3: grew up fairly isolated and the majority of their social
22:14
Speaker 3: events revolved around their church. It's like that's where all
22:18
Speaker 3: their extracurriculars came from. So Lizzie, more so than Emma,
22:22
Speaker 3: becomes very involved in like, you know, all this stuff
22:26
Speaker 3: to do with the Central Congressional Church, and she is
22:29
Speaker 3: well involved. So like Lizzie, she's a part of the
22:32
Speaker 3: Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Ladies Shot and Flower Mission.
22:36
Speaker 3: She's the secretary treasurer of like the Christian Endeavor Society.
22:40
Speaker 3: So Lizzie, she's like really involved in like church activities,
22:43
Speaker 3: organizations and events because that's the only social life these
22:48
Speaker 3: girls get. This is this is it. Like Lizzie for
22:51
Speaker 3: a good while, Lizzie's even a Sunday school teacher because
22:55
Speaker 3: they have no other outlet. They have nowhere else to go.
22:57
Speaker 3: And they're in this really weird position because so the
23:00
Speaker 3: people in their social rank they're not fraternizing with them,
23:04
Speaker 3: they're not meeting with them because they're they're not really
23:07
Speaker 3: in that peer group, so they're like cut off from
23:09
Speaker 3: them and the people that they live with, the working
23:13
Speaker 3: class immigrants that are surrounding them, like they're not their
23:17
Speaker 3: peers either, and so there's no real connection with them because,
23:22
Speaker 3: let's face it, they're not going to trust this wealthy
23:25
Speaker 3: fucking family because like, this wealthy family doesn't belong with them,
23:29
Speaker 3: like they're not they're peers. So the bored and Sistors
23:33
Speaker 3: are for the most part, ostracized from most facets of society.
23:38
Speaker 3: And like, we don't know if Andrew was aware he
23:41
Speaker 3: was doing this to his daughters, or even if he knew,
23:45
Speaker 3: but he just didn't care, or he was just so
23:48
Speaker 3: convinced of his own convictions that he just couldn't falter
23:52
Speaker 3: from that straight down the line. He had a plan,
23:54
Speaker 3: he wasn't going to deviate from it. Now, we do
23:57
Speaker 3: know that Lizzie managed to have like at least one friend,
24:00
Speaker 3: but even so, but for the most part, the sisters
24:04
Speaker 3: just had each other. Now, as you can guess, there's
24:07
Speaker 3: already quite a bit of tension in this household, and
24:11
Speaker 3: the ship really hits the fan when Abby's sister is
24:15
Speaker 3: about to be evicted. So like she have owned her
24:18
Speaker 3: house or she was for whatever reason, she was going
24:21
Speaker 3: to be evicted. She was going to be homeless, she
24:23
Speaker 3: was going to be left with nothing, destitute, YadA. And
24:27
Speaker 3: Andrew decides, all right, that's my wife's sister. I should
24:30
Speaker 3: probably step up to the plate. And Andrew buys half
24:33
Speaker 3: of the house, right, make sure she can't be evicted,
24:37
Speaker 3: sorts her out right. And this really pisses the board
24:41
Speaker 3: and sisters off because Andrew, the notorious penny pincher, who
24:47
Speaker 3: would not buy them a house somewhere for them to live,
24:52
Speaker 3: allow them their own freedom, his own daughters, who were
24:56
Speaker 3: forced to live in a cold, creaky, dark, gloomy, crickety
25:01
Speaker 3: house with weird adjoining rooms and no running water. He
25:05
Speaker 3: goes off and buys his wife's sister a house.
25:10
Speaker 1: Now.
25:10
Speaker 3: To say they're mad is an under statement. They're fucking
25:13
Speaker 3: livid now. So in order to resolve the situation, Andrew
25:19
Speaker 3: sells them a house for a dollar. It's a rental property.
25:23
Speaker 3: It's like it was his father's house and it was
25:25
Speaker 3: actually the first house that he and his first wife,
25:28
Speaker 3: Sarah had lived in, but it's currently like a rental property,
25:32
Speaker 3: and he gives it to the girls so that they
25:33
Speaker 3: can have it as like a rental income, so they
25:37
Speaker 3: can have it so they have their own income. But
25:40
Speaker 3: for the boarding sisters, it's not enough that bridge has
25:46
Speaker 3: been burned, and it's just not good enough. And I
25:49
Speaker 3: feel like the person who goes, hey, here's the house
25:52
Speaker 3: your mother died in shouldn't really be up for any
25:55
Speaker 3: Father of the Year awards now. And it's after this
25:58
Speaker 3: event that Lizzie just flat out stops calling Abby mother
26:02
Speaker 3: and just starts calling her missus Borden, like this is
26:07
Speaker 3: the person that for basically all her life she has
26:10
Speaker 3: referred to as mother, and after this incident, and but
26:14
Speaker 3: she's like disconnecting herself from this. And it's also from
26:17
Speaker 3: this point that the so not only does Lizzie just
26:20
Speaker 3: stop calling her mother all together, her and Emma just
26:24
Speaker 3: stop eating, like the family stops eating meals together, like
26:28
Speaker 3: they would avoid like being together and having to be
26:30
Speaker 3: an each other's company as much as possible. So Andrew
26:34
Speaker 3: and Abby they would eat their meals together, and then
26:37
Speaker 3: Emma and Lizzie would eat their meals together like they
26:41
Speaker 3: would avoid.
26:43
Speaker 2: Sort of at the Classic Tales podcast, we try to
26:47
Speaker 2: get out of the way We don't want to tell
26:49
Speaker 2: you what we think of the classics, so we perform
26:51
Speaker 2: the actual text like an audiobook, unabridged, always with no
26:56
Speaker 2: stop and start commentary, and it's narrated by award winning
26:59
Speaker 2: per professional narrators. And the best part is it's all
27:03
Speaker 2: heavily curated. What does that mean. That means we don't
27:06
Speaker 2: only do the top ten lists. It means check off Plutarch, Shakespeare.
27:12
Speaker 2: It means Louisa may Alcott's Blood and thunder Tails nobody
27:15
Speaker 2: seems to talk about. It means the Arzenlupan series, which
27:18
Speaker 2: innovated the heist genre. It even means taking librettos from
27:22
Speaker 2: operas and making them into audio books. We want to
27:25
Speaker 2: create a space where you can have a great experience
27:28
Speaker 2: with classic literature because of the Classic Tales podcast. It's
27:32
Speaker 2: not about our relationship with classic literature, it's about your
27:36
Speaker 2: relationship with it. So check out the Classic Tales podcast
27:40
Speaker 2: wherever you get your shows now playing Frankenstein and Carmilla
27:45
Speaker 2: being together.
27:48
Speaker 3: The Burdens were not the only people in the household.
27:52
Speaker 3: At some point over the next year, they're made Maggie
27:55
Speaker 3: leaves and she is replaced with a twenty something year
27:58
Speaker 3: old Irish emigrant Bridget Sullivan. So when age and eighty eight,
28:02
Speaker 3: Bridget joins the board and household. Now this wasn't Bridget's
28:06
Speaker 3: first audio because she had been a maid to you know,
28:09
Speaker 3: other wealthy people of the area. And actually when she
28:14
Speaker 3: was hired by the Bourdons, it was kind of like
28:16
Speaker 3: a step down for her because quote unquote unfashionable houses
28:20
Speaker 3: like she'd had to work in. But conveniently, the boarding
28:23
Speaker 3: house was like four streets over from like the Irish
28:27
Speaker 3: contingent in Falls River. So Bridget joins the household, and
28:32
Speaker 3: everybody in the household kind of xenophobic, apart from Abbe actually,
28:39
Speaker 3: So every single member of the board and household calls
28:42
Speaker 3: Bridget Maggie, which I'm sure you can guess if you've
28:45
Speaker 3: been listening, is not her fucking name. Her name is Bridget.
28:50
Speaker 3: Maggie is the name of their old maid. So Emma, Lizzie, Andrew,
28:56
Speaker 3: they're all calling her Maggie, and Abbey is the only
28:59
Speaker 3: one who who calls her by her actual fucking name.
29:03
Speaker 3: So Bridget's really important. Actually, majority of what we know
29:07
Speaker 3: about the Boording household we know because of Bridget's testimony,
29:11
Speaker 3: Like kind of because she was one of the few
29:13
Speaker 3: people alive to tell the story, and too, she didn't
29:16
Speaker 3: really have anything to lose by talking about it. So
29:20
Speaker 3: eighteen ninety rolls around, a month before her thirtieth birthday,
29:24
Speaker 3: Lizzie Borden embarked on a nineteen week grand tour of Europe.
29:30
Speaker 3: Now this was very much like a done thing at
29:32
Speaker 3: the time, chaperone like young men and women would travel
29:36
Speaker 3: to Europe.
29:37
Speaker 5: The ticket was effectively a birthday present from her father,
29:42
Speaker 5: which is nice because it shows he's not entirely clueless
29:47
Speaker 5: about the world.
29:49
Speaker 3: So like that was one of the two presents she
29:51
Speaker 3: received from her dad, the first being the ticket for
29:54
Speaker 3: the tour, and the second was a seal skin cape.
30:00
Speaker 3: And this was very much the thing of the time,
30:02
Speaker 3: Like they would be chaperoned young men and women. They
30:04
Speaker 3: would travel to Europe from the Americas. If you were
30:07
Speaker 3: an unmarried woman, the fuck where you travel into Europe alone?
30:11
Speaker 3: That wasn't happening. That's just that's a scandal waiting to happen.
30:15
Speaker 3: So Lizzie goes on her travels and she's joined with
30:19
Speaker 3: Lizzie had four companions plus a chaperone for this trip.
30:23
Speaker 3: Two of the companions were her cousins, her boarding cousins,
30:27
Speaker 3: Carrie and Anna. The other two I'm not sure. They're
30:31
Speaker 3: definitely part of the same church group, which is how
30:33
Speaker 3: these people sort of knew each other. It really spend
30:35
Speaker 3: time together, and the only way they had known each
30:38
Speaker 3: other was via the Center Congregational Church and their chaperone
30:42
Speaker 3: was a Falls River High School teacher. And see this trip,
30:46
Speaker 3: Lizzie was in her fucking element. She loved this trip
30:50
Speaker 3: and she loved the fact that she got to live
30:53
Speaker 3: the high life as well as the fact that she
30:54
Speaker 3: got to travel in see places like she landed in Liverpool,
30:59
Speaker 3: but we also know that she went to Ireland because
31:01
Speaker 3: she was in Bolande Castle. She was in Scotland, England, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy,
31:08
Speaker 3: Monte Carlo and France. Like they did a full fucking trip.
31:13
Speaker 3: And we know that she got to so many places
31:15
Speaker 3: because she took was it one hundred and sixty eight photos.
31:19
Speaker 3: When she gets back from the trip, she're like and
31:21
Speaker 3: like she gets them developed and she puts them into
31:23
Speaker 3: these albums. Like she loved this. She loved Galavatan across Europe,
31:28
Speaker 3: she loved going to museums and art and seeing poetry
31:31
Speaker 3: and hymns and getting to enjoy this like fancy lifestyle
31:36
Speaker 3: that she felt she deserved because her cousins had it,
31:40
Speaker 3: why shouldn't she, Because all of her traveling companions are
31:44
Speaker 3: like super fucking rich. They're incredibly wealthy. They're traveling first class.
31:49
Speaker 3: There is no expense spared, to the point that Lizzie
31:52
Speaker 3: actually has to like request extra money sent. She's like,
31:56
Speaker 3: wire me some cash because things are getting tough. But like,
32:01
Speaker 3: Lissie really fucking loved this. This was the highlight of
32:05
Speaker 3: her life. She just enjoyed this time. Like she loved
32:11
Speaker 3: this trip so much that when she was traveling back
32:14
Speaker 3: to America, like she was full of melancholy. Lizzie didn't
32:18
Speaker 3: want to go home. She didn't want to.
32:20
Speaker 6: Go back to Fall River and back to that cramped
32:24
Speaker 6: house at the bottom of the hill. And Lizzie tells
32:27
Speaker 6: her cousins that she's regretting going home because of the
32:31
Speaker 6: juxtaposition between how amazing and awesome this fucking trip was
32:37
Speaker 6: compared to how unhappy her home was. And when she
32:40
Speaker 6: gets back from her trip, she has like all these photos,
32:42
Speaker 6: like but she took her photos and she had them developed,
32:47
Speaker 6: and she had them put into two large photo albums,
32:51
Speaker 6: and she would like show them off and she would
32:53
Speaker 6: tell people about them.
32:54
Speaker 3: She was so happy, and she was so happy when
32:58
Speaker 3: she like got to talk about her trip, like she
33:00
Speaker 3: really loved this, Like she had a taste of what
33:03
Speaker 3: her life could be like. Also, like when she got back,
33:07
Speaker 3: she ends up changing rooms with Emma. So like Lizzie
33:13
Speaker 3: used to have like the smallest room, like the darkest
33:15
Speaker 3: room in the house, and she ends up switching with Emma.
33:18
Speaker 3: So Emma ends up in the dark wee room and
33:20
Speaker 3: she gets a slightly bigger one. So in eighteen ninety one,
33:23
Speaker 3: there's a burglary at the boarding house and it happens
33:26
Speaker 3: in the middle of the day because you know, in
33:28
Speaker 3: the past, people were too trustworthy. They would just leave
33:32
Speaker 3: their doors open. But seriously, lock your goddamn door, like
33:36
Speaker 3: I don't care who you are. Lock your door during
33:38
Speaker 3: the day at night also, but during the day too,
33:42
Speaker 3: because people should not just be allowed to walk freely
33:45
Speaker 3: into your house without your consent. So, yeah, there's a
33:48
Speaker 3: break in and somebody makes away with like cash and jewelry. Unsurprisingly,
33:53
Speaker 3: somebody broke into the boarding home thinking, oh, he's a
33:56
Speaker 3: rich fella. I wonder if he's got any money at
33:58
Speaker 3: his house. What's to their credit? He absolutely fucking dead.
34:01
Speaker 3: There was money in the house and there was jewelry.
34:03
Speaker 3: So so yeah, somebody broke in stole it, fucked off,
34:07
Speaker 3: and because you know, they don't want to get fucking
34:09
Speaker 3: burgled again, the Bourdens decide to lock all of the
34:12
Speaker 3: outside doors just to make sure that nobody breaks in
34:15
Speaker 3: and steals their shit again. So go forward a year
34:18
Speaker 3: or in eighteen ninety two, and that's where all this
34:20
Speaker 3: shit goes down. So thirty two year old Lizzie, she
34:23
Speaker 3: decides that she can't have friends, She's gonna have pigeons.
34:27
Speaker 3: So Lizzie she builds a wrist for pigeons in her barn.
34:29
Speaker 3: So at some point, like May or June, her dad
34:32
Speaker 3: decides that he has to kill the pigeons because he's
34:36
Speaker 3: convinced that kids are gonna break in and try and
34:40
Speaker 3: hunt them, because that is so much worse than him
34:44
Speaker 3: killing them. Now, we do not know the exact method
34:47
Speaker 3: of avery assassination. We do know that he somehow ripped
34:51
Speaker 3: their heads off. Whether he did this I don't know
34:54
Speaker 3: manually or used a tool of some kind. We just
34:57
Speaker 3: don't fucking know, all right, We don't know. All we
35:00
Speaker 3: know is that he killed some fucking pigeons for a
35:02
Speaker 3: shitty reason, if any reason at all. In July eighteen
35:07
Speaker 3: ninety two, there's this massive disagreement in the boarding household.
35:12
Speaker 3: What that disagreement was, we have no fucking clue. It
35:15
Speaker 3: is so bad that Lizzie and Emma say, fuck this
35:18
Speaker 3: for a game of soldiers and get the hell at
35:20
Speaker 3: a dodge. Both Emma and Lizzie gone a extended vacation,
35:26
Speaker 3: so they fuck off out of Fall River and they
35:29
Speaker 3: go all the way to your bed. So they both leave,
35:33
Speaker 3: and then Lizzie returns back to Fall River, but before
35:37
Speaker 3: going back to the family home, she actually rooms in
35:40
Speaker 3: a boarding house for a couple of days before heading back,
35:44
Speaker 3: Like instead of going straight home after this trip, she's like,
35:47
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna go stay in this house. Thanks, Okay.
35:52
Speaker 3: So she comes back. So she's back, and Emma's still
35:55
Speaker 3: the fuck away visiting somebody who we don't know. We
36:01
Speaker 3: know that she's easy to contact, but like, so they
36:04
Speaker 3: left together, but Lizzie comes back alone without her you know,
36:09
Speaker 3: mother figure. For some unfathomable reason. So August rolls around,
36:15
Speaker 3: and this may surprise some of you, but August in
36:19
Speaker 3: the summer it's pretty bloody hot. There's a lot of
36:22
Speaker 3: chats around. On the first of August, the Burdens decide
36:26
Speaker 3: to eat some swordfish, because apparently eating day old, tepid
36:31
Speaker 3: swordfish that has not been in any way refrigerated on
36:35
Speaker 3: a sweltering, hot, fucking day is a really good idea.
36:40
Speaker 3: So they all eat the swordfish. Mmmm. Room temperature seafood scrumptious.
36:47
Speaker 3: You're gonna be You're gonna be shocked. But they all
36:49
Speaker 3: suffer food poisoning, pretty bad food poisoning, right, it is
36:54
Speaker 3: coming out of both ends. They are just it's not good. Now,
36:59
Speaker 3: let's bear in mind, in this house in which all
37:01
Speaker 3: of the rooms are connected and there was only one
37:04
Speaker 3: working fucking toilet, that there were at least four people
37:09
Speaker 3: who have absolutely no control over their sphincter or their
37:13
Speaker 3: gag reflex. Now, like in my head, there's like two
37:16
Speaker 3: scenarios going on. It's either a battle royale to the
37:18
Speaker 3: water closet or everybody is just like bent over a
37:22
Speaker 3: bedpan and a bucket, Like there's just so abby she's
37:29
Speaker 3: been sick. Abby, She's been poking her guts up and
37:31
Speaker 3: probably chitting some out. So Abby's freaking out. It's coming
37:35
Speaker 3: out of her at both ends. But but she is
37:38
Speaker 3: convinced that she doesn't actually have food poisoning, but rather
37:41
Speaker 3: she's been poisoned. So she gets a doctor to come
37:44
Speaker 3: see her and check her over. And the doctor checks
37:47
Speaker 3: her out and stuff, and he asks her questions and
37:50
Speaker 3: then he goes, yeah, no, I don't think it's poison
37:53
Speaker 3: I think it's more this old warm fish that you ate.
37:57
Speaker 3: Probably What have been really funny is like when the
37:59
Speaker 3: doctor comes to visit and he checks out Abbey and stuff.
38:02
Speaker 3: When he offers to like give Andrew Boorden a once over,
38:06
Speaker 3: He's like, fucking not, do not fucking touch me with
38:10
Speaker 3: your doctory hand. He gets like so mad and angry.
38:15
Speaker 3: He's like, I'm not sick. I'm fine, and he's like
38:18
Speaker 3: when he's clearly like not fine, because mate, it's coming
38:23
Speaker 3: out of you eat both ends. This is the time
38:26
Speaker 3: where you go, hey, talk help Jesus. I mean, if
38:30
Speaker 3: there's ever a time where you are in fact ill
38:34
Speaker 3: when all of the fluid and sustenance is exiting your
38:38
Speaker 3: body from every available orifice. You're sick. The next day,
38:45
Speaker 3: the family decide to eat some mutton stew, because you know,
38:50
Speaker 3: a thick, heavy stew is the best meal for the
38:53
Speaker 3: middle of summer. So they all eat this mutton stew
38:56
Speaker 3: and they all feel like shit again.
38:58
Speaker 7: Later that day, goes to visit her friend.
39:01
Speaker 3: Her only palm actually, Alice Russell.
39:04
Speaker 8: She goes and visits her friend, Alice, and she's like,
39:06
Speaker 8: I'm really worried. I think someone's got it out for
39:09
Speaker 8: my father. You know, he's rich, she's got all this stuff.
39:14
Speaker 8: I think someone's trying to kill him. I think someone's
39:16
Speaker 8: got it out for him.
39:18
Speaker 3: And Alice is like, really, you sure he just kind
39:21
Speaker 3: of owns a couple of mills. But all right, you
39:23
Speaker 3: do you, Lizzie, you do you pretty sure you're gonna
39:25
Speaker 3: be okay.
39:26
Speaker 7: And it's also on this day that Lizzie's uncle, maternal uncle,
39:31
Speaker 7: John Vinnicom Morse, comes to stay with the Bordens. He's
39:35
Speaker 7: there to meet with Andrew and discuss some sort of
39:37
Speaker 7: business stuff and money things.
39:40
Speaker 3: Manly men lay money things. So he's gonna be staying
39:44
Speaker 3: in the guest room for a couple of days. So
39:47
Speaker 3: the family and Bridget. They've all been eating this mutton
39:50
Speaker 3: stew again, and what I'm going to assume is complete
39:54
Speaker 3: shock and surprise for all of you. They get sick
39:57
Speaker 3: again and they all retire. Okay, so that is Andrew, Abby,
40:03
Speaker 3: Lizzie and.
40:05
Speaker 4: The uncle and of course Bridget the maid.
40:08
Speaker 3: They all eat this jew they all feel like shit. Yeah,
40:12
Speaker 3: maybe don't eat unprefrigerated meat. I mean, it's not like
40:16
Speaker 3: they had refrigerators. And I doubt like Andrew Borden's going
40:20
Speaker 3: to be forking out for an ice box, you know
40:22
Speaker 3: what I mean. It's not It's like, it's fine. It's fine.
40:26
Speaker 3: So there's Abbi Bordon, Andrew Jackson, Bordon, Lizzie Borden, John Morse,
40:31
Speaker 3: and Bridget Sullivan. They all have the meat sweats and
40:36
Speaker 3: the mutton chucks, and they all retire for the night.
40:43
Speaker 4: And as they slumber, each person unaware that the events
40:48
Speaker 4: that are to follow the very next day will be
40:52
Speaker 4: a day of infamy in dark history. And that seems
40:57
Speaker 4: like a really good place to stop. There is so
41:00
Speaker 4: much information here. I have no choice but to like
41:02
Speaker 4: split up. I hate doing two powders. I hate not
41:04
Speaker 4: giving you the full story all at once. But this
41:07
Speaker 4: editing is there was over. I had over two hours
41:10
Speaker 4: of audio when I'm very sorry.
41:11
Speaker 3: So I'm going to try and get the next episode
41:13
Speaker 3: edited and out as soon as possible. I don't want
41:16
Speaker 3: to make you wait another week for this. You have
41:18
Speaker 3: waited long enough, damn it. And while you're waiting for
41:21
Speaker 3: the next episode to come out, maybe just go on
41:24
Speaker 3: to Spotify or Apple and write one review five stars.
41:28
Speaker 4: I'm just saying it would be nice, that's all.
41:30
Speaker 3: Don't forget. You can tweet me, you can DM me
41:33
Speaker 3: on Instagram. I'm on TikTok, you know, just just say hi.
41:38
Speaker 3: It's all good. Anyway, I have editing to do, so
41:41
Speaker 3: I'm going to go now and I am gonna say adios.
41:44
Speaker 3: Au revoir of What Is It? My friends, Bye bye.
41:48
Speaker 2: At the Classic Tales podcast, we perform the classics like
41:51
Speaker 2: audio books, unabridged, and it's all heavily curated. What does
41:55
Speaker 2: that mean? It means check off Plutarch, Shakespeare, It means
42:00
Speaker 2: Louisa may Alcott's Blood and thunder Tails. Nobody seems to
42:02
Speaker 2: talk about. It even means taking librettos from operas and
42:06
Speaker 2: making them into audiobooks. It means an experience you haven't
42:10
Speaker 2: had before because of the Classic Tales podcast. It's not
42:13
Speaker 2: about our relationship with classic literature. It's about your relationship
42:17
Speaker 2: with it.