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Lizzie Borden: The Axe Murders, Trial & Unsolved Mystery · Kat Has Questions: True Crime and Unsolved Mysteries

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Kat Has Questions. Curiosity, stories, and the strange
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: corners of everyday life. Hello, hello. I'm Kat. Okay, it
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is officially October 1st, which means spooky season is here.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: And I genuinely could not have picked a better case
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to kick it off. So today I'm sitting down to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: record Lizzie Borden's which feels just right for the first
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: day of October. And I just did my nails with
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: some cute little ghosties on them. I'll have to post
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a picture of it on Instagram. But today we have
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a creepy old house, a brutal unsolved double murder, a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Victorian family full of tension, a mysterious missing note, a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: burned dress, a questionable hatchet, and one of the most
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: famous true crime rhymes of all time. So happy spooky season.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Lizzie Borden. August 4th, 1892. We're going
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: way back. Fall River, Massachusetts. It was a Thursday morning,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and inside a modest house on 2nd Street, a young
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Irish maid named Bridget Sullivan was lying down in her bedroom.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: She hadn't been feeling well that morning, and actually several
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: people in the Borden household hadn't been feeling well. But
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Bridget still had work to do. She'd spent part of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the morning outside washing windows in the August heat before
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: finally getting to go rest upstairs. Downstairs in the house
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: was 32-year-old Lizzie Borden. Her father, Andrew, had gone into
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: town earlier that morning but had since returned home. He'd
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: settled onto a sofa in the sitting room to rest.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Lizzie's stepmother, Abby, was supposedly out of the house. At least,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that's what Lizzie said. According to her, Abby had received
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a note saying someone was sick and had gone to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: visit them. Then, sometime shortly after 11 o'clock, Bridget heard
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Lizzie call from downstairs. Her father was dead. Andrew Borden
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: was still lying on the sofa, but now his face
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: had been attacked so violently that the injuries were unmistakable.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Someone had struck him repeatedly with a sharp, heavy weapon.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Within minutes, neighbors and the family doctor began arriving. And initially,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: everyone thought they were dealing with one murder. Then someone
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: asked the obvious question. Where was Abby? If someone had
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: entered the Borden house and murdered Andrew, was Abby in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: danger too? Bridget Sullivan and a neighbor, Adelaide Churchill, went upstairs.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And as they reached the upper floor, they could see
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: something beneath the bed in the guest room. A body.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Abby Borden hadn't gone anywhere that morning. She had been
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: lying upstairs in the bedroom the entire time. And she
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: had been dead longer than Andrew. Someone had killed her first.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Then time passed. And later, someone killed Andrew. Which created
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a terrifying problem. Because if investigators were right about the timing...
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: there had been apparently a murderer inside, or around at least,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the Borden house for quite a while. And there weren't
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: very many people known to have been there. There was Bridget,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: who worked there, and there was Lizzie. And there were
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: two people who were now dead. More than 130 years later,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden remain officially unsolved.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: But that's probably not the version of this story you've heard.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Because somewhere along the way, an unsolved double murder became
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: she gave her father 41. I'm sure you've heard that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: rhyme if you've heard the name Lizzie Borden. The rhyme
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: is catchy, it's creepy, and almost none of it is accurate.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Abby wasn't technically Lizzie's mother. She was her stepmother. The
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: weapon was believed to have been a hatchet, Not necessarily
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: a full-size axe that most of us picture. Let me
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: tell you about axes. One time I cut my toe
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: open with an axe, but that is a story for
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: another day. I call it my franken-toe. I hit my
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: toe and had to get stitches. The victims were not
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: struck 40 and 41 times. The actual number of the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: wounds was far lower. But there's an even bigger problem
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: with the rhyme. It tells us Lizzie Borden did it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And the jury that actually heard the case didn't. On
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: June 20th, 1893... Lizzie Borden was found not guilty. No
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: one was ever prosecuted, which means this isn't really the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: story of the woman who murdered her parents with an axe.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: It's the story of two brutal murders, a house full
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of strange details, an investigation that quickly focused on one woman,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and a question people have been arguing about ever since.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Did Lizzie Borden actually do it? So let's talk a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: little bit about the woman behind the rhyme. Before Lizzie
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Borden became a nursery rhyme, a Halloween costume, or basically
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: shorthand for, quote, woman with an axe, she was just Lizzie.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Her full name was Lizzie Andrew Borden. Not Elizabeth, Lizzie.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: She will later change her name or at least go
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: by Lizbeth way later after she, you know, goes to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: court and everything. But she was born in Fall River,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Massachusetts in 1860. Her biological mother died when Lizzie was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: only about two and a half years old. Her father,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Borden, later married Abby Dufresne Gray, who then
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: became Lizzie's stepmother. Lizzie also had an older sister, Emma,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: about nine years older than her. By the summer of 1892,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: both sisters were unmarried adults still living in their father's home.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And Andrew could certainly afford to support them. He was wealthy.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Very wealthy. He'd made money through business, real estate, banking,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and investments, and had become one of Fall River's most
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: prosperous citizens. But he really didn't live like it. The
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Bordens lived at 92 Second Street, not in the fashionable
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: neighborhood where many of the wealthy Fall River's families lived.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Andrew could have afforded something bigger or grander, but he
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: apparently just didn't see much reason to. Depending on who
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: tells the story, Andrew was very frugal, and money appears
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to have caused real tension in the family. Lizzie and
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Emma reportedly believed Abby's relatives were receiving preferential treatment from Andrew.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Property transfers created resentment, and although Andrew later made arrangements
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: benefiting his daughters also, the tension seems to have remained
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that way. Lizzie and Emma were also not very particularly
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: close to Abby. And after the murders, when an investigator
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: referred to Abby as Lizzie's mother, Lizzie corrected him. She
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: was not her mother. She was her stepmom. Now, correcting
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: someone about your family relationship does not make you a murderer.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And that's important in this case. Because basically every strange
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: thing Lizzie ever said or did has been treated as
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: evidence at some point. But there really were problems in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that Borden household. Including, bizarrely, pigeons. Lizzie kept pigeons in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the family's barn. Shortly before the murders, Andrew killed them
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: because he reportedly was concerned neighborhood boys might steal them.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And according to later accounts, he severed their heads with
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: a hatchet, which, come on, of course that's going to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: become part of the Lizzie Borden story. But can we
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: also circle back that how is it better that he
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: killed the pigeons rather than having boys steal them? That
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to me doesn't, that doesn't add up. But this story
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: alone kind of shows how ordinary pieces of someone's life
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: can start looking sinister once you know what's coming in hindsight.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Two days before the murders, Andrew and Abby both became
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: violently ill. Abby even went across the street to speak
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: with the family physician, Dr. Seabury Bowen, and reportedly wondered
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: whether they'd been poisoned. But Dr. Bowen wasn't convinced. It
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: was August in 1892 when... There was no modern refrigeration,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and the family could have simply been eating food that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: was spoiled, which is gross, but I mean, think about it.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: It's the 1890s. Refrigeration doesn't exist, so you're eating hot
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: meat all day. But the next day, August 3rd, a
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Fall River drugstore clerk would later claim Lizzie had walked
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: into his store and tried to purchase one of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: deadliest poisons available, prussic acid. Lizzie denied this ever happening.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And that same evening, she visited her friend, Alice Russell.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: And Alice later remembered Lizzie seeming worried. Lizzie talked about
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: her father having enemies. She said she'd seen suspicious people
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: around their house. And according to Alice, Lizzie said something
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: that sounds incredibly ominous in hindsight. Quote, I'm afraid, but
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: that someone will do something. Unquote. And then the next morning,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: someone did. So to understand what happened on August 4th,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you need to understand the house. Because the floor plan
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: does actually matter. 92 Second Street wasn't a sprawling mansion
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: with endless hallways and dozens of places for someone to disappear.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: The house was relatively compact and the layout was weird.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It had originally been designed to accommodate more than one
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: family and upstairs the rooms were essentially divided into two sections.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: The daughters had one side and then Andrew and Abby
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: had the other. The front staircase led to the guest
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: room and Lizzie and Emma's rooms. Andrew and Abby generally
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: reached their bedroom using the back staircase. There was even
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a connecting door between Lizzie's room and her parents' room,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: but that was usually always kept locked. The house had
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: locks everywhere. The front door had multiple fastenings. The back
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: door could be locked and bolted. The cellar was secured.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: So yes, the house was divided in a way that
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: matters when we start asking who could move where without
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: being noticed. But it wasn't impossible. Bridget Sullivan later admitted
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: that while she was moving in and out washing windows,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: there were moments when someone theoretically could have entered without
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: her seeing them. So this was not a perfect locked
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: room mystery. An outsider could have entered, but the question
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: is whether if someone did. Bridget was 26, born in Ireland,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and had worked for the Bordens for almost three years.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: For reasons that aren't completely clear, Lizzie and Emma called
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: her Maggie, which isn't her name. Her name's Bridget. But
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it's why the most famous thing Lizzie would yell that
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: day wasn't Bridget. It was Maggie, come down. There was
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: also another person in the house the night before the murders.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Lizzie and Emma's maternal uncle, John Morse. And yes, he
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: just happened to arrive the day before two people were murdered,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: which sounds incredibly suspicious. But John had visited before, and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: investigators were eventually able to account for his movements on
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the morning of the murders. But still, terrible timing. So,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: on the morning of August 4th, Bridget came downstairs around 6.15 a.m.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned, she was not feeling well, and would
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: eventually become sick to her stomach. And around 6.30, she
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: saw Abby. Then Andrew came downstairs. And the family ate breakfast. Andrew, Abby,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and Uncle John. Lizzie did not join them. And then
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: sometime around 8.40 a.m., John Morse left to visit relatives,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and he planned to return around noon. Lizzie eventually came
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: downstairs while Bridget was cleaning up. Then Bridget went outside
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: because she felt like she was going to throw up.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: When she returned, she saw Abby in the dining room dusting,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and Abby had told her the windows needed to be washed,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: inside and out. Also, how much does that suck that
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: she's having to clean these people's house when she's puking outside?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: That sounds awful. Bridget estimated that she was asked to
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: wash the windows around 9 o'clock in the morning, and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: then Abby Borden essentially disappeared, and Bridget never saw her
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: alive again. Sometime after breakfast... Abby went upstairs toward the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: guest room, the same room Uncle John had slept in
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the night before. And remember, that guest room was on
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the daughter's side of the house, near Lizzie's bedroom. But,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: keeping in mind that John Morse was gone, he left
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: after breakfast, Emma was miles away, and Andrew was preparing
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: to leave. Bridget would soon be outside washing windows, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: around 9 o'clock, the list of people believed to be
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: inside 92 2nd Street became very short. Bridget Sullivan, Lizzie Borden,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and Abby Borden. Three women in one house. And sometime
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: during roughly the next hour, one of them would be dead.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly what time Abby died, and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: that's important. Some timelines make the murder look much more
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: precise than they really were. Medical evidence suggested Abby had
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: been dead significantly longer than Andrew by the time both
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of the bodies were examined. But the exact interval was disputed.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But everyone kind of essentially agreed on the sequence, that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Abby had died first. While Bridget was outside washing windows
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and Andrew was in town, Abby was lying face down
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: on the floor of the guest bedroom. She had suffered
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: 19 cutting injuries, most of them to her head. The
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: killer had apparently continued striking after she fell. And somehow,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: nobody raised an alarm. Bridget didn't hear a struggle, and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: if Lizzie's story is true, she didn't know Abby was
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: dead either. Life continued downstairs while a murdered woman lay upstairs.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Andrew ran errands in Fall River and returned home around 10.30
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: or 10.40 a.m. He tried to get through the front
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: door but couldn't. Bridget had heard him, so she came
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to help him. She struggled with the multiple locks and
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: apparently got annoyed enough to say, quote, pshaw, which... Might
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: be the most 1892 version of swearing possible. I don't
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: even know what that is. It's P-S-H-A-W, Shaw. And then
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Bridget had heard something else. Lizzie was laughing from upstairs.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Bridget didn't actually see her and she couldn't say exactly
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: where Lizzie was in the house. But she believed the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: laugh came from somewhere upstairs or near the landing. Which
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: becomes interesting because Abby's body was found upstairs and on
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Lizzie's side of the house. So that doesn't prove Lizzie
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: saw her, but it raises an obvious question. Where was
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Lizzie when Andrew came home? Because her own answers weren't
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: completely consistent. During the inquest, she initially placed herself downstairs.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Later though, when confronted with Bridget's account, she said she
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: may have gone upstairs briefly to put away her clothing
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: or to work on a garment. Like sewing. Andrew finally
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: entered and Lizzie told him something important. She said Abby
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: had gone out. And according to Bridget, Lizzie said Abby
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: had received a note telling her someone was sick. They
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: never found that note. And Bridget also didn't see anyone
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: deliver it. And despite the enormous publicity surrounding this case,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: nobody ever convincingly came forward and said, yes, I sent
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Abby a note. So Lizzie did maintain that this existed,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: but that it supposedly disappeared. Andrew believed his wife had
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: left because why wouldn't he believe that? So he had
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: no reason to search for her upstairs. He eventually settled
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: onto the sofa in the sitting room because he wasn't
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: feeling well. Then Lizzie said she went outside toward the barn.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: This is the beginning of her alibi for Andrew's murder.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Lizzie said she was planning to go fishing on an
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: upcoming trip and wanted old pieces of lead so she
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: could use them as sinkers. She stopped near the pear tree,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: ate some pears, and went upstairs into the barn loft
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and searched around. She later estimated she spent somewhere around
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: 15 to 20 minutes outside. But investigators hated this story.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Why was she suddenly looking for fishing equipment? And why
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: spend that long in a hot barn loft in August?
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Keep in mind it's August and on the upper part
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of a barn loft it's going to be much hotter
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and it's the 1800s and there's no air conditioning. Or,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, probably not in a barn anyways, but It
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: would be hot as shit in there. Why had she
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: barely been in the barn for months before this, but
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: then happened to be in there the day of this murder?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And why did her barn trip happen during exactly the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: period when her father was murdered? During questioning, Lizzie's estimates
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: shifted somewhat. And eventually she gave one of my favorite
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: unintentionally relatable quotes in this entire case. Quote, I can't
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: do anything for a minute. That's fair. I get that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: But when your father is murdered during the exact period
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to be wandering around a barn looking for
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: fishing sinkers that you never find, people are going to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: have some follow-up questions. So meanwhile, Andrew was lying on
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the sofa, Lizzie supposedly up in the barn loft. So
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Andrew's resting. And sometime shortly before 11, someone attacked him.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: There was no sign of a major struggle. The killer
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: struck him repeatedly in the head. And the left side
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: of his face was devastated. And whoever did it killed
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: him in broad daylight in the middle of his own house. Upstairs,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Bridget knew nothing. She had finished washing the windows and
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: still felt sick herself. So she went to her third
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: floor bedroom to lie down. So she would have passed by,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I believe, the floor where the bedroom that Abby was
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: in and like Lizzie's bedroom. She would have gone past
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: that to the third floor. So Bridget heard the 11
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: o'clock bell. She later said she wasn't asleep yet and
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: only a few minutes had passed. And then she heard
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Lizzie calling from downstairs. Maggie, come down. And Bridget answered,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: what's the matter? And Lizzie called back, quote, come down quick.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him. Bridget obviously
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: ran downstairs and Lizzie sent her to get Dr. Bowen.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Their neighbor Adelaide Churchill soon came over too. Alice Russell
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: was summoned and police began arriving. And through all of this,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: there was still one person missing, Abby. Eventually, someone realized
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: that they needed to find her. So Bridget and Adelaide
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: started up the front staircase. And because of the layout
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: of the house, they didn't even need to fully enter
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the guest bedroom. But as they climbed, they could see
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: beneath the bed, a body. Adelaide came back downstairs and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and Alice Russell asked, is there another? And Adelaide answered, yes,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: she is up there. And now everything changed. Andrew hadn't
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: simply been killed by someone who walked into the house
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: shortly before 11. Abby had already been dead upstairs and
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: someone had killed her first. Then Andrew walked around Fall
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: River completely unaware that his wife was dead. Then he
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: came home. Bridget let him in the house. He spoke
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to Lizzie. He laid down. Bridget walked upstairs and all
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of a sudden Andrew was killed too. If the same
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: person committed both murders, they either killed Abby, left and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: somehow returned at exactly the right time, or remained nearby
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: waiting for Andrew. And investigators started looking very carefully at
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the people who were already there. John Morse had an alibi,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: which my first thought was to look at him because
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: if it was the guest bedroom that he was staying
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: in where Abby was found, also if he was the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: maternal uncle of the girls, if like money was a motivation,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: obviously that would affect the girls and his side of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the family. So John Morse had an alibi. Emma was away,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the sister. Bridget had spent much of the morning outside
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and later upstairs. She hadn't seen a stranger enter, which
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: left Lizzie But there was a major problem. When people
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: looked at Lizzie, there was no obvious blood. Not on
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: her hands, her face, no bloody dress. Her hair wasn't
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: noticeably disturbed. She had no weapon in her hand. And
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: no eyewitness had seen her attack anyone. And the police
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: were about to discover that the physical evidence in this
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: case was going to be much less helpful than they
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: had hoped. So police searched the Borden house. And yes,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: they found hatchets. Several of them. One in particular became famous.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: It was a very small hatchet head with most of
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: its wooden handle broken off, which sounds terrible. Two people
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: have been killed with what appeared to be a hatchet,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and investigators find a handleless hatchet in the basement. Except,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: testing didn't reveal the victim's blood on it. There were
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: suspicious-looking stains that weren't blood, and there was hair found
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: on one of the hatchets that wasn't human. It was
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: animal hair, probably from a cow, which is not exactly
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the forensic breakthrough prosecutors were hoping for. There were also
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: questions about when the handleless hatchet was first noticed, when
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: it was formally seized, and what happened to the rest
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of the handle. So despite the weapon becoming a major
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: part of the prosecutor's theory, they could never conclusively say,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: this is the hatchet that killed Andrew and Abby. And
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: then there was an even bigger problem. Where was the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: blood on Lizzie? These were extraordinarily violent attacks at very
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: close range. Police searched the house. They searched bedrooms, closets, trunks,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the attic, the cellar, the barn, the yard. They examined
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Lizzie's clothing. A blue skirt had a suspicious-looking stain on it.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Not blood. Her waist? No blood. Her shoes and stockings?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: No blood. There was one tiny spot on a white
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: skirt that was consistent with blood and potentially human... but
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the testing available at that time could not connect it
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to Andrew or Abby. And this is one of the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: details I keep coming back to. If Lizzie killed Abby
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: earlier that morning, she probably had some time to clean
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: herself up, change, hide stuff, but Andrew is harder. Bridget
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: went upstairs and Andrew was still alive. Within a relatively
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: short period of time, Andrew was dead and Lizzie was
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: calling Bridget back downstairs. So if Lizzie had killed him,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: she would have needed time to commit this brutal murder,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: deal with any blood on herself, conceal or clean the weapon,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and then appear at the back door looking completely normal.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Could that happen? Sure. But where did everything go? Police
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: never really answered that. Then, on the day after the murders,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a drugstore clerk named Eli Bentz came forward. And this
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: is one of those pieces of information that makes you go, okay,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that looks bad. But according to Bentz, on August 3rd,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: one day before the murders, Lizzie had entered D.R. Smith's
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: drugstore and asked to buy 10 cents worth of prussic acid,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: hydrogen cyanide. He said he refused to sell it to
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: her without a prescription. Lizzie did deny that this happened.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: And remember the timing. Andrew and Abby had just been sick,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: but also so was Bridget. Abby had wondered if they'd
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: been poisoned. And then according to Bentz, Lizzie tried to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: buy poison. And the next morning, Andrew and Abby were murdered.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Of course, investigators cared about that. But toxicology testing found
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: no evidence that Andrew or Abby had actually been poisoned.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Their stomach contents and samples of the household milk tested negative.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: So whether Lizzie tried to buy prussic acid or not,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: poison wasn't what killed them. Five days after the murder
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: on August 9th, Lizzie was called to testify at a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: closed inquest. District Attorney Knowlton questioned her for hours. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: this is where we get many of the inconsistent statements
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: people still talk about. Where exactly she had been when
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Andrew came home. How long was she in the barn?
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: What was she doing there? When did she last see Abby?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Where did the mysterious note come from? The more Knowlton pushed,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the less clear the morning seemed to become. There is
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: also one important complication. Lizzie had been prescribed morphine after
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the murders because she was distressed and wasn't sleeping, which
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: is fair. Both of her parents were just murdered. Dr.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Bowen later acknowledged that morphine at that dose she was
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: receiving could potentially affect memory or perception. That doesn't automatically
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: explain every inconsistency. She could have been confused, medicated. I'm
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: sure she was traumatized. Maybe she was lying. We don't know.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: But eventually, her inquest testimony would be excluded from the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: murder trial because the judges concluded she'd effectively been compelled
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to testify as a suspect without proper protection. And the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Prusik acid allegation would be excluded, too. So, two of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the most incriminating things people still cite about Lizzie today,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the jury that decided her fate never heard any of that.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: But investigators had one more strange piece of behavior to consider.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: A dress. Three days after the murders, Lizzie's friend Alice
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Russell walked into the Borden kitchen. Lizzie was standing near
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the stove holding a dress. Emma asked what she was doing,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: her sister, and Lizzie reported, I'm going to burn this
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: old thing up. It's covered with paint. Alice later saw
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: her tearing part of it and warned, I wouldn't let
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: anybody see me do that, Lizzie. And yes, Lizzie burned
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the dress three days after a double murder while police
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: were still investigating. And this sounds pretty horrendous. So if
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you're trying to write the worst possible true crime headline
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: about yourself, woman burns dress days after hatchet murders is
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: pretty difficult to beat. But the explanation had another side.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Emma testified the dress really had been damaged by paint
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and that they'd already discussed getting rid of it. Lizzie
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: burned it openly in the kitchen with Emma and Alice nearby.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And Alice testified that she saw no blood on it,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: not a drop. So was she destroying evidence? Or throwing
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: away an old ruined dress at the single worst possible time?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lizzie Borden case. Almost every suspicious fact
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: somehow has another interpretation. Alice also didn't tell authorities about
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the dress immediately. Not at the inquest, not at the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: preliminary hearing, not even during her first appearance before the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: grand jury. But eventually she did, and the dress became
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: an important part of the case against Lizzie. Meanwhile, the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: public was obsessed. Lizzie was a 32-year-old church-going woman who
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: taught Sunday school and had no criminal history. For some
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: people in Victorian America, the idea that a woman like
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: her could commit this kind of violent crime was unimaginable.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Others had already decided she was guilty. Every detail became news.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Did she cry enough? Was she too calm? Why had
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: she corrected people who called Abby her mother? Why was
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: she in the barn? What about the fake note or
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the note that they could never find that said Abby
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: left the house? But beneath all of the headlines, police
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: still had a frustrating reality. No eyewitness, no confession, no
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: definitive murder weapon, and no meaningful blood evidence linking Lizzie
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to the attacks. What they had was circumstantial. And the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: circumstances were piling up. She was home when Abby was killed.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: She was one of the last known people with Andrew.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Her account of the morning had inconsistencies. The note was missing.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: There was no stranger that had been confirmed inside or
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: outside of the house. A druggist claimed that she'd tried
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: to buy poison. And investigators were not buying the barn story.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: On August 11th, exactly one week after the murders, Lizzie
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: was arrested. And the next day she pleaded... Not guilty.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Lizzie was taken to the county jail in Taunton. Then
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: came the preliminary hearing. Witnesses reconstructed the entire morning. The house,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the locks, the bodies, the barn, Lizzie's movements. Her inquest
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: testimony was still allowed at this stage, including all of
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the confusing answers. The defense argued that there was no
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: direct evidence. No witness had seen Lizzie commit either murder.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: No bloody clothing had been recovered. No weapon was conclusively
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: tied to her. And the house wasn't so secure that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: an outsider was impossible. Remember, Bridget had been cleaning windows,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: so she had even said she was coming in and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: out of the house. At the end of the hearing,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Judge Josiah Blaisdell ruled there was enough evidence for the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: case to continue. His conclusion? Lizzie was probably guilty, which
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: was not a conviction, but he was deciding probable cause,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: not guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But probably guilty was
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: obviously a fantastic phrase for newspapers. So Lizzie went back
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to jail, and the grand jury considered the case. And
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: this is where Alice Russell finally disclosed the burned dress.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: On December 2nd, 1892, Lizzie was formally indicted for the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. The trial began January 5th, 1893,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: nearly 10 months after the murders. And by then, basically
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: everybody already had an opinion. The prosecution was led by
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Hosea Knowlton and William Moody. Lizzie's defense included Andrew Jennings
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and former Massachusetts Governor George Robinson. 12 men were selected
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to decide her fate, which, classic. Well, I guess probably
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: women weren't even allowed to do that, right? Beyond juries.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And on June 6th, the prosecution began laying out its theory.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Abby had been murdered first. Andrew later. There was no
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: obvious sign of a robbery. No confirmed intruder. Emma was gone.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: John Morse was gone. Bridget had been working around the property.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: And Lizzie was home. Can we talk about Bridget, though? Like,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: are we sure? She could also be lying, no? I
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: imagine they looked into that. The prosecution argued she had opportunity.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Family tensions supplied a possible motive, and her account of
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the morning was unreliable, and the burned dress suggested she
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: may have destroyed evidence. Then came one of the most
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: gruesome moments in the trial. The prosecution had brought Andrew
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and Abby's skulls into the court as evidence. According to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: contemporary reports, Lizzie saw them and fainted, which I cannot
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: imagine sitting in a courtroom doing. and suddenly seeing the
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: skulls of my murdered father and stepmother on a table.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Doctors used the skulls to explain the wounds and what
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: type of weapon could have caused them. Then witnesses began
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: retelling the morning. Bridget described Abby dusting, Andrew returning, how
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: she had to unlock the front door for Andrew, Lizzie
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: laughing from upstairs, and the mysterious note. Then Bridget's going
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: upstairs and hearing Lizzie calling down after Andrew's death. That
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: sounded useful to the prosecution, But under cross-examination, Bridget also
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: admitted that there were moments while she washed windows when
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: someone could have entered without her seeing. And she didn't
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: see blood on Lizzie afterward, and neither did Adelaide Churchill,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the neighbor who came over right away after. Alice Russell
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: testified about Lizzie's ominous conversation the night before the murders
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: about saying something bad was going to happen and about
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the burned dress. But Alice admitted she'd previously testified multiple
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: times without mentioning that dress. Then the scientific evidence came in.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Professor Edward Wood had examined the weapons and Lizzie's clothing.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: As we talked about, the alleged blood on the hatchets
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: was not blood, the hair was animal, and the stains
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: on Lizzie's clothing were mostly not blood. The prosecution could
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: have described ways Lizzie might have cleaned herself or hidden evidence,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: but they couldn't show the jury where that evidence actually was,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and the state's case just got weaker. First, the judges
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: excluded Lizzie's inquest testimony. So the jury would not hear
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: those inconsistent answers that could have potentially been from morphine,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: potentially been from lying or trauma or whatever the case
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: may be. Then prosecutors tried to bring Eli Bentz and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the allegation that Lizzie attempted to buy prussic acid the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: days before the murder. But the judge excluded that too.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Andrew and Abby hadn't been poisoned as we determined from
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the toxicology report. And the court decided the alleged poison
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: purchase wasn't sufficiently connected to the hatchet murders. So two
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: factors that sound the worst when telling people this story,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Lizzie's inconsistent inquest testimony and the alleged attempt to buy
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: poison was never heard by the jury. And now the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: defense needed only one thing, reasonable doubt. And they had
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: several places to find it. Dr. Benjamin Handy testified that
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: around the morning of the murders, he had seen an
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar young man near the Borden property who appeared pale
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and agitated. There was no evidence that man was a killer.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: but he did exist. An ice cream peddler named Hyman
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Lubinsky testified that shortly after 11, he saw a woman
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: coming from the direction of the Borden barn toward the house.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: He couldn't identify her as Lizzie, but he knew it
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't Bridget. And that mattered because the prosecution thought Lizzie's
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: barn story was ridiculous. Now, an independent witness had seen
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a woman near the barn at approximately the right time.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was Lizzie, maybe not, But the defense didn't
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: have to prove that. They just had to make the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: jury think, maybe. And Emma testified for her sister and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: supported the explanation that the burned dress had already been
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: ruined by paint. And by the time both sides finished
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: presenting evidence, the basic problem was obvious. The case against
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Lizzie looked very suspicious. But there wasn't much proof. George
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Robinson asked the jury to think about what the prosecution's
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: theory required. Lizzie would have had to kill Abby upstairs,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: clean herself, hide the evidence, and continue her mourning. Then
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: she would have had to kill Andrew downstairs, clean herself again,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: hide the weapon, and call Bridget within minutes. All without
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: leaving physical evidence that investigators could connect to her. Knowlton
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: argued the jury needed to look at the entire picture
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: rather than each individual piece in isolation. And then the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: judge instructed the jury. He reminded them that Lizzie was
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: presumed innocent and that the state had to overcome the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: presumption beyond a reasonable doubt. Contemporary observers thought that the
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: instructions were extremely favorable to Lizzie. Then, on June 20, 1893,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the jury left to deliberate. They reportedly reached their decision
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: on the first ballot. After roughly an hour and a half,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: they returned. Not guilty. The courtroom erupted. Lizzie cried. Emma
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: embraced her. And after spending most of the previous 10
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: months incarcerated, Lizzie reportedly wanted one thing. To go home. Legally,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that was the end of the case against her. She'd
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: been tried and acquitted. No one else would ever be
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: prosecuted for the murders. But not guilty didn't necessarily mean
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the public thought she was innocent. And Lizzie was about
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to discover that the jury's verdict couldn't erase the story
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: people had already created around her. So. After the trial,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Lizzie and Emma left Second Street. Andrew's death had left
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: his daughters considerably wealthy, and the sisters finally moved into
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the fashionable part of Fall River that their father could
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: have afforded all along. Their new home was larger, nicer,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and much more private. Lizzie named it Maplecroft. She had money,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: she traveled, she went to the theater, she spent time
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: in Boston and New York, and eventually she began using
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: a slightly different version of her name Lizbeth Borden. Maybe
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that was simply personal preference. Maybe it felt like some
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: small separation from the woman everyone thought they knew. But
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Fall River did not forget her. Sightseeing carriages reportedly passed
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Maplecroft while guides pointed out the home of the woman
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: accused of killing her father and stepmother. Imagine being acquitted
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: and basically becoming a tourist attraction while you're still alive.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Lizzie developed an interest in theater and became friendly with
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the actress Nance O'Neill. Later writers have speculated that the
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: relationship was romantic, but there's no reliable evidence establishing that.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And around the same period, something happened between Lizzie and Emma.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: In 1905, Emma left Maplecroft, and she never moved back.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Years later, Emma acknowledged that something had happened in that
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: house that caused her to leave, but she never clearly
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: explained what it was. The sisters who'd survived the deaths, investigation,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and trial together spent the rest of their lives apart.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Lizzie remained at Maplecroft until her death on June 1, 1927.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: She was 66, and then nine days later, Emma died too.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: The sisters were buried in the Borden family plot at
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Oak Grove Cemetery alongside Andrew and Abby. Lizzie never publicly confessed,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and she never revealed another killer. As far as the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: historical records show, she maintained her innocence for the rest
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: of her life. And yet, by the time she died,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the jury's verdict almost didn't matter anymore. Popular culture had
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: already decided what happened. Lizzie Borden took an axe, except,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: did she? So, after all of that, did Lizzie Borden
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: actually kill Andrew and Abby? I think the reason we're
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: still talking about this case more than 130 years later
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: is because every time you think you found the thing
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that proved she did it, there's a problem. There's a
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: reason the police focused on Lizzie. First of all, she was... there.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Emma wasn't there. John Morse wasn't there. There was no
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: confirmed stranger ever seen. And there's also the timing of it.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: If Abby died significantly before Andrew, an outside killer had
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a problem. Either they killed Abby and remained somewhere nearby
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: for a long period, or killed Abby, left, and somehow
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: returned at exactly the right moment to kill Andrew after
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: he came home. Possible? Yes. Simple? No. And then the note,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Lizzie had told people Abby had left the house saying
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: someone was sick, but they never could find that note,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and nobody ever came forward saying they were the sender.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: And then there's Lizzie's inconsistent account of where she was
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: when Andrew came home. and the fact that her barn
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: story conveniently placed her away from the house during that
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: very narrow period when Andrew was murdered. If Eli Bentz
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: was telling the truth, Lizzie tried to bite poison the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: day before the murder. That's difficult to ignore, like I said,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: if it's true. But Lizzie denies trying to do that.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And the burned dress, I don't care how many times
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I read this, that's never not going to sound suspicious,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: burning a dress in the stove. And I think one
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: of the biggest problems, too, is that there is literally
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: no physical evidence. There's no murder weapon. There's no blood.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I did read somewhere, this is just speculation, but that
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: on a neighbor's house or like a couple houses over,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: there was a hatchet thrown on top of a roof.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Like someone maybe had fled and thrown a hatchet up
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: on the roof, or I guess Lizzie could have done
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: that too. But if you asked me who best fits
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the known circumstances, I think it's Lizzie. Not because of
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: the rhyme, not because she didn't grieve correctly, or not
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: because she was an unmarried, hag or whatever they were
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: called in the 1800s for being in their 30s and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: not married, I think she's the most plausible suspect because
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of the combination of opportunity, access, the unexplained note, the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: inconsistencies in her account, and the timing of both murders
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and the lack of another suspect who can actually be
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: placed inside that house. But if you transported me back
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: to 1893 and put me on that jury, I don't
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: know that I could have voted guilty either. because most
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: plausible suspect and guilty beyond a reasonable doubt are not
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the same thing. The jury wasn't just being asked, do
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: you think Lizzie probably did this? They had to decide
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: if there was any reasonable doubt. It's likely investigators had
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the right person, but simply couldn't prove it with the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: forensic tools available in 1892. Unless there's genuinely new evidence
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: that appears more than a century later, we'll probably never
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: know for sure. But history did something interesting with that uncertainty.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: It erased it. Because most people don't learn this story
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: as Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered, their daughter was tried,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and she was acquitted. We learn Lizzie Borden took an axe,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the rhyme that became more famous than the case itself.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: A real woman became a horror character. Meanwhile, there were
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: two people we know for certain were victims, Andrew Borden
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: and Abby Borden. They were murdered inside their home on
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: August 4th, 1892. Someone knew exactly what happened. Someone knew
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: where the weapon went. and someone knew whether that mysterious
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: note ever existed. More than 130 years later, the house
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: is still there, and the rhyme is still repeated. And
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: maybe that's why this case refuses to disappear. Because no
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: matter how many times you rearrange the evidence, you can
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: get incredibly close to an answer, but you just can't
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: quite touch it. That is the case of Lizzie Borden.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And I hope you all are off to a great
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: spooky season start. Please, the best thing you can do
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: to grow the show is like, review, subscribe. If you want,
• 43:15
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• 43:16
  Speaker 1: get the episodes ad free. It's $ 2. 99. And as always,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: stay curious. Thanks for listening to Cat Has Questions. If
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: you liked this episode, follow the show and share it
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: with someone who loves a good spiral. See you next week.