America's 'Innocent Axe-Murderer' Lizzie Borden

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

The episode explores the infamous 1892 double murder of Andrew and Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts. Hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling set

Key takeaways

• Andrew Jackson Borden was a wealthy self-made man and property developer worth approximately $10 million in modern currency.
• The crime scene involved a brutal attack with an axe or hatchet, targeting both Abby and Andrew Borden.

Main topics

• Historical context of 1892
• The Borden family dynamics

Notable quotes

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks.

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep dive into the ambiguity of one of America'

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Looking for more shady and sinister stories? Sign up to History Hit. You can join us to explore the tragic life of the Brontes or discover the chilling story of Burke and Hare. Plus, with your History Hit subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe to start exploring the past. Hello there, you are of course listening to After Dark, and today we're focusing on the case of Lizzie Borden, one of the most famous murderers in American history. Speaker 3 (0:42) June 5th, 1893 We're in New Bedford, Massachusetts, standing in the corner of a crowded courtroom. We've had to jostle our way in. It's loud in here. Men and women are discussing the case with a kind of electric excitement. There's debate. The man behind us waves his hand enthusiastically in the air, as though trying to hammer home his point. His friend shakes his head in disagreement. The jury, two rows of near-identical men in three-piece suits, their faces dressed with whiskers and moustaches, and their waists glinting with pocket watches, look grim, and so they should, for the task is not an easy one. They must decide on the guilt or innocence of a young woman in a case so ghastly the details of it make everyone from factory workers to magistrates, in the industrial town where it happened, blush in horror. Quite suddenly, a hush falls in the room. A door swings loudly open and through it comes the accused herself. She is small and neat, dressed in black, with an elegant pin fastened high at her throat. In her hand she carries a bouquet of fresh flowers, the petals trembling slightly as she steps up to the dock to take her place. Over the next few days, this apparently demure, respectable woman will be fighting for her life. The question is, did she take those of her closest family away from them? Speaker 1 (2:58) This is After Dark. I'm Anthony. Speaker 3 (3:01) And I'm Maddie. Speaker 1 (3:02) And today we are delving into one of the most notorious cases, as I said at the outset, in American history. It's a locked room mystery, a story of horrible violence, and then at its heart, a seemingly glamorous, if that's the right word, but strange young woman. It is, of course, the case of Lizzie Borden. You might remember that in June we had an episode about the murder trial of... Polly Bedine, aka the Witch of New York. And that's a fascinating case too. And our guest was Alex Hortus, and he told us about Polly's trial and how sensational it was until it was eclipsed by Lizzie Borden. So this is going to be really interesting. And go back and listen to that Polly Bedine case if you haven't already heard it, because it really is fascinating and it sets up the context. for what's about to unfold in the Lizzie Borden case. So speaking of context, Maddy, set the scene for us. I believe we are in 1892, America in 1892. Speaker 3 (3:59) We are indeed. I got really carried away researching this year. Loads happened, but it's now become a bit of a running joke in my household. I got so excited that I started telling my husband about all the things that happened in 1892, but I led with the fact that the first escalator was installed that year in Coney Island. And he laughed at me so much. And now anything that I say is interesting, he says, was it as interesting as the escalator situation in 1892? That Speaker 1 (4:27) is also a terrible story. I am with Matt on this. Escalators do not make for the first lead. You should have picked something else. I mean, the first fingerprint bureau is in my notes. That comes next. That's way better. Speaker 3 (4:38) I know. It really is. It really is. So I'm sorry to escalator fans out there, but that was quite a boring opening. Yes, so there's so much that changes. You know, we're early on in the final decade of the 19th century. The world is changing hugely. So we do have the first escalators at Coney Island. We've also got Rudolf Diesel patenting his engine. We've got, as you say, the first fingerprinting bureau opens in Buenos Aires, which of course... We're not going to see Buenos Aires in the story, but interesting to think about these advances in policing taking place. That's Speaker 1 (5:11) amazing, yeah. Speaker 3 (5:12) Not necessarily in America. In the world of sport, something you and I are obviously very passionate about, Liverpool Football Club is founded. And in the US, the first basketball game is played in public. And for anyone who didn't know, it's at the YMCA and it's played between students and the faculty there. There's lots of social change happening. So Yale... University admits its first woman to graduate school there. And in Louisiana, a mixed race man called Homer Plessy is arrested for sitting in a whites-only train carriage in protest of, of course, racial segregation, which is absolutely fascinating and quite early on, I would say. In terms of culture and politics, we've got the first ever film studios being set up. Have a guess where you think they would be without looking at the notes in front of you. Speaker 1 (6:04) I mean, you would imagine they're going to be LA, I guess. So Speaker 3 (6:07) they're in Melbourne, in Australia, interestingly. Yeah, I did not know that. Well, there's quite a big Speaker 1 (6:11) film industry in Melbourne, actually, even now, or in Australia, at least. Speaker 3 (6:15) In London, we get the first Sherlock Holmes adventure, published in The Strand magazine. Also in London, we've got the general election. We have two elections taking place in this year, a little bit like this year, in fact, the year we're currently living in. We've got the British general election. And it's a conservative and liberal unionist coalition that loses its majority and a liberal government comes in. So not a terribly dissimilar situation to the one that we find ourselves in now. And in the US, there's a presidential election. And this is really interesting. So Grover Cleveland comes back into office for a second term, but they're not backed about terms. And he's the only president thus far to serve two non-consecutive terms, of course. Donald Trump would be the second if he is Speaker 2 (7:02) elected later this year. Speaker 3 (7:03) So there's a lot of parallels to our own time. It's a feeling of, in the 1890s, lots of change is happening. The recognisable 20th century is about to come into being. And this is the setting in which we find Lizzie Borden on trial for a series of very brutal murders. We Speaker 1 (7:23) have that context going on in the background. What's happening more specifically on the ground in Massachusetts? So this is where these murders unfold. So for me, if I think about Massachusetts, I think New England, I think at this point in time, relatively well-to-do, quite industrial. And yet with this very strong backbone of tradition and being very much part of the early colonies. But give us a little bit more detail. Speaker 3 (7:50) Sure. We're in Fall River, Massachusetts, which is an East Coast city in Bristol County. It's a really wealthy place. It's very prosperous. And there's a lot of opportunity here for social mobility, which is going to be important to our story. I was just reading about Fall River in the 19th century and something I came across. Now, I love a weird archaeological discovery. And it was famous in the time that Lizzie Borden was living there. This city was famous for... a discovery that had actually happened several decades earlier in the 1830s of a skeleton that was found on the riverbank there, dressed in armour. It's buried with metal objects, some tree bark and some clothing that it's wearing and that's separate. And nobody could work out if this was the burial of a Native American or possibly an early colonist. It seemed to be already centuries old. And it sort of became... the thing that the town was known for, which is just a lovely little detail. And maybe that's a whole episode in and of itself. But Speaker 2 (8:54) certainly by the 1890s, Speaker 3 (8:56) it Speaker 2 (8:57) is also really a centre for industry. So we've got Speaker 3 (8:59) print Speaker 2 (8:59) works. Speaker 3 (8:59) We've got, as we said, textile factories. We've also got ironworks. There's shipping. The river comes in there. So we've got shipping, transporting coal, transporting cotton. And there's a railroad that's now connecting. full river to other towns and cities further inland. So this is a really exciting place. It's something that's changing very rapidly. And Lizzie's family are part of this new, emerging, prosperous upper middle class. And we're going to talk a little bit about who her family are. But first of all, I want you to describe the photograph that we have of the family home. And the thing that I want to say about this before you do that, is that the house itself was in a fairly affluent part of Fall River, but it wasn't in the most affluent place, which was an area called The Hill, which was literally the houses on The Hill that could look down on everyone else. And I want listeners to bear that in mind, because that is going to become an important aspect of this story later on. But for now, Anthony, tell us what we're looking at in this picture. Speaker 1 (10:05) Right, so we're looking at a... In many ways, a typical well-to-do New England house from potentially the end of the 18th century, if not the beginning of the 19th. It is three stories high, ground floor, first floor, and a top floor, which looks to be in the eaves, essentially. There is a chimney jutting out of the top. It is surrounded by picket fences, all very idyllic, I suppose, in one sense, although it does very much look like it's in. an urban or a suburban setting. There are low gates, windows down the side of the house as well. It looks like a very traditional, almost 19th century church building if I didn't know any better, but obviously this is a domestic dwelling. Yeah, wood frame and it's clad and it's got a very nice door over it, but it looks very respectable. As you say, not a mansion, but certainly a respectable house. Nothing... bizarrely unusual about it, I suppose, it's worth saying. It seems like a very run-of-the-mill domestic setting in many ways. Speaker 3 (11:09) Yeah, it absolutely is. It's just that it's an affluent middle-class home in an affluent middle-class city in a part of America that is changing shape in terms of the wealth, in terms of the industry, but there's nothing out of the ordinary here. So let's go inside. And if we were to walk into this house, we would meet, first of all, Andrew Jackson Borden. This is the father of the household. He is born in 1822. He's of English and Welsh descent. And interestingly, and this speaks very much to the times, he grew up in poverty. But by the time we meet him as a grown man and as father to the notorious Lizzie Borden, he is a property developer. He's also the director of several textile mills. in the city and he is, importantly, president of the Union Savings Bank. His estimated worth in 1892 is $300,000, which is about $10 million in 2024. So this is very much a self-made man. This is the American dream in action here. Next we have Lizzie's stepmother. This is a woman called Abby. Borden. She is born in 1828, so she's just a little bit younger than Andrew. And she has a polite, amicable relationship with her stepdaughter, Lizzie, but there's no warmth there. It's quite a distant relationship and there is a little bit of tension. There's this idea that Lizzie and her sister, that I'll talk about in a minute, have that Abby has married their father, Andrew, for his money. So money is an issue for this family. Andrew obviously protects his wealth and covets more and more, possibly because of the background that he's come from. And Abby is seen as someone who's maybe taken advantage of that. Next we have Lizzie's sister called Emma Borden. She's born in 1851. She's the older sister and she's incredibly... religious. So she teaches at the local Sunday school. She's a treasurer for the Christian Endeavour Society and a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement. I'm not going to lie, she doesn't sound like wildly good fun. But her and Lizzie have a relatively close relationship. And certainly in the context of Fall River in the 1890s, they are respectable women. They are participating in their respectable Christian community. Also living in the household, we have one servant, Bridget Sullivan, who is an immigrant to the US from Ireland. And although she's called Bridget, the family call her Maggie. So we will be calling her Maggie from now on. She's 25 years old. And as far as I could tell trying to read up on this case, she's been with the family for... relatively long time. So she's very familiar with everyone who she's employed by and has an existing relationship with the two girls, Lizzie and Emma. Speaker 1 (14:21) What's interesting about discovering a little bit more now about the family is that it sounds to me like Andrew, the dad, is in a position to actually be living better than they are. Not that there's anything wrong with how they're living, but if he's worth $10 million in today's money... And this house is nowhere near, he's not at the end of his means by any stretch at all. So in a way, he outwardly at least appears to be living quite frugally. Does that translate within the household structure itself? Or is he spending, often with these cases, you see people are spending money frivolously and therefore that's putting tension in the house. But from what I understand, that's not the case in this particular murder case. Speaker 3 (15:03) You're absolutely correct. It is the other way around. He's strangely frugal. He doesn't like to spend money. And even though the area that they live in has these quite well-to-do homes and their home, at least on the outside, looks very respectable, inside there is no indoor plumbing and there are no luxuries compared to the domestic setups of the people around them. So he's someone who has built up this wealth but doesn't necessarily like to spend it. One thing that he does do which seems to create some tension amongst the family members, is that he, as we said, he's