Lizzie Borden Took An Axe…

Buried Evidence

This episode of Buried Evidence explores the infamous 1892 double murder of Andrew and Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts. The hosts d

Key takeaways

Andrew Borden was a wealthy but notoriously frugal man whose lifestyle caused significant friction within his household.
The murder of Abby Borden was exceptionally violent, involving approximately 19 strikes with an axe or hatchet.

Main topics

The Lizzie Borden murders
Victorian era social norms

Notable quotes

The podcast that knows where the bodies are hidden.

Conclusion

The episode provides a compelling look at how historical context and i

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This podcast is part of The Crime Desk, the true home of true crime. Get all our episodes earlier than anyone else and listen ad-free by becoming a subscriber at thecrimedesk.com. Speaker 2 (0:17) Welcome back to Buried Evidence, the Speaker 1 (0:19) podcast that knows where the bodies are hidden. Many of you'll be familiar with the infamous case of Lizzie Borden, who according to popular myth, murdered her parents with an axe. But what do we really know about this case? How much of it is ghoulish sensation dreamed up by a press hungry to sell a good story? In this episode, Speaker 2 (0:40) we go beyond criminal legend to explore the real case of Lizzie Borden. It begins in Fall River, Massachusetts in August 1892 in a modest house on Second Street. Here Speaker 1 (0:53) we meet the Borden household. Speaker 2 (0:54) So tell me about the Borden household then. I mean, were they just a normal family? No, Speaker 1 (1:02) they were not a normal family. They weren't. I mean, it's such a strange setup. You have the head of the household, so Andrew Borden. He's on his second wife. She's called Abby. They are entering old age, middle to the late stages of their life. They have two daughters called Emma and Lizzie, Lizzie being the youngest of the two. And they're all living together unhappily in this house. Andrew Borden's got quite a lot of money, so they're living in a modest home. If you compare it to the wealth that they have, realistically, they should be living in one of the wealthier suburbs. They're not. So you're saying that he's a bit tight. He is a bit tight. He is a bit of a tight arse. He doesn't like to spend money. He's very frugal. He doesn't like waste. The general impression is that this household is full of tensions. full of maybe passive aggression. There's lots of arguments going on about this, that and the other. The other thing that's happening as well within this house is that He, Andrew Borden, is having conversations with his second wife, Abby, who he's been married to for a long time by this point, by the time we get to the 1890s. He's having conversations with her family, her side of the family, about properties that he owns and giving some of these properties to her relatives. Oh, Speaker 2 (2:30) so Speaker 1 (2:30) there's Speaker 2 (2:30) already a bone of contention there then. Speaker 1 (2:33) Yeah. So the two daughters do not like this at all. The other thing to remember about... Emma and Lizzie Borden is that they're both what the Victorians would have termed spinsters. So Lizzie Borden's in her early 30s, Emma's older, they're unmarried and it just feels like a very unhappy and toxic family set up with all of them in this same house. Speaker 2 (2:57) So you say tensions, what kind of Speaker 1 (3:00) tensions? I think the tensions, my impression of it is that the tensions... come from money and potentially what will be inherited and who has what. There seems to be a lot of resentment towards the stepmother, towards Abby. There are numerous occasions where People report Lizzie Borden saying, well, she's not my mother. She's my stepmother. My real mother died when I was a child. There are reports that they don't sit together and eat together at the same time. So I think it's to do with who has what and what they're going to inherit. That's what the tensions are about. And then just the everyday life of having individuals that have personalities that clash. constantly coming into friction with one another. There's one occasion actually shortly before the events of the double murder. So there's an area that has been constructed. to have pigeons. And Lizzie Borden has been instrumental in constructing this area. Andrew Borden gets annoyed that there are pigeons and he arranges to have them all killed. And that's something, that's a bone of contention because you can imagine Lizzie Borden is going to feel very frustrated and annoyed about this. So we have all of these really deep, toxic, long-standing grievances that are exacerbated by, I say small, that's pretty... dramatic thing to do, but, you know, in individual instances of tension and conflict within the family. Speaker 2 (4:30) It sounds like a piece of work, doesn't it? Like coercive behaviour, wants to kind of dominate everything, controlling perhaps. Speaker 1 (4:39) Yeah, I think that probably would be a very good reading of the situation. Another thing that's... And that's important to bear in mind as well, is that despite the fact that they're not living in an affluent area, which they can well afford, they can absolutely afford, his wealth is large. I think if we were to kind of... switch it to today's money, he had around 10 million at the time of his death. So he is not a man that needs to be living so frugally and neither do any of his family in actual fact, but they are still meshed in with the community. So Lizzie Borden is very much a member of the church. She's part of the temperance movement. She does lots of... outreach with families that have less money. So she's very much part of the community. Being a spinster and living at home does not mean that she's not out there also engaging with other people as well. So we have this whole background going on. And I think the other thing to think about too is that Massachusetts is a... is obviously being on the east coast it's a place that also has lots of waves of migration so and there is a very sizable irish population living in massachusetts by this point obviously we've had the potato famine and the the mass migration over to america We're also starting to see waves of migration from other spaces as well. So Portuguese around this point in time are starting to move and settle within Massachusetts too. So that's something to just keep in mind as we get a little bit further in the story. Speaker 2 (6:12) So we have a not very happy household. And what about the morning then of the murder? Is everything normal? Speaker 1 (6:23) I mean, it seems normal. It's normal, but it's also not normal. So the evening before the murder... A long-lost relation, well, not a long-lost relation, but the Borden girl's uncle arrives. So he's the brother of their deceased mother. He's a man called John Morse. He arrives and he doesn't tend to visit. So this is unusual in itself. And he stays the night. The morning that the murders take place, he breakfasts with Andrew Borden in the morning, as well as Abby Borden as well. Lizzie's in that house that night. as is their housemaid, Bridget Sullivan, who they refer to as Maggie because, you know, they can't Speaker 2 (7:05) be Speaker 1 (7:05) bothered to actually give her her actual name. The previous maid was called Maggie, so they just stick with that. Speaker 2 (7:11) Oh, good grief. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:12) So these are the people that we have in the house during the night of and the morning of. Andrew Borden goes out for a walk after breakfast. Lots of people see him around town. John Morse leaves the house as well. He goes to go and see his other niece who's elsewhere. So this is Emma Borden. Speaker 2 (7:34) That's Lizzie's sister. She's not in the house. So Speaker 1 (7:36) Lizzie's sister is not in the house either. But John Morse goes out to go and see her. So we have John Morse leaving the house. We have Andrew Borden leaving the house. Remaining behind are Bridget Sullivan, the maid, Lizzie Borden and Lizzie Borden's stepmother. Abby Borden. Speaker 2 (7:54) So then what Speaker 1 (7:55) happens? So there's just, there's three people in the house. This is where it gets a bit messy because subsequent testimonies change and shift. But at some point, while Andrew Borden's out... Abby Borden is killed, murdered, really brutally, really brutally. How so? She is, well, we have the famous rhyme, you know, 40 wax, 41 wax. But she is, we think from looking at the details of her injuries, that she was hit face first. And then fell back, fell onto her front, onto the floor, and she's whacked 19 times with an axe or a hatchet. Speaker 2 (8:41) 19 times? It's Speaker 1 (8:43) brutal. It's really brutal. You do not need to whack someone that Speaker 2 (8:48) many times to kill them. No, Speaker 1 (8:49) that's like Speaker 2 (8:49) extreme violence, isn't it? Speaker 1 (8:51) Yeah, it's horrific. And this happens on... If we think about the way Americans do their floors, it happens on the second floor, as they would call it, and the first floor, as we would call it. But it happens on that floor of the house, so where all the bedrooms are. Bridget Sullivan is up in the attic where the servants are as well. So it's a space that if you're going up and down the stairs, up to the bedrooms, you would see her body. You would see it. So she's killed. Andrew Borden returns home. Bridget Sullivan, because he knocks on the door, Bridget Sullivan has trouble opening the door and she reports that Lizzie Borden is on the stairs and she laughs at the fact that she's having trouble opening the door. Andrew Borden comes in. Bridget goes about her business. She goes up to the attic. Lizzie Borden says that she