The Story of Lizzie Borden

1. The Hottest Morning of the Year
1 min. 3 sec.
Thursday, August 4, 1892. Fall River, Massachusetts. The temperature was climbing past 90 degrees by mid-morning — the p…
Thursday, August 4, 1892. Fall River, Massachusetts. The temperature was climbing past 90 degrees by mid-morning — the peak of a New England heatwave that had held the city for nearly a week. At 92 Second Street, the Borden household consisted of five people: Andrew Jackson Borden, 70, a wealthy self-made businessman; his second wife Abby, 64; his two adult daughters from his first marriage, Emma (41) and Lizzie (32); the Irish live-in maid Bridget Sullivan, called 'Maggie' by the family; and John Morse, Andrew's brother-in-law from his first marriage, who was staying as an overnight guest. The house was tall, narrow, dark, and — despite Andrew's considerable wealth — deliberately unmodernised. There was no running water in the bedrooms. There was no indoor bathroom of the kind Fall River's other well-to-do families had. The heat, that morning, was extraordinary.
1. The Hottest Morning of the Year
2. The Guest Room
1 min. 0 sec.
Sometime between approximately 9:00 and 9:30 a.m., Abby Borden went upstairs to the second-floor guest bedroom to change…
Sometime between approximately 9:00 and 9:30 a.m., Abby Borden went upstairs to the second-floor guest bedroom to change the pillowcases. She was 64 years old. She was Andrew's second wife. She was not popular with her stepdaughters — a matter of some documented family tension. In the guest bedroom, someone struck her from behind with a hatchet. The first blow, per the coroner's later reconstruction, was to the side of the head and knocked her forward onto the floor between the bed and the dresser. She was then struck an additional 18 times as she lay face-down. Her body was not discovered for over an hour. During that hour, three other people were in or around the house. One of them — depending on which version of the case is believed — was already a killer.
2. The Guest Room
3. Andrew Comes Home
1 min. 5 sec.
Andrew Borden left the house at approximately 9:00 a.m. for his morning round of business errands in downtown Fall River…
Andrew Borden left the house at approximately 9:00 a.m. for his morning round of business errands in downtown Fall River. He visited his bank, several tenants, and a hardware store. He returned home at approximately 10:45 a.m. The front door was triple-locked from the inside — an unusual security precaution that had been added following a burglary at the house the previous year. Bridget Sullivan opened it for him, having some difficulty with the locks. She would later testify that as she struggled with the door she heard Lizzie laughing on the stairs above her. Andrew removed his coat, sat down on the parlour sofa, and closed his eyes to rest before his midday meal. His wife Abby, unbeknownst to him, had been dead in the guest room upstairs for approximately an hour and a half.
3. Andrew Comes Home
4. The Sofa
54 sec.
Sometime between approximately 10:55 and 11:10 a.m., someone entered the ground-floor sitting room where Andrew Borden l…
Sometime between approximately 10:55 and 11:10 a.m., someone entered the ground-floor sitting room where Andrew Borden lay resting on the sofa. His head was turned slightly to the right, resting on a cushion. His shoes were still on. Someone struck him with a hatchet — the coroner would later count 11 or 12 blows to the head, all delivered while he was in a position consistent with sleep. His face was virtually obliterated. There was no defensive posture. There was no interruption to the assault. Whoever killed Andrew Borden was, by the physical evidence, someone he was not startled by — someone he had not felt the need to open his eyes for. It was the second murder in the same house on the same morning. The interval between the two killings was approximately 90 minutes.
4. The Sofa
5. Maggie, Come Quick!
54 sec.
At approximately 11:10 a.m., Bridget Sullivan was in her third-floor attic bedroom, resting after her morning work washi…
At approximately 11:10 a.m., Bridget Sullivan was in her third-floor attic bedroom, resting after her morning work washing the outside of the ground-floor windows. Lizzie called up to her from the foot of the stairs: 'Maggie, come quick! Father's dead! Somebody's come in and killed him!' Bridget ran down. She found Lizzie standing in the sitting room doorway. Andrew's body was on the sofa. Lizzie's demeanour, per Bridget's subsequent testimony and per the accounts of the neighbours and doctors who arrived within minutes, was strikingly composed. She was not weeping. She was not screaming. She was providing coherent instructions — send for Dr Bowen, send for Mrs Churchill, tell them Father has been killed. It would be one of the case's most-analysed and most-contested facts. Whether her composure was shock, guilt, or simply the temperament of an unmarried thirty-two-year-old New England woman who did not weep in front of servants.
5. Maggie, Come Quick!
6. The Second Body
56 sec.
Neighbour Adelaide Churchill arrived within minutes. Family physician Dr Seabury Bowen arrived shortly after. Officers o…
Neighbour Adelaide Churchill arrived within minutes. Family physician Dr Seabury Bowen arrived shortly after. Officers of the Fall River police were on scene by 11:30 a.m. Lizzie, questioned in the kitchen, told them she had been in the barn behind the house — looking for lead to make sinkers for a fishing trip — at the moment her father was killed. She said she had not seen or heard the killer. Someone asked, almost incidentally, where Abby was. Lizzie said she thought Abby had gone out that morning to see a sick friend. Bridget and Adelaide Churchill went upstairs together to check the guest bedroom. They found Abby's body between the bed and the dresser, face-down in a pool of dried blood. The blood had already begun to darken. The coroner would later estimate she had been dead approximately 90 to 120 minutes — a full hour and a half before Andrew.
6. The Second Body
7. The Locked Doors
54 sec.
The Borden house was, on the morning of August 4, 1892, essentially a locked box. The front door was triple-locked. The…
The Borden house was, on the morning of August 4, 1892, essentially a locked box. The front door was triple-locked. The side door was locked. The cellar door was bolted from inside. The upstairs bedrooms — including the door between Andrew's and Lizzie's rooms — were locked, in some cases by keys kept on individuals' persons. Fall River police, examining the house within the hour, found no signs of forced entry. No windows had been broken. No locks had been picked. The house had been physically secure throughout the morning. The only people known to have been inside during the window of the killings were Andrew, Abby, Bridget Sullivan, and Lizzie — with John Morse having left for a morning errand at approximately 8:45 a.m. and not returning until nearly noon. The absence of an intruder was, and remained, the single most difficult fact for any theory of the case that did not involve someone already in the house.
7. The Locked Doors
8. The Property Transfer
55 sec.
In the days following the murders, investigators began assembling the family's financial history. Andrew Borden had, fiv…
In the days following the murders, investigators began assembling the family's financial history. Andrew Borden had, five years earlier, quietly transferred a substantial property — a house on Ferry Street — into his second wife Abby's name. He had done this without informing his adult daughters Emma and Lizzie. When they had learned of it, the household's atmosphere had cooled markedly. From that point onward, Lizzie had stopped referring to Abby as 'Mother' and had begun calling her 'Mrs Borden'. There were disputes about money, about inheritance, about future property distribution. Andrew had, more recently, been discussing the transfer of additional properties. These disputes were known to neighbours, to the family physician, and to the extended family. They were also known — and, when Fall River detectives began interviewing witnesses that first week, would form the earliest sketch of a possible motive.
8. The Property Transfer

1. The Hottest Morning of the Year

2. The Guest Room

3. Andrew Comes Home

4. The Sofa

5. Maggie, Come Quick!

6. The Second Body

7. The Locked Doors

8. The Property Transfer