Doomed to Fail - Ep 24 - Part 1: Impossible that she did it, Impossible that she DIDN'T do it - Lizzie Borden

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

🎧 Get ready to explore one of America's most infamous and enigmatic true crime stories! This week, we delve into the case of Lizzie Borden, the woman accused of the brutal axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892. But was she really guilty? Join us as we sift through the evidence, question the motives, and uncover new perspectives on this century-old mystery. 🔪🕵️‍♀️#TrueCrime #LizzieBorden #PodcastEpisode #MysteryUnsolved #HistoricalCrimes #TrueCrimeCommunity #CrimeMystery #HistoryPodcast #WhoDunIt #InnocentOrGuilty Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

Everyone, Taylor from Doom to Fail, we're the podcast that brings you stories of history's greatest disasters and epic failures. Today, we're going to re-release episode 24, part one. And this is a, just such a great story. Man, if you grew up in the Midwest of America, I feel like in the 80s, there's no way you didn't sing this song. If you grew up in the 70s, there's no way you didn't see the TV movie. And I think that I say this in the episode, but I remember, watching the TV movie with the woman Elizabeth from Bewitched and eating, this is so dumb, but eating spinach, Fettuccino, like spinach, Fettuccini, and never being able to eat it again without thinking about Lizzie Borden. So we did this last year in advance of Father's Day to talk about the relationship between Lizzie and her dad. It was not good. He was not very nice. Things were stinky and weird in the Borden household. It was hot. Also, if you've been in the American Midwest, it is hot and sticky.

And imagine being there in the summer having to wear Victorian clothing up to your neck. Everything's black. And the door is in the Borden house. They lock them. They closed the door. They lock the door. There's no ventilation. There's no air.

The food is old. Everyone's sick. It's tension. And it's, I don't know. Did she do it? I just don't know. I was so sure when I was growing up. and I guess if you know, you know, if it bothers you as much as it bothers me,

the idea that she didn't do it is wild and also very, very probable. So please enjoy the release of our dear Lizzie Borden and her axe, maybe. And if you have any suggestions for us for future episodes, let us know. Doomedepilopod at gmail.com. Again, this is episode 24, part one. Our first 26 episodes were in one big episode and we're separating them. so only a few more re-releases to go. But I hope you enjoyed this one.

It's honestly one of my favorite stories of all time. Thanks for listening. The matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortlandall James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

Okay. So next Sunday, oh, June 18th is Father's Day. Did you know that? I've heard that. Call your dad. So to prep for Father's Day, I wanted to sell. a story about fathers and daughters and so talk about the relationship between Andrew and Lizzie Borden. Ooh. It was a sexual relationship, wasn't it? It might have been.

Yep. So you are first generation American. Was Lizzie Borden a part of your life? I mean, I was two when I came here. So like, I mean, I heard the whole like 30 wax and all the, all of, like, Like, I remember buying a book. Dude, it was called Liz Claiborne. Hold on.

What's Liz Claiborne? No, Liz Claiborne is like a, no, Liz Claiborne is like a fashion designer. Okay, then I'm confusing things because I do remember getting a book. And I thought it was about Lizzie Borden, and it was about somebody totally different. And then I'm messing up your story and debiling it as usual. No, no, it's fine. but like you've heard of her you know um so you remember the rhyme which would say in a second um but just for me like it this scared the shit out of me when i was little like it was i feel like it was in my life a lot um i also like associate when i'm doing things with like the media that i'm consuming when i'm doing it so like the kid's bathroom i painted blue and it reminds me of mount everest because while i was painting the bathroom blue i was watching a lot of ever's documentary okay makes sense so i remember watching the Lizzie Borden movie, it was like a lifetime, not the Lifetime movie, the one from

1975. It was like a made for TV movie starring the woman from Bewitched. Okay. I love her. Yeah. And I remember watching it and being scared, shitless and eating Fettuccine Alfredo with spinach noodles. So whenever I think about Fetitina alfredo, I think about Lizzie Borden. Nice. Think of her a lot. So we have to, like you said, do the rhyme, which is Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 wax. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41, and you, like, skip rope to that. It's awesome. They died.

So people dedicate their freaking lives to this story. It is such a fascinating story that people have been, like, thinking about it forever. And I, there's a huge Lizzie Borden Society Forum, which is like an old, older-looking web form, and people are active on it today. People are active on it constantly. It's all people on it. I watched the Elizabeth Montgomery movie from 1975. There's a couple other websites I went to. There's a Lizzie Borden Society Forum.

Something from a website called Criminal Element. I watched a show called History's Mystery is a strange case of Lizzie Borden. Lizzie Borden had an axe from the Discovery Channel, and I read a book called The Trial, Lizzie Borden. There's a lot. I mean, there's endless, endless stuff about this story. Several of the documentaries were made, like, right after the OJ trial, which is hilarious, because they were trying to equate famous American trials together. And one of them was like, we imagine that Lizzie Borden spent her,

life with these murders hanging over her head and that will happen to O.J. And I'm like, OJ is fine. OJ doesn't care at all. He doesn't give a shit. So like, so, you know, but here are the facts. On August 2nd, 1892, the Borden house is at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. An uncle, John Morse, was visiting the Bordons. Morris ate breakfast served by the maid Bridget with Andrew and Abby, who are like the parents. He left to at friends around 848 a.m. At 9 a.m. Andrew went for a walk. Sometime between 9 and 10.30 a.m., Abby went to tidy up the guest room and was hit 19 times in the head with an X. Her body lay on the bed opposite to the door. So you kind of had to be in the room to see where she was. At 10.30, Andrew returned and the

front door was locked. Bridget let him in, and then she went upstairs to take a nap because she wasn't feeling well. Andrew sat down in the sitting room to take a nap. And he was murdered so violently that half of his head was gone and one eye was totally exploded. So he was like hacked to death. And that was sometime after 10.30. At 1110, Bridget and a neighbor heard Lizzie call, come quick, father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him. So that's like the stuff that we know for sure and that everything else we're not sure about. So let me tell you about. So let me tell you about. the people in this story. So Lizzie's dad is Andrew Jackson Borden. He was born in 1822. The Bordons were a Fall River family. They had lived there for generations. They were very, very wealthy. He didn't have

the nest eggs, the egg that other Bordons had, but he did make his own fortune. He was a carpenter. He made furniture and coffins. Then he was a bank manager and he ended up owning a bunch of property and he was pretty rich. So in today's money, he had about $10 million. So yeah, he had a good amount of money. there's another Borden story that happened next door a few decades before where a mother who is like a great, great aunt of Lizzie, Eliza Darling, Borden, through her three children into the basement well and then died by suicide. So they have like another horrible story that's like right in the same neighborhood that happened before. So that's the dad. Lizzie's mom is dead. Her name is Sarah, Sarah Anthony Borden.

She was born in 1823. They had two children, Emma and Lizzie. and Sarah died when Lizzie was two, just like of being sick and being alive in the 800s. So Andrew remarried Abby Borden. She was born in 1828. Her maiden name is Abby Durfie Gray. So she was a lot of like spinsters in this story,

which means you're like 30 and not married, you know? So Abby was kind of a spinster. Aren't they still called spinsters? No, no one uses the word spencer anymore. Oh, my God, am I old? No, you're not 100 years old. No one uses the word spinster. So he probably just needed help with the family, you know,

and so there was an unmarried woman and they were married. It happened about when Lizzie was like five. Durfey is also the name of one of the banks that Andrew managed. So it sounds like he worked with her dad and then met her. Initially, she had a good relationship with the girls. They were young when she was in her 30s when she moved into the house. Eventually, closer to the time of the murders, Lizzie would start calling her Mrs. Borkman.

in instead of mother. So they ended up kind of having a falling out. Emma, the older sister, was also unmarried. And she was agoraphobic. But during the murders, she was out of town, which is weird, because she like never left her house. But she was out of town during the murders, visiting friends. So Lizzie herself, Lizzie Andrew Borden, was born on July 19th, 1860. She was also unmarried. She was 32 at the time of the murders. She taught Sunday school. She was in the women's temperance league and the ladies' fruit and flower mission. Like she was bored, you know. So boring. Yeah. She was so fucking bored. A woman her age was supposed to be spending her time taking care of her family, you know,

and like managing a household. Like that's really the only option. So if she didn't have that option, she really had nothing to do. Why would you just casually take up, like, being part of a temperance movement? Like. Well, she was very religious and like, you know. It's like your only favorite thing in your past, I'm to do was just to kill everybody's buzz. It's kind of weird.

Yeah. I mean, her life sounds terrible. And like, she has, her dad has a lot of money. But they don't spend it, which is like frustrating, I think, probably for both girls. Because they're like, you know, we might as well be spending this money. But they did spend a little bit. So I'll tell you a little bit more about that. But those two are the people who are in the house at the time.

So John Morris is the brother of Sarah, who's Lizzie's birth mom. And he came by to visit. He came by independently, just like randomly and like stop by. So he's staying with the Bordons. But he leaves in the morning to go visit. And he's staying in the guest room. And it's also Bridget Sullivan. She's 25 years old.

She was an Irish immigrant. And they are so, it's such a racist time. So they eventually, I don't think they got this down, but they tried to blame the murders on like a random Portuguese person. They're just like anyone who's like a different, like an other. The Borden family calls Bridget Maggie because their last Irish maid was named Maggie. And they just don't want to bother learning a new name. That's so awesome. Which is ridiculous.

It's like naming your dog the exact same thing. Is your last dog. Oh, my God. So poor Bridget. It's like, this sucks. And also, like, it's so hot and so Victorian. Everyone's wearing like long sleeves. And it just sounds like really stuffy and kind of awful.

So I read so much stuff about this, but also the books that, well, I also listen to the last podcast, obviously. And the book that they recommend is Bill James is popular crime, which is so good. It's such a great book. And he's very funny when he talks through different crimes and, like, tries to quantify, who might have done it. but his facts are it's almost impossible to see how Lizzie could have committed the crime and also it's very, very difficult to understand how anyone else could have committed the crime. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that.

So the third fact that he has is that Lizzie made a number of statements about the case that were self-contradictory and in conflict with the testimony of other persons. So there's that. That part is definitely true. So here's the scene and here's the day. and what kind of leading up to the day. So we know the people. We're in Fall River, Massachusetts, which is once one of the biggest cities in Massachusetts.

Rich people live up on a hill. So the hill where you live if you're rich. The Bordons don't live there. They could afford to live there, but they don't. They live in town. So a house is like on a main thoroughfare, like in town. It's Tuesday morning. Lots of people are around.

It's not like an isolated place. Andrew is very, very stingy. The house had no water. It had no gas lighting. So like those things were available. but they had like kerosene lamps and they had like one water pump in the basement and they had like an outhouse in the basement too i guess i don't get people like that yeah so when you hear about war and buffin it's like he still lives in the same house he bought for $500,000 like 90 years and why

this is such a big jump like modern convenience you know like how about you don't have to be in a chamber pot in the middle of the night you know you could just not do that that's available to you but kind of fun though kind of on the chamber pot now I absolutely do not want a chamber pot I would definitely not empty mine I was to leave it there for like six months at the time that's horrifying no no no no no so anyway it was an old house and they could have done better

but they have the girls actually have money they have like an allowance they get it from a rental house so Andrew owns a much of property he buys a house for his sister-in-law for Abby's sister and the girls are pissed because they want more money so the girls get the grandfather's house and the money from rent from that so they have a good amount of money eventually they're going to inherit the money from their dad

There's, like, really no reason to rush it. But they, so that's kind of where they are right now. Something happened around, like, 1890, and that's when Lizzie started calling Abby Mrs. Borden. In 1890, also, Lizzie traveled to Europe for a while with other Borden cousins. So she wasn't, like, trapped in Fall River. She got to go to Europe and, like, hang out. I bet it was fucking lame, though, Taylor. It wasn't, like, me and you going to Europe.

They weren't, like, at pubs, like, hanging out and having a great time, playing darks, being locals. Like, they weren't doing that. They were, like, repenting. Or something. It had to have sucked. No, I bet they were doing what other, the other half of our trip to Europe would be, like, going to churches and museums. Yeah. They just would have been to bed early. Ugh.

But all the churches and museums in Europe are nice. Dude, I bet they would have thought, they're the time of people that would have thought English food is good. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple other odd things happened leading up to the murders. there was a fight between Andrew and Lizzie it's presumed and she had some pigeons in the in the barn that she was keeping like as pets and he killed them so like maybe with an axe also that could maybe not be true but he had like done this to her pets and she was super upset there's also like you said rumors of incest but those come later and the reason that people say that is because like you know he had his two older daughters living at home with him like he never allowed them or for whatever reason they never went out and got married the crime was so brutal that it had to be personal, you know, like any forensic person would tell you that.

Also, this is weird. Andrew didn't wear a wedding ring, but he did wear Lizzie's high school ring that she gave him. That's, that's gross. That's weird. That's suspicious. He definitely was doing something. So that, you know, that could have, that could have, could have may or not have happened. There's like so many of things on Lizzie board a forum about it.

Like, someone just had like a webinar. about it so it's definitely still like something that fascinates people but isn't this a point in time when like it was common for for incest in the family i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know any more or less than like now in certain areas i have no idea i mean yeah more remote i mean you're in west virginia like there's not much it's slim pigeons it's either family or nothing but they're not remote they're in the middle of a city it's true okay you're right but i don't know um There's also some thefts in the house. So someone had come and stolen some money and a streetcar tickets.

It sounds like Lizzie was a suspect for those theft. So Andrew dropped the charges and didn't want the police to look into it. So maybe she had done that. But also like she's bored. Maybe she did try to steal some extra money or whatever. So everybody in the board and house locked their doors all the time after this, after this theft. And the house is really weird. It is a house with no hallways.

All the rooms are connected. So when you walk in the front door, there's stairs on the right, and then there's two doors. One door goes to a parlor, and another one goes to a sitting room. So they're both kind of the same purpose, just to hang out. And then the sitting room goes to the kitchen, and the kitchen and the sitting room both go to the dining room. And then there's a little back entryway and back stairs, and the backstairs go up to the third floor where Bridget lives, and then also to Andrew and Abby's bedroom. you can get there that way too. Okay.

I'll send you a picture. The other way to get to Andrew and Abby's bedroom is to the second floor. So when you climb up the stairs and on the second floor, there's the guest room where Abby's body was found. That's one door. One door goes directly to Lizzie's bedroom. And her room is connected to Emma's bedroom. So weird. Yeah.

It's so weird. Why didn't they invent always? I don't know. I was going to look this up because I feel like when you go to like, when you go to like, when you. you're in Europe and you go to like Versailles there's no hallways you just like room to room to room you know yeah you're right so I wonder when I was going to look it up because I remember like when I was in Europe for the first time someone was telling me how they don't have closets because they used to be charged by the room so you would have like a wardrobe yeah taxed by the room but

either way like also on the second floor there's a big clothes room they call it a closet but it's almost as big as Emma's bedroom. It's a big room that they store all their clothes. Emma's bedroom is a small room off of Lizzie's bedroom. And then Andrew and Abby have like a bigger room in the back of the house. So the only way to get to Andrew and Abby's room is through come going up the back stairs or there's a door between their room and Lizzie's room. But that one is always locked. Yeah. And so what they do is again, like it's hot. It's fucking humid. They're all wearing long sleeves. Like Andrew's wearing like a full suit when he's killed and it's like 80 degrees. And the house is stuffy. Like I, when it's hot and I don't have air conditioning, I want the windows open,

you know, like, and I want like air to be moving, but air is not moving because every single door is always closed and most of the time they're locked. Sounds so shitty way to live. Yeah, it sounds terrible. It sounds really stuffy. I'm sure it smells terrible. All of that. Yeah. So the family had been also super sick leading up to the murders. Lizzie had told someone in town that she thought someone was trying to poison. them because they had that bad milk but like also they had no refrigeration they were and they were eating old food they were eating old fish they were eating old mutton like mutton broth um the 1975 movie does such a good job of showing how gross the broth was like actually they show bridget

like almost throwing up and then like they have the show the parents it like it's so gross i might throw up right now thinking about it but essentially like during this time because of what the conveniences they had at their house and probably during all time like to keep food from going bad you would keep it constantly cooking yeah yeah perpetual stew or something right yeah so they really stretched the fish in the mutton and so everybody was sick like it was old at lizzie was not sick and that people saw that as being suspicious but i also kind of feel like that's just smart um Taylor I look this up forever ago and I'm trying to find it again now but hold on where is it where is this i will have to add a photos okay so there's one there's a perpetual

stew in germany that has been around since the 15th century no yeah there's another there's another in Japan that has had the same broth in their perpetual stew since 1945. I hate that. Anyways, okay, sorry. Exactly. Like, in the Middle Ages, looking at out, there were inns that had a big pot of stew on the fire

24 hours a day, seven days a week. Over time, we added whatever you had, and you never really stopped adding to the pot. You see what I was saying, like, you should make it now. You should not do that. I mean, no, hard now. So, anyway, of course, made them sick.

And so Lizzie wasn't sick, which people thought it was suspicious. But also, I feel like she was probably just like, I don't want to eat this. I wouldn't want to eat it. She has cookies for breakfast that morning. That sounds a thousand times better than old mutton's do, you know? This life sounds so terrible. It sounds terrible. It's real boring and like dreary.

So Lizzie's not sick, which makes people feel like she might have done it. Also, a pharmacist during the trial is going to testify that Lizzie tried to buy pressic acid to clean a seal skin cape. I looked it up. The Metropolitan Museum of Art actually has a seal skin cape in their collection, just like a short fur cape. The acid could have been used as like fumigation, but maybe she did ask for it because she was bored, but also it was probably somebody else. It sounds like the pharmacist who wanted to like be in the news because later a police officer's wife said that she was the one who went in and tried to buy a prescic acid because you needed a prescription to buy it. And they were just kind of like doing like secret shopper trying

did trick him. So that probably isn't true. Wikipedia told me that both girls were so mad at their father for whatever reason that they stayed at a hotel for a few days before the murders, but I didn't read that anywhere else. So I don't know where that comes from. And then we do know that Emma was out of town, which was weird because she never left the house. And then John was there, the uncle, and he never saw Lizzie. Like she came in and didn't say hello. He just left in the morning. So they never even said hi. So as in the morning of August 2nd, as the events unfold, for the women. Bridget is in and out of the house washing windows and she was pissed. She was pissed that Abby asked her to wash the windows. It was hot. She didn't want to do it.

She had food poisoning. She just didn't want to do it, but she was in and out of the house. Lizzie is puttering around the house doing like normal Victorian lady things. She's ironing handkerchiefs. She says that she goes to the barn to look for fishing lures for an upcoming trip. So they had like a small yard, but they had a barn in the back. So she's like rifling around barn, doing Victorian stuff. she also stays in the yard and eats four pears and people are like that's so weird why she said they're eight pairs while her parents are being murdered you know but i'm sure she was fucking hungry and it makes sense to eat a fresh pear rather than old stew that's the most exciting thing that's happened so far yeah you get a pair like that's amazing it sounds delicious and fresh and that sounds great so she's eating pears in the backyard kind of hanging out it's hot as fuck she's wearing long sleeves so lizzie said that abby got a note from a friend that was sick and needed help. So there's evidence that people liked Abby. She had a lot of friends. So it's possible that that happened, but there was never a note. Like no one ever found the note, so they don't know. So she was saying that Abby was out. So sometime in the morning around 930, Abby is killed.

So she's cleaning in the guest room. She is axed in the head. And Abby weighs 200 pounds. She falls. Someone would have fucking hurt it. You know, you would think. But she falls. Someone would have heard her. We stayed in the house that's like this age in Columbus, Ohio one time, my family. And you could, like, see the first floor through the second floor. Like, it was, like, the house was old, you know? I'm sure that, like, through the floor. Yeah. Like, there was no, like, insulation.

You know, like, I don't think that, like, it would be, you would not, you wouldn't miss it if someone fell. Yeah. You know, like, dropped a book. You wouldn't miss it. Right. You know, you hear it. Andrew comes home and he can't get the door open. So he's annoyed, but, like, also all the doors are locked and can't get it open and the door is locked.

And Maggie tries to get the door open. not Maggie, I'm sorry, Bridget, I wrote Maggie. You're doing the exact. I'm doing it. So Bridget tries to get the door open and she curses. And she says that she heard Lizzie laughing on the stairwell when she cursed. So either she was laughing because of the bad word, which is what Bridget thought. But also, the spot that Lizzie was standing on the stairway was the only place where you could have seen Abby's body.

Because you had to be at a certain point on the stairway to kind of see like underneath the bed into the guest room. and see Abby laying on the floor. So that may or may not be true. Bill James thinks it isn't true. He thinks that she didn't hear laughing, but like, I don't know. Andrew takes a nap in the sitting room. In the pictures, he's sitting on the couch with his head on the pillows and his feet off of the couch and his shoes are on.

So that's weird. Like, do you take a nap like that? But also, he's a lot taller than the couch. So you wouldn't, like, see him cuddle up. He wouldn't, like, be a cuddler. But also, he just, like, he's in a really weird position. So I wonder if, like, he fell. But I don't know.

so telly can i can i posit a thing working theory i have here yeah yeah because so much about this case is based on like what normal humans would be doing or wouldn't be doing or experience these people are like total freaking weirdos right yeah is it really what i think that it's weird if andrew were to go to sleep in a full tuxedo at noon in 95 degree weather probably not because he's a fucking weirdo they're all weirdos that's true exactly yes like we don't know disease every day I don't know like he very very well might the group good point yeah do weird stuff so lizzie calls someone yells out someone's killed father neighbors start to come Bridget goes to the doctor Bowen the family doctor to get him to come the police come and I'm sure you remember this but the police is like the B squad because everyone else is at like the county fair it's like the police day of fun and most of the police are out of town so they send the B squad to uh to help They've never seen anything like this.

And, you know, this town is, you know, they're, like, dealing with drunks and dealing with, like, petty crimes. They're not dealing with axe murders for the most part. So also, like, the murderer could still be in the house. Like, potentially they are because Lizzie's there. Like, who knows? So people start coming in and out of the house. The police do take pictures, which is cool because that's pretty new. It wasn't a thing to take pictures of bodies, but they don't take the pictures until about 3 p.m.

So it's been, like, five hours. since they died. And they've definitely been touched and, like, moved around. But they take the pictures. So we have those. A neighbor, Mrs. Churchill finally asks, where's Abby? And Lizzie said, oh, she went out. And then they go for looking around for her. And then they find Abby's body. So they don't find until after the police are already there. As well. Yeah. So some other things that they find in the house, there's a bucket full of bloody rags in the basement. But Lizzie says that they're from her period, which they very well could be having a period a terrible it was terrible so they also find an axe with a broken handle covered in ash

in the basement so they think that that may have been the murder weapon but they're not they're not sure but also like there's no footprints or handprints so does you feel like if you asked someone to death you'd have blood on your like had to open the door so like so the okay so that's the part of it where i'm trying to say my piece of this is like i don't think she did it only because I'm looking at the crime scene photos. Dude, this guy, this guy's face was butchered. Yeah, it's gone.

Like, absolutely gone. Like, there's, like, the fact that there was no blood on her, and if she's like, oh, I was on my period, there's no way you confuse, like, what, is her period, like, 50 gallons? Right, to go get all over her face? Yeah, it would be, exactly.

So, like, so that's the only part where, like, I'm just. just like super and the Lizzie's probably not guilty campus because the blood yeah she's not there and it's I mean my whole life I thought I thought she did it so this like this blows my mind because I feel like maybe she didn't because of that because she was so clean and also Bridget saw her between the murders and said she was clean so she would have had to like clean herself off change and then do it again so they didn't have plumbing right yeah so it would have been really really hard but I also just feel like anyone

would have trailed blood like through that house and they would have had to leave the house covered in blood so that and no one noticed on like the street so like maybe they were wearing like black clothing you just couldn't tell or maybe they were the butcher already covered in blood you know stuff like that like it could have been but it feels like someone should have saw something if another person had been there um they do the autopsies at the house and they leave the bodies there so they leave the bodies there like overnight with with the girls which is crazy um so the next few days the bodies do go to the morgue and then they get sent to Harvard and a man named Dr. Ed Wood performs another autopsy on them. He takes the heads and boils them so he has just the

skulls. So they're buried up with other heads and he has the skulls. Also, Lizzie does something super suspicious. She burns a dress. So she probably did it in front of her sister and a friend and maybe in front of some like other people. But she was like, oh, you know, we're just cleaning up the house. Because also the thing I just thought about is who the fuck cleaned up the blood? Probably poor Bridgett. And so she she has a dress and she's like oh this old dress has paint on it people knew that she had dressed that had paint on it for real but she burned it in the stove which was like normal you didn't really have like the garbage men coming by so you would burn things but she didn't in front

of her friends and they're like that's the worst thing you could have done like now everybody knows you burned a dress like maybe it was covered in blood you know i don't know why she did that why didn't she just do when she was alone you're just doing the middle of fucking night you know what was her excuse she was like oh i just had paint on it and just was like i'm just like doing chores like normal chores again again again these are weirdos that's a weird thing do but like it could be totally normal for them exactly yes super weird um so lizzie doesn't act doesn't act like you know again like they always say like you never know how you'll act in like an emergency but lizzie acts like kind of suspicious the

whole time but it's also because dr bowen is giving her a shit ton of morphine she is high as fuck she's like totally out of it um so she's definitely confused also like there are thousands of people coming to Fall River to see the house because they will forever. People are there right now staying the night. It's a bed and breakfast. Is it really? Oh, yeah. I mean, 100% need to go there.

We have to go there. Yeah. It sounds amazing. There's like museums, like the whole town. This is all this is it. This is all Fall River has. This is Lizzie Borden story. And of course, like if my neighbor was murdered, I would be over there right now.

I would definitely want to see a big looking at it. You know, also for the murders, the board and sisters offer a $5,000 reward in the paper for the murderer. So this is also just like the OJ case. No one bothers to find the real fucking murderer. You know, like after the person's acquitted, they're like, cool, guess that's it.

You're like, what? You said he didn't do it. Who the fuck did it? So, Lizzie was charged on August 8th, 1892. She spent 11 months in jail before her trial. What are you looking at? Dude, Taylor, you can

book? Wait, how much does it cost? Hold on. Oh, my God. You can, Taylor, you can stay in Andrew and Abby's bedroom for $300 a night. They didn't die there, but that sounds great. Can you say the guest room? Wait, no, Abby did. Abby died in her room. No, she died in a guest room. Damn, okay. Wait, hold on. So let me see if you end in the guest room. No. You got Lizzie and Emma Sweet. You got Bridget, Hosea, John Morse. well John Morse stayed in the guest room I mean I can look at it up too this is the silent part of podcast

official Lizzie Borden house see our rooms oh they have two 300 bucks it's like consistently 300 bucks it's crazy yeah the John Zey more sweet is the guest room that's where Abby Borden was found 300,000 right Bridges room three people can see in Bridget's room oh my god it's so funny

you would say that right for sure which room oh there's so many rooms in the third floor they don't talk about it's weird I would want to stay

in Lizzie's room even though it's not where anybody was murdered I want to say in the room that she lived in yeah I agree but wow

it's interesting that looking at this there's like there's Bridget's room and there's also two other bedrooms on the top floor so like who knows

I don't know maybe someone could have hit up there I don't know also wait just scroll down it says no alcohol is

made it on the property, we have already had two fatal head injuries in the home. That's funny. Yeah, that's a temperance people. Oh, oh, okay. But, yeah, no, it sounds awesome. Is that most beautiful for it? Okay, cool. Anyway, that's, this is fun.

People should go there. You can get a tour, a ghost tour. That also has a ghost hunt, nightly from 10 a p.m. to midnight. So if we're staying there, you can be part of the ghost hunt. Okay, anyway, that sounds great. Let's definitely do that. So the trial started on June 5th, 1893, which is 130 years ago this week is when it started. It was in Taunton, Massachusetts.

It had to be moved for, like, jury purposes. During the trial, Lizzie was very quiet because she was like on all these drugs. She was chewing on her fan. It was so hot. She did laugh at one point when there was like a funny witness talking about dresses. So she has feelings, but most of the time she was just like really quiet. The jury is all men, of course. There's a picture of the jury that is on.

Wikipedia, they all look the same. It's like very bushy mustaches, just like white dudes. Actually, black men could serve on juries since 1860 in Massachusetts, but this one was all white men. Women didn't serve on juries until 1951. Wow. Yeah. So, but, oh, but women were there. Women from all over brought food, had pickings outside, tried to get and see it. It was just like there are women all around, just like, of course there are, you know, like this is the most exciting thing that ever happened. They're going to hang out around the court house. Her lawyer was a former governor of Massachusetts. He was very expensive, but very, very worth it. It was like a dream team. They placed her as a good Christian woman who wouldn't do, dream of doing such a thing.

One crazy thing that happened during the trial is they brought the heads, the skulls into the courtroom to show the brutality of the crime, but they didn't tell Lizzie or her sister that they were going to do that. So Lizzie fainted right away. It's kind of a fun day. It's not a fun day at court. Exactly, a fun day at court. She also at one point cried until she threw up. So she does have like emotions, and it's also really fucking hot. So there's stuff happening.

But the jury deliberated for an hour and a half, and she was acquitted. So I happen real fast. After the trial, Lizzie does move up to the hill. She buys a big house up there. There's a summer bedroom and a winter bedroom. There's 14 rooms. There's Tiffany lamps. She has servants.

She names it Maplecroft and has a sign made out of concrete on the steps. So she lives in this, like, lavish house that she presumably always wanted to live in. She changed her name to Lisbeth Borden. I don't know. She changed her name to that. But nobody loves her. Like, while she was in the trial, people were, like, on her side. But afterwards, like, don't want to be associated with her.

So, like, her life was essentially ruined. She got the money and she had to live in a nice house. But she didn't have any, like, friends. She didn't get to be a part of the, like, society that she'd wanted to be a part of. But she also never left Fall River. she could have left but she didn't did she want that again these are weird people it's like they they're just not fun or interesting i don't know i don't know and like that's also a good point like if this hadn't happened we would never know anything about her and how many millions people we know

nothing about billions people because nothing extraordinary happened right but she had this extraordinary thing happen whether or not she did it which is just i think crazy What do you think? Hold on, I'll get there. So later in life, she does become, like, good friends with an actress from Boston named Nancy O'Neill or New York maybe, but it's like an actress and everybody's like, it's same with all time until right now where, like, being an actress was like scandalous. And so they think that she used to have Nancy O'Neill come over and have these big parties

and the town kind of frowned on that as well. At some point, Lizzie and Emma have a falling out and they don't speak for years in all of the films, they stopped talking because Lizzie tells her that she did it. And Emma's like, like the 1975 film and so great, Emma is played by the grandma from Who's the Boss? And Lizzie comes home and Emma's like, Lizzie, you have to tell me, did you do it? And it just like zooms into Elizabeth Montgomery's face. And it's all, her face is very moist the whole time because it's so hot. And the camera pans around her and they sing the nursery rhyme. It's so good. That's awesome. And then in the end there's a Christina Ricci movie. And that one ends with her having a party and being like,

Lizzie is Christina Ricci and she's like I she's like having this party and her sister is like what are you doing and there's music going off and Christina Ricci whispers to her sister or something and her sister's eyes go wide so she like confesses so the movies are all like she did I can't believe that Christina Ricci played Lizzie I got to watch that one

there's also one with Chloe 70 and Kristen Stewart that's very very gay I'll tell you more about that theory in a minute too the sisters Emma and Lizzie die within nine days of each other. They die in their 60s. Lizzie leaves the largest amount of money to the Fall River Animal Rescue League,

which I also was thinking about when you said that about pets in Manchester in the 1960s or whatever, because this is like the 1920s and they have an animal rescue league in Fall River. So there's like some of it. She needs money in a trust to care for her father's grave

for all time, and Lizzie is buried with her parents in Fall River. So they're buried and like all buried together. So, yeah. So was it her? I don't know. Bill James, who had popular crime, says no. Most people on the Lizzie Borden forum think yes. I'm not sure. My whole life I thought it was her. And then this kind of blew my mind because it's like, I thought about it a lot and maybe she didn't do it. She was mad at her dad. He was mean. Her life was boring. Maybe it was incest because, and then that was such like a violent crime because she was so upset about it. This is before the man from the train expert. but it is right after Jack the Ripper. So there is like violence in the news, but he didn't use an axe. Like so, but you'd probably think of like, you know, what was in there.

Um, could she have been gay and been and he like found out and was super upset? Like some people think she was having a fair with a maid, which I doubt or, or like she had a girlfriend he found out and she's wanted to like live her life. Um, but the big thing is like, how could she've gotten clean? That seems almost impossible. The only, so while you were talking, I was saying the only way I could buy that she did it was like, there was a fit of rage it was not premeditated she cracked them open and by some fluke of cosmic luck all the blood splatter went everywhere with her that's the only way i can make it work

yeah yeah i mean that technically could happen because because they might this way so like here's the plausibility of this remember peter curtain um the vampire of yeah ducelorf yeah so he would do all the scrounge where he would be killing people out in the public and go home totally clean and people would be like how is that even possible like he just like learned that like if you stand a certain in a certain spot that the blood splatter would just like avoid you like whatever he like did the math and figured out how to do it so like it's possible yeah yeah totally in the Elizabeth Montgomery movie they have her do it naked and then she just like washes herself off afterwards but the chances of that are really like low because I bet she was never naked

like you know like ever like she probably like washed her body parts separately out of a bowl you know like she didn't like nowadays we get naked all the time because we take a shower but she never did that so i feel like she was probably like a perpetual stew just perpetually changing different parts of her body like never fully naked so it would be weird that she would do that because also she's like very modest rude yeah so some other suspects are could it be a stranger someone said that they heard someone come to the door in the morning and Abby let them in. Andrew had a share of enemies. He was like a bad landlord, you know, not bad, but like mean.

So like, you know, whatever. They could have hid in that hall closet. That hall closet was huge. So they could have gone to that closet hid and then killed Andrew, but then also wears the blood. Yeah. I feel like there have to be footprints and there just weren't any, which is so weird. Later in life, Lizzie had a nurse. And the nurse said that, um, she,

told them she confessed to the nurse that she had a boyfriend who had done it and hid in the closet and they had and then he like ended up leaving her and that was like what happened um a woman obviously this is crazy had a dream that emma came to her dream and said that she did it that she came into town killed her parents then went back to visit friends um people think that the uncle might have done it his alibi was perfect in like a suspicious way which is like not fair because he had like a perfect alibi um and then think that like also like it could have been bridget the maid she was mad she was mad obviously her life sucked but she was sick and she had she to clean it up you know either way she'd clean up i don't think she would do it um so yeah that's it we don't know we don't know who did it it's a crazy mystery because the facts don't really tell us anything and just like oj like she had quit it but there was no like find the real killer figure out what really happened the people were just like she probably did it back out off because she was like a nice christian woman and people couldn't believe that she had done it oj is the one who vowed that you would find a killer though oh great

you could just wake up and look at a mirror I don't think he's done much more on that no he's not out there investigating yeah taking fingerprints outside in the cult house it's great it's interesting how like one crime can become so iconic like it's a part of culture like

this website's hilarious by the way like I don't know if you've gone on the forum anymore no I'm not on the forum I'm on the website for the house and it's so funny they even have like this section for like you can shop and they like have this ghost called Lily the host to ghost doll and it is terrifying looking and it's like they're really really the haunted dog oh god yeah strike like lizzie borden is that a is that like a

union shirt oh my god miss elizabeth miss lisabeth miss lisabeth's finishing school turning girls into sharp young ladies wait where's the union shirt well it says i strike like like Lizzie Borden. Oh, that's funny. You know? Yeah, I love these guys. Like, if you look at the staff, they look like a fun group and they really,

I mean, they're doing a lot of, they got a bloody act for sale. Oh, they look real fun. Yeah, they do. They look like, you'd have a good time going to a house with them. I love them. I love that.

They're all dressed up. Yeah, 100%. Oh, my God, Suzanne. Give you a peace sign. I fucking love her. Yeah, I love it. I think it's super fun. It's so, it's just like a crazy story.

And also, this is like a far-fetch, but I read the book Middle March a long time ago, which is a English novel written, whatever, a long time ago. But one of the things that it ends with a really like a line that reminded me of this, I'm going to read it, but I don't know if it's going to make a sense. But for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts. and the things that are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, it's half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs. Meaning, like, if you just do good things and live a normal life,

no one will ever know, but you're contributing to the future in like the subtle way that everyone does. But when something crazy happens, that's when you become like a part of the zeit guys forever. And that's what happened to Lizzie. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. So I'm sure her tomb is very visited and I definitely want to go. and I don't know But it also like

Is it another fucking random crime Someone came to the house An ex-murred or that? Yeah Yeah The randomness of it right? Yeah I don't know

I Yeah this is a This is a rollercoaster of an episode I know It started with celebrating The death of Pat Robertson And mourning the death of Ted Kaczynski I know

So much has happened In the past a couple hours Um Ooh, I'm watching that. Now I'm looking like a video of the boarded house. Join us to stay, play, and for a hauntingly fun time. Oh, there's a parking lot in the back now, is it a bummer. That the thing is gone.

Oh, you can buy a bloody axe. That's a lot. Yeah. You can buy a bobblehead? Brick dust file? What does that mean? I don't know. I clicked on the brick dust.

I thought they'd have an explanation of it, but they don't. I have no idea. EMF detector? official lizzie hatchet they are having fun a pen a coin for no reason a mug a rise and grind coffee mug the cookie cutter is a pair oh no way i haven't got there yet that's awesome they're a fun bunch yeah crazy and like you know oh it was a christmas ornament that's what i like to get when i go on vacation i like to get christmas ornaments to remember where I've been, so I definitely give that when I go there.

Yeah. Oh, the haunted doll. Don't love her. Don't love the doll. George is from the ghost. Love him. CBD coffee. Cookie gutters up here. Anyway. Anyway, how? What a fun story. I don't know. It's fun. It's scary. It's very of the time, you know, a woman who has to, what a fucking terrible life.

What a terrible life. It's so boring. It sounds so boring. It's like I would have killed them just for the excitement of killing someone. What an exciting, exciting thing that happened. You have to live a life in the nice house and have actors over, you know? All of that sounds good. But her dad would have died soon anyway.

He was like in his 60s. So I don't know. I don't know. Such is life. Taylor, we are a little over our time. Oh, yes, I got to take a shower and get dressed up for. Do your things. I got to go.

I don't know what I'm going to do with Joe. I guess I'll go for a walk or something. But. Oh, my God. We'll have a great time. I will, and we're going to start some awesome advertising for the show here shortly, which will be really, really exciting. We're going to get our phone.

We got like 10 more Instagram followers from me doing Instagram ads. There you go. There you go. Things are happening now. Again, nobody who doesn't know us listens to this because nobody else knows me. So friends only. I don't know if that's causation or correlation. Then we've done the ask twice.

Email us, Doomed to FailPod at Gmail if you don't know us and listen, but no one's done it. So I think it's all friends. I'm going to invent a new email address just to know you. Please make me feel better. Yeah, please like and subscribe on all of the things. We're on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, at Doomed to Fail pod. You don't know me. Send me an email.

There it is. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. You too.