RedHanded - Episode 384 - Lizzie Borden: High-Society Hatchet Homicide

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

The brutal hatchet murders of Andrew and Abby Borden are still among the most infamous and hotly debated cases in true-crime history.Truly springing from the pages of your favourite murder mystery – with seemingly innocent housekeepers, “evil stepmothers”, and precocious ladies of luxury aplenty – there’s a lot of fact and a lot of fiction to wade through. Join us as we discover the real story behind the infamous Lizzie Andrew Borden, and the trial that swept the English-speaking world.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Yes. I can only...the only thing in my head is Anthony Bourdain. We're not doing Anthony Bourdain. No, we're not doing Anthony Bourdain. We are covering a pasto case. Don't usually go this route, but we do occasionally like to dip our toes into the old and timey

lakes. And this one's a good one because we did in fact go to the house where this crime is set. And we only sort of went because it was in the neck of the woods that we were in, thinking a bit like, yeah, whatever. Oh my gosh. If you are ever in Fall River, Massachusetts, you have to go to the Lizzie Borden House. You absolutely have to. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. We had a very, very good evening. I'm glad we didn't stay the night. I had just enough, just enough of an experience there. I was like, I'm good to leave now. But it was great. The tour guide who showed us around, whose name I can't remember, was fantastic.

Lots of creepy stories. It was a good time. It was like Amber or Opal or something like that. Maybe it was Amber, maybe you're right. It was a good time. Amber, if you're listening, if that's your name, well done. So it's a testament to the impact of this particular case that the name Lizzie Borden has stuck

in the American cultural zeitgeist for over 130 years. Her arrest and subsequent trial stayed headline news across the US for years. In fact, you could say it was the very first trial of the century and that Lizzie Borden was the very first American criminal superstar. She's had countless films, TV shows, books and plays written about her story. In fact, dear old Lizzie even sat on the jury of the damned summoned by Satan himself in the Simpsons treehouse of Horror 4. She certainly does, I'd forgotten about that.

But with all the speculation, scintillation and circus that surrounds this case, it's all become a bit of a fairy tale. So come with us as we cut through the cobwebs and reveal what's real in the infamous case of the axe wielding Lizzie Borden. And if you, like us, have sort of avoided looking at this case because you're like, ah, it doesn't really seem that interesting, you are wrong. It is interesting. You are wrong. It is interesting.

You are wrong. And we learned that we were wrong and now we're going to change your mind. To get to the bottom of this iconic Black and White Times case, we need to go very, very far back indeed. So come with us all the way back to the 13th of September, 1822, 200 years ago. And that was when Lizzie Warden's father, Andrew Jackson Warden, was born. Little baby Andrew's family were prestigious. Just a few hundred years before, they'd been wealthy, influential, and they had their own

coat of arms, which Americans go fucking nuts for. And parts of the Borden family still occupied quite lofty heights. If you go to Fall River you will notice that everything is called Borden. Yeah, because I was like, is this just all branding off Lizzie Borden? They were like, no, there's loads of Borden still here and they just own various things and everything's called the Borden whatever. And you will know which one's a Lizzie Borden house because it's the one that just still looks like it's in the past. It's great. Oh, and they also had the courthouse where they tried, was it Aaron Hernandez of American Gladiator fame?

Yes, I think so. But having courthouses named after you and streets and banks and stuff was not the world that Andrew Borden was born into. His dad Abram sold fish and his mum Phoebe was a housewife and Andrew Borden grew up pretty poor but it didn't stay that way for long. Andrew was a grafter. As a young man he set up shop as a carpenter in Fall River Massachusetts and quickly started to do very well for himself. Soon enough he had a decent business selling coffins and furniture, and then he moved into property development, and then commercial real estate, and then textile milling. So eventually Andrew Borden went from fish peddler's son to the equivalent of a multi-millionaire. Along the way, Andrew also married his first wife Sarah.

He and Sarah were in their mid-twenties when they got married in 1846, and started very quickly to churn out some daughters. The first was Emma, born in March 1851. Then came Alice, who was born in May 1856, but tragically died of brain dropsy a few months before her second birthday. And look, that's not funny. That's very sad. But brain dropsy, it does sound like they dropped her on her head. It certainly does. Oh, oopsie dropsy. She's dead. No, brain dropsy is in fact, I feel like we knew this at the

time. I've forgotten what it is. I think dropsy is applied to lots of different things. I think you're right. Apparently according to Google brain dropsy is a condition where too much cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the brain's ventricles. Sounds horrible. So yeah one daughter down, one daughter still there and then last but by no means least, came the infamous Lizzie Andrew Borden. It's like Chambonet. I just think the middle, the father's name is the middle name is quite fun. Anyway, so then you've got Lizzie Andrew Borden, born on the 19th of July, 1860. But then bad luck struck again, when on the 26th of March, 1863,

Lizzie and Emma's mum died of uterine congestion, which is another mildly whimsical medical term that doesn't really paint much of a picture by today's standards. Wandering womb. Anyway, we're in the 19th century and death is always tragic but people did move on quite fast back then. Just three years after losing his wife, Andrew Borden, got remarried to a lady called Abby Grey and with the amount of chatter about this case and its old and timey setting, it's

quite easy to get lost in stereotypes, especially when it comes to Abby Grey. Often you'll see it written that Abby was either some kind of evil stepmother, ala Tangled, or some young hussy who moved in on Andrew to take all of his money. So we should point out that Abby was born in 1828, only six years after Andrew was, and she was in her thirties when they got married. She's still very much within his age range. And on top of that, there's not really any evidence that she had anything but love and respect for Lizzie and her older sister Emma. So perhaps not quite the Wicked Witch either.

Whether that's what Lizzie thought is another matter. Now obviously for Lizzie, who was just six when her new mum came along, it must have been pretty jarring. It's no secret the kids don't always love her new mum came along. It must've been pretty jarring. It's no secret the kids don't always love a new step-parent, but while we can't say exactly what the nature of Abby's relationship was with her two step-daughters, we know that it must've been at least amicable.

Because until a few months before Abby's death, both Lizzie and Emma Borden called Abby mother, though of course this may just have been at their father's request. But there is also plenty of evidence that Abby really tried to put an effort in, especially with Lizzie. A notable example is a silver-plated cup that Abby gave Lizzie a few years after she joined the family, and delicately engraved on the side of this cup were the words, Lizzie, from Abby, 1868.

Both Emma and Lizzie were raised very religiously, obviously quite common for the time. Lizzie was especially involved in the church and as a teenager she taught immigrant kids to read and write at Sunday school. I also think she spoke Chinese fluently. Yeah she was was a very smart, smart lady. She was also part of classic old time Christian women's societies and missions, with names like Christian Endeavour Society and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and also something called the Ladies Fruit and Flower Mission. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, I can't think of anything

more boring. When it came to Friends, Lizzie wasn't lacking. But it did seem like she had a couple of personality quirks. She was described by Friends as having a very sensitive nature and being non-communicative when she met new people. Coming back to the boring sounding Christian temperance society though, maybe it's like when you name things really boring things so that other people don't want to join and like the men don't know what they're actually up to. I mean I hope to God. They were just getting on it.

I really hope so. Jesus fucking loved it. Like he's fucking raging on the wine. I reckon that's what was going down. It was the Future Planning Committee. They're just getting wild. These anti-social habits were maintained by Lizzie into her grown-uphood and her friends felt that they were often erroneously interpreted. In other words, without putting too fine a point on it, interpreted. In other words, without putting too fine a point on it, Lizzie Borden, especially if she didn't know you hadn't met you before, came across as a huge bitch.

You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that

linger in the darkness. And inside, some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. A few miles from the glass spires of Midtown Atlanta

lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country, who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility, nicknamed Cop City. At approximately nine o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper. This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance, The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down.

love and fellowship, It was probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. and the lengths will go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Convince all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Now one myth we cannot bust is that growing up,

that Lizzie and Emma's dad, Andrew, was a massive tight ass. By the late 1880s, Andrew Borden was roughly worth about $330,000, the equivalent of $10 million today. Despite this, he was described in newspaper articles from the time as dressed very plainly, almost to the point of shabbiness, and was notorious for his quote shocking bad hats and threadbare ties. It's quite odd for new money. Yeah. I think with him is like, it's a big point of contention and possibly pretty big fucking motive.

I think it's maybe because he grew up so poor and it's like, I think that is quite a classic thing with people who grow up very, very poor and then if they get a lot of money they're like, but I must hoard it just in case, just in case. So yes, needless to say, the man of the house was quite the scrimper and most infamously this extended to the Borden home, which he purchased in 1872. The Borden house, which still stands and we have stood in, is on 92nd Street, Fall River, Massachusetts. In 1872, that was the cheap side of town. A few decades

earlier, it had been quite affluent. But by the time Andrew Borden purchased the soon-to-be family home, it was known as the place where newly arrived migrant families would set themselves up. One slightly unusual thing about the house on 92nd Street was that it wasn't designed to be a family home. A three-story house was actually designed to house two families. That's not that unusual, but what Andrew did with the house, or what he didn't do, that's really what made it bizarre. Always keeping an eye on those pennies, Andrew didn't really go to any great lengths to make the house fit for a single family.

He just knocked down a few walls, added a couple of staircases and called the whole thing a done job. As a result, the Borden home had no corridors, no passageways, and no easy way to move around the house. The rooms simply had doors, which led to other rooms. Getting from one end of the Borden house to another involved walking through a maze of offices, living rooms, dining rooms, bathrooms, and even people's bedrooms. On top of this, the majority of the doors had large locks on them.

Now that might sound a bit spooky, but actually Andrew Borden had his reasons. Reasons which we'll come back to later on. The most famously strange thing about the Borden house was its total lack of indoor plumbing. Not unusual for a house at the time in itself, but it was extremely unusual for a man of Andrew Borden's wealth and social standing. And it is widely reported that both Emma and Lizzie Borden, who continued to live at the Borden family home into their thirties and their forties, felt pretty strongly about

getting plumbing put in. That wasn't helped by the fact that several of the much poorer immigrant families, which lived nearby did have taps and toilets inside and they're sitting there on their millions shitting in a bucket outside. And may I remind you, Massachusetts gets really fucking cold. However, while the Borden girls didn't love the lack of modern conveniences in the house, a myth that we absolutely can bust, is that Lizzie and Emma didn't love their dad. Both Lizzie and Emma were very close to their father

and in fact Andrew Borden wore a ring on his pinky finger which Lizzie had worn and then given to him as a gift when she was a teenager. This ring was absolutely not Andrew Borden's style. He didn't wear any other jewelry and the ring itself was designed for a woman, which is why he could only wear it on his little finger. But he wore that ring until the day he died. So clearly, at one point at least, Andrew and Lizzie got on okay. That is until somewhere in 1890, when everything started to change.

Because it was then that things at the Borden house started to get a little bit weird. At the age of 30, Lizzie went on a European tour with some of her gal pals see she's fucking on it and she was gone for quite a while she was out on this trip from July to November and it seems that when she returned the atmosphere in the house started to shift.

Classic Gapyard. Classic Gapyard antics. You come back, you found yourself, you understand the world. She's been to Europe. She's seen all that indoor plumbing. She's like, what the fuck, dad? They're saying that the last house I bought didn't have indoor plumbing. And I bought that in 2024. Still makes me laugh. So, yes, basically tensions had started to grow in the Borden house, most notably around how Andrew was spending his money. The notorious tight-ass had had a sudden change of heart

and had recently started gifting bits of his sizeable real estate empire to his and more importantly to his wife Abby's family. Now this did not go down well with Lizzie Attle who started to insinuate to friends and family that she thought her step-mum Abby was after her dad's fortune. And then in June 1891 the Borden home was robbed. Someone ransacked Abbey Borden's belongings, stealing a large amount of money, jewellery and some train tickets as well. At the time, Andrew Borden kept the whole thing quiet, telling the local police that absolutely nobody outside the family was to know about the incident. And this was about the time that Andrew Borden had all of those big fat locks installed in

the house. Some of these locks could be opened by any of the people who lived there, but the lock to his and Abby's bedroom could only be accessed via a single key. This key was kept hanging in plain sight, the idea being that only people living in the house knew what that key was for, and if anyone took the key off the hook, Andrew Borden would notice. Almost as though he was pointing the finger for the robbery at someone who lived in that house already. The next two significant things happened in quick succession, the first being that Andrew

Borden gave his wife, Abby, a house. Now this is often misreported as him giving Abby's sister a house, but that isn't true. Abby's sister had gotten into a bit of a sticky financial situation and Andrew had given the house to Abby to rent to her sister until she got back on her feet. However, it seems that this was interpreted by the Borden sisters as their father playing even more fast and loose with his money and therefore their future money and this did not go down well at all. In fact, it was around this time that Lizzie stopped calling Abby mother and started calling her

in the most pasto fucking Jerry Springer passive aggressive way, Mrs Borden. On top of this, Lizzie and Emma demanded that they be given a house as well and Andrew, their father, obliged, selling them one of his rental properties for a single dollar. They sold it back to their father for over five grand just a few months later, making obviously a massive profit in the process. It seems like the Borden sisters were more interested in making a point and a quick buck than they were actually interested in taking charge of their dad's estate. And money is a big thing. Even when we went to the house, there was all the stories we were told of there's like pennies that have been left, well not

pennies, cents that have been left everywhere. I think they could be pennies. I think they come from all over the world. Oh, there you go. Currency, loose change that's been left all over the house. And they tell you very clearly, do not take any of the money money and they told us a story of somebody who did and apparently what did they say they could hear voices or like pulling and tugging basically telling them to put the money back where they found it. And I don't think it was an isolated incident as well I think it happens quite a lot. And the second significant thing that happened, strangely involves pigeons, diseased rat birds.

Not very far from the Borden house itself, the family owned a barn. Inside this barn, Lizzie built a kind of makeshift roost to encourage local pigeons to make it to their home. Lizzie Borden was quite the animal lover and apparently cared for these pigeons as if they were her pets. And she built quite a bond with her feathered friends like Mike Tyson. But when she returned to that roost one day in May 1982, Lizzie Borden found every single last one of her little pigeon friends... dead.

And not some loose fox or meddling kids. Lizzie's own father, Andrew Borden, had gone up to the barn with a hatchet and killed every single one of those birds. Back at the house, the housekeeper, who's called Bridget Sullivan, but the sister's called her Maggie because that was the name of their childhood housekeeper. They are so outrageous. I remember this. Or was it a different story where somebody else did this?

And I was like, I can't be bothered to learn your name. You'll just be Maggie as well. Yeah. Oh my God. Also, how the fuck do you murder pigeons with an axe? That is the opposite of shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it? Yes. I really feel like, shall we make this a brand new saying here at Red Handed when you're

trying to do the impossible? It's like you're trying to murder pigeons with an axe. But he does it. He does it. I don't understand. Are they like tied to their footstools? Where do you keep a pigeon? On a footstool?

Probably. On a footstool. In a dovecut. It's okay. Maybe you just smashed the dovecut. Maybe. But it didn't sound like she'd built a prop. I don't know. Back at the Borden house, Maggie, not Maggie, was cooking dinner and when the hatchet-faced father returned explaining that he'd killed all of her avian associates, Lizzie flew off the absolute handle. And his reasoning was that he thought the pigeons were encouraging local boys to go into their barn and that's why he had to kill them all.

Okay. Sure. Sure, Andrew. Since July 1892, with tensions at fever pitch after the Pigeon Massacre, both of the Borden sisters went for some much needed time away. This time they took a tour of Massachusetts, visiting friends and family. The sisters returned eventually in August. But in a sign of the tensions in the house, Lizzie actually spent her first few nights back in Fall River at a guest house down the road, rather than back in the family house. However, by the 3rd of August, Lizzie was home. And we know that, because that evening she went to see a friend called Alice Russell.

And during their chat, Lizzie told Alice that she was worried about her father and stepmother. According to Lizzie, the whole family had been sick for a few days and her father and stepmother were worried that someone had poisoned them. This wasn't untrue. Abby Borden had actually been to see the family doctor, Dr Bowen, because the whole household had been violently ill for almost a week. But then Lizzie told Alice that she was worried that something was going to happen. At this point you might be wondering why anyone would want to harm the Borden family. Well while Andrew Borden was seen as an honest man, his reputation as a bit of a penny-pinscher was well known amongst the employees of his mills and the residents of his rental houses.

Famously, if anyone in his factories was given a pay rise, he would then check if they were living in one of his many houses, and if they were, he would stick the rent right up. Not great. So it's not totally out of the realms of possibility that somebody might have it in for old Scrooge McBorden. On the same evening as Lizzie was out foreshadowing at her friend's house, Lizzie and Emma's maternal uncle arrived at the Borden home. John Morse was the sister's closest connection to their mother's family, and he'd been popping over pretty regularly in recent months. Things between Andrew and his

brother and Lord John were pretty tight. They sent each other letters regularly discussing business and local goings on. In fact, it's a testament to how close John Morse was with the Bordens that he didn't even send a letter ahead of his arrival. So when he got there on the 3rd of August, completely unannounced, he was just set up in the guest bedroom, no questions asked. And that brings us to the morning of August the 4th, 1892. A morning that would change the concept of criminal justice and the circus of its reporting forever.

But before the world was about to change, everyone needed to have breakfast first. And that morning, breakfast was warmed up, and I say that because it is key, warmed up mutton soup. I'm not a breakfast guy anyway, but soup for breakfast seems outrageous. What we need to know is that this soup, breakfast soup, breakfast fodder, had been made using a piece of mutton which the family had been getting through all week. It had been left unrefrigerated in the kitchen for the last five days. I think we found your poisoner.

Your dead mutton overboiled poisoner. At breakfast that morning were Andrew and Abby Borden along with John Morse and Maggie not Maggie who was actually called Bridget Sullivan. Incidentally Emma Borden was away seeing friends and wasn't in the house that morning. While Lizzie was in the house she was just upstairs but she hadn't come down for breakfast. That wasn't particularly unusual since the falling out of Pigeon Gate. Lizzie hadn't eaten with her dad or her stepmom for quite some time. When Andrew, Abby and John finished their morning meal of absolute vile disgust from me, I'm sure they were fine, Andrew

and John went into the living room to talk man business. Abby left to do woman business and Maggie not Maggie cleared the table. After the two men had finished chatting, at around 8.48 a.m., John Morse left the house to walk into Fall River. As in the town, not the body of water. He was planning on buying himself a pair of oxen and visiting his niece who also lived in town. Ten minutes later, Andrew Borden went out for his morning walk. Then two things happened.

And the order of these two things is a frustrating combination of quite important, but also very, very unclear. At some point during the next half hour, Lizzie Borden came down for food, by which time Bridget had cleared the table from the first breakfast and served Lizzie a morning meal of cookies and coffee. At roughly the same time, Abby Borden went upstairs and began remaking the bed in the guest room. This is significant for two reasons. Number one, changing the guest bedding was normally Emma and Lizzie's job. Number two, Abbie Borden never left that bedroom alive.

Not to sound too old money about it, but why isn't the housekeeper changing the sheets? It's not a big house. She is, uh, someone's gotta stir the mutton. Once Lizzie's breakfast was finished, Maggie-not-Maggie cleared the table, washed some of the windows, and then went upstairs for a lie down. She, like the rest of the family, had been sick for a number of days and wasn't feeling any better today. And what Lizzie did with this time unsupervised we will come back to later on. Then at 10.30 Andrew Borden got home but was unable to open the front door. His key had jammed in the lock so he knocked and the housekeeper came to the door. She was also unable to open

the door and she swore to herself and heard Lizzie laugh from upstairs. Once the door was open, Andrew Borden went into the living room, lay down on the sofa and had a nap. After this the the housekeeper, Bridget, went back upstairs to the third floor and went back to bed. She did this via a staircase on the other side of the house that did not go past the guest bedroom. Forty minutes went by before Bridget was awoken by Lizzie Borden screaming. Lizzie was shouting, Maggie, come quick, father's dead. Even then she's calling her Maggie.

Maggie's mutton, Maggie put down that mutton, come quick, father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him. Bridget, not Maggie, hadn't even got into the living room when Lizzie ordered her not to come in

and instead run to get their family doctor, Dr. Bowen. Bridget returned with the doctor a couple of minutes later and Dr. Bowen presumably took one look at Andrew and said, yep, he's dead. Yep, it's a goner. Can I get a cup of that mutton, Maggie? And yes, Andrew was very much dead because during his morning nap someone had come into the living room and hit him violently at

least ten times with a hatchet. All of these blows were to his head, neck and face. The attack had been so violent that one of his eyeballs had been split cleanly in two. And the attack had also been pretty recent as his body was still bleeding. Very personal. Axing to the face. That's quite a lot of rage and quite a lot of personal connection I would hesitate to guess. And before we do more guessing, we're going to have a brief interlude to have a chat about axe versus hatchet. Some places do report

that the attack was carried out with an axe but that is a Rahong. It's not super important but we're going to cover it anyway because otherwise the Lizzie Borden forums will come for us with hatchets and not axes. A hatchet is a small hand axe used for splitting small logs etc. They're designed to be used with one hand. A full fat axe is much bigger and it needs two hands and it's used by lumberjacks to cut down trees and also that really hot guy on TikTok who does it. If someone had hit Andrew Borden ten times in the head with a full fat full size axe, his head just wouldn't exist anymore.

And admittedly it wasn't in fantastic Nick after he was attacked, but his head was still there and recognisably ahead and that is important. Now with most of Andrew Borden's face missing, mouth to mouth wasn't exactly an option. So the focus turned to an important question. Where was Abby? Given the commotion, which had now grown to the point where neighbours had started coming over to see what was going on, if Abby was in the house, she would have heard and come downstairs.

Like Hannah said, it's not a massive house. So someone asked Lizzie if she'd seen her step-mum, and Lizzie replied with something akin to, Yeah, I'm not fully sure. I'm pretty sure she went out to see her mate who was sick. And then Lizzie said, Actually, wait, I think I did hear her come back. I'm pretty sure she went upstairs.

With that it became pretty clear that someone should go and have a look upstairs. And it was decided that Maggie not Maggie Bridget Sullivan should be the person to go and have a look. Which seems like a bit of a dick move from Dr. Bowen, it's not like he had anything better to do. Andrew Borden was fully pulverised, there wasn't much doctoring to be done. No, I guess it's like a lady upstairs in her bedroom. Is it appropriate for Dr. Bowen to go up? He's like, can you go check? He probably called her Maggie though. I think he's a doctor. I don't know. I'm just saying. I'm not from the past. I'm just

guessing. When a body is discovered 10 miles out to sea, it sparks a mind-blowing police investigation. There's a man living in this address in the name of deceased. He's one of the most wanted men in the world. This isn't really happening. Officers are finding large sums of money. It's a tale of murder, skullduggery and international intrigue. So who really is he?

I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Sea of Lies from CBC's Uncovered, available now. Being an actual royal is never about finding your happy ending, but the worst part is, if they step out of line or fall in love with the wrong person, it changes the course of history. I'm Arisha Skidmore Williams. And I'm Brooke Ziffrin. We've been telling the stories of the rich and famous on the hit, wonder show, Even the Rich, and talking about the latest celebrity news on Rich and Daily.

We're going all over the world on our new show, Even the Royals. We'll be diving headfirst into the lives of the world's kings, queens, and all the wannabes in their orbit throughout history. Think succession meets the crown meets real life. We're going to pull back the gilded curtain and show how royal status might be bright and shiny, but it comes at the expense of, well, everything else. Like your freedom, your privacy, and sometimes even your head. Follow Even the Royals on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Even the Royals early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Anyway, Maggie Not Maggie was having absolutely none of it and she said, fuck that, I'm not going up there on my own. Probably. So she went and found another nearby woo man to go with her. So, she went and found another nearby woo man to go with her, and a neighbour called Mrs Churchill agreed to go upstairs with her. And they were halfway up the staircase when they saw Abby Borden lying face down in the guest bedroom in a pool of her own blood. I can't remember if we looked at the guest bedroom. I don't think we went upstairs.

No, we didn't. No. So you can see the sofa where Andrew Borden was killed and they've got like a little balloon animal man lying there. But I believe the guest bedroom where Abby was killed is reserved for night time guests only. Overnighters. Just like her husband, Abby had been attacked with a hatchet, although she'd had an even more savage beating. She was struck a total of 17 times. And from the wounds it looked as though she'd been

struck on the side of the head whilst facing her attacker, and then she'd fallen to the ground, at which point the attacker hit her another 16 times on the back of the head. Again like her husband there really wasn't much head left on Abby. CPR was not on the table this time either. And if you really want to know what someone who has been hatcheted to death looks like you can go and look look at crime scene photos on Google, but then you'll have to sit with yourself afterwards, so be prepared. And if things weren't already coming across like some sort of X-rated late-night episode of Murder, She Wrote, we're about to hit a whole new level.

Because you're probably expecting that the police response to this violent double-hatchet murder of two of Four Rivers' highest-standing citizens would be pretty rapid. Well, not quite. Because almost the entire Four River Police Department was on an annual picnic to Rocky Point, a nearby amusement park. This meant that the response to the murders was a little bit stunted while everybody sobered up and put the hot dogs down. However, the police did eventually arrive and they did investigate and with only two people in the house at the time of the murders, the list of suspects was pretty slim. It's also worth mentioning that that police picnic happened every year.

It was widely publicised. Everybody knew about it and they were never allowed to have another one. No. It is not the best idea out there to have your entire police force out at a fucking amusement park with nobody, nobody, holding down the fort back at the station. And yes, once again, something to squirrel away in your brain that this was, as Hannah said, common knowledge. So yes, the list of suspects is very, very short. Unless, of course, Andrew Borden had killed his wife and then turned the hatchet on himself and his own face and his own eyeball.

It was either Bridget, Lizzie, or someone from outside the house. Bridget told officers that she had been upstairs having a nap, and Lizzie told detectives that at the time of her father's murder, thought to be around 11am, she was in the loft space of the pigeon barn, eating some pears. time of her father's murder, thought to be around 11am, she was in the loft space of the pigeon barn, eating some pears. Which is the fucking most old and timey alibi I've ever heard in my entire fucking life. It's not really an alibi. Excuse?

Where I was? Even the pigeons are dead. It's not an alibi! She's saying this is where I was. Not murdering my father. Yeah. Doesn't an alibi need to be confirmed by a person though? Yeah, because you could say my alibi is just, I was at home watching TV, can anybody prove it?

No, but that's where I was. What would you call that? I don't think that's an alibi. I think an alibi has to be a person. But whether it's an alibi or not, another important note was uncharacteristically hot in Fall River at that time, pushing 40 degrees Celsius that morning. So I've been pretty grim in the attic of that pigeon barn eating pears or not. Nice pears though. And from there Lizzie Borden's story became increasingly vague and rambling.

At one point she told the police that she'd heard a groan and some scraping as she'd walked back into her house. But then a few hours later she told officers that she hadn't heard anything at all as she'd walked in. Overall, the officers who'd rushed back from the policeman's picnic were not thrilled with Lizzie's attitude. They didn't like her changing story and they thought that she seemed a little bit too calm about the whole thing.

Despite this, Lizzie was never checked for blood stains. Other than a quick glance, her room wasn't searched either. According to the officers, this was because Lizzie just wasn't feeling particularly well. Tough shit, I think, is what they should have said. The officers did search the rest of the house and found several large axes, two hatchets, and a third broken hatchet down in the basement. According to the officers who went down to the basement, the broken hatchet looked as though it had been deliberately coated in dust and dirt in order to make it look

as if it was untouched. Despite this widely being assumed to be the murder weapon, it wasn't taken in as evidence, at least not at first. During this time an autopsy was performed in the living room, and no sign of poison was found in either victim's system. It is now widely assumed that the mysterious sickness that had struck the whole family in the week leading up to the murders was the result of, of course, you guessed it, the five-day-old mutton which had been sat in around 40 degree heat rather than any kind of deadly toxin or poison.

That literally makes me feel more unwell than the hatcheted heads. Both of the victims' heads were then removed and taken away for further examination, as if the living room autopsy wasn't enough. That evening Lizzie, John Morse and Lizzie's friend Alice all stayed in the house. Although contrary to popular belief, John Morse did not spend that night in the guest room, the one in which Abby had been killed. He stayed in a different guest room in the attic. Later that night in the guest room, the one in which Abby had been killed, he stayed in a different guest room in the attic. Later that night a police officer who was guarding the house then saw, or at least later claimed that he saw, Lizzie and Alice taking a mop and lamp down to the basement. Both women then left and

Lizzie returned to the house on her own. The officer, maybe hungover from his picnic, didn't actually investigate what was happening, but he claimed that it looked like Lizzie was bent over the sink. By the next morning, the board and murders had already made the headlines, and the occupants of 92nd Street awoke hundreds of members of the public crowding outside the house. John Morse actually attempted to leave the house, but the crowd swarmed him so violently, the police had to step in and escort him back inside. Over that day, more officers arrived at the house and conducted a much more comprehensive

search, including checking Lizzie and Emma's clothes, as well as taking the broken hatchet that they'd discovered the day before. That evening, a senior police officer and the town mayor arrived at the house and informed Lizzie Borden that she was indeed a suspect in the case. According to Alice Russell, Lizzie's friend, she came downstairs the next day to find Lizzie burning a blue dress covered in brownie red stains in the kitchen fireplace. According to Lizzie, this was because it had been covered in paint during some recent renovations. A few days later, an initial inquest into the murders was held at the local police station

by someone called Judge Josiah Blaisle. And Lizzie Borden was now the prime suspect. News about the case was spreading like wildfire and the inquest was heavily reported on in the local press. And the whole thing did not go well for Lizzie Borden. She'd been given a heavy prescription of morphine by her doctor to calm her nerves, and as a result, she turned up completely off her tits. Worst of all, because of a state ruling mandating the inquest to be held in private, Lizzie wasn't allowed to have her family attorney present either.

Lizzie spent the entire inquest giving contradictory statements as to her whereabouts at various points during the day. First, she said that she came downstairs when her father came home and then she was reading in the kitchen and then that she was ironing in the dining room. On top of that, the massive doses of morphine she was being given meant that she seemed almost oblivious to what was actually happening, and she'd refused to answer questions, even ones that would benefit her in the long run. Given this shit show, it was hardly a shock when on the 11th of August 1892 Lizzie was formally arrested and charged with three counts of murder

one for her father one for her stepmother and Then one for the pair as a collective The next day at her arraignment judge Josiah Blaisle found Lizzie Borden quote probably guilty of murder and She was jailed in Taunton, Massachusetts, awaiting trial. Lizzie Borden was the first woman ever to be jailed in Taunton for a capital crime. And with Lizzie now found probably guilty and sitting in jail, the whole story went completely gangbusters. What had started as a local case had write-ups in several national newspapers, including

a three-page spread in the Boston Globe. And now seems like a good enough time as any to talk about why the media coverage of this case and the following trial turned into the press equivalent of nuclear Godzilla. First and foremost, the crime itself is sensational, there's no doubt about it. The gruesome double murder of an affluent and highly prominent couple, already that's eye-catching. And then when you throw in that the prime suspect is a member of the family, and even more unbelievably than that, a young woman. That's really special stuff. Even today a posh girl accused of killing her dad and stepmom with a hatchet would be

front page news for many days. Please see Constance Martin for example. Back then the concept that women could be killers was still up for debate and if women were actually up to the job, it was always a nice gentle poisoning and that left everyone's masculinity totally intact. A brutal female murderer, a violent one, was absolutely beyond belief. And that is something which will play a big part in the later stages of the trial. The second reason this trial went so insane was the rapid development of printing and communication technology. For a more in-depth rundown of how massive this leap forward was and how instrumental

it was for the development of society in general, I'd highly recommend you go and listen to our shorthand on the printing press. But the abridged version is this. Newspaper journalism was right in the middle of a revolution. Just a few decades beforehand, printing technology was expensive and time-consuming. Sure it was quicker than rewriting a book by hand, but it still wasn't easy. But with massive leaps forward in technology, such as the rotary printing press, suddenly printing the written word was cheap, quick and easy.

Whereas before every letter counted, meaning that only the absolutely essential news would be printed. Now, you could print any old ship. And still do! This was then combined with the telegraph system, which connected the entirety of the USA and eventually the world. Suddenly news that took place in Fall River, Massachusetts didn't take several days to make it to LA or Chicago.

It took but minutes. This meant that journalists from around the country could flock down to Fall River and give blow-by-blow accounts of every juicy detail to their editors across the country. This was what became known as yellow journalism, a kind of precursor to the tabloids that focused on sexy lurid and graphic details to sell papers. And absolutely nothing was off the table. Over the next year that Lizzie sat in jail, every aspect of the case was explored, dissected and inspected by the press and the ever-interested public.

Accusations were thrown left, right and centre and leaks were constant to the point that the press even knew what hotel Lizzie was ordering her meals from. Hold on, she's in jail awaiting a conviction of possible murder and she's allowed to order in. She's rich. Anyway, quickly a rumor surfaced that Lizzie Borden was gay and had been having an affair with 25 year old Bridget Sullivan the housekeeper. She doesn't even call her her actual name. I don't think that's got legs. And the only evidence they have for this was the idea that Lizzie, whose job it was usually to remake the guest bed, actually snuck off with Bridget into the guest bedroom to have it off instead of making

the bed. And then Abby, assuming that Lizzie wouldn't be making the bed because she had a face on, went upstairs to do it herself, walking in on Bridget and Lizzie midway through the act. And look, this was without a doubt just nonsense concocted to sell papers. But there is a chance that Lizzie Borden was gay. She never married, she never even showed an inclination of an interest in men. And it seems, although it's quite difficult to say with any certainty, that her friends kind of just assumed that she was either interested in women, or not really interested in anyone at all.

However, that does not automatically mean that she was having an affair with Bridget the housekeeper. And at the time, this theory was quote unquote discredited a few years later when Bridget got married to a man, as though somehow that proved that she couldn't have slept with a woman. But the truth is that even if Bridget was gay, which we have absolutely no evidence to suggest is true, that still doesn't mean that her and Lizzie were having an affair and even if they were, that doesn't mean that Abby walked in on them. And even if she did, there's still no reason why that would lead to a double hatchet murder. So we'll think we'll probably put that one to bed.

By the time the trial actually got underway, the public interest in the case was rabid. And this was spurred on by the fact that just a few days before the trial began another brutal murder was committed in Fall River. This time with an axe. A woman called Bertha Manchester was found hacked and chopped to bits in her kitchen. Obviously everyone thought Lizzie was off the hook, but it was quickly proven that the perpetrator, José Correa de Marlo, was nowhere near Fall River during the Borden murders. And so, Lizzie Borden's trial began in New Bedford, Massachusetts on the 5th of June, 1893.

And to be quite honest, trying to decipher the goings-on of this trial is total carnage. It was reported on very heavily with a reckless abandon for the truth. So finding anything that's not a lie is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but here are the main points anyway. Leading proceedings was Chief Justice Albert Mason, along with his associate justices, Justice Caleb Blodgett and Justice Justin Dewey. And among those defending Lizzie was the former governor of Massachusetts himself, George Robinson. And this is very important because ex-governor George Robinson actually appointed Justice

Dewey to his position of associate justice while he was still a governor. And that might sound boring as fuck right now, but it will become very key in a few minutes' time. During the trial there were several key points of debate. Firstly was the broken hatchet found by the police on the day of the murder, although not taken in as evidence until the day afterwards? Investigators had only ever found the head of the hatchet, the metal bit, and had never been able to conclusively prove that it was the murder weapon.

Then we have Lizzie's whereabouts during the murders. This is difficult to pin down because Lizzie herself was all over the place with her original statements, but the upshot is this. According to Lizzie's defence, she had been downstairs when her step-mum was killed and she had also been downstairs when her dad came home and she had greeted him but then she left to go to the pigeon barn where she sat eating some pears and then she came back and then her dad was dead. And this was somewhat corroborated by a man called Hyman, Hyman Lubinskyinsky who said that he had in fact

seen Lizzie Borden leaving the Pigeon Barn at about 11.03am. But it didn't matter that much because it had been decided that Lizzie's father had been killed at about 11am, not not exactly 11, so she definitely still could have done it. Bridget Sullivan told the court that she'd helped Andrew Borden back into the house at 10.30am. She helped him change out of his boots into his slippers. And then she headed upstairs at 10.58, leaving Andrew and Lizzie Borden downstairs, alone.

However, this testimony was brought into question when the crime scene photos, which as we said, easily findable, but be careful, clearly proved that Andrew Borden was still wearing his boots when he was murdered. Then, as if things couldn't get more scintillating for the reporters, Andrew and Abby Borden's decapitated skulls were brought out as evidence. At which point Lizzie Borden fainted. And then the last two points of real note were firstly that the defence never attempted to challenge Alice Russell's testimony of having seen Lizzie burning a stained blue dress.

And secondly, there was strong evidence that Lizzie had gone to a local chemist asking for hydrogen cyanide to help clean a seal skin coat the day before the murders. This evidence was later excluded, as it had been proven that neither Andrew nor Abby had been poisoned. And with that, the trial of Lizzie Borden was almost over. Almost. Because just as everything was wrapping up, Associated Justice Justin Dewey, who remember had been put in his position by a member of

Lizzie Borden's defence team, directly addressed the jury. And he told them to consider Lizzie's Christian character and give her the benefit of the doubt. And because a Christian has absolutely never done anything wrong, an hour and a half later the jury came back with the verdict of not guilty. Just like that Lizzie Borden became the 19th century OJ Simpson. As she left the courthouse, Lizzie Borden told the sea of reporters that she was quote the happiest woman in the world, which like yeah okay you just didn't get like sent away for murder but your dad is dead.

Maybe not the right tone but maybe she was right to be happy because after her acquittal Andrew Borden's estate was passed down to Emma and Lizzie and incredibly because it was clear that Abby had died before Andrew, her estate also went to Andrew and then to the sisters. Almost like somebody planned it. The Borden sisters used this enormous wealth they had just inherited to buy a massive new house in a much more affluent neighbourhood, a full river. They had running water, several living maids-in maids, a housekeeper and even a coachman. Naturally the press

followed Lizzie everywhere and the local community shunned her, believing, correctly, that she'd gotten away with murder. Lizzie and Emma lived together until 1905 when an argument broke out over the famous actress Nance O'Neill, for whom Lizzie had thrown an extravagant party. The sisters never saw each other or spoke again, and it's widely speculated that Lizzie and Nance had been having an affair. Lizzie died on the 1st of June 1927, age 66. Her sister Emma died just nine days later, hundreds of miles away in New Hampshire. She unspoken to her sister in over two decades.

I think it's interesting where I think it's pretty obvious that she did it, but you'll find quite a lot of people who were convinced that she was witch hunted. I think people just want things to be more than they are. And I think Lizzie Borden definitely did it. There's just so much evidence pointing to her. She has motive, she has means, she has opportunity. She's got everything. And she did it. Of course she did. And she got away with it. And I think the only reason she got away with and she did it. Of course she did and she got away with it. And I think the only reason she got away with it is because it was hard for people at that time in that situation to fathom that somebody like Lizzie Borden, who was from

a wealthy family, who was a woman, could have committed such a violent act. I think her uncle probably helped her. Oh, I think so too. I think the two of them did it together. They were worried that Andrew was going to be too naive and siphon off all the family's money to Abby's family and that they'd never get any of it. And I think, I think John Morse and Lizzie Borden did it together to keep the money on their side and it worked. And I think they were calculated enough that they also purposely killed Abby first and

they did it on the day of the picnic. They knew it was them. Nobody else stood to gain from it. Why would you carry out such a heinous, high risk, middle of the day, violent, personal acts wielding murder if you weren't going to get something out of it? Absolutely. And I also think Emma knew damn well what was going happen and she skipped town. Yeah I agree. So there you go, Lizzie Borden, if she did it, which she did. She did indeed and if you do go to the Lizzie Borden house

don't take a Ouija board. Because A. you won't be allowed and B, you might ruin your life. Yep. Cause when Hannah and I were there, we did hear a story again from Amber, sure, Maggie, don't know about how they used to allow people to come into the house and play with Ouija boards, but they stopped after this particular incident because someone stole the local resident Ouija board that they kept in the house. And a few days later, apparently it was returned to the steps of the Lizzie Borden house with

a note on it that just said, make it stop. So yes, if that's not enough to either entice you or put you off entirely, I don't know what will. So yeah, go check it out. It's a cool place. Fall River itself is a very cool place. They obviously have lots of creepy stories from the woods there, the cult business. There's the Aaron Hernandez courthouse.

You can have for yourself a full fun packed true crime day out. Absolutely. There is a cat ghost, I felt it. So go feel it for yourself. And that's it guys. That is the case of Lizzie Borden. Case closed. She did it.

And we will see you next week for a Last Pasto case. Yay! Bye! Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sarah Trelevin and for over a, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

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