Key Events
The final days before the murders were marked by unusual tension inside the Borden household. On August 3, 1892, Andrew, Abby, Lizzie and the family's live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan, all complained of stomach illness after eating a meal that included leftover mutton. Some members of the family suspected they had been poisoned, although physicians later concluded the illness was most likely caused by spoiled food rather than any deliberate attempt to kill them.
Andrew's brother-in-law, John Morse, was also staying in the house that week after arriving unexpectedly to discuss family business. His presence would later draw investigators' attention, although he was ultimately eliminated as a suspect after his movements were verified.
Early on the morning of August 4, Sullivan began her household chores while still feeling ill from the previous day's sickness. Andrew left home around 9:00 a.m. to attend to business downtown, while Abby remained inside. Sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m., Abby was attacked in the upstairs guest room. She was struck repeatedly in the head with a sharp instrument, likely a hatchet or similar tool, and died where she fell. Because her body remained undiscovered for more than an hour, investigators later concluded she had likely been killed well before Andrew.
Andrew returned home shortly before 10:45 a.m. Finding the front door difficult to unlock, he was let inside by Sullivan, who had been washing the outside windows. After lying down on the sitting room sofa to rest, he was attacked. His killer struck him multiple times in the head at close range, inflicting catastrophic injuries that killed him almost instantly.
Only minutes later, Lizzie called out to Sullivan that someone killed her father. She claimed she had been in the barn looking for fishing sinkers and eating pears before returning to the house to discover Andrew's body. When asked about Abby’s location, Lizzie told neighbors she believed her stepmother had gone out after receiving a note asking her to visit a sick friend.
As neighbors and a physician arrived, someone suggested searching upstairs for Abby. Sullivan and a neighbor entered the guest room, where they found Abby's body lying face down beside the bed. The discovery transformed what initially appeared to be a single homicide into one of the most shocking double murders in New England history.
Investigation
Fall River police immediately began questioning everyone inside the house, but attention soon centered on Lizzie. Officers found aspects of her account confusing, particularly her claim that Abby had received a note requesting a visit to a sick friend. Despite extensive efforts, investigators never located either the note or anyone who could confirm such a message had been delivered.
Lizzie also gave differing accounts of her own movements during the time of the murders. She variously claimed to have been in the barn searching for fishing tackle, looking for iron or eating pears. Officers questioned why she had chosen to spend time inside an extremely hot barn loft on one of the warmest mornings of the summer, and several investigators later testified that portions of her story changed during repeated interviews. Because Lizzie had been given morphine by her physician to calm her nerves after the murders, the defense later argued that any inconsistencies were the product of medication and shock rather than guilt.
Police searched the Borden home but found remarkably little physical evidence. Investigators recovered several hatchets and axes from the basement, including one with a broken handle that prosecutors suggested could have been altered to conceal bloodstains. However, forensic science at the time could not establish that it was the murder weapon, and no weapon was ever conclusively linked to the crimes.
Investigators were also troubled by the apparent absence of blood. Given the violence of the attacks, they expected the killer's clothing to have been heavily stained, yet the only blood found on Lizzie was a small speck on her underskirt. Supporters argued this strongly suggested her innocence, while prosecutors contended she had ample opportunity to change clothes before authorities arrived.
Investigators may have missed their chance to provide key evidence of this theory. Two days after the murders, they discovered a pile of bloody rags in the home’s basement. Lizzie explained that she had been menstruating at the time, and the police, possibly embarrassed at touching upon a then-sensitive subject, simply took Lizzie at her word.
One of the most damaging pieces of testimony emerged several days later, when family friend Alice Russell reported seeing Lizzie burn a blue cotton dress in the kitchen stove. Lizzie explained that the garment had been ruined by paint and was no longer worth keeping, but prosecutors argued she had deliberately destroyed clothing that could have contained blood evidence. The dress itself was never recovered.
Although investigators considered other possible suspects—including John Morse, Sullivan and a Portuguese laborer who had previously worked for Andrew—none could be tied to the murders through credible evidence. With no signs of forced entry and no convincing indication that a stranger had entered the house, authorities increasingly concluded that the killer had been someone already inside the Borden home.
Legal Proceedings
Lizzie was arrested on August 11, 1892, following a week-long inquest into the murders. A grand jury indicted her that December on two counts of murder, setting the stage for one of the most closely watched criminal trials in American history. When proceedings opened in New Bedford on June 5, 1893, newspapers from across the country descended on the city, turning the case into a national spectacle.
Prosecutors argued that Lizzie had both the motive and opportunity to kill her father and stepmother, pointing to longstanding family tensions over money and inheritance, her conflicting statements, the burned dress and the hatchet found in the basement. They also sought to introduce testimony that Lizzie had tried to purchase prussic acid, a highly poisonous substance, from a pharmacist the day before the murders. The judge ruled the evidence inadmissible because it could not be directly linked to the killings. The defense, meanwhile, portrayed Lizzie as a respectable, church-going woman of good character, arguing that the Commonwealth's case rested entirely on suspicion rather than proof.
The court excluded much of Lizzie's testimony from the preliminary inquest because she had not been represented by counsel when she was questioned. Without those statements—and without the prussic acid testimony—the prosecution was left with an entirely circumstantial case. They presented no eyewitnesses, no confession and no murder weapon conclusively linked to Lizzie, while Lizzie’s high-powered defense team (which included a former Massachusetts governor with close links to the trial’s three justices) argued that suspicion alone could not support a conviction.
The trial itself produced dramatic moments. During testimony, Andrew and Abby’s skulls—removed during their autopsies—were brought into the courtroom as evidence. Upon seeing them, Lizzie fainted, an incident widely reported in newspapers and one that further fueled public fascination with the proceedings.
Further complicating things were the deliberation instructions given to the jury, which seemed so slanted towards the defense that a newspaper equated it with “a plea for the innocent.” On June 20, 1893, after deliberating for about an hour and a half, the all-male jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
Aftermath
Following the trial, Lizzie and Emma inherited Andrew's estate and moved to a large Victorian home in Fall River. With servants, a coachman and substantial financial independence, they lived a far more comfortable lifestyle than the one their father had insisted upon during his lifetime.
Despite Lizzie’s acquittal, however, she never regained her standing within Fall River society. Many former friends distanced themselves from her, she resigned from organizations in which she had once been active and curiosity seekers regularly gathered outside her home. While some believed the jury had reached the correct verdict because the evidence was insufficient, many local residents continued to believe she had committed the murders despite her acquittal.
In 1905, Emma abruptly moved out after an apparent disagreement with Lizzie. Although neither sister publicly explained the split, contemporaries speculated it may have involved Lizzie's friendship with actress Nance O'Neil or lingering disagreements about their lives after the trial. The sisters reportedly never saw one another again.
Lizzie remained in Fall River until her death from pneumonia on June 1, 1927, at age 66. Emma died just nine days later. Neither woman ever publicly disclosed what they believed had happened on August 4, 1892, leaving one of America's most famous murder mysteries unresolved.
Public Impact
The Borden case became one of the great media sensations of the late 19th century. Newspapers published daily courtroom reports, illustrations and competing theories, while readers across the country debated whether an outwardly respectable Victorian woman could have committed such a brutal crime. The trial also reflected prevailing attitudes toward gender, with many observers insisting that a woman of Lizzie's social standing was simply incapable of committing such violence, while others argued that those same assumptions helped secure her acquittal.
Public fascination only grew in the decades that followed. The murders inspired the famous playground rhyme beginning, "Lizzie Borden took an axe..."—despite the fact that the verse gets several details wrong, including referring to Abby as Lizzie's mother and exaggerating the number of blows inflicted. The rhyme nevertheless helped transform the case into an enduring piece of American folklore.
The mystery has since generated hundreds of books, scholarly studies, documentaries, feature films, television dramas and podcasts, with each new generation proposing its own theory about the identity of the killer. Some writers argue Lizzie was guilty and escaped conviction because of weak forensic science and Victorian attitudes toward women, while others contend the evidence never excluded another member of the household or an unknown intruder. No consensus has emerged.
