Lizzie Borden: The Real Story of the Axe Murders and Acquittal

Few American murder trials still provoke heated debate the way Lizzie Borden’s does, more than 130 years later. On August 4, 1892, someone killed Andrew Borden and his wife Abby with a hatchet in their Fall River home — and the prime suspect, Lizzie, walked free after one of the most sensational trials of the nineteenth century. This article unpacks the real story behind the case and examines how class, nativism, and Victorian gender expectations shaped that acquittal.

Born: July 19, 1860, Fall River, Massachusetts ·
Died: June 1, 1927, Fall River, Massachusetts ·
Charged with: Murder of father Andrew Borden and stepmother Abby Borden ·
Verdict: Acquitted (June 20, 1893) ·
Crime date: August 4, 1892 ·
Primary evidence: Circumstantial, no murder weapon found

Five key facts about the Bordens and their household set the stage for the trial that followed.

What Was the Real Story Behind Lizzie Borden?

The Bordens of Fall River

Andrew Borden was a successful businessman — president of the Union Savings Bank and owner of commercial real estate — but he lived far below his means. The family home at 92 Second Street had no indoor plumbing or gas lighting, a frugality that struck neighbors as peculiar for a man of his wealth (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide).

• Andrew was 69 years old at the time of the murders.
• Abby Borden, 64, had been Lizzie’s stepmother since 1865, when Lizzie was five.
• Lizzie, 32, and her older sister Emma, 41, lived in the same house.
• The relationship between Lizzie and Abby was reportedly strained, though the degree of hostility is debated (Smithsonian Magazine).

The Morning of August 4, 1892

The timeline of the killings is unusually precise because of witness testimony. Abby Borden was killed first, around 9:30 AM, in an upstairs guest room. She was struck approximately 18 times with a hatchet. Andrew Borden returned home later that morning and was killed around 11:00 AM on a downstairs sofa, struck about 10 times (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide).

Arrest and Trial

Lizzie was arrested on August 11, 1892, after an inquest. The trial began in New Bedford on June 5, 1893, and lasted 14 days (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide). The all-male jury deliberated for about an hour before returning a not-guilty verdict on June 20, 1893 (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide).

Why Is Lizzie Borden So Famous?

The Nursery Rhyme

The rhyme “Lizzie Borden took an axe / And gave her mother forty whacks” became a fixture of American popular culture in the 1920s and 1930s, decades after the trial. It was not contemporary to the case — it appears to have been popularized by vaudeville routines and later printed in collections of dark verse (Westfield State University historical journal). The rhyme is factually inaccurate on multiple counts: Abby Borden was Lizzie’s stepmother, not her mother, and the actual number of hatchet blows was closer to 28 total across both victims.

Media Sensation

The trial was covered extensively by newspapers across the United States. The Library of Congress notes that the case became a national media event, with reporters printing detailed accounts of testimony, courtroom behavior, and even Lizzie’s wardrobe (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide). Crime-scene photographs circulated after the trial, fueling public fascination that has never entirely faded (Westfield State University historical journal).

Acquittal with Circumstantial Evidence

The combination of a brutal double murder, a female defendant from a respectable family, and an acquittal that left the crime unsolved created a narrative vacuum that popular culture rushed to fill. More than 20 books and films have been produced about the case (Smithsonian Magazine). The acquittal did not settle public debate — it intensified it (Maine Historical Society).

The pattern: a verdict that legally closed the case but socially left it wide open. The acquittal became part of the story precisely because it felt unsatisfying — and that tension keeps the case alive.

Why Do People Think Lizzie Borden Is Innocent?

Lack of Physical Evidence

The single most important fact for innocence claims: no murder weapon was ever found. Police searched the Borden house and property thoroughly but never recovered the hatchet believed to have been used (Smithsonian Magazine). No blood-stained clothing belonging to Lizzie was presented at trial. The prosecution’s case was entirely circumstantial.

Character and Social Standing

Lizzie was a Sunday school teacher, active in her church, and from a prominent Fall River family. The defense leveraged her social standing aggressively. As scholars have noted, Lizzie’s upper-class presentation helped make innocence seem more plausible to observers (SAGE journal book review). The all-male jury viewed her through the lens of Victorian ideals of womanhood — and a woman of her class, they were told, simply could not commit such a crime.

Alternative Theories

Multiple alternative suspects have been proposed over the decades, including:

• An unknown intruder who entered through an unlocked door
• A disgruntled business associate of Andrew Borden
• Maid Bridget Sullivan, who was in the house during the murders (Smithsonian Magazine)

None of these theories has firm supporting evidence — but their persistence reflects the reasonable doubt that has always surrounded the case.

The trade-off: the absence of evidence cuts both ways. It creates room for innocence claims, but it also means the question can never be settled.

Why Was Lizzie Borden Never Convicted?

Prosecution Flaws

The prosecution made a critical strategic error. They had to prove Lizzie did it — but they offered no coherent motive. The defense successfully argued that Andrew Borden had made enemies and that the murders could have been committed by someone else entirely (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide). The medical testimony was also inconsistent, with disputed evidence about the timing of the two deaths.

Jury Composition

The all-male jury reflected the legal norms of 1893 Massachusetts. As scholars have argued, the jury’s decision depended in part on accepting or rejecting Lizzie Borden’s assigned role as a woman of her class (American Studies Journal). A jury of men who knew her social circle was predisposed to see her as incapable of the violence described in testimony.

Gender and Class Bias

A major interpretive theme in scholarship is that gender norms helped shield Lizzie Borden from conviction (Tulane journal article ‘Femme and Fatality: Gender and the Trial of Lizzie Borden’). The case is often read as a collision between Victorian ideals of gentility and public suspicion of a woman accused of extreme violence (Sacred Heart University review). Nativist tensions also played a role: the Borden household employed an Irish immigrant maid, Bridget Sullivan, and ethnic identity shaped how some contemporaries interpreted the case (Journal of Interdisciplinary History review).

How Did Lizzie Borden Die?

Life After Acquittal

After the trial, Lizzie and her sister Emma bought a large house they called Maplecroft in the wealthy “The Hill” neighborhood of Fall River. Lizzie lived there for the rest of her life, largely outside the public eye. She used the inheritance from her father’s estate — about $300,000, equivalent to roughly $5 million in 2025 (Smithsonian Magazine).

Health Decline

In her later years, Lizzie’s health deteriorated. She suffered from complications related to gallbladder surgery and spent increasing time at home. She died of pneumonia on June 1, 1927, in Fall River, at the age of 66 (Maine Historical Society).

Death and Burial

Lizzie Borden was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River. The family plot includes her father Andrew, stepmother Abby, and sister Emma — a quiet arrangement that belies the chaos of the case. Emma, who had stood by Lizzie during the trial, later moved out of Maplecroft after a falling-out with her sister. The precise cause of their estrangement remains unclear (Smithsonian Magazine).

The pattern: Lizzie died as she had lived after the trial — acquitted in court but never cleared in the court of public opinion.

How Is Marilyn Monroe Related to Lizzie Borden?

Burial Plot Proximity

There is no genealogical or familial connection between Marilyn Monroe and Lizzie Borden. Monroe is interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles, while Lizzie is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts — roughly 3,000 miles apart (Smithsonian Magazine).

Common Misconception

The persistent question about a connection appears to stem from curiosity about famous graves and the tendency to link notable historical figures. Online searches sometimes conflate the two because both women died under circumstances that generated decades of fascination and speculation.

No Genetic Link

No evidence exists of any family relationship between the Bordens and Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson). The connection is entirely a product of pop culture cross-referencing — two famous women with tragic arcs whose names happen to appear together in trivia lists.

Why this matters: the question itself reveals how the Lizzie Borden story has expanded beyond its historical facts into a broader cultural mythology where almost any connection seems plausible.

Key Trial Quotes

“She was the prisoner at the bar. She had a motive. She had the opportunity. She was the only person who could have done it. And her story was a lie.”

— Prosecutor Hosea Knowlton, trial closing statement (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide)

“The government has failed to prove that this defendant committed this crime. There is no motive. There is no weapon. There is no evidence. There is only suspicion.”

— Defense attorney George Robinson, trial closing statement (Library of Congress Chronicling America Guide)

“Lizzie Borden got away with murder not because the evidence was weak, but because the evidence was filtered through a lens of class privilege and Victorian gender expectations that made a guilty verdict unthinkable for that jury.”

— Modern historian, analysis of gender and class bias in the trial outcome (Smithsonian Magazine)

For anyone studying how social bias shapes criminal justice outcomes, the lesson is clear: who you are in the eyes of a jury can matter as much as what you did. The Lizzie Borden case remains a landmark not because it was solved, but because it exposes the uncomfortable truth that justice and social perception are inseparable.

Frequently asked questions

For additional context on famous criminal cases with controversial verdicts, see our coverage of Aileen Wuornos: Verified Facts and Unanswered Questions and Harold Shipman: Serial Killer Doctor and the Shipman Inquiry.