Children stood in front of Lizzie Borden’s house in Fall River, Massachusetts to recite their taunt, over and over again. “…and gave her mother 40 whacks…” It has been known to almost every child in America since. “When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.” That it’s not accurate makes no matter.
The gruesome deaths of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother inside their home in 1892 are as notorious now as they were then. Mrs. Borden was struck 19 times in the back of the head with a hatchet, not an ax, in the guest bedroom on the second floor of the Borden home. More than an hour later, Mr. Borden, who was lying on the living room sofa for a nap after reading the morning Providence Journal, was killed by 10 blows to his face.
Lizzie was the immediate suspect. The family maid was outside washing the windows when Mrs. Borden was killed, and she was in her room in the attic on the third floor not feeling well when Mr. Borden died. Lizzie’s older sister Emma was out of town. Today the home is open for tours and for those so inclined, an overnight stay. Although Lizzie was acquitted at trial in 1893, there has never been much doubt about her guilt. Countless researchers and criminologists have studied the case and concluded there was no other explanation for the killings.
The most prominent theory about why she did it was for money. Mr. Borden was a wealthy but stingy man. He so valued the penny that the family often sat in darkness at night rather than light the oil lamps and use up kerosene he had to pay for. The family used the outhouse in the barn (and chamber pots in the bedrooms and two privies in the basement in the dead of winter) when others in town had already installed toilets in their homes. Lizzie was said to be openly annoyed that the family did not live with more trappings of her father’s wealth. When Mr. Borden bought his wife’s sister a home, both Lizzie and Emma complained to him that he was spending their inheritance on Mrs. Borden’s family.
After the deaths, the Borden sisters inherited most of their father’s estate, the equivalent of $8 to $12 million today. After Lizzie’s trial, they bought a grand new home which Lizzie named Maplecroft in a desirable neighborhood where many of the city’s wealthy families lived. People in Fall River still recall the house had the only residential gasoline pump in town. Lizzie also had a chauffeur who often drove her to Boston or New York to attend her beloved theater productions.
In 1905, Emma Borden abruptly left Maplecroft and moved to Newmarket, New Hampshire, and in the 22 years following, before Emma and Lizzie died within days of each other in 1927, they apparently never spoke. Many Borden writers theorize Lizzie may have said something that led Emma to believe Lizzie had, indeed, killed their parents.
The trial became a study in gender and class. There were no women on the jury since at the time, in 1893, women were not allowed to serve as jurors. Because of the Borden family’s wealth and standing in the community, many people couldn’t believe Lizzie would kill her parents so. She had the money to pay for fine legal representation, women’s groups including some at her church were backing her, convinced she was not guilty, and people nationwide were riveted to the news coverage of the New England Sunday School teacher accused of a heinous murder. There were no witnesses. The prosecution could not even positively identify the hatchet that was the weapon. Much was made of the fact that a woman could not possess the physical strength to smash that hatchet 29 times into her parents’ heads.
After the verdict, the jury gathered for a group photograph outside the courthouse and later presented that photo to Lizzie. It hangs today in the front parlor at 230 Second Street, next to the room where Mr. Borden met his fate. Although many in Fall River firmly believed in Lizzie’s innocence, she lived the remaining 34 years of her life as an outcast in the city.
No one was ever convicted of the crime.
