Lizzie Borden Took an Axe...Or Did She?

How would you say you were introduced to True Crime? For some of you, you may say the OJ Simpson trial on court TV in the 90s. For others, maybe it's Casey Anthony in the early days of social media, or for a few of you, perhaps it was through this very podcast. Thank you very much, remember to subscribe and leave us the 5 star rating. But I think we're actually introduced to True Crime much earlier, even if we don't fully realize it, that it's fed to us in the schoolyard through a simple song, and I think you'll recognize it. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 wax. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41. That's right. While you were jumping rope to that rhyme, you were learning about one of the most grisly killings in American history. And it's probably stuck with you ever since, because let's face it, it's a bobb. And a musical this fall on Broadway, directed by Sam Pickleton. But as in the case with the most true crime stories, sometimes the legend grows bigger than the reality. Sometimes the catchiest songs drown out the truth. And even though Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother, that's not what we remember. But we're not here to sing along with the rhyme, we're here to ask the question the song doesn't even consider. If Lizzie Borden didn't kill her parents, then who did? I'm Harvey Gien and this is Killer Stories. There's a reason I wanted to mention cases like O.J. Simpson at the top of this episode. Others so-called crime of the century that captivated a nation and spawned its own cottage industry. I did so in part because the Lizzie Borden story was kind of like the O.J. of its day. A grotesque double murder among the wealthy and elite, a loved one charged with the crime, a murder weapon, never found. All breathlessly covered by a press who couldn't resist retelling the juiciest details, no matter how truthful they actually were. Both cases have actually inspired Ryan Murphy's shows, but we'll get to all that later when Ryan Murphy joins us in, what's that? We'll get to that part later, period, I'm being told by my lawyers. First we have to go back to the end of the 19th century, to inside the walls of the Borden home. By the late 1800s, Andrew Borden has become one of the most influential men in Fall River Massachusetts, a working-class coastal town closer to Rhode Island than it is to Boston, Andrew grew up as the son of a fish petler, but as an adult, he makes a small fortune making furniture and caskets, not caskets for fish, I checked. He turns that fortune into real estate investments, and he also lands big time jobs at a few local banks and textile mills. By 1892, he's worth close to $500,000, more than 10 million in today's money. But Andrew's got a reputation for being, let's say, prickly. He's also considered a tightwad. He wears old, ratty ties and shockingly bad hats. Seriously, that's a quote about his hats. There's also a rumor that, as a casket maker, he'd cut the feet off bodies, just to save a few bucks on wood. Geez. The biggest sign of his penny-pinching, however, is the home he lives in with his family. A small narrow house at 92 second street, in a busy neighborhood, not exactly befitting someone of Andrew's stature. Seriously, this thing is short on amenities. There's only one flush toilet, and it's located all the way in the basement. It also has no upstairs hallways. I guess they just waste space. Instead, the bedrooms all open into each other. Safe to say, it's a little cramped in there for the board and clan. The family includes Andrew's daughter, Lizzie. Yes, she was born Lizzie, not Elizabeth, and her sister Emma. Emma's about 10 years older than Lizzie, and typically referred to as reserved and private, especially when compared to her sister. Lizzie's outgoing. She's a Sunday schoolteacher for local Chinese immigrants. She's also a treasure of the young woman's Christian Temperance Union. Maybe not exactly a party person, but generally a well-liked, well-regarded, young, Protestant woman. As for Emma and Lizzie's mother, well, Sarah Moore's boarden sadly dies before Lizzie is even three years old. And on her deathbed, Sarah makes Emma promise to always look after baby Lizzie. A few years after Sarah dies, Andrew gets married again, to a woman named Abby Gray. I would tell you more about Abby, but truthfully, not much has been written about her background. Some people speculate that Andrew marries Abby mostly because he needs a housekeeper. But also, it's worth noting that the boardens actually do have a live inmate, an Irish immigrant named Bridget Sullivan, that they call Maggie, which was the name of a previous servant they had. Really cool, guys. Really cool. Try learning people's names, okay? And by 1892, Andrew and the three boarding ladies and Bridget are living together in that small space. Now the family's not exactly a picture of Harmony, mainly because neither Lizzie nor Emma have ever liked Abby. You know how it can be between stepparents and stepkids? Yeesh. Plus, in this case, there's an added layer. Emma took on a maternal role with Lizzie, partially because of her mother's dying wish. So Emma's resistant to any of Abby's attempts to step into those motherly shoes. Even as the girls get older, the situation gets worse. Emma and Lizzie take their meals separate from Andrew and Abby, and at one point, Lizzie stops referring to Abby as mother. Instead, she goes with the more formal Mrs. Borden. The riff gets even worse when Andrew, the tidewad, buys the house for Abby's relatives in 1887. The girls are upset that he's giving more to his wife's family than to them. So he makes good by his daughters. He gives Lizzie and Emma the deed to their late grandfather's house, which makes sense considering that by most accounts, Lizzie and Andrew appear to have an affectionate relationship. She once gave him a ring. It's the only piece of jewelry he wears for years. Still things aren't perfect in that Borden home where the women outnumber the flush toilets four to one, but it's not an outright war zone either. And even if Andrew isn't exactly throwing his money around, he's still taking care of his family. That's the lay of the land in August 1892, when the events of today's story begin. Well, they actually start a few days before the infamous killings. They start possibly with a batch of bad, swordfish. It's Wednesday, August 3rd. And Abby Borden is at her doctor's house telling him that she thinks her family has been poisoned. Emma's out of town, so she's fine, but Abby and Andrew have been taking turns vomiting violently. Lizzie's been a little sick too, though she's escaped the worst of it. The doctor isn't convinced they've been poisoned, however. He says it's probably the summer complaint, which is a common ailment back then at that time of year. And if it's not the summer sickness, then maybe it's the leftover swordfish the family ate on Tuesday night. But Lizzie is also worried she thinks that someone's out to get her family. That same evening, she visits her friend Alice Russell and spends two hours talking about it. And a break-in at the Borden House the previous year, and more recently, she'd heard her father in the house arguing with a man that had come over to discuss rental property. Lizzie never sees the man, but she does say she has seen someone lurking outside her home recently. And now, her family is violently ill. Lizzie also suspects poisoning. She thinks someone's targeting her dad. Lizzie tells Alice, and I quote, "I'm afraid sometimes that somebody will do something to him. He is so discreetiest to people." But despite Lizzie's worries about a shadowy figure lurking outside her home, there's only been one confirmed unexpected visitor at the Borden residence. Lizzie and Emma's uncle, John Morse, their birth mother's brother. John Morse rolls into town unannounced that Wednesday the same day everyone gets sick. Which okay, it's not like he could have texted in advance. back then, I get that I get it, but it does seem like a rather hastily planned visit. He doesn't even bring a toothbrush. Between the boarden's vomiting and John's dental hygiene, someone get this family some breathmen stat. The boarden family also spends that Wednesday evening sick. They eat some mutton stew that had been left on the stove for days. Oh, after the sore fish day before, and I simply can't, I can't with this family, I'm sorry. Blaring your lesson, fool me once with sore fish, shame on me. Fool me twice with mutton, shame on you, Bortons. That's on you. Can someone teach them how to use a damn ice box? Sorry, I had to say that. But on the morning of Thursday, August 4th, they're somehow feeling well enough to eat again. Uh-oh. Watch out. At about 7 a.m., Abby, Andrew, and John share breakfast. When John leaves the house, at about 845 to visit another niece across town, and by a pair of oxen, Lizzie comes down to the kitchen a few minutes later, right before her father leaves at around 9 a.m. Bridget the maid is throwing up, but Abby tells her to get up and go clean the windows outside, because that's her job after all. In that god-awful August heat, then Abby heads upstairs to make Uncle John's bed in the guest room. What's that smell? I don't mind, make the bed. That leaves Lizzie alone downstairs. She says that she spends the next 90 minutes doing the most mundane things imaginable. We're talking, reading, ironing, eating pairs, and then she heads to the barn to look for fishing lures. Just, you know, normal stuff or a bored woman in the gilded age, I guess. At about 1045 a.m., Andrew returns home. We know that's the time, because the door's locked and bolted from the inside. Bridget the maid is still washing windows with a bad stomach outside, when she hears Andrew struggling to get in. So she comes over to help him unlock it, and as she's fumbling with the bolts, she shouts a curse word. "Pissa!" Great curse word, basically, back then it's the equivalent of "Damn it!" But when she shouts it, Bridget says someone upstairs is laughing at her. She can't tell who it is, but she could swear it sounds like Lizzie. Where Lizzie actually is when Andrew arrives home, will come into play later. But when he greets his daughter, he asks where Abby went. And Lizzie says, "Well, her stepmom had received a note that morning. Someone had fallen ill and Abby needed to come visit." The story's short on specifics. And who or where this sick person is, who had delivered the note, or even what time Abby had left the house. But Andrew's either satisfied with Lizzie's answer or still feeling ill, from the swordfish and mutton, he'd rather lie down than ask more questions. So he goes into the same room, folds his coat into a pillow, rests his head, and closes his eyes. Then minutes, Lizzie would call out that Andrew is dead. Hacked beyond recognition with a hatchet, 40 minutes later Abby's body would also be discovered upstairs. She had fallen victim to the same fate. And within days, if not hours, the police are going to make a decision that will define this case for the next 130 years. We're going to stop asking who killed Andrew and Abby Borden and start asking how it could have been anybody, but Lizzie. This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. When I get busy, I like to find all sorts of ways to save time, like meal prepping. Or if I'm being honest, I'm probably actually getting the food delivered, because hey, it's quicker than cooking. You get a way to save yourself some time, at least if you're hiring, Zip Recruiter. Try it for free. At ziprecruiter.com/killers, it's the number one rated hiring site, based on G2, partly because of how quickly it gets the job done. It can find qualified candidates instantly, and a new feature shows you the most interested ones first. You can even see why they want the job first hand. Every time I meet great candidates sooner, with Zip Recruiter, four out of five employers who post on Zip Recruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free. At ziprecruiter.com/killers, that's ziprecruiter.com/killers. Meet your match on Zip Recruiter. Do you remember that thing I said at the beginning of the episode about the famous Lizzie Borden rhyme, but how it gets the basic facts wrong? Well, that goes beyond Lizzie's eventual acquittal. For starters, the murder weapon is more often described as a hatchet, rather than an axe. But more importantly, the song gets the number of wax wrong, by like more than double. When Lizzie calls out that she's discovered Andrew's body, it's 11 a.m., just minutes after he's laid down for an hour. His face has been butchered so severely that the Borden's family doctor can't even recognize him. Andrew had been struck 10 or 11 times with a sharp blade. One of his eyes has been split into two. Now as for Abby, her body is found at 1140 in the upstairs guest room. It took a while to find her, which may seem odd, but remember, this is a narrow house with odd angles, interlocking rooms and no hallways upstairs. It's hard to find something unless you're specifically looking for it. That goes not just for Abby, but also for anyone hiding out in the home, including unwelcome visitors. As for the condition of her body, she's blood so profusely that she bled halfway to her waist. She's been struck 18 or 19 times. If you're counting, that's at most 30 wax total, way short of the 81 from the song. Despite the fact Abby's body is found after Andrews, we know that she's killed first. Summer between 9 a.m. about when she went upstairs to make the bed and 10 30 a.m. when Andrew returned home. It would seem that she didn't actually leave the house after receiving that note that Lizzy tells her dad about. But as for suspects, the police start by looking for an intruder. Someone who may have snuck in, maybe when Lizzy went to go look for fishing lures, and if the killer is wandering around the neighborhood, they should be easy to spot, right? Because it's broad daylight in a busy part of town, and this lunatic would be drenched in blood. But no one turns up, so what do the police do? They do the next best thing they can think of. Rally up some Portuguese immigrants, and guess what? These immigrants are all over southeastern Massachusetts, and usually are used as scapegoat for the Anglo-Saxon elite, so they bring them in, and they question them and wouldn't you know it, they're innocent, totally innocent. So the attention turns to the people staying in the boring residence. One can be ruled out immediately. Lizzy's sister, Emma, who's visiting friends in Fairhaven, Massachusetts about 20 miles away. So what about John Morris? Lizzy and Emma's uncle. And this were a fictional story, John would be a perfect suspect. A family member who rolls into town unexpectedly the day before the killings, who sleeps in the very room where one of the bodies is discovered. John's background even fits what police could be looking for. In a past life, he was a butcher. His looks are also described as pretty severe. He's got a dark beard that goes down to his collar, and they say his eyes are ready to bulge from their sockets. I mean, that doesn't sound not scary. One problem with the John theory, however, he has an airtight alibi. On the morning of the murders, he leaves the boarding house early to buy some oxen and visit his niece across town. John says he doesn't leave the other niece's house until 1120, and his relatives back him up. It's enough to rule John out as a suspect. So that leaves the only two living people confirmed to be in the boarding home at the time of the killings. Bridget Sullivan, the maid, and Lizzie herself. Let's start with Bridget. Police initially suspect her. She's not only an outsider and a lowly servant. She's also an Irish immigrant, and that alone made her suspicious back then. But throughout the investigation, Bridget's story remained steady, and even Lizzie's story gives her an alibi. She says that Bridget was cleaning windows outside with the bat tummy ache when Abby would have been killed. So that leaves just Lizzie boarding. The Sunday school teacher, the doting daughter who loved her father, even as her relationship with her stepmom remained cold. A 5-3, 32-year-old woman, who'd you'd have to believe is strong enough to wield a hatchet and swing it hard enough to pulverize a loved one's face. What we're going to do now is walk through the case against Lizzie boarding. Why the police focused on her? And what the prosecutors and public said about her, how her name became synonymous with these parts. brutal hatchet killings, even though, as you'll see, there's no real evidence against her. The first thing we have to know is there's not even a single visible drop of blood on Lizzie when the bodies are discovered. To think Lizzie killed her dad, you'd have to think that she butchered him around 10.55 a.m. and then cleaned herself up from all the blood and guts and composed herself before she calls out that she's found his body at 11 a.m. So instead of logic and hard evidence, the police are going off something else. Let's say vibes, and that starts with Lizzie's demeanor, particularly with investigators. Anyone who interacts with Lizzie shortly after the bodies are discovered notices she's distraught. A neighbor tells police that Lizzie was pale and frightened when she found her. Lizzie's friend Alice describes her as "dead". At one point, Lizzie becomes frantically worried about something more personal. See, there's a bucket of bloody towels in the basement, but it's not what you think. You see, Lizzie's currently menstruating, and this being the 19th century, the idea of menstrual hysteria could be enough to dam her. Some things never change. But shockingly, the police don't seem to care too much about the towels. I guess it's just a little too uncomfortable for all these men, men's rule, but the police are interested in her behavior. Lizzie's a little more matter of fact with them. Investigators describe Lizzie as "possessing in eerie calmness". She corrects that when they call Abby, her mother instead of her stepmother, which they find suspicious. They also say she hasn't shed any tears or expressed any sorrow. Whether that's true or not, we all know that even today, a woman who doesn't perform grief properly is considered suspicious. It's to the point that, after one officer speaks with Lizzie, he says "and these are his exact words." I don't like that girl. Soon the press would be feeing into that narrative themselves. After Abby and Andrew's funeral, the newspapers cast up writing about Lizzie's attire. She doesn't wear a veil, and her black dress is in made of wool. That goes against the conventions of the day, with the suggestion being that Lizzie's not properly mourning. Then there's a New York Herald interview with another uncle of Lizzie's. This one named Hiram Harrington. Uncle Hiram says that Lizzie has, and I quote, "a repellent disposition." He also offers up a motive. He says, "Money, unquestionably money. If Mr. Borden died, he would have left something over $500,000, and all I will say is that, in my opinion, that furnishes the only motive and a sufficient one for double murder." With uncles like that, who needs a police department conspiring against you? The newspapers also report on another troubling detail. A clerk at a drugstore says that Lizzie came into his store the day before the murders, attempting to buy "prosic acid." He says she wanted to clean a seal skin cape, which may actually be the most horrifying set of words in this entire story. Prosic acid doubles as a poison. The clerk turns her away. You can probably see how this connects. This would have been the same day that Abby says her family had been poisoned. Now someone is claiming that Lizzie Borden attempted to buy poison around the same time. But there are a lot of problems with the clerk's story. Lizzie denies ever stepping foot in that store. Second, the man had never actually met Lizzie before. So how could he recognize her? Third, the autopsy of Abby and Andrew actually showed no trace of poison. So it probably was the swordfish after all. And finally, this is what really gets me. How rich do you have to be to own a seal skin cape? Seriously, that sounds like some Batman villain stuff. Anyways, I digress. It doesn't matter that the clerk's story is full of holes, the papers run with it. The one even saying the story quote has been verified by the highest authorities. By the time Lizzie's called in for an inquest, the week after the killings, the coverage has reached a fever pitch. If you don't know exactly what an inquest is, that's fine. For our story, just know it's basically a hearing where Lizzie and a few other witnesses get asked a lot of questions. It's supposed to happen before charges are filed, but it's clear that the prosecutor district attorney, Hosea Nolton, is gunning for Lizzie. And to put it mildly, the inquest doesn't go well for Lizzie. She trips up constantly, there's a back and forth about the blue dress she wore the day of the tragedy, which Lizzie says she turned over to the police. At one point, Lizzie says she's in the kitchen when Andrew comes home at another. She says she's upstairs. She also can't provide a good explanation for what happened to that alleged note. She says Abby received that day. Lizzie's questioned by district attorney Nolton for three days. At the end, the judge tells her that in the court's judgment, she's probably guilty. To this day, that hearing remains the most damaging evidence against Lizzie. Even if it proves nothing directly and in the immediate aftermath of the hearing, she's served with an arrest warrant and charge with the murders. But there are some explanations for what went wrong at the hearing. Lizzie isn't allowed to have her lawyer present during the hearing, effectively denying her the right to representation. Even more troubling, she's been prescribed a heavy dosage of morphine to calm her nerves. Now I don't suggest this or anyone try this, but I can imagine if you were on morphine, it would be tough for you to remember. If you were upstairs, downstairs around the corner at the soda shop, it's tough when you're on morphine. Not that I would know. Again, no one is on morphine. In the months to follow the inquest, the public gets a lot to chew on. There's a report that Emma and Lizzie are overheard arguing in the Fall River police station, in a way that would seem to imply Lizzie's guilt. But Emma eventually denies that. Then that fall, the 40 wax wine makes its way to every school yard, hitting the billboards at number one. And most salaciously, there's a Boston Globe article in October 1892 that quotes witnesses who say they saw Lizzie committing the crime through her window. It also contains a bombshell revelation that Lizzie's pregnant, it's implied it could be a family member's child. The only problem? Not a word of it is true. Side note, the reporter's name for the story, and I swear I didn't make this up. This is actually his name, Henry Tricky. He got his info from a shady private detective. The Globe retracts Tricky's report almost immediately, so Tricky flees to Canada. And while he's there, he falls under a train and gets crushed to death. This has nothing to do with who killed the boardies. It's just good editing. But back to Lizzie, as all this is happening, she's in jail waiting for official charges. In December, a report emerges about a new witness who provides damning evidence to a grand jury. It comes out that the witness is Lizzie's friend, Alice Russell. And the new info sounds pretty suspicious. She says that she saw Lizzie burn a blue dress three days after the killings. There's nothing confirming that this is the dress Lizzie wore that faithful morning. Still, she's officially indicted following the grand jury hearing. Her trial will eventually begin in June 1893. And I don't want to make a forced comparison, but there's another similarity between Lizzie Bourne's trial and O.J. Simpson's beyond the details I mentioned earlier. Since Lizzie is rich, she's able to put together something of a legal dream team, just like O.J. Lizzie's team is headline by a man named George D. Robinson. A few years earlier, Robinson had been the governor of Massachusetts, like the entire state. Talk about a power attorney. And Lizzie's going to need a good lawyer. The court of public opinion has already been trying her for 10 months. At this point, it's not unreasonable to think thousands of articles have been written about her, everything from her demeanor to her appearance to what type of juice she drank in grade school. But Robinson proves to be worth his $25,000 fee. And then some. He's able to persuade the judge that neither the prosic acid story nor Lizzie's in-quest testimony should be allowed as evidence. Robinson says the acid story doesn't show intent, even if it were true, which he's [BLANK_AUDIO] not conceding, and as for the Inquest interview, it took place under duress. With the so intent of trying to get Lizzy to confess, these two things have been the most damning pieces of evidence against Lizzy, and now the jury will never hear them. The rest of the two week trial also goes pretty terrible for the prosecution, which is again led by district attorney Hosea Nolten, which is the same guy who conducted the Inquest interview, and the closest thing this story has to an antagonist, and the case basically falls apart thanks to the murder weapon, or rather, the lack of a murder weapon. Because to this point, no one has ever produced the hatchet that killed Andrew and Abby, and there aren't many obvious candidates. A hatchet is found on a neighbor's roof months after the killings, but authorities rule it out pretty quickly, and it's never introduced a trial. And the blades that police took from the boarding residence are old and dull, not exactly what you'd expect in this case. While one of those blades does contain traces of hair and blood, it turns out those likely came from a cow. At one point, the prosecution brings out the actual skulls of Andrew and Abby. And when they have a witness, try to fit the blades inside the gashes, the results are inconclusive. Ultimately, the prosecution settles on the Handelless Hatchet theory. Police had found a blade in the basement with most of its wood missing. The idea is that Lizzy broke the handle off and burned it to destroy blood evidence. But a police officer testifies at trial that the handle was actually sitting right there in the box where they found the hatchet. So either Lizzy broke off a handle and then left it next to the blade, which makes no sense or the prosecution's theory is completely wrong. The police officer's revelation elicits an audible gas from Lizzy's lawyer. Oh, even the district attorney is dumbstruck by what his witness has just done. But there's still the matter of the burnt blue dress. The one her good friend testifies about before the grand jury. The one that's never been proven to be the one Lizzy wore that day. It comes up again at the trial. And her sister Emma says it's not what you think it is. She says that the dress was actually cheap, old and ratty, and Emma says she's the one who encourages Lizzy to burn the dress. If that's not enough to clear her sister's name, Emma also provides Lizzy's bank balances and stock holdings to show she had no reason to kill her dad for money. And then she tells the story of the ring Lizzy gifted Andrew, his prize piece of jewelry that he wore every day. So much for the prosecution's greed and hatred argument. When their mother laid dying 30 years earlier, she made Emma promise to always protect her younger sister. And now, when Lizzy needs protection most, Emma's just blown up the prosecution's last piece of evidence and their suggested motive. But in his closing arguments, District Attorney Nolton has one more card to play, gender. To this point, the prosecution has avoided that angle as an explanation for the killings, at least explicitly. Even when the subject of Lizzy's menstruation and the pale of blood towels comes up, the conversation can't end quick enough. But now, as Nolton makes his final plea to the all-male jury, he has to explain how Lizzy could have committed the crimes and destroyed the murder weapon. And he comes right out and says it. Only a woman could have done this. It was pure, unbridled, feminine rage to quote him. "I cannot answer it. You cannot answer it. You are neither murderers nor women. You have neither the craft of the assassin nor the cunning and deafness of the sex." Jeez, brother! The jury doesn't buy it. They deliberate for 90 minutes before they decide Lizzy's not guilty. When Lizzy Borden lives out the rest of her life as a free woman, contrary to what the famous rhyme would have you believe, but there's a reason the song has stuck around for more than a century. Because despite Lizzy's acquittal, no other suspect has ever been tried, arrested or even seriously investigated. From the only thing we know for sure, it isn't for a lack of options. On May 31st, 1893, Fall River has its second brutal hatchet killing in less than a year. Twelve-year-old Freddie Manchester returns home to find his sister, Bertha, splaid out in the kitchen, killed by a blade. It's a brutal scene and an awful, awful coincidence. We know for sure it is in Lizzy this time, first because she's in jail at this point, awaiting the start of her trial, and also because we actually have a conviction in this case, Jose Correa de Mello. We'll eventually plead guilty to a second-degree murder charge and serve 20 years in prison, before being pardoned for reasons that aren't totally clear. Policing says that Jose had nothing to do with the born murders. There's a chance he may not even have immigrated to the U.S. by the time they happened, but a second-hatchet killing case opens a wide world of possibilities into the eternal question, if not Lizzy, then who? Over the year, some out there ideas have been proposed. There's the man Lizzy heard Andrew arguing with about rental property shortly before the killings. Another theory involves a man named Philip Gordon Reed, who claims to be Andrew's illegitimate son. Some people have even suggested Jack the Ripper made a state-psychamiya or a wild man in the woods broke into the boarding house. We may as well throw in the zodiac killer in the boogie man while we're at it, but if we're really looking for an alternative suspect in the killings of Andrew and Abby Borden, we need to focus on the people around them at the time of their death. First, we can quickly rule out Emma, the sister. She was 20 miles away. It's not happening in that time frame, okay? I think we also have to shoot down the Bridget Sullivan theory, too. Even though I'd love to be able to say, "The maid, the maid did it!" Like in clue, Lizzy's testimony puts Bridget outside cleaning windows while she had a terrible stomach gig. At the time of Abby's death, plus Bridget's own testimony remains consistent throughout the ordeal and never raises suspicion. If you think Bridget didn't, you'd have to believe she acted on pretty thin motives, like that she so upset that she had to clean windows or that the family called her Maggie instead of Bridget that she slaughtered Abby and Andrew. But you also have to remember, Bridget actually gets the worst of the food poisoning around the time of the killings. In that shape, could she have possibly swung a hatchet that many times over with enough force to shatter a skull? It's doubtful. Over the years, there has been speculations about Bridget. Books and TV shows have suggested that she and Lizzy were lovers and that Lizzy killed her parents to keep the secret from getting out. There's also been talk of a deathbed confession and hush money. But there's no evidence to support any of that. In reality, Bridget runs as far away from Fall River as she can, the moment the trial ends. She marries and lives a quiet life, refusing to talk about the board and family or anything about the case, even in private company. So that leaves the most interesting remaining figure in our story, at least in my view. John Morse, the uncle who shows up the day before the murders. Morse was actually considered a suspect in the hours after the murders. But remember, John does have an alibi that police consider airtight. He was visiting family across town when the killings happened. And the family can vouch for him. But rumors persist about him to this day. His previous career as a butcher, the timing of the visit, the fact that he stayed in the room where Abby's killed and knows all the hiding places in that strange house with no hallways upstairs. Theoretically, he doesn't need to have been in the house. All he would have needed to do is make a call. And that's an interesting idea that John even once brought up himself that maybe the real killer didn't act alone. Shortly after Lizzie's trial, he gives an interview where he brings up a rumor he had heard that he and Lizzie planned the murders together. out. John says that they didn't do this, but the comment must have been interesting to District Attorney Nolton. A few months before Lizzie's trial, Nolton writes a letter to the Attorney General. In it, he openly admits that there probably isn't enough evidence to convict Lizzie by herself. But he says that it is impossible to believe that she had no knowledge of the crime. In other words, maybe Lizzie didn't swing the hatchet herself, but she knew damn well who did. And if you accept that version of events, maybe this case starts to make a little bit of sense. In the years after her acquittal, Lizzie born lives a strange, mostly reclusive life. She has her share of her father's fortune now, so she moves away from 2nd Street and into a bigger house. Still in Fall River, the Maplecroft mansion. And I think we can assume that this place has more than one flesh toilet. Oh yeah. She begins going by Lisbeth of Maplecroft. She adopts a few Boston bowl terriers, which people see her taking on chauffeur rides. She makes it into the paper a few times for a allegedly shoplifting, but she's never convicted. She also has a close friendship with an actress named Nance O'Neal, which causes a lot of speculation. And for years, on the anniversaries of the killings, the newspapers will run fresh stories, trying to keep the legend alive and sell a few extra copies. For a while, her sister Emma lives at Maplecroft Mansion 2, but in 1905, they have a falling out. A reason for it never becomes public. When people think it's because of Nance O'Neal, Lizzie and Emma never speak again. Yet strangely, they died days apart from each other. First Lizzie of pneumonia on June 1st, 1927, at age 66, then Emma on June 10th at age 76. As though Emma fulfilled her promise to their mother to watch over her sister, no matter what had become of their relationship. Today both of the remains lie next to their father Andrew and their birth mother Sarah. Now I'll admit, I still have some questions about this case. Beyond the obvious one, of course, I still wonder about the note that Lizzie says Abby receives the morning of, but that never turns up. I also think about the strange layout of the house and if a killer could have hidden undetected. There's also the hatchet that's found on a nearby roof months after the killing. Investigators dismiss it as a coincidence, but what are the odds? These things will likely forever go unanswered. Anyone who knows who killed Andrew and Abby Borden is long gone. All we can do is speculate, which we still love to do. Look no further than the new Ryan Murphy Netflix series for proof of just that. But the idea of Lizzie Borden has become almost folklore. If you visit Fall River today, you can take a Lizzie Borden walking tour, or if you're brave enough, you can even stay in the Borden house, which is now a better breakfast. But what endures most from the Borden saga is that Ryan. And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41. We know it gets the basic details wrong. So then why do we still tell ourselves that Lizzie Borden was the killer? Well, because it makes for a damn good story. And if the Lizzie Borden case is proof of anything, it's that even in so-called true crime, people never want to let the facts get in a way of a good story. So on that note, let me leave you with a new rhyme I just came up with. Lizzie Borden took the blame. It's the only reason we know her name. If the jury said you're free to go, so who's the killer will never know? May not be as catchy, but it's certainly a little closer to the truth. [BLANK_AUDIO]