Lizzie Borden

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Lizzie Borden

Lizzie Borden (born July 19, 1860 in Fall River , Massachusetts , † June 1, 1927 ibid) was an American who was suspected of the murder of her father and her stepmother and then acquitted. The circumstances of the trial and the verdict attracted a lot of media attention. The actual course of events has not yet been fully clarified.

Your life

Lizzie Borden lost her mother when she was two. After her mother's death, her sister Emma took over the upbringing of Lizzie. Lizzie and Emma also had an illegitimate brother, William Borden, who received no money from the father and also had no right after his death. Her father Andrew Borden married Abby Durfee Gray on June 6, 1865. Although the family was very wealthy, they lived a rather spartan way. Lizzie Borden was bothered by this situation because she wished she could live a little more like the rich. Borden's father forbade her to interact with society. She was only allowed to get involved in the church. This ban made Lizzie feel so neglected that she developed hatred of her father.

The murders

Lizzie Borden's murdered father
Abby Borden's body

One of the most famous murders in American history was committed on August 4, 1892. The victims of these murders were Andrew and Abby Borden. Lizzie's stepmother was found murdered in the guest room of the house, lying prone on the floor. Her body had about 18 injuries in the back. Based on the type of puncture, an ax-like object could be identified as a murder weapon . Andrew Borden's body was found on the first floor of the house. It appeared that he had been killed during his afternoon nap. Like his wife, he was also murdered with an ax-like object. When comparing the amount of clotted blood from the two victims, it was found that Abby was killed about two hours before her husband.

At the time of the murder, only the maid Bridget Sullivan and Lizzie Borden were on the property. Sullivan told police that she was sleeping in her room at the time of the crime because she was uncomfortable. Nor did she seem to have had any reason to murder her employers. Lizzie Borden, then 32 years old and unmarried, had a motive, and some of her statements were contradictory. She said she was on the first floor at the time of her stepmother's death and had not heard anything out of the ordinary. When her father was killed, she said she was in the Borden family's barn. However, her second alibi was refuted by the police. It was found that the barn was very dusty and that anyone who entered it must have left marks. Apart from the traces of the police officers who examined the barn, however, no further traces were found.

In the family home, the police found a hatchet that fitted the two victims' wounds. Someone had obviously tried to clean this ax with white ash. Lizzie Borden had also been seen burning a dress with brown stains; she testified that it was paint stains. Emma Borden, Lizzie's older sister, and John Morse, a family guest at the time of the murders, each had an alibi. Lizzie Borden was the prime suspect in these murders as the evidence spoke against her. The day before the act, the uncle, brother of the women's mother's mother, John Morse, visited the house, which was very rare, and there was an angry, nasty argument with the father.

The aftermath of the murder

Lizzie Borden was arrested on suspicion of double homicide. Her three attorneys in court were Andrew J. Jennings, Melvin O. Adams, and former Massachusetts Governor George D. Robinson , who was among the finest and most expensive lawyers . In court, she stated that she was innocent. The jury deliberated for an hour, and Lizzie was eventually acquitted on both counts.

After the acquittal, she changed her name to Lizabeth Andrew Borden , moved with her sister to the "big hill" and used her father's fortune (the fortune amounted to approx. 300,000 US dollars, which is a good 8.5 million US dollars as of today. Dollars) to live the life she'd always dreamed of. The Fall River people, however, ostracized Lizzie for the rest of her life. The Abby and Andrew Borden murders were never fully resolved.

After the trial, attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings secured the handless ax, some bloody pillowcases and kept other items in a Victorian bathtub in his attic. In 2012, some very interesting new artifacts were discovered in this attic: two documents or files that Jennings had collected while working on the Lizzie Borden case, with some interesting facts and information inside. Curator Michael Martins of the Fall River Historical Society therefore relied on descriptions of a grandson of Jennings. Martins published this information in his book Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River .

reception

The case is still present in pop culture to this day and the name of Lizzie Borden is fairly well known. A common American nursery rhyme for jumping rope is:


Lizzie Borden took an ax

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.


The American heavy metal band Lizzy Borden named themselves after the historical model, and the US crime writer Walter Satterthwait wrote two novels in which Lizzie Borden appears as the protagonist. In two episodes of the fifth season of the cartoon series The Simpsons , Borden appears alongside other "damned" such as Benedict Arnold , John Wilkes Booth and Blackbeard as a jury member in a trial of the devil against Homer Simpson, and in the other episode the play " Lizzie Borden ”. In addition, the American band Flotsam and Jetsam processed the murder of Lizzie Borden's parents in the song She Took an Ax ( "She took an ax" ) on their debut album Doomsday for the Deceiver . In the series Warehouse 13 (season 2, episode 12), Lizzie Borden's powder compact appears as an artifact that causes whoever looks in the mirror to kill his loved one with an ax. In the 20th episode of the sixth season of the series Falcon Crest , the series character Melissa Agretti is deterred with the words "Do you play Lizzie Borden?" From frantically with jealousy a door with an ax, behind which she her husband at an intimate meeting a rival knows. She replies with a hysterical laugh: "Lizzie Borden killed the man with 40 blows. When she saw what she had done, it was his girlfriend's turn!"

The opera Lizzie Borden by the American composer Jack Beeson with a libretto by Kenward Elmslie premiered at the New York City Opera in 1965 and was given its European premiere at the Hagen Theater in 1992 .

In 2001, the American toy company Mezco Toyz launched a doll based on Lizzie Borden in its second series, Living Dead Dolls .

Amanda Palmer processed the case of Lizzie Borden in her song Ukulele Anthem in the line of text: "Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks - then gave her father forty-one, and left a tragic puzzle". Palmer uses Lizzie Borden as an example of what happens when people are kept from their inner desires and are not allowed to act out.

In addition, in the 11th season of Supernatural in the 5th episode, Lizzie Borden's ghost is suspected as the perpetrator.

The 2012 film Lizzie has a loose reference to Lizzie Borden and the double homicide.

The American broadcaster Lifetime processed the topic in 2014 in the TV adaptation Lizzie Borden Took an Ax with Christina Ricci in the lead role. This was followed in 2015 by an eight-part mini-series based on the TV film entitled The Lizzie Borden Chronicles .

In the movie Lizzie , released in 2018, the main role is played by Chloë Sevigny . In this implementation, Lizzie Borden enters into a love affair with the family maid.

literature

  • Arnold Brown: Lizzie Borden. The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter , Nashville 1991, ISBN 1-55853-099-1 .
  • Agnes de Mille: Lizzie Borden. A dance of death. Boston 1968.
  • Victoria Lincoln: A Private Disgrace. Lizzie Borden by Daylight. New York 1986.
  • Michael Martins, Dennis A. Binette: Parallel Lives. A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River. Fall River (MA) 2011, ISBN 978-0-9641248-1-3 .
  • William Masterton: Lizzie Didn't Do It! Boston 2000, ISBN 0-8283-2052-7 .
  • Edmund Pearson: The Trial of Lizzie Borden, edited, with a history of the case. 1937 (reprint 1989).
  • Sarah Schmidt: See What I Have Done, London 2017.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FamilySearch. Retrieved November 25, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Lizzie Borden Took An Ax . In: TruTv . Retrieved December 8, 2010.
  3. ↑ Cecil Adams: Did Lizzie Borden kill her parents with an ax because she was discovered having a lesbian affair? . In: The Straight Dope . March 13, 2001. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
  4. ↑ LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AX, BUT NOW THE 'BLOW' COULD BE THE CASE ITSELF WIDE OPEN! - truthcontrol.com
  5. ↑ Stefani Koorey: The Trial of Lizzie Andrew Borden. Lulu.com, 2005, ISBN 978-1-411-64036-8 , p. 1634 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  6. ^ Doctor Gash: New Info in Lizzie Borden Case after 120 Years . In: Dread Central . March 16, 2012. Retrieved March 16, 2012.
  7. ↑ Lizzy Borden. Program of the Theater Hagen , 1992/1993 season, issue 1.
  8. ↑ Lizzie Borden - Living Dead Dolls Series 2. Accessed August 4, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Ukulele Anthem - Amanda Palmer. Retrieved May 10, 2015 .
  10. ↑ movie Checker - Review: "Lizzie Borden Took at Ax" (2014). Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Borden, Lizzie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American murder suspects
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Fall River , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1927
Place of death Fall River , Massachusetts