Lizzie Borden: Family Secrets and a Double Murder Pt. 2

In June 1893, Lizzie Borden stood trial in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for the hatchet murders of her father Andrew and stepmother Abby... and walked free after a jury deliberated for barely ninety minutes. But the evidence her jury never heard, a burned dress, excluded testimony, and a witness who stayed silent for months, has kept the case alive for over a century. This episode follows the investigation, the trial, and the thirty-four years Lizzie spent legally acquitted but socially condemned. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Serial Killers & Murderous Minds to never miss a case! Want all 2 parts of every case all at once? Join Crime House+ and get both parts of each case dropped together on Monday ad-free. Join at crimehouseplus.com http://crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Serial Killers & Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Murder True Crime Stories, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/TikTok: @Crimehouse https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudios https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudiosYouTube: @crimehousestudios https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Crime House.

• 0:41Vanessa Richardson?

  A trial is supposed to answer one question. Did this person commit this crime? But jurors don't walk into a courtroom empty-handed. They bring everything they believe about people, who seems trustworthy, who seems dangerous, and what someone like the defendant is capable of. In June of 1893, 12 men in New Bedford, Massachusetts, had to decide whether a 32-year-old Sunday school teacher had killed her father and stepmother with a hatchet. The prosecution had a motive, a burned dress, and a story that kept changing. The defense had Lizzie Borden herself sitting in the courtroom in black, holding a bouquet of flowers and a fan. When the jury came back,

• 1:26Vanessa Richardson?

  the foreman didn't wait for the clerk to finish asking for the verdict, but Lizzie Borden would spend the next 34 years living with a different verdict, the one the public reached on its own.

• 1:52Vanessa Richardson?

  The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

• 2:07Tristin Engels?

  And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.

• 2:17Vanessa Richardson?

  Crime House exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "try free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Before we get started, be advised, this episode contains descriptions of violent murder, so please listen with care. Today, we conclude our deep dive on Lizzie Borden. Last time, we followed the Borden household up to the morning of August 4, 1892, when Andrew and Abby Borden were killed inside their home in Fall River, Massachusetts.

• 3:02Vanessa Richardson?

  Police found no intruder, and Lizzie's account of where she'd been kept shifting. That night, a drugstore clerk told officers she'd tried to buy poison the day before. Now, the investigation closes in on Lizzie, and the people closest to her have to decide what they're willing to say.

• 3:20Tristin Engels?

  As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like how the people closest to a suspect handle the pole between loyalty and the truth, why a jury in 1893 struggled to picture a woman like Lizzie as a killer, and what it does to a person to live the rest of her life under suspicion.

• 3:40Vanessa Richardson?

  And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a killer?

• 3:48Vanessa Richardson?

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• 5:32Vanessa Richardson?

  On the morning of Thursday, August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were killed in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Only two other people were known to be in the house that morning, Andrew's younger daughter, Lizzie, and the family's maid, Bridget Sullivan. By that night, police had heard a story from a drug clerk who said Lizzie had tried to buy prussic acid the day before. Officers who'd questioned Lizzie also had serious questions about her demeanor after the murders. But if she'd killed her father and stepmother, she wasn't admitting it. The next day, Friday, August 5, Lizzie and her older sister, Emma, offered a $5,000 reward for information about the killer. They also placed an ad in the paper asking whoever had sent Abby the note

• 6:17Vanessa Richardson?

  about a sick friend to come forward. The ad asked for the messenger who delivered it, too. No one ever did. On Saturday, August 6, the family held a private funeral at the house, followed by a brief service at Oak Grove Cemetery. But Andrew and Abby weren't buried that day. Their coffins went into a holding tomb at the cemetery because the medical examiner wasn't finished with them. That afternoon, police searched the house again, including the sisters' closets. Emma later said they told officers to come as often as they pleased and search as much as they could. She said the medical examiner told her afterward that the search had been as thorough as it could be, short of tearing the paper off the walls and pulling up the carpets. That evening,

• 7:01Vanessa Richardson?

  the crowd outside the Borden's house on Second Street was so thick that Mayor John Coughlin's carriage could barely get through. When it did, Coughlin and City Marshal Rufus Hilliard sat down in the parlor with Lizzie, Emma, and their uncle, John Morse. The mayor asked the family to stay inside the house for a few days. Lizzie asked him whether anyone in the house was suspected. She said she wanted to know the truth. The mayor answered her directly, yes. According to the mayor, Lizzie replied without hesitating, "I'm ready to go now." Emma told him they'd tried to keep it from her as long as they could.

• 7:39Tristin Engels?

  So I think Lizzie may have anticipated this. She's been making public pleas for information. She's been asking for the person who wrote the note or the person who delivered it to come forward. No one has. On top of that, she's likely aware of the suspicions surrounding her. Remember, she's been involved in her community for most of her adult life. Communities talk, especially after something as tragic and horrifying as this. So it wouldn't surprise me if the rumors about her, including what she's been alleged to have purchased, had already made their way back to her. So saying she's ready to go may simply be her acknowledging that she knew this was coming. It could also reflect confidence. If she believes she's done nothing wrong,

• 8:24Tristin Engels?

  she may be confident she'll be cleared. Or it could be resignation. She's maybe exhausted from trying to explain herself, dealing with rumors, including those within her own home, by the sound of it, with what Emma said, and continuing to try and reconstruct what happened. And it's also worth considering how someone's behavior changes once they begin to feel like they're a suspect. They may become more guarded or colder or shorter in their responses like this, even more deliberate about what they say because they're aware that everything they do is being scrutinized. And investigators can then interpret whatever changes they have in their behavior as even though, in some cases, it's just simply them being protective.

• 9:08Vanessa Richardson?

  The next morning was Sunday, August 7th. Lizzie's friend, Alice Russell, had been staying at the house since the murders. Late that morning, Alice walked into the kitchen. Emma was at the sink. Lizzie was standing by the stove with a skirt in her hand. Alice later testified that Emma asked Lizzie what she was gonna do. Lizzie answered, quote, "I'm going to burn this old thing up. It is covered with paint," end quote. Emma remembered it differently. She said Lizzie announced she was gonna burn the dress, and Emma told her to go ahead. Emma also said the whole thing had been her own idea. The day before, she'd found the dress taking up space in the closet and asked Lizzie why she hadn't gotten rid of it yet.

• 9:49Vanessa Richardson?

  It was a cheap, light-blue cotton Bedford cord with a small, dark figure, made that spring. Emma said it had picked up paint soon after it was made, when the house was being painted. Alice said she didn't see any blood on it, and it all happened in broad daylight with the doors open and officers in the yard. Alice stepped out of the room. When she came back, Lizzie was by the cupboard, tearing off part of the dress. Alice told her, quote, "I wouldn't let anybody see me do that, Lizzie," end quote. Lizzie didn't answer. The next day, a detective the sisters had hired asked Alice whether all of Lizzie's dresses were still in the house. Alice told him, yes. Then she went to Lizzie and told her that burning the dress was the worst thing she could have done.

• 10:32Vanessa Richardson?

  Lizzie asked her, "Oh, what made you let me do it? Why didn't you tell me?"

• 10:38Tristin Engels?

  So it's generally not a good idea to destroy any possible evidence or engage in any behaviors that could be viewed as concealment if you're a suspect of a crime. But at the same time, Lizzie did not do this in secret. She did it in front of people. And that complicates the idea that she was deliberately trying to conceal something. Of course, she could destroy evidence openly because she believes being casual about it will make it appear innocent. And now she has people to see that and testify to that, especially when you consider that the two people who witnessed it are her sister, the person who's cared for her and protected her since her mother died, and her best friend. And those are the two people left in her immediate environment

• 11:23Tristin Engels?

  that she would have reason to believe would actually testify in her favor. But she could also have genuinely believed there was nothing significant about the dress, too. Especially when we consider that, according to what you shared, the idea of destroying the dress came from Emma. It wasn't from Lizzie. But is that true? Or is that Emma protecting her retrospectively? And her response to Alice, you know, "Why didn't you tell me?" suggests to me that she recognized how burning the dress could be interpreted. So she knew on some level. But did she realize, though, that she did something that made her look guilty? Or did she realize she made a mistake that could expose her? Because that's the real question behind that question, in my opinion.

• 12:08Vanessa Richardson?

  As you mentioned, Emma took responsibility for that idea. So how much weight should we give to a version of events from the suspect's own sister?

• 12:16Tristin Engels?

  Yeah, that's something to really think about. Because like I said, Emma has been caring for Lizzie as a mother figure since their mother died. Lizzie's always turned to Emma like a mother, even when Abby entered the picture. And that can certainly create bias, and it can complicate her objectivity. And that doesn't mean Emma was deliberately overlooking anything or that Lizzie was guilty. But Emma's closeness to Lizzie can cause her to explain things in a way that align with what she wants to believe about Lizzie. And that is absolutely something to consider whenever we take in what Emma's accounts or her opinion or her version of events.

• 12:59Vanessa Richardson?

  On Monday, August 8th, a warrant was drawn up for Lizzie's arrest. Police held off on serving it. Instead, they laid out their case for the district attorney. On Tuesday, August 9th, a closed-door inquest opened in the courtroom above the Fall River Police Station. District Attorney Hosea Knowlton questioned Lizzie over three days. Bridget, Emma, Alice Russell, and John Morse all testified, too. Her family lawyer, Andrew Jennings, asked to be in the room with her as well. He was refused. The inquest would be the only time Lizzie ever told her story under oath, all while she was on morphine. Lizzie'd been taking it since Friday night. Dr. Bowen had prescribed it to calm her nerves, and then he doubled the dose.

• 13:42Vanessa Richardson?

  During the hearing, Knowlton asked Lizzie about Abby. She said they hadn't had words in years. She described their relationship as "quite cordial," then added to clarify, "I do not mean the dearest of friends in the world." When Knowlton turned to the morning of the murders, her story kept slipping. At first, Lizzie told Knowlton she'd been upstairs when her father came home and on the stairs when Bridget let him in. Then she said she'd been in the kitchen. When Knowlton pressed her on it, she said, "I don't know what I have said. I have answered so many questions, and I'm so confused. I don't know one thing from another," end quote. Lizzie also gave Knowlton a fuller version of her barn story. She said she'd stopped under the pear tree in the yard on her way out

• 14:25Vanessa Richardson?

  and picked some fruit up off the ground. She said that up in the loft, she stood at the window and ate three of the pears before she started looking for lead. Knowlton asked why she'd chosen the one place that put her out of sight of the house to eat them. She couldn't give him a reason. Then he asked about Smith's Drug Store. Lizzie said she'd never gone in to ask for prussic acid. She said she didn't even know where the store was. On Thursday, August 11th, the inquest ended. An inquest doesn't decide anyone's guilt, but once the testimony was in, Knowlton and the officials on the case met for about 10 minutes and decided they had enough to hold her. A new warrant was drawn up on the spot.

• 15:07Vanessa Richardson?

  That evening, Marshall Hilliard walked into the room where Lizzie was waiting and told her, "I have a warrant for you." Newspapers reported that she became violently ill soon after she was locked up. The next morning, she was arraigned. Jennings tried to enter her plea for her. Knowlton insisted that she enter it herself. The first time, Lizzie spoke so quietly that the clerk couldn't hear her. So she said it again louder, leaning hard on the first word, "not guilty." She was held without bail and sent to the county jail in Taunton.

• 15:42Tristin Engels?

  There are a lot of concerning conditions here, and they directly affect the reliability of her answers. Because like you outlined, she's been questioned over three days. She's not allowed to have her lawyer. They already have an arrest warrant prepared. And she's taking morphine every night for her nerves. So right off the bat, it seems like they have already made up their mind about her before they've even finished questioning her. They're questioning her in coercive ways. And then we actually really need to talk about the morphine because morphine can be sedating, and it can affect attention, concentration, and memory. We don't know how much of it she was actually taking each night, and we don't know how it impaired her the next morning or the next day.

• 16:27Tristin Engels?

  But today, medication and substances are considered when someone testifies under oath. And in fact, it's one of the first questions you're asked about. Are you taking anything that could impair your testimony today? And this could reasonably apply. Even though this is an inquest, she's not necessarily under oath. But if we actually consider that now in testimony, then we should consider that here because we are really conscientious about the reliability of somebody's testimony. So if she's been taking morphine for her nerves, that indicates to me she was experiencing anxiety and/or distress and possibly sleep impairment. That alone can affect her memory

• 17:10Tristin Engels?

  and the reliability of her testimony on top of the medication. So we have several factors to consider. Not just her acute stress, not just the morphine, but the repeated questioning, knowing she may be arrested after the questioning, the inability to have her lawyer there. All of this compounds. And today, like I said, we pay attention to all of these things. Attorneys object when questions are leading or repetitive. And we look at whether the answers have changed spontaneously or did they change in response to pressure from the questioning? So if I was there and I had seen this, I would be very curious to know what kinds of questions were actually asked of her? How many times they were asked? Were they leading?

• 17:55Tristin Engels?

  I pay very close attention to how she answered those questions.

• 18:00Vanessa Richardson?

  A week after the murders, Lizzie Borden was a prisoner. She would stay one for the next 10 months.

• 18:11Vanessa Richardson?

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• 19:36Vanessa Richardson?

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• 21:41Vanessa Richardson?

  On August 11th, 1892, Lizzie Borden was arrested for the murders of her father and stepmother. Her inquest testimony had been full of contradictions, and three days after the murders, she burned a dress in the kitchen stove. Accounts of Lizzie's time in jail differ. One historian describes a cheerless cell in Taunton, about nine and a half feet by seven and a half. But jails back then employed a matron to look after female prisoners, and another historian says Lizzie spent a lot of her time in the matron's quarters with flowers on the window sill, lace-edged pillowcases from Emma, and meals sent over from a local hotel. Either way, in late August, Lizzie was brought back to Fall River for a preliminary hearing.

• 22:24Vanessa Richardson?

  While she waited, she stayed in the police matron's room at the station. On the morning of August 24th, Emma came to visit. The matron was a woman named Hannah Reagan. She later testified that she'd stepped into a small room nearby when she heard loud voices. She came to the door and saw Lizzie lying on a couch with Emma bending over her. According to Reagan, Lizzie said, "Emma, you gave me away, haven't you?" Emma said, "No, Lizzie, I have not." Then Lizzie sat up, raised a finger, and said, "You have, and I will let you see I won't give in one inch." Reagan said the sister sat without speaking for the rest of the morning. The story made the papers. Lizzie's minister, Reverend Edwin Buck,

• 23:08Vanessa Richardson?

  brought Reagan a statement denying the whole thing and asked her to sign it. She didn't. At the trial, Emma would testify under oath that the conversation never happened.

• 23:20Tristin Engels?

  This goes back to what we were talking about earlier with Emma's relationship with Lizzie. She's been her maternal figure for most of her life, and now Lizzie is in jail and on trial for brutally murdering her parents. Think about the psychological conflict that puts Emma in. She may believe that she's genuinely innocent, but even if she has doubts because of the evidence or the rumors or even what investigators are saying, acknowledging those doubts or accepting them could feel like a betrayal of her role as Lizzie's protector. But also, it has to be difficult for her to reconcile that her sister could be capable of doing this, too. And let's talk about Reagan's account.

• 24:03Tristin Engels?

  She overheard an exchange from another room that she was not a part of. She did not hear what came before or necessarily after either. And if you consider the setting and the individuals involved, it can be very easy to have that influence, how you interpret what you heard or what you think you heard, especially if you have an existing confirmation bias about Lizzie. So we have the potential of missing context and poor source attribution that can affect the reliability of Reagan's account. That does not mean she made this up. But there are conflicting accounts, because Emma did deny that this happened. And I'm very interested to learn what Lizzie was referring to, if that conversation actually did happen.

• 24:48Tristin Engels?

  Because again, also, we have to consider what we talked about with Emma, too, and her interest in, you know, protecting Lizzie.

• 24:56Vanessa Richardson?

  If Reagan heard correctly, what do you think "you have given me away" could have meant?

• 25:01Tristin Engels?

  That's so interesting, and it really speaks to, again, what I was just saying. And obviously, this is purely me giving examples here, but how this is interpreted is highly subjective. Because if you believe Lizzie is guilty, that could be her way of expressing to her sister and her protector that she feels she's given up on her because of what she's done, or that she's no longer believing in her or protecting her. And maybe that's why, after this alleged exchange, Emma's guilt made her deny it ever happened, or that she's turned on her and started to provide details to police that are not favorable to Lizzie. That could also be an indication of that.

• 25:44Tristin Engels?

  I mean, some may even interpret this as a concern that Emma was protecting herself and may have some role in what happened, and Lizzie was taking the weight of it, even. Conversely, if you believe Lizzie is innocent, that could mean that she felt betrayed by Emma for feeling doubted by her at all. All this to say, and these were all just examples that I just came up with, that this could have been interpreted as. It illustrates how easily it is to construct different explanations for the same thing based on one person's subjective, existing belief about what they think of Lizzie. So on that note, Vanessa,

• 26:26Tristin Engels?

  what do you think Reagan meant when she said, "You have given me away"?

• 26:32Vanessa Richardson?

  Clearly, obviously, I wasn't there. So hearing those words and with my little biases, I would... My first thought was, "You've given me away," meaning she knows what she did, and Lizzie is guilty, right? That, you know, "You gave me away, you said what I did."

• 26:49Tristin Engels?

  Exactly, right? And that just illustrates it, just based on, like, if you have a belief about her, then this conversation will fit into that belief.

• 27:01Vanessa Richardson?

  The preliminary hearing ran from August 25th to September 1st. This time, the hearing was public and Eli Benz repeated his story about the Prussig acid in open court. In the meantime, Lizzie's defense had grown since the inquest. The prominent Boston lawyer Melvin Adams had joined Jennings, and the courtroom was packed with Lizzie's supporters, many of them women from The Hill. Jennings asked the court, who was more likely to have committed the murders? A stranger or the youngest daughter, the one bound to the murdered man by ties of love? When he finished, Lizzie's supporters broke into applause. It didn't change the outcome. Judge Josiah Blaisdell knew the Borden family. He asked the courtroom to picture a man in Lizzie's place,

• 27:46Vanessa Richardson?

  found close to both victims with only the story that he'd been out in the barn looking for sinkers. He asked whether anyone would question what should be done with such a man. His voice broke as he gave his ruling. He told Lizzie, "The judgment of the court is that you are probably guilty." By then, the case had become a national fight. The Women's Christian Temperance Union and suffragists rallied to Lizzie's side. The reformer Mary Livermore called her arrest "another outrage committed by the tyrant man." At home, Fall River's newspapers split along class lines. The Fall River Globe, a working-class Irish paper aligned with the mayor, pushed the case against her.

• 28:28Vanessa Richardson?

  The Fall River Evening News, the paper of The Hill, defended her. Then, on October 10th, The Boston Globe ran a front-page story under the headline, "Lizzie Borden's Secret." The story claimed Lizzie had been pregnant and that her father had threatened to throw her out unless she named the man responsible. It claimed people had seen her at the guest room window on the morning of the murders, wearing some kind of hood. It cited 25 witnesses. Almost none of it was true. Within a day, the Globe admitted the story was false and printed a front-page apology to Lizzie. The reporter who'd written the article had paid $500 for the information. The seller was Edwin McHenry, a private detective

• 29:14Vanessa Richardson?

  who'd been working the case alongside Fall River Police, and he'd made most of it up. Historian Cara Robertson has argued that the hoax ended up making the public more sympathetic to Lizzie.

• 29:26Tristin Engels?

  I can absolutely see why that shifted the public's view on Lizzie. They printed a manufactured story that offered this scandalous explanation for her murdering her parents with this unusually high amount of witnesses to support it. That kind of sensational story sells, and it gives the public a motive, supported by witnesses, and a narrative that makes sense, which is what people want when something this horrific happens within their community. But the actual story is that it's false and it was created with the help of the police. They worked together to publicly humiliate and defame someone accused of murder, not convicted, accused of murder,

• 30:10Tristin Engels?

  which is really egregious behavior from trusted authorities. And imagine being a member of the public and learning this. This is the kind of information that today's cancel culture stems from. There is very likely going to be public outcry in addition to overcorrection, which is why sympathy toward Lizzie occurs. And that's understandable in a sense, but that can also affect how they evaluate everything else they hear about her moving forward as well. Because if they're deliberately trying to make her look guilty and they're going to these lengths to do so, working together in this way, then who else is trying to do that? And is she even really guilty at all?

• 30:54Tristin Engels?

  It creates credibility issues, not on Lizzie, on anyone else trying to make her look that way, and that's a real problem.

• 31:05Vanessa Richardson?

  That November, a grand jury began hearing the case. At first, it adjourned without acting. Even the prosecutors weren't sure they could win. Alice Russell had testified at the inquest at the preliminary hearing and once already before the grand jury. She hadn't mentioned the dress at any of them. It weighed on her, though, so she went to a lawyer who told her she had to tell the district attorney. On December 1st, Alice went back before the grand jury and described Lizzie burning the dress. The next day, Lizzie was indicted for murder. Reportedly, the Borden sisters never spoke to Alice again.

• 31:42Tristin Engels?

  And just as we were talking about Emma and her role in Lizzie's life and how that may have created psychological conflict, the same could be said of Alice. Alice was Lizzie's best friend. She had information that may have harmed Lizzie, but she also had to consider what withholding that information would do to her and the case itself morally, ethically, and psychologically. That's a really difficult position to be in. She also may have been telling herself that she misunderstood the situation or the exchange between all three of them and the dress, especially when her recollection of it differs from theirs. But she ultimately decided to come forward, which means something shifted. Sometimes, it's just the anxiety or the discomfort

• 32:27Tristin Engels?

  of knowing that you have knowledge of something that could materially affect something bigger. Or it's fear of regret. Regret is something that a lot of people have a very hard time living with, and understandably so.

• 32:41Vanessa Richardson?

  How common is it for witnesses close to a suspect to hold things back at first?

• 32:46Tristin Engels?

  Common enough that it's anticipated a lot by law enforcement. It's even supported in research, especially if there is a fear of consequences for speaking up or even coming forward in the first place. But when you're close to someone, there's so many psychological mechanisms that can be involved that prevent someone or make it difficult for them to want to come forward with information. There's loyalty conflicts, cognitive dissonance, motivated reasoning, fear of guilt or regret, and more. Those are just some of the more common examples that make it something that's common enough, it's anticipated.

• 33:25Vanessa Richardson?

  The trial opened on June 5th, 1893, at the courthouse in New Bedford before a panel of three judges. District Attorney Knowlton led the prosecution, along with a district attorney from north of Boston named William Moody. Lizzie's lead defense lawyer was George Robinson, a former three-term governor of Massachusetts. As governor, Robinson had appointed one of the three judges to the bench, Justin Dewey. Critics have argued ever since that Dewey favored the defense. As for the jury, the panel was made up of 12 men. None of them were from Fall River. Half of them were farmers, and some had daughters around Lizzie's age. Lizzie came to court in black,

• 34:06Vanessa Richardson?

  tightly corseted with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a fan in the other. One newspaper called her "quiet, modest, and well-bred." On the second day, Moody laid out the government's case. He told the jury Lizzie had resented her stepmother, tried to buy poison, given false accounts of her movements, and burned a dress. Then Moody sat down, and Lizzie Borden collapsed in a faint.

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• 36:04Vanessa Richardson?

  In June of 1893, Lizzie Borden went on trial for the murders of her father and stepmother in New Bedford, Massachusetts. And on the second day, just as the prosecution finished its opening statement, Lizzie fainted in the courtroom. She was unconscious for several minutes before she came to. There's a popular story that she fainted at the sight of her parents' skulls. Newspaper accounts at the time put the faint at the end of Moody's speech instead. The next day, the jury was taken to Fall River to walk through the Borden house, the yard, and the barn. Over the next week, the government built its case. The Borden's maid, Bridget Sullivan, walked the jury through the morning of the murders,

• 36:46Vanessa Richardson?

  the windows, the triple-locking front door, the laugh from upstairs. But she also said she'd never seen a quarrel in the family. She said Lizzie always spoke to Mrs. Borden when Mrs. Borden spoke to her. The physical evidence was thin. A chemist at Harvard Medical School testified that he'd found no blood on any of the axes or hatchets from the cellar. The only blood on Lizzie's clothing was a single spot on a white underskirt about the size of a pinhead. On cross-examination, he agreed it could have been menstrual blood. He also said he didn't see how whoever killed the Borden's could have avoided getting spattered. Then there was the hatchet head. Police had found it in a box in the cellar coated in a white ash-like dust, with its

• 37:31Vanessa Richardson?

  handle snapped off near the head. Prosecutors argued it was the murder weapon and that the bloody handle had been burned. But one officer testified that the broken piece of handle had been right there in the box. Another swore it wasn't. The government couldn't produce it. The biggest blows to the prosecution came from the bench. On June 12, the judges ruled that Lizzie's inquest testimony couldn't be used. They found that she'd effectively been a prisoner when she testified. A warrant had already been drawn up, and she hadn't been warned of her right not to answer. Days later, the judges also excluded Eli Bence's story about the Prussic acid. The jury never heard either one.

• 38:15Vanessa Richardson?

  The defense's case was short. An ice cream peddler named Hyman Lubinski testified that he'd driven past the Borden house a few minutes after 11:00 on the morning of the murders. He'd seen a woman walking slowly from the barn toward the house, and he was sure she wasn't the maid. Two neighborhood boys said they'd climbed into the barn loft that morning before police got there. A local doctor described a pale young man acting strangely on the sidewalk near the house around 10:30. And two men described a stranger sitting near the property the night before the murders. Then Emma took the stand. She testified that the gold ring on her father's finger had come from Lizzie, and that he'd worn it every day and was buried with it.

• 38:59Vanessa Richardson?

  She repeated that the dress burning had been her idea, and she swore the argument Hannah Reagan described never happened. On cross-examination, Knowlton read back Emma's own testimony from the inquest. She'd admitted that giving the sisters the Ferry Street house hadn't healed the family's rift. Emma said, quote, "It didn't, not with me, but it did with my sister after," end quote. On June 19, Robinson gave his closing argument. He reminded the jury that Andrew wore only one piece of jewelry, Lizzie's ring, and that he was buried with it. He told them it was not their job to solve the mystery. Their job was to decide whether this woman was guilty. He also mocked the missing hatchet handle.

• 39:44Vanessa Richardson?

  He suggested the 125 policemen of Fall River go chase it, since it was apparently still flying in the air, a poor orphan handle without a hatchet. Then he turned toward his client. Robinson said, "To find her guilty, you must believe she is a fiend. Does she look it?"

• 40:04Tristin Engels?

  Robinson was appealing to the very stereotypes about women that Lizzie may have felt trapped by, which we talked about in episode 1. She was a respectable church-going woman from a prominent family who was well-regarded by all accounts. And as long as you were these things as a woman, you were considered suitable for marriage. And as long as you were these things as a woman, you supposedly weren't capable of committing such a brutal crime. And certainly not if you were a white woman of a higher social class in 1892, 1893. But statistically speaking, Robinson wasn't wrong about one point. Women are less likely than men to commit homicide.

• 40:47Tristin Engels?

  That doesn't mean women aren't incapable of it, though. And someone's involvement in church or their community, or being higher class and certainly white, doesn't change that either. We also know from research that factors like gender, appearance, attractiveness, and social status can influence jurors. And jurors are community members who are subject to the same societal norms and expectations as everyone else, which is likely why Robinson was appealing to them in his defense. Jurors enter the courtroom with expectations about what the defendant might look like or how they might behave, especially based on what they've been accused of. So think about how often the public scrutinizes whether an accused person cries enough or

• 41:32Tristin Engels?

  doesn't cry, or whether they appear distressed enough when they're, you know, showing on the news, or whether they behave in a way people associate with guilt. For women, it's often about, oh, was she maternal enough? Or that's not how a daughter should act, or that's not how a respectable woman would behave. These judgments can happen automatically without people necessarily recognizing the assumptions they're making. And Robinson was encouraging the jury to rely on those assumptions and biases, using them to his advantage and ultimately to Lizzie's as well.

• 42:11Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, on the prosecution's side, Knowlton knew the odds. By some accounts, he believed a hung jury was the best he could hope for. His closing ran across two days. He urged the jurors to set aside their instincts about ladies. He said, "We must face this case as men, not gallants." Before the jury went out, Lizzie was given a chance to speak. They were the only words the jury ever heard from her. She said, quote, "I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me," end quote. Justice Dewey then gave the jury its instructions. One newspaper called his charge "a plea for the innocent." He told the jurors that Lizzie's good Christian character entitled her to every favorable

• 42:56Vanessa Richardson?

  inference. The jury was out for about an hour and a half. Reportedly, they'd agreed almost immediately and waited so the verdict wouldn't look rushed. When they came back, the foreman called out "not guilty" before the clerk had finished asking for the verdict. Lizzie let out a cry and sank into her chair with her face in her hands. The spectators cheered. Emma and the defense lawyers rushed to her side. Lizzie asked to be taken home. Lizzie was free. And because Abby had died first, she had no share of Andrew's estate to pass on to her own family, which meant Lizzie and Emma inherited it all. They later reached a settlement with Abby's relatives over Abby's own property.

• 43:40Vanessa Richardson?

  Within a few months, the sisters had moved into a large Victorian house on the hill, the neighborhood Lizzie had always wanted to live in. She named it Maplecroft and started calling herself Lisbeth. But Fall River didn't let her forget. Many people on the hill, including members of her church, shunned her. Neighborhood kids pestered her and played pranks on the house. In 1897, a warrant was issued in Providence, charging her with shoplifting. The matter was settled quietly. Lizzie spent more time in Boston and New York, at the theater and around actors. In 1904, she befriended an actress named Nance O'Neill. The next year, Emma moved out of Maplecroft.

• 44:23Vanessa Richardson?

  The sisters never saw each other again. Lizzie Borden died in Fall River on June 1, 1927. She was 66. Emma died nine days later at 76. They were buried in the family plot at Oak Grove Cemetery beside their father and stepmother. In her will, Lizzie left $30,000 to the Fall River Animal Rescue League. She wrote, quote, "I have been fond of animals, and their need is great, and there are so few who care for them," end quote. She also left $500 for the perpetual care of her father's grave.

• 45:01Tristin Engels?

  It has got to be psychologically difficult to have been found not guilty of a crime in a court of law, but remain guilty in the court of public opinion, especially when you have to live among those who still believe in your guilt. That can be very isolating. People can become guarded about their lives, their relationships, and more sensitive to the looks and whispers of others, maybe even misinterpreting them. And that can start to really affect how you trust others and your comfort in your own community, which can be particularly difficult for someone who has once been very active in it. And despite that, Lizzie and Emma chose to remain in Fall River, even though she had the means to now actually leave and start over. And maybe that was psychological reactance, a

• 45:46Tristin Engels?

  refusal to be driven out of the town she's known her entire life, simply because the community wants her to go. But I also find it interesting that she changed her name, because that seems contradictory. Changing her name would seem like she wants anonymity. But if that were the case, she's not going to get that remaining in Fall River. So that makes me think that that was about psychologically distancing herself from being associated with what happened. And her involvement in the theater may be her way of re-engaging with the community in a way that felt more accepting of her. It was less conventional then for

• 46:27Tristin Engels?

  women of her class, so she may have felt like there was less judgment. And it gave her connection, and it gave her an outlet, and maybe that was a form of survival.

• 46:37Vanessa Richardson?

  What do you make of the fact that one of her last acts in her life was paying for the care of her father's grave?

• 46:45Tristin Engels?

  Her father had provided for her up until his death, so this could be an extension of that. It could reflect her love for him, or her attachment to him, or a sense of obligation, or wanting to preserve his dignity and the family's legacy. But I do find it interesting that she made this provision only for him and not Abby. We know there had been tension between Lizzie and Abby, and that there was a rift in the family. Things also became tense with Abby's relatives after the trial. And it's possible, and in fact, probably more likely, that Abby's family was already handling the care of her grave from that point on. So I wouldn't automatically assume that Lizzie was deliberately excluding her,

• 47:27Tristin Engels?

  but it does seem as though she didn't feel an obligation to Abby, and never really did, and had no attachment to her. Also, people can continue their love and attachment to someone even after killing them, if people believe she did. And those feelings don't necessarily disappear after someone committed a violent act against them, even if that does seem counterintuitive. Andrea Yates is an example of that. I don't know what motivated Lizzie. It could have been, ah, she wanted to keep up appearances, especially if she's going to maintain living in the same community, and she may wanted to keep up their reputation. But I think it tells us more about the complexity, I think, of family relationships, and just the attachments we hold even after death.

• 48:13Vanessa Richardson?

  No one else was ever charged with the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. That left room for theories. Some writers have pointed to others in the household. In crime author Ed McBain's 1984 novel, he imagined Lizzie killing Abby after being caught in an affair with Bridget. That same year, writer Frank Spearing argued that Emma could have slipped back from Fairhaven to commit the murders. Others have looked hard at John Morse, whose account of his mourning was unusually precise. In 1991, author Arnold Brown named a supposed illegitimate son of Andrew's. Researcher Leonard Rabello later found that this man was not Andrew's son. None of these theories rests on hard evidence.

• 48:56Vanessa Richardson?

  Most historians who studied the case find the evidence against Lizzie compelling. In 1974, Massachusetts Judge Robert Sullivan reviewed the record and concluded she was guilty, and that a judge sympathetic to her defense had helped free her. Others have tried to explain why she might have done it. In 1967, Fall River native Victoria Lincoln suggested Lizzie had a form of temporal lobe epilepsy that left her in altered states. Later, researchers have called that theory unsubstantiated. Some scholars have raised the possibility of abuse in the Borden home. There's no direct evidence of it. Bridget Sullivan eventually moved west to Montana, where she married and lived for decades.

• 49:37Vanessa Richardson?

  She died in Butte in 1948. As far as the record shows, she never publicly changed her story.

• 49:45Tristin Engels?

  I think part of what keeps people interested in this case is that we have just enough information to explain what happened, but not enough to know actually what's true and what's not. And we're viewing it from a more modern lens retrospectively. And when I see cases like these, I think about a lot of factors likely were not considered, because maybe they didn't exist back then, but especially from my perspective, that may have altered things or given more clarity if they did exist back then. Because without that, without certainty, people will fill in the blanks with theories. And they keep establishing new or evolving theories. And somewhere along the way, they can start being treated as

• 50:27Tristin Engels?

  facts. Once you've developed a theory about Lizzie, it's very easy to interpret everything else through that theory. If you believe she's guilty, her behavior looks calculated. She's inconsistent and deceptive. And even her decision to care for her father's grave has some guilty meaning to it. And if you believe she's innocent, then all of her behavior is about shock and confusion or affection. The only thing that's changed is the interpretation, really. And so what brings us to the question that we always seek to ask, and that's what makes a killer, and what makes a killer here in the Lizzie Borden case? And the reality

• 51:11Tristin Engels?

  is, I can't give you a psychological profile of Lizzie Borden as a murderer, because she was acquitted. She never confessed. She was never found guilty. We can discuss possible motives. They're definitely there. We examined her relationships. We talked about the social expectations she lived under, and the circumstances that may have contributed to the resentment or conflict within the family. We can also discuss the psychological mechanisms that sometimes contribute to violence within families, especially one like hers. But we don't know that this was actually happening with Lizzie or within her family, or that they caused her to kill anyone when she was ultimately found not guilty of it. And we may never

• 51:55Tristin Engels?

  know who killed Andrew and Abby Borden for certain. And sometimes, unfortunately, the most accurate conclusion we can reach is just acknowledging and accepting that we may never know.

• 52:09Vanessa Richardson?

  Through all the theories, the people at the center of this story are easy to lose. Andrew Borden worked his way from the furniture and undertaking businesses to the boards of Fall River's banks and mills. He wore one piece of jewelry, a gold ring from his younger daughter, and he was buried with it. Abby Borden was 64. She'd been stepmother to Andrew's daughters for 27 years. When her half-sister was about to lose her home, Abby made sure she kept it. On her last morning, she made up the guest room for company and asked for the windows to be washed. They're buried side by side at Oak Grove Cemetery in the plot Lizzie paid to keep up. The rhyme that made this case famous has outlived

• 52:53Vanessa Richardson?

  everyone in it. It goes, "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41." So it gets the number of blows wrong. Abby was struck 19 times, and Andrew about 10. And it never says Abby's name. It only calls her Lizzie's mother. That was a word Lizzie had stopped using five years before Abby died.

• 53:32Tristin Engels?

  Before we get out of here, it's time for The Engels Angle, where I'll tell you three pieces of advice I'd give our subject if they were my patient. This is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is general psychological commentary, not therapy, treatment, diagnosis, or individualized mental health advice, and it does not establish a psychologist-patient relationship. With those ethical disclaimers out of the way, here's what I'd tell Lizzie Borden if she came into my office. Now, we know that Lizzie was acquitted of murder, but here are some things that I identified for Lizzie. Number one, control your resentment before it controls you.

• 54:15Tristin Engels?

  Lizzie, there seemed to be a lot of resentment around your stepmother and your father's financial decisions and your standing within the home. I'd want to know what in particular you felt most threatened by, if you expressed that to anyone, and what, if anything, was done. Because when you begin resenting someone and you don't address it, you can get tunnel vision. Everything that person does builds more resentment, and everything they do, you become sensitive to. Even ordinary or completely innocent comments or mannerisms can become evidence to you that you're somehow being treated unfairly, even when you're not.

• 54:56Tristin Engels?

  I would recommend that you recognize those patterns if they're happening and find healthier ways to address the conflict within and challenge irrational thinking. Number two, your independence cannot depend entirely on other people. Now, I know that's easier said than done in 1892, and the opportunities available for women are limited compared to what they are today, but I would encourage you to explore what choices you actually have. What would life outside of that house look like? What resources, relationships, or opportunities might help you establish some independence? Because if you feel trapped, if you don't want marriage, or you're discouraged that

• 55:41Tristin Engels?

  it hasn't happened for you or your sister yet, then it's worth examining what options are available. There are women who have built independent lives without husbands or family financial support. Find them, talk to them, learn how they've made it work, and then find a way for you and Emma to apply it to yourselves. Number three, learn to tolerate things when they don't go how you want. We cannot control people or their decisions. It's truly tragic that you lost your mother so young, and blended families are difficult to navigate. Not all blended families are cohesive, and the unfortunate truth is that family relationships

• 56:25Tristin Engels?

  often never look the way we wish they did. And that's why it's important that you learn to understand when you're disappointed, why you're disappointed, when you're frustrated and why you're frustrated, and what to do with those feelings. You don't have to like your circumstances, and you certainly don't have to pretend you're happy with your circumstances, but you do have to figure out how to respond to them in ways that don't make your life worse. And sometimes that means accepting that other people are entitled to make decisions you don't agree with, or they're entitled to things before you are, even when those decisions affect you personally on some level. And that's it for this episode of Engels Angle.

• 57:08Tristin Engels?

  Thank you for joining me, and I'll see you on all social media in the comments.

• 57:24Vanessa Richardson?

  Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time for a deep dive into the mind of another murderer.

• 57:30Tristin Engels?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at @CrimeHouse. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

• 57:53Vanessa Richardson?

  And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team: Max Cutler,

• 58:34Vanessa Richardson?

  Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pritzowski, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Mara De La Rosa, Claire Swartzlander, and Kerry Murphy. Thank you for listening.

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• 1:00:34Vanessa Richardson?

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