Lizzie Borden took an ax,
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
Producers liked this quite a bit,
Many versions were greenlit
One was truthful, others less so,
And now Netflix has a new show.
Ryan Murphy’s new season of Monster will focus on the infamous Lizzie Borden case from 1892. The season, releasing Thursday on Netflix, is at least the fourth retelling of the case in narrative format, with the story also being covered many times over by documentaries, series and podcasts.
It’s no wonder this case continues to fascinate nearly a century and half later. It reads like the most baffling of Agatha Christie’s mysteries: A despicable crime. A lack of solid evidence. A locked house and limited suspects. It was the ultimate true-crime tale (and one of the country’s earliest), teeming with sexual politics and social class discord. Covered almost instantly by the national media, it has not left our social consciousness since.
I know a bit too much about the Borden case because I grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, not far from where the murders took place. It was a part of our identity as a city. We all knew the nursery rhyme (featured in the trailer and also known to co-creator Murphy since his childhood) and I walked past the house where it happened countless times in my youth, back when it was just a nondescript structure that had been turned into a small printing business. I have read (and reread) countless stories and books of the crime, as well as the bulk of the New York Times coverage of it all at the end of the 19th century.
I thought it was just part of our local lore — until 1975, when ABC came out with a TV movie about the case. The Legend of Lizzie Borden was the first of many adaptations of this tale. The treatment made sense, as the case became a national story almost immediately after it happened. The ensuing investigation and court case were splashed across the cover of every newspaper. The trial was a national media circus way before O.J. Simpson ever stepped foot in a courtroom.
So, what did happen to the Borden family? On Aug. 4, 1892, Fall River socialite Lizzie Borden discovered her father dead in the parlor of their Second Street home. She had their live-in maid Bridget run for help. Sometime later, they searched for Mr. Borden’s wife, stepmother to Lizzie and her sister Emma. They found Abby Borden dead upstairs in a guest room. Both had been bludgeoned in the head with a hatchet. Not just once, but nearly a dozen times each (contrary to the number of blows in the nursery rhyme.)
Mr. Borden had only been home for a few minutes when he was killed, and both Lizzie and Bridget swore that they did not see anyone on the property or entering the house. Suspicions quickly turned to Lizzie as the murderer, even though police were summoned almost immediately and Lizzie showed no signs of blood spatter, on either her clothing or hair.
Despite the lack of any physical evidence, she was arrested and faced trial. Lizzie was eventually found not guilty and lived the rest of her days in Fall River, about a mile from the murder house. At the time of her trial and acquittal, thousands in the city rallied around her and celebrated when she escaped the hangman’s noose. But in the intervening years, public opinion shifted. Lizzie lived under a cloud of suspicion from a growing population that thought she had gotten away with murder.
Why has the case endured for so long? Well, the murders are still unsolved, which has fueled decades of speculation. Lizzie was the one and only suspect. Her acquittal was the de facto end of the investigation. The details of the case were so puzzling as to be almost unbelievable, certainly unsolvable. The quickness of the all-male jury’s deliberations (just 90 minutes) led many at the time to attribute their verdict to a jointly held belief that a woman (especially one of Lizzie’s social status) would be incapable of committing such a ghastly crime.
Conversely, every portrayal over the years has painted Lizzie as being absolutely guilty of the murders.
That 1975 ABC movie, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, was the first to posit that Lizzie, played by the beguiling Elizabeth Montgomery, committed the crimes while stripped naked and cleaned herself up before police arrived on the scene. Except for making the leap to her obvious guilt, this iteration was the most accurate adaptation. In fact, much of the dialogue is lifted directly from her actual inquest and subsequent trial. Montgomery was nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal and the film was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Then 2014’s Lifetime movie, Lizzie Borden Took an Ax, featured Christina Ricci in the title role. Significantly less faithful to the actual events, it was still so successful that it led to a series about the lives of the Borden sisters after their parents’ deaths, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles.
Then 2018’s Lizzie, was the first feature film to cover the crime and took great liberty with the case. It was the first to present a new theory of the murders — that Lizzie and the housemaid were in a relationship and co-conspired to execute the Bordens, each murdering one of them. But Bridget couldn’t go through with it, leaving Lizzie to kill them both. This is also the first to accurately include Andrew Borden’s brother-in-law in the telling. He actually stayed in the house the night before the murders and, in this version, is of questionable character, portrayed as a loathsome uncle who was after the Borden fortune.
I don’t expect Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story to be an accurate historical rendition of the case (and based on the trailers I’ve seen, I believe I am correct.) But a Ryan Murphy version of the biggest crime to ever take place in my hometown? I’m absolutely in.
There is no doubt that this story continues to captivate all these years later. In 1996, the Borden house was converted into a Lizzie-themed bed & breakfast and continues to attract throngs of tourists. I spoke with Borden history specialist Larry LoVerde, who explained that the summer tourist season sees a constant stream of folks who want to spend the night at the scene of that long ago crime. And October is absolutely crazy, with the house giving non-stop tours to folks who love to include the Borden house as a side quest during their Halloween-timed trips to Salem.
At the B&B you can spend the night in one of their many themed rooms, including the very one Abby Borden was killed in. LoVerde says the clientele is mostly split 50/50 between true crime fans eager to see the unsettling scene for themselves and paranormal folks who want to examine the supposed hauntings that have been reported at the house since that fateful day.
This gruesome locale is also available for parties and weddings, although he could only remember hearing of one wedding having taken place there and it was well before his arrival. He did say that the place sees more than its share of proposals. In a house that saw two grisly murders, and is supposedly haunted. Who says romance is dead?
By this point, 134 years after the fact, we are never going to find out the truth behind what happened in that Fall River house on that otherwise calm August day. But one thing is certain, the story of Lizzie Borden will continue to captivate for years and years to come.
Read the full article here
