Thread by @Iron_Spike

WHOOPS, I'm talking second marriages, class issues, and spinsters

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEEEEEEEEANS

Lizzie Borden was the spinster daughter of Andrew Borden, a classic all-American by-the-bootstraps self-made man. His family name was esteemed, but he came from the poorest branch of it, making his own fortune through commerce and thrift.

It was due to that thrift that Andrew, although quite wealthy, refused to live like a wealthy man; he lived in a modest house downtown, close to his businesses, and considered modern amenities like gas lighting and indoor plumbing useless extravagances.

When his first wife, Sarah, died, he remarried in just a couple of years to Abby Durfee Gray, the spinster daughter of a well-off family. It no doubt aided his business prospects, and gave his young daughters- Emma and Lizzie- a minder.

But- no shock here- Lizzie and Emma never really accepted Abby as a mother. The marriage would be the beginning of a civil-but-cold family dynamic in the house.

This isn't to say Lizzie didn't benefit from being the daughter of a wealthy man! She had suitors in her youth, and at 30, her dad sent her on The Grand Tour, which is what society ladies did back then. Very posh.

It also allowed local merchants to overlook Lizzie's RAMPANT AND INCOMPETENT SHOPLIFTING. They would just take note of what Lizzie stole and send Andrew the bill.

Lizzie's stealing was widely-known was impossible to overlook. She stole from stores, she stole from family. So much cash and jewelry disappeared from Andrew and Abby's bedroom that had to start locking it.

At this point, the family wasn't even eating together at mealtimes, and the sisters, Emma and Lizzie, had almost stopped speaking to their stepmother Abby entirely.

But what could anyone do? This was how it was. Spinster life wasn't your own.

All the sisters could really hope for was their thrifty, responsible father was setting aside enough for them to live on after his death. And they probably assumed that was true....

until 1887.

That was the year Andrew gave one of his properties away- fucking GAVE IT AWAY- to their step-mother's sister.

Andrew, the penny-pincher, gave away a HOUSE to step-family.

One of the acceptable ways for ladies like Emma and Lizzie to "make a living" in that age would have been as property-holding landladies; they had probably expected to inherit that house and live off the rental income.

n o p e.

So imagine you're Lizzie- WAY over the hill at 27, no prospects for escape on the horizon. And you're watching your future, who knows how much of it before this would all be over, parceled out to strangers.

Fuck.

I mean, seriously, fuck. FUCK.

Oh no.

Dad, what the hell.

Abby, you fucking BITCH.

Fast-forward to 1892, a few years later.

Dad's getting ready to sign over a small farm to Abby's family, now. Lizzie and Emma leave home after "the disagreement." Emma goes for an extended stay with pals; Lizzie stays at a rooming house in town for a few nights before returning.

Soon after Lizzie returns home, Abby and Andrew start getting violently ill, up all night puking, with violent stomach cramps.

Abby tells the family doctor she believes they've been poisoned; the doctor doesn't believe her.

It was August, after all, and food poisoning was pretty common in the hot summer months; the thrifty Borden family had been nibbling on the same mutton joint for a WEEK. What did they expect?

The day after Andrew and Abby's bout of "food poisoning," Lizzie entered a drug store far from her home, one she had never before patronized, and attempted to buy "10 cents' worth" of what was then called "prussic acid."

Look it up.

The proprietor refused to sell it to her without a doctor's note. Lizzie got angry, claimed she'd "never had trouble buying it before," and stormed out.

(Lizzie would later deny this was her, despite being ID'ed by multiple witnesses.)

later than evening, Lizzie visited a friend Alice Russell, a fellow "maiden lady," albeit one that lived on her own. While there, Lizzie mentioned her believed her family's milk to be poisoned, likely by Andrew Borden's business rivals.

She also told Alice her father often had loud, heated fights with business associates.

"I feel afraid that father has an enemy... he has so much trouble with the men that come to see him."

As she left, Lizzie told Alice she was afraid "somebody will do something."

Andrew and Abby would be dead within 24 hours.

The morning Andrew and Abby Borden died, there were five people in the Borden house.

-Bridget Sullivan, the Irish maid.
-Lizzie.
-Andrew.
-Abby.
-John Morse, a visiting business partner of Andrew's, of whom very little is known to this day.

John and Andrew would leave separately, after breakfast, to keep appointments around town. Bridget would wash window exteriors all morning; several passerby saw her doing so.

Lizzie claims she was doing her laundry inside. We have only her word on this.

Abby, who was cleaning house, was upstairs tidying the guest room when someone smashed in her skull from behind with an axe. The post-mortem physicians would count nineteen distinct blows.

Lizzie, in her version of events, somehow did not hear this attack. She also didn't hear the definitely-not-thin body of Abby hit the floor. In addition, she didn't see anybody, or hear anyone enter or leave the house.

Okay, Lizzie. Whatever.

Andrew Borden returned home near 11:00 AM, finding the front door still triple-locked from the inside from the night before, and having to be left in by the maid. Lizzie mentions to both him and Bridget that Abby had "received a note," and "left to visit a sick friend."

Lizzie also mentions to Bridget that there was sale downtown that day on dress goods, and she should definitely go.

Bridget, however, was feeling a bit sick, and chose to nap in her attic room after her morning chores were finished instead.

Andrew also decided to nap, on the living room sofa. Lizzie claimed she helped him take off his shoes, and folded his coat under his head. She claims she then wandered out into the yard.

So, of course, she didn't see or hear whoever it was that slammed an axe into Andrew Borden's face ten times moments later.

The body, by the way, was found with its shoes on.

Lizzie found (or, y'know, "found") her father's corpse when she came in from the yard. She sent Bridget to fetch the family doctor. Bridget also brought Miss Russell the maiden lady, and another neighbor, Miss Churchill, showed up out of curiosity after seeing all the activity.

Some important notes.

- Lizzie was seen by multiple ppl an estimated 10 minutes after Andrew's murder. The dress she had on was clean, and her hair was dry and neat. This would be cited later, and frequently, as evidence of innocence of such a gory crime.

- Also, whoever murdered Abby and Andrew had accidentally picked THE BEST POSSIBLE FUCKING DAY to do it: All but ONE of the town's cops was out on their annual picnic. The first cop to show up was the most junior, and inexperienced, on the force.

Kid Cop confirmed Andrew as dead, then "searched" the house for intruders... so fucking poorly he COMPLETELY MISSED ABBY'S BODY IN THE UPSTAIRS GUEST ROOM.

After Kid Cop ran off to find more officers-- he was in WAY over his head and had to decency to realize it-- the group of womenfolk comforting a not-at-all-particularly-distraught-Lizzie suddenly realized Abby was nowhere to be seen.

It was at this point Lizzie remarked, "I thought I heard her come in the front door." Miss Churchill went up the stairs and spotted Abby's body on the floor without even leaving the stairwell, when her eyes were at floor level.

Pft. Cops.

Not long after, the rest of the police force arrived, and investigations began in earnest.

- No, Lizzie had not seen the note she claimed her stepmother got, or seen her stepmother leave.
- There were no signs of breaking and entering, nor any blood spatters outside the home.

- No note was ever recovered, and no friend of Abby's was ever found to be sick.
- The murder weapon was never recovered, or at least never reliably established to be so.
- Abby had lain dead for at least two hours before Andrew as murdered.

Sure would like to know how she managed to walk in the front door after you found Andrew if she'd been dead for way longer.

Lizzie.

Anyway, here's the most important bit of evidence.

Or rather, lack of evidence.

Blood-spattered clothing.

You don't axe two people to death and stay neat and clean. That was the heart of Lizzie's defense, later; there was no blood on her. None.

And the police searched the house THREE TIMES, and found no bloody clothing.

However.

After the murders, Miss Alice had decided to stay with Lizzie (and the then-returned Emma) for emotional support. She moved into Abby and Andrew's old bedroom.

And the Sunday after the murders, just three days later, she saw Lizzie ripping up a "stained" blue corduroy dress, and dropping it into the fire under the stove.

Yes, really.

At the time of the murders, Lizzie had been found wearing a blue cotton dress. She says she wore it all day, and she never changed.

But y'know, y'seen one blue dress.....

Anyway.

It was so intolerably suspicious that Miss Alice literally said "I wouldn't let anyone see me doing that if I were you."

Lizzie asserted the stains were paint.

Lizzie was arrested one week after the murders, and entered a formal plea of Not Guilty the next day. The trial would be held in November, and the press of Fall River would Lose It's Goddamn Mind until then, printing and airing every rumor they heard or made up.

Some popular ones:

-Bridget had done it, as the Irish are hot-tempered and violent.
-Lizzie was pregnant by an impoverished man, who had killed her parents for denying him Lizzie's hand in marriage.
-Andrew had a secret bastard son, who had exacted revenge to take his wealth.

And my personal favorite: Lizzie was definitely innocent because No Mere Woman could be so brutal as to hack someone to death with an axe, and certainly not a GENTEEL woman.

Anyway, the grand jury convened in November... and then adjourned, with no indictment issued against Lizzie. No one was really surprised, the cops had nothing.

But then, Miss Alice contacted authorities.

Ten days later, the grand jury reconvened, Miss Alice told her story of the dress-burning from the witness stand, and Lizzie was brought up on THREE (!?) counts of murder.

Yup. Three.

One for Andrew, one for Abby, and... one for the both of them together.

Uh... ok? Whatever.

The trial was scheduled for the following summer.

The Bordens never spoke to maiden lady Miss Alice Russell again.

The trial lasted for most of June. Lizzie spent the whole trial dressed in high mourning. When her father and stepmother's skulls, boiled and cleaned, were presented in evidence, she had a fainting spell and had to be led from the room.

She was pronounced Not Guilty in an hour and six minutes of jury deliberation. Again, no one was surprised. No Borden would go to jail. Not even for murder.

The Borden sisters sold their family home, purchasing the mansion they'd always dreamed of in the wealthy part of town with the fortune Andrew left behind.

In 1905, Emma moved out. Permanently. No one knows why.

Lizzie, declared innocent but shunned by the entire town for the rest of her life, would live out her days alone, except when playing hostess to traveling theater companies, artists, and other fashionable bohemians.

She changed her name to Lizbeth, and died at age 67. She's buried by her parents and sisters (a third Borden child died in infancy).

The family marker is vandalized not-infrequently.

But this is actually Lizzie's- uh, Lizbeth's stone. On the ground, off to the side.

Chaser: A charming little illustration on the back of one of my favorite books on the subject, Rick Geary’s “The Borden Tragedy.“ Buy it as a holiday present for your favorite morbid tween!