Lizzie Borden is a killer of the late 19th century who killed both parents to be incredibly acquitted during the trial. Its history, already part of the mass culture with different cinematographic and serial adaptations, will be the protagonist of the fourth chapter of the anthological saga of Netflix “Monster” dedicated to the pages assassins of history and created by two of the brightest minds of the contemporary serial world: Ryan Murphy and Ian Breannan. But what is the true story of Lizzie Borden? Now let’s explain it to you.
Lizzie Borden: the true story of the killer protagonist of Monster 4
Born in Fall River, in Massachusetts in 1860, Lizzie Borden was a woman accused of brutally killed her father and her stepmother in 1892 with the use of a beekeeper. The protagonist of a famous process was acquitted for lack of physical evidence, despite his guilt was obvious. But let’s take one step at a time.
Who were the Borden: from the saving mania to the second marriage never accepted
The Borden family lived, at the time of the facts, in a Fall River building, a town in Massachusetts. Andrew Borden was the head of the family and lived together with his second wife Abby Borden, the oldest daughter Emma, 42 years old, and Lizzie of 32
Andrew Borden was very rich, he owned lands, farms and banks but despite these belongings who, at the time, were not within the reach of many, was of extremely parsimonous nature. In fact, to earn some more money, he even sold his hens to his neighbors. A behavior that, for lizzie, was unbearable. The girl, in fact, did not have a good relationship with her father, nor with her stepmother. He had never approved his second wedding and still regretted the death of his mother, Sarah A. Morse, twenty years earlier. The same was valid for his sister Emma who could not stand the new father’s woman.
Emma and Lizzie lived together with the parents despite being adult and had resigned themselves to a life as a spinster and without services, despite father’s wealth. In fact, they lived in an uncomfortable house without running water and bathroom that were considered unnecessary expenses by the father. Andrew, then, was so attached to the money that to save money had sold the carriage and the horse, leaving only the pigeons in his stable which were then, in part, stolen. From the anger of this theft, Andrew had killed the remaining pigeons and Lizzie, very attached to those birds, remained very badly crying his death for a long time.
But the anger towards his father grew when he discovered that he had donated a house to his wife’s sister.
The day of the murder: what happened
It was August 4, 1892 when Abbies, the maid and Lizzie were at home. At 10:40 Andrew went home and started reading the newspaper while Lizzie and the stepmother were in their rooms.
At 11:10 the maid felt a terrible scream of Lizzie who had found his father killed on the sofa. The Sullivan when he returned to the doctor and a neighbor who had gone to call the corpse of the stepmother also found at home. Both had been torn with 18 heads of ax for her and 13 for him. After the autopsy it was understood that the woman had died an hour before her husband.
The testimonies of the neighbors immediately erased the hypotheses of strangers at home and attest that the only present were Lizzie and his stepmother. So Lizzie was accused of double murder with the motive for the inheritance. Even the weapon of the crime found in the house and clean brought back to her and the woman had been seen burning a dress, the one worn during the day of the murder which, in fact, was never found.
The process and acquittal
The only accused of the double murder was Lizzie but the defense lawyer, he focused everything on the fact that a woman had never been able to have the physical strength to inflict all those shots of ax, 18 on the stepmother and 13 on the father. Lizzie, after all, was thin, religious and with the only hobby of modeling ceramics, conditions that went in his favor to the trial.
For the lawyer he had to be a monster to perform such a violent act and it was impossible to have been a woman. So, the jury, also given the beliefs of the time that a woman could not be so violent, acquitted the defendant by all accusations.
Three years later the Lizzie trial was accused of stealing two expensive porcelain in an art gallery in Providence and was forced to confess the theft. Despite this Lizzie Borden lived as a very rich with the heritage of the inherited father and died in 1927.
Monster 4: plot, cast, when it comes out
