Halloween Special - "LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE: THE TRIAL THAT LET A KILLER GO FREE"

0:03 Calarogu Shark Media. Good morning, I'm read Carter. Friday, October thirty first, twenty twenty five, Halloween. Everyone knows the rhyme Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whax. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty one cute, catchy Wrong, It wasn't forty whax. Andrew Borden's skull was crushed by eleven blows. His wife, Abby took seventeen or eighteen, depending on which medical examiner you believe. And Abby wasn't Lizzie's mother, She was her stepmother, the woman Lizzie hated. But the rhyme captured something true.

0:48 Lizzie Borden probably murdered her father and stepmother with an axe on August fourth, eighteen ninety two, in Fall River, Massachusetts, and she got away with it. Here's what makes this case perfect for Halloween. The Lizzie Borden House, ninety two Second Street, Fall River still stands Victorian gothic, three stories, white clapboard, black shutters. The rooms where Andrew and Abbey died are exactly as they were in eighteen ninety two. It's a bed and breakfast. Now you can sleep in Lizzie's room. You can eat breakfast in the dining room where Andrew's body was found. You can walk up the stairs Lizzie walked down, covered in her parents' blood, allegedly.

1:28 And on Halloween, every room is booked. Ghost hunters, true crime tourists, people who want to spend the night where two people were butchered with an axe. Some say you can hear footsteps. Some say you see a woman in victorian dress. Some say you feel cold spots where the bodies fell. I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe in evidence, and the evidence says Lizzie Borden murdered her father and stepmother, burned her blood soaked dress, lied to police, changed her story multiple times, and convinced an all all male jury she was too refined, too feminine, too proper to commit murder. She was thirty two years old when they died, lived off their money for another thirty five years, died in nineteen twenty seven at age sixty six, wealthy, comfortable, free, never confessed, never showed remorse, never explained what happened that August morning. I'm reed, Carter, this is celebrity trials today, the murders, the investigation, the trial, the acquittal, and why Lizzie Borden, Spinster Sunday school teacher, proper Victorian lady probably took an act to her parents and got away with it.

2:40 Happy Halloween. Fall River, Massachusetts, eighteen ninety two. Textile milltown, working class. Wealthy mill owners lived on the hill. Everyone else lived downtown. Andrew Jackson Borden lived at ninety two Second Street, down town, not on the hill, even though he could afford it. Andrew was seventy years old, self made man, undertaker turned real estate investor, owned rental properties across Fall River. Served on bank boards worth approximately half a million dollars about fifteen million in today's money. He was cheap, refused to install indoor plumbing, no gas lighting, used kerosene lamps, didn't heed bedrooms in winter, penny pincher miser.

3:33 His family lived in a house worth far less than what he could afford. He'd been married twice. First wife, Sarah, died in eighteen sixty three, left him with two daughters, Emma Leonora born eighteen fifty one and Lizzie Andrew born July nineteenth, eighteen sixty, Andrew married Abby Durfey Gray. Abby was thirty six, never married before, probably relieved to finally find a husband, took on raising Andrew's two daughters, Emma and Lizzie, hated her, called her missus Borden, never called her mother or stepmother to her face, refused to accept her as family. By eighteen ninety two, Emma was forty one, unmarried, lived at home, no prospects, bitter. Lizzie was thirty two, also unmarried, no prospects, Sunday school teacher at Central Congregational Church, secretary treasurer of Christian Endeavor Society, Charitable Work Proper, Victorian spinster.

4:35 But tension cracked the house apart. Andrew had given Abby's sister a house years earlier, Abby's family, benefiting from his wealth. Emma and Lizzie were furious. They saw it as their inheritance being given away to Abby's relatives. Andrew tried to smooth things over gave Emma and Lizzie a rental property, but the damage was done. The sisters stopped eating meals with Andrew, and Abbey barely spoke to them. The house became two households under one roof the layout matters. Three stories. First floor sitting room where Andrew would die, dining room, kitchen, second floor, Lizzie's room, guest room where Abbey would die, Andrew and Abbey's room, third floor, Emma's room in the maid's room. Bridget Sullivan, the livin' Irish maid, kept the house running, cooked, cleaned, witnessed the family's dysfunction. Everyone called her Maggie, the name of the previous maid. The Bordens couldn't be bothered to learn her actual name. By August eighteen ninety two, the house was unbearable. Emma had left for a two week visit to friends in fair Haven.

5:45 Escaped the tension, left Lizzie alone with Andrew, Abby, and Bridget. August second, eighteen ninety two, two days before the murders, the entire household got violently ill, vomiting diarrhea, food poisoning or poison. Abby went to the doctor, told him she thought someone was trying to poison them. The doctor dismissed it. Probably bad food happens. August third, eighteen ninety two, Lizzie went to the pharmacy tried to buy prussic acid hydrogen cyanide, extremely poisonous. Told the pharmacist she needed it to clean a sealskin cape. The pharmacist refused to sell it to her, too dangerous, required a witness and documentation. Lizzie left empty handed.

6:32 That afternoon, Lizzie visited her friend Alice Russell. Told her she was worried, said she had a premonition something terrible was going to happen. Said she felt like Andrew had enemies, that someone might hurt him, that the house wasn't safe. Alice tried to reassure her, probably just stress, but Lizzie insisted something bad was coming. August fourth, eighteen ninety two. The something bad arrived, Make it make sense. The whole family gets mysteriously ill. Abby thinks someone's poisoning them. Lizzie tries to buy poison, then tells her friend she has a premonition of violence. Twenty four hours later, Andrew and Abbey are dead. Either Lizzie was psychic, or she knew what was coming because she planned it. The murders ten minutes.

7:21 August fourth, eighteen ninety two, Thursday, hot, mid nineties, no air conditioning, windows open, trying to catch a breeze. The morning started normally Andrew left around nine am to run errands, check his properties, visit the bank, his usual routine. Abby was home upstairs in the guest room making the bed. Bridget was washing windows outside. Lizzie was somewhere. Her story kept changing about where she was that morning. Around nine thirty am, Abby was in the guest room. Someone came up behind her, raised a hatchet, small axe, and brought it down on her head seventeen blows some sources say eighteen.

8:05 Medical examiner counted carefully seventeen distinct strikes to Abby's head, crushed her skull, shattered the bone, brain matter, exposed, blood everywhere. Abby fell forward, faced down between the bed and the dresser. Blood pooled around her head, soaked into the floorboards. The killer kept swinging even after she was dead, kept hitting, kept crushing. This wasn't just murder, This was rage, This was overkill, This was personal. The killer left Abby's body there, stepped over the blood, left the guest room, closed the door, went downstairs, cleaned up, changed clothes, hid the weapon. Waited ten thirty am. Andrew returned home. Tried his key. Door was locked from inside unusual triple locked. He couldn't get in, started knocking. Bridget upstairs heard the knocking, came down to let it men. As she unlocked the door, she heard Lizzie laugh upstairs on the landing, watching Bridget struggle with the locks. Laughing. Andrew came inside, sat in the sitting room, removed his shoes, lay down on the sofa for a nap common for him after running errands in the heat.

9:20 Bridget asked if she could go upstairs to her room, feeling unwell, still recovering from whatever made everyone sick two days earlier. Lizzie said yes. Bridget went to her third floor room, lay down, Andrew fell asleep on the sofa. Sometime between ten forty five am and eleven am, someone approached Andrew while he slept, raised the hatchet brought it down on his head eleven blows. The first struck his eye went so deep it cut through the socket, split the bone, destroyed the eyeball. The other ten crushed his skull, pulverized bone, brain matter splattered on the wall behind the sofa. One blow split his face in half, left side, completely separated from right. Medical examiner noted the extreme violence. Andrew never woke up, never defended himself, died in seconds, blood everywhere on the walls, on the floor, on the sofa, Andrew's face unrecognizable, destroyed. Eleven ten am, Lizzie called upstairs to Bridget. Maggie, come down quick. Father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him. Bridget rushed downstairs, saw Andrew's body, the blood, the destruction, started screaming. Lizzie told her to go get doctor Bowen, their neighbor. Bridget ran across the street.

10:42 Doctor Bowen wasn't home, his wife sent a messenger to find him. Lizzie told Bridget to go get Alice Russell too, Lizzie's friend from the day before, the one she'd told about her premonition. Bridget ran to Alice's house. Then Lizzie remembered, or pretended to rememb Abby told someone, Adelaide Churchill, another neighbor who'd rushed over, that Abby had received a note that morning someone was sick needed help. Abby left to tend to them. I thought I heard her come back in check upstairs. Adelaide and Bridget went upstairs, opened the guest room door, found Abby face down, blood dried. She'd been dead for an hour and a half, maybe longer.

11:28 Cold to the touch. Two bodies ninety minutes apart, same weapon, same method, same house. Doctor Bowen arrived, examined both bodies, pronounced them dead. Nothing to be done. Police arrived started investigating. Everyone assumed it was an intruder. Someone broke in, murdered Andrew, maybe Abby surprised them or vice versa. But then they started asking questions and Lizzie's story fell apart. Where was she when Andrew was murdered? First she said she was upstairs, then said she was in the barn looking for fishing sinkers, then said she was in the kitchen, then back to the barn, four different locations. Why didn't she hear anything?

12:13 Andrew was murdered violently, eleven blows. Blood splattered everywhere. The couch was fifteen feet from where she claimed to be. No screams, no sounds, nothing, Where was the weapon? Police searched the house found two hatchets in the basement. One had been cleaned recently, looked like someone tried to remove blood. The handle had been broken off. Suspicious. What about Abby's note, the one calling her away that morning, the note saying someone was sick and needed help. Police asked for it. Lizzie said Abby must have taken it with her, but Abby never left. She died upstairs. No note was ever found because it never exists. Did what was Lizzie wearing?

13:02 She said a blue dress, house dress. Witnesses saw her in different dresses. Her stories didn't match, and the kicker. Three days after the murders, Lizzie burned a dress in the kitchen stove. Said it had paint on it was ruined. Burned it while Alice Russell watched. Alice was horrified, told her not to. Lizzie did it anyway, burned evidence destroyed the dress she was probably wearing when she murdered her father and stepmother. August eleventh, eighteen ninety two, one week after the murders, Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged with three counts of murder Abby Borden, Andrew Borden and both together.

13:43 She pleaded not guilty, maintained her innocence, said police were framing her because they couldn't find the real killer. Make it make sense. Lizzie tries to buy poison the day before, has a premonition of violence. Next day, both parents are murdered with a hatchet. While she's the only other person in the house claims she didn't hear anything, changes her story multiple times, makes up a fake note to explain Abbey's whereabouts. Burn's address three days later. Either the most unlucky innocent person in history or guilty as hell. We'll be right back with the trial of Lizzie Borden June eighteen ninety three, New Bedford, Massachusetts. All male jury, Victorian gender bias, and an acquittal that let a murderer go free.

14:39 The trial ten minutes June fifth, eighteen ninety three, Superior Court of Bristol County, New Bedford, Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus Lizzie Andrew Borden. Trial moved from Fall River to New Bedford. Too much publicity, too many opinions, jurypool contaminated, fair trial, required a change of venue. Three judges presided, Chief Justice Albert Mason, Associate Justices Caleb Blodgett and Justin Dewey. Massachusetts allowed multi judge panels for major cases. The jury twelve men, all white, all middle class, are wealthy, seven farmers, one real estate agent, one mason, one machinist, one photographer, one retired, not a single working class man. Not a single mill worker, not a single person who could relate to Andrew Borden's cheapness or Lizzie's resentment. Women couldn't serve on juries, women couldn't even vote. This was eighteen ninety three.

15:43 Victorian America. Gender roles were rigid. Women were delicate, refined, incapable of violence, especially wealthy white women. That would be Lizzie's entire defense. JOSEA. Nolton, District attorney for Bristol County, prosecuted strong case circumcis stantial but overwhelming. No eye witnesses rare in murder cases, but motive, opportunity, behavior all pointed to Lizzie. Andrew Jennings and George Robinson defended Lizzie. Robinson was former governor of Massachusetts, connected, respected, perfect choice to humanize Lizzie. Opening statements Knowlton laid out the commonwealth's case.

16:23 Lizzie had motive, hated Abbey, resented her father's control, wanted inheritance, wanted freedom. Lizzie had opportunity. Only person home besides Bridget. Bridget was upstairs when Andrew died. No one else entered the house, doors were locked. Lizzie's behavior after the murders was suspicious, contradictory stories, fake note about Abby burning the dress, showing no emotion. Robinson encountered the Commonwealth has no evidence, no bloody weapon connected to Lizzie, no eye witnesses, no confession, just speculation. The prosecution wants you to convict a respectable Christian woman because they can't find the real killer. Then came the witnesses. Bridget Sullivan, the maid, testified about the morning Andrew coming home, Lizzie calling her downstairs, finding the bodies.

17:18 She couldn't say definitively where Lizzie was when Andrew died, hadn't seen her, didn't hear screams or struggles. Doctor Bowen testified about the bodies, described the injuries eleven blows to Andrew, seventeen to Abby, extreme violence, overkill rage. Medical examiner doctor William Dolan testified about the autopsies. Confirmed Abby died first, at least ninety minutes before Andrew. Confirmed the same weapon used for both small hatchet narrow blade. Police officers testified about searching the house, finding two hatchets in the basement, one recently cleaned handle broken off, suspicious Alice Russell, Lizzie's friend testified the hardest testimony for the defense. Alice described Lizzie visiting her the day before the murders, the premonition, the warning something bad would happen. Then three days later, watching Lizzie burn the dress. I said, Lizzie, I wouldn't let anybody see me do that. She said, why not, It's got paint on it. Then she burned it anyway, devastating.

18:26 Lizzie destroyed evidence in front of a witness, and Alice, her friend, told the truth on the stand. The prosecution rested strong circumstantial case, but circumstantial. Nonetheless, everything pointed to Lizzie, but no one saw her do it. Now the defense had to explain it all away. George Robinson gave the closing argument for the defense masterclass in Victorian gender manipulation. Gentlemen, you are asked to believe that this woman, this Christian woman, this Sunday school teacher, this daughter who can cared for her father, took a hatchet and destroyed her parents. Is that reasonable? Is that possible? Have you ever known a woman capable of such brutality? He reminded them, Lizzie was wealthy, educated, proper, from a good family, active, in church charitable work, refined feminine.

19:19 If she wanted her parents dead, wouldn't she use poison? Isn't that what women do? Women don't bludgeon, women don't swing axes, women don't crush skulls. That's men's violence. Lizzie Borden couldn't have done this. She's a woman, he pointed out. The prosecution had no weapon. Yes, there were hatchets in the basement, but none conclusively proved to have Lizzie's blood or fingerprints on them. He dismissed the burned dress, said she burned it because it had paint stains. Nothing suspicious about disposing of ruined clothing, He explained away the inconsistent stories, said Lizzie was in shock, traumatized. Who could think clearly after finding your father's skull crushed? The Commonwealth wants you to convict because they have no one else to blame.

20:09 They failed to find the real killer, so they're scapegoating an innocent woman, a woman who has lost her parents, a woman who needs your mercy. Knowlton, in his closing for the prosecution, tried to counter reminded the jury of the evidence, the timeline, the opportunity, the motive, the behavior after the murders, no intruder entered that house. The doors were locked. Only four people were home, Andrew, Abbey, Bridget, and Lizzie. Andrew and Abby are dead. Bridget was upstairs. That leaves Lizzie. The evidence points to her. The behavior confirms it. She is guilty, but he was fighting Victorian gender norms. The jury looked at Lizzie small, refined proper crying, and couldn't imagine her swinging a hatchet. June twentieth, eighth, eighteen ninety three, the jury deliberated how long one hour, sixty minutes, that's all it took. They returned to the courtroom.

21:08 Judge Mason asked for the verdict, not guilty. The courtroom erupted cheers, applause. Lizzie fainted or pretended to faint. Women in the gallery wept with relief. Lizzie Borden walked out of the courthouse a free woman, acquitted of three counts of murder. She never testified. Massachusetts law at the time didn't require defendants to take the stand. Smart move. Cross examination would have destroyed her. Make it make sense. All the evidence pointed to Lizzie. The timeline the opportunity, the lies, the burned dress, the premonition the day before, and the jury said not guilty in one hour. Why because she was a woman, a wealthy white woman, a proper Victorian lady.

21:56 And the jury couldn't reconcile that image with brutal aximer your tax dollars at work. A killer walked free because of gender bias. Lizzie Borden was acquitted June twentieth, eighteen ninety three. Free to go, free to live off her inheritance, free to stay in Fall River, and stay she did. Most people expected her to leave. The town, believed she was guilty, whispered about her, avoided her, called her a murderer behind her back. Why would she stay? Because she inherited everything. Andrew's estate was divided between Lizzie and Emma.

22:39 Each received approximately two hundred and fifty thousand dollars about seven and a half million today. Lizzie was rich and she wasn't going to let gossip drive her away. She bought a large house on the hill, the wealthy section of Fall River where Andrew had refused to live. Mansion with indoor plumbing, gaslighting, heat in every room. Everything. Andrew had denied her. She named it Maplecroft, lived there with Emma until nineteen oh five. Then Emma moved out. Later told people she couldn't live with Lizzie anymore, couldn't stand the guilt, or the suspicion, or whatever she knew. Lizzie lived at Maplecroft until her death. Hosted parties, invited actresses from Boston theater productions, collected art, lived lavishly, spent Andrew's money freely. The town shunned her former friends crossed the street to avoid her. Churches denied her membership, charities refused her donations. She was a pariah, but she didn't care, or pretended not to. Lived exactly as she pleased. No husband, no father controlling her, financial freedom, social isolation, sure, but freedom.

23:50 She died June first, nineteen twenty seven, sixty six years old, pneumonia. Left her estate to animal charities. Always loved animals, some say, more more than people. Emma died nine days later June tenth, nineteen twenty seven, seventy six years old. Fell downstairs, broke her hip. Never recovered. Sisters, estranged for twenty years, died within days of each other. Neither ever confessed neither ever explained what happened. August fourth, eighteen ninety two. The house at ninety two Second Street became a museum in the nineteen nineties, then a bed and breakfast. You can sleep in Lizzie's room, eat breakfast where Andrew died, walked the stairs where blood pooled after Abbey was murdered. Every room decorated as it was in eighteen ninety two, Victorian furniture, period wallpaper, gaslight replicas. The house frozen in time, a monument to murder on Halloween. The house hosts special events, ghost tours, murder mystery dinners, overnight stays. People pay hundreds of dollars to sleep where two people were butchered with an axe. Guests report paranormal activity, footsteps upstairs, cold spots, shadows moving, a woman in Victorian dress standing in the doorway.

25:10 Some say it's Abby, some say it's Lizzie. Some say it's trauma imprinted on the house itself. I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe evil leaves a mark, and Lizzie Borden, if she's guilty, left a mark in that house. Two bodies, twenty eight blows total blood soaked into floorboards, rage and violence, echoing through one hundred thirty three years. Whether she did it or not, the question haunts fall River. Most historians believe she's guilty. The evidence is overwhelming, the behavior suspicious, the alternative explanations implausible. But she was acquitted, and in America, not guilty means not guilty, even when everyone knows the truth. Andrew Jackson Borden was seventy years old, successful businessman, self made man, yes, controlling, yes, but didn't deserve to have his face split in half with an axe.

26:06 Died sleeping on his couch. Never saw it coming. Abby Durfy Gray Borden was sixty four years old, married, Andrew raised his daughters. Tried to make a life in a house where she was hated, murdered while making a bed, beaten seventeen times, rage killing. Someone wanted her dead more than dead. They should be remembered, not just as victims in a famous rhyme, but as people. Andrew worked his whole life to build wealth. Abby tried to build a family, both destroyed by someone who wanted them gone. Lizzie Borden took an axe, maybe, probably, almost certainly, but a jury said no, and she lived thirty five more years on her parents' money. That's the real horror, Not ghosts, not hauntings, just the fact that someone, probably Lizzie, got away with murder.

27:01 That's celebrity trials for Friday, October thirty first, twenty twenty five, Halloween, August fourth, eighteen ninety two, Fall River, Massachusetts. Someone murdered Andrew Borden and Abbey Borden with a hatchet eleven blows, crushed Andrew's skull, seventeen mutilated Abbey's head. Lizzie Borden, thirty two years old, was the only suspect. Tried to buy poison the day before, changed her story multiple times, burned a dress three days after the murders, made up a fake note about Abby leaving the house. June eighteen ninety three trial, all male jury, Victorian gender bias, one hour deliberation, not guilty. Lizzie lived in Fall River until nineteen twenty seven.

27:46 Died wealthy, died free, never confessed, never explained. The house at ninety two Second Street is a bed and breakfast. Now you can sleep where murders happened tonight, Halloween night. Every room is book. People paying to spend the night where evil occurred. Some believe in ghosts. I believe in evidence, and the evidence says Lizzie Borden probably murdered her father and stepmother got away with it because she was a wealthy white woman in Victorian America, and juries couldn't imagine a proper lady swinging an axe. Some people are just evil. Some people are smart enough to get acquitted. Lizzie Borden was both. Andrew and Abbey deserved better, deserved justice. Instead, they got a rhyme and a haunted house where tourists paid to sleep. Happy Halloween. Lock your doors, trust your instincts, and remember evil doesn't always look like a monster. Sometimes it looks like a Sunday school teacher in a blue dress.

28:45 I'm read, Carter, this is celebrity trials. Rest in peace, Andrew and Abbey. Someone has to say your names.