Lizzie Borden

:This article is about the Lizzie Borden made famous by the nursery rhyme; for the film-maker, see Lizzie Borden (filmmaker)

The murder and the trial

On August 4, 1892, Lizzie and the maid of the household, Bridget Sullivan, discovered the bodies of Andrew J. Borden and Abby Durfee Gray Borden, Lizzie's father and his second wife, in their home at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. Both had been slain by multiple axe blows. Although the exact weapon was not named, and witnesses saw no trace of blood on Lizzie moments after the murder, a circumstantial case was mounted against her. At the inquest, a local pharmacist claimed that Lizzie attempted to purchase prussic acid from him a day before the crime. Then, at the grand jury hearing, incriminating evidence came from her friend, Alice Russell, who testified that Lizzie burned a blood-stained dress three days after the murders. But the most damning evidence came at the trial, when medical experts appeared to prove that Abby Borden was killed approximately an hour and a half before her husband ? making it seem that the perpetrator was more likely to have been a member of the household than an outsider.

Related Topics:
August 4 - 1892 - Andrew J. Borden - Abby Durfee Gray Borden - Fall River, Massachusetts - Prussic acid

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The Preliminary hearing was held in late August 1892, and the grand jury heard testimony in late November and early December of the same year. The trial of Lizzie Borden began on June 5, 1893 and lasted two weeks. A turning point in the trial was the dramatic unveiling of the victims' rotting skulls; Lizzie fainted and won much sympathy from the all-male jury, who acquitted her on June 20, 1893, after only sixty-eight minutes of deliberation.

Related Topics:
August - 1892 - June 5 - 1893 - June 20

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