The Lizzie Borden House – Copyright US Ghost Adventures
Long before Netflix turned her story into a television drama, the name “Lizzie Borden” had already become synonymous with one of America’s most enduring murder mysteries.
The basic facts are chilling enough. On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found brutally murdered inside their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie, Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter, was arrested just one week later. She was tried the following year and acquitted.
More than 130 years later, people are still asking the same question: Did Lizzie Borden really kill her father and stepmother? That question has never been definitively answered. But the story’s transformation from a local tragedy into an American legend is almost as fascinating as the mystery itself.
A Murder That Captured the Nation
The Borden murders occurred at a time when newspapers were becoming an increasingly powerful force in American life. Reporters descended on Fall River, and coverage of the investigation and subsequent trial spread far beyond Massachusetts. Historic newspaper archives reveal how extensively the case was reported across the country.
The sensational nature of the crime made it irresistible to the press. Here was a wealthy New England family, a seemingly respectable unmarried daughter, a brutal double murder, and a mystery with no easy explanation.
Lizzie herself quickly became the center of the story.
Newspapers scrutinized her appearance, behavior, statements, and demeanor. Some coverage portrayed her as suspicious; other reports emphasized her respectable background and questioned whether the evidence was sufficient to convict her. Modern historians have noted how the press helped turn the trial into a national spectacle.
In other words, Lizzie Borden became a celebrity before television, radio, or social media existed.
The Trial of the Century?
Lizzie’s trial began in New Bedford on June 5, 1893. After weeks of testimony and intense public attention, the jury found her not guilty on June 20. Her acquittal did not end the mystery. In some ways, it guaranteed that the story would survive.
There was no definitive resolution for the public to remember. Instead, there was an accused woman who walked free, two brutal murders that remained officially unsolved, and a mountain of evidence and testimony that could be interpreted in different ways.
The case therefore became something more than a criminal proceeding. It became a puzzle. And puzzles tend to survive.
The Famous Nursery Rhyme
At some point, the Borden murders were transformed into a piece of American folklore through the infamous verse:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
The rhyme is probably the single biggest reason that people who know little about the actual case have nevertheless heard Lizzie Borden’s name. But it also demonstrates how dramatically folklore can distort history.
The murders did not happen exactly as the rhyme suggests, and the oft-repeated numbers of blows are incorrect. Historical accounts indicate that Abby suffered approximately 18 or 19 blows, while Andrew suffered approximately 10 or 11.
Even the rhyme’s origins remain murky. Evidence shows that versions of it were circulating relatively soon after the trial, but exactly who created it remains uncertain. That uncertainty is fitting. From the beginning, the Lizzie Borden story has existed somewhere between history and folklore.
From Murder Case to American Myth
As decades passed, Lizzie Borden became a character as much as a historical person. Books revisited the case. Writers speculated about motives. Dramatists and filmmakers reimagined the events. Later generations discovered the story through documentaries, novels, television programs, podcasts, and true-crime discussions.
The historical record itself remains unusually rich. The Fall River Historical Society preserves extensive collections connected to the investigation and trial, including the papers of prosecutor Hosea Knowlton and documents from Fall River city marshal Rufus Hilliard.
Those records provide an important counterbalance to the mythology. They remind us that behind the famous rhyme was a real family, a real community, real investigators, and a real courtroom trying to make sense of an extraordinary crime.
The Birth of True-Crime Tourism
Eventually, the story escaped the pages of newspapers and entered the physical landscape. The Borden house in Fall River became one of America’s best-known murder sites. Today, it’s a museum and bed-and-breakfast owned by US Ghost Adventures and its parent company Tourismo. They also own and operate the Villisca Axe Murder House and McInteer Villa.
The Lizzie Borden House now attracts visitors interested in both the historical case and the paranormal stories that have developed around it. This is where history and dark tourism intersect.
Visitors aren’t simply looking at an old Victorian house. They’re standing in a place connected to one of America’s most famous unsolved murder cases. For some, the attraction is historical. For others, it’s the possibility that something of the tragedy still lingers there.
The result is a curious phenomenon: a crime that happened in 1892 continues to generate new experiences, interpretations, and stories more than a century later.
And Then Came Netflix
Now Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story introduces the case to another generation.
The Netflix series is the latest chapter in a very long tradition of retelling the Borden story. Like the newspapers of 1892 and the books, plays, documentaries, and films that followed, it takes a historical mystery and interprets it for a contemporary audience. The series also explores broader questions surrounding gender, social expectations, and violence in nineteenth-century America.
But Netflix didn’t create the Lizzie Borden phenomenon. It inherited it.
More than a century ago, newspapers transformed a shocking Fall River murder into a national sensation. The courtroom turned it into a mystery. The rhyme turned it into folklore. Popular culture turned Lizzie into an American icon. And now television is telling the story once again.
Perhaps that’s the strangest thing about Lizzie Borden’s legacy. The jury rendered its verdict in 1893, but the public never really reached one of its own. The murders are long past. The witnesses are gone. The courtroom is history. But the question remains.
And as long as people continue asking what really happened inside that Fall River house on August 4, 1892, the Lizzie Borden mystery isn’t going anywhere.
