Character Analysis: Did Lizzie Borden Get Away With Murder

Did Lizzie Borden Get Away with Murder? “Lizzie Borden took an axe / And gave her mother forty whacks / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father forty-one” (Linder). In today’s time, many children know this nursery rhyme as a scary story similar to other chants like Bloody Mary. However, this rhyme is actually based off of a theory involving the Borden murders. On August 4, 1892 Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts (“Topics”). One of the primary suspects in the case was their daughter, Lizzie Borden. Lizzie was arrested for the murders, but was found to be innocent by the jury (“Borden”). The people in Lizzie’s hometown were skeptical about this outcome and continued to think that she was the murderer (Miller Loc. 127). Today, many people still believe, for a number of different reasons, that Lizzie Borden murdered her father and stepmother and the investigations into the murders were not thorough enough and resulted in

On August 3rd, Lizzie tried to purchase prussic acid, a poison, from a local drug store. When questioned about this attempt Lizzie said she needed it to clean a small cut. The police was once more unconvinced. To add to the growing evidence against Lizzie was the possibility that she had burned a dress that could have been the dress she wore while committing the murders (“Lizzie”). Alice Russell offered up this information during the trial and said it was a blue dress that Lizzie said had old paint on it. Earlier in the trial Bridget Sullivan said that Lizzie was wearing a blue dress on the day of the murders (Linder). None of this was looking too good for Lizzie Borden. Through the whole investigation Lizzie’s room was never searched and no one followed through with official police questioning, which means she was never interrogated like suspects would normally be