Lizzie Borden Murder Essay

It was the morning of August 4th, 1892 and the day was growing to be hot and humid. At 11 am Adelaide Churchill glanced out of her kitchen window and saw her neighbor, Lizzie Borden leaning on the screen of the Borden’s back door. Adelaide called out, concerned for her well-being, “Lizzie, what is the matter?” Lizzie called back to her with an upset expression, “Oh, Mrs. Churchill, please come over! Someone has killed Father!” (Gustafson 2). On this seemingly regular morning, Andrew and Abbie Borden were murdered with a hatchet in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. This murder has left many people encapsulated even hundreds of years later, due to its sense of mystery. Regardless, Lizzie’s pristine appearance after the murders took place,

In the spring before the murders, the barn was broken into twice, and the house was broken into once. During all of these three break-ins, things of value were stolen, yet no one saw or heard anything. This proves that before the murder, someone outside of the family desired the Borden family’s wealth. (Guided notes). We know for a fact that close to the time of the murders, someone was repeatedly sleeping on two of the haystacks in the barn. We also know that the person who was sleeping there was a man around five feet six inches in height. During this whole time, no one saw or heard the man, so the possibility of an outside threat was very real. Only months before the murder of Abby and Andrew Borden, neighbors reported to the police about seeing strange men by the barn and walking around the property. (Guided

As she left through the side door of the house she specifically remembers closing the door. When Lizzie came back from the barn she remembers seeing that same door open. It seems suspicious that the person who broke into the house entered through the side door that wouldn't have been visible from the road in front of the house. This, however, would follow the story perfectly, seeing as the one time the house was broken into, the burglar broke in through the side door, went up the stairs, and stole over $95 of valuables from Abby and Andrew's room. The murder of the adults could very well have been an attempt to steal Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s affluence. (Guided notes)

Ten months after the murder of Andrew and Abby Borden, another axe murder happened in Fall River. The similarities between these two cases are almost startling, the murders happened around the same time of day, no one saw or heard anything, and the wounds were almost identical in placement and number. However, during this murder, Lizzie was in jail so there was no possible way for her to have been the murderer in that case. The fact that two almost identical murderers happened in the same town only months apart couldn’t simply be a