What Did Bridget Sullivan Know About the Borden Murders?

When Andrew Borden was found dead in the sitting room of his Fall River, Massachusetts, home on August 4, 1892, one person had key information about what happened: the maid

Irish immigrant Bridget Sullivan was in her mid-20s when she worked as the Borden family's live-in domestic servant. She was in the house on the day of the brutal murders of Andrew Borden, 70, and his wife, Abby Borden, 64, Lizzie’s stepmother. They’d been hacked to death with a hatchet—about 18 or 19 blows to Abby and 10 to Andrew’s face, according to their autopsies.

Sullivan, whom Lizzie and her sister Emma often called “Maggie,” eventually became one of the most important witnesses at Lizzie's sensational double murder trial with testimony that likely helped set Lizzie free.

Sullivan was born around 1866 in County Cork, Ireland. According to the Lizzie Borden House, Sullivan left Ireland and emigrated to the U.S. in 1883 when she was just 16. After working several low-paying domestic jobs across the East Coast, Sullivan landed jobs in Newport, Rhode Island, working for wealthy families on their estates.

By 1889, she had made her way to Fall River, Massachusetts, a hub of cotton textile production nicknamed “Spindle City.” The area had a thriving upper-middle class and a demand for live-in domestic help. In November 1889, wealthy businessman Andrew Borden hired Sullivan as a live-in domestic servant in the home he shared with his wife, Abby, and his two adult daughters, Lizzie and Emma. By the summer of 1892, Sullivan had worked with the Bordens for nearly three years.

According to Sullivan’s testimony at Lizzie’s trial, she got up around 6:15 a.m. on August 4 feeling unwell. She said Andrew left the house that morning and returned around 10:40 a.m., while she was washing windows. Lizzie was also in the house.

Sullivan recalled seeing Lizzie in the dining room where she was ironing and again in the kitchen where they chatted about a sale on dress fabric later that day. Afterward, Sullivan went upstairs to rest but soon heard Lizzie yelling: “Come down quick; Father’s dead; somebody came in and killed him.” Sullivan ran downstairs but did not enter the sitting room after Lizzie told her not to go in.

Andrew’s body lay on the sitting-room sofa. Bridget and a neighbor then found Abby dead on the floor of an upstairs guest room. Medical evidence indicated she was likely killed before Andrew. Lizzie later told police that her stepmother had received a note about someone being sick and that she had assumed Abby had left the house to see them.

Sullivan was considered unlikely to have committed the murders herself because a neighboring servant had seen her washing the windows outside while the murders would have taken place, said historian Cara Robertson, author of The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story.

On December, 2, 1892, Lizzie was indicted and went to trial for the murder of her parents in June 1893.

Sullivan’s testimony provided jurors with a key account of the morning’s events. She confirmed that Lizzie was at home around the time of the murders and also described what happened immediately after both Bordens were discovered. But nothing she said directly implicated Lizzie in the killings.

In fact, Sullivan’s testimony likely helped Lizzie’s defense. The prosecution had a problem proving a motive. Their theory was that Lizzie had killed her parents because of tensions at home. It’s well documented that Andrew was notoriously frugal and his penny-pinching was a constant issue. But when the defense asked Sullivan how it was living there, she had nothing to say about family infighting. Instead, Sullivan painted a picture of a home that didn’t fit the prosecution’s motive.

For all that Sullivan did know about the Bordens, there were limits to what she could say about the murders themselves. Sullivan placed Lizzie in the house but not in the rooms with either Andrew or Abby at the times of their deaths.

Sullivan told prosecutors she never saw any blood anywhere on Lizzie or signs she’d just committed two brutal murders.

Sullivan also wasn’t what the prosecution needed most: an eyewitness. Instead, her testimony left the jury with a searing question. Where was the evidence against Lizzie? Authorities found several axes and hatchets in the Borden cellar, but tests found no blood on them. Investigators also found bloody cloths in a pail, which Lizzie said were from menstruation. Neither provided a direct link between Lizzie and the murders.

In the end, prosecutors pointed to Lizzie’s presence in the house and opportunity to commit the murders. The defense emphasized the lack of physical evidence and Sullivan’s inability to place Lizzie at either murder.

On June 20, 1893, after deliberating for about 90 minutes, the jury returned its verdict: not guilty. Lizzie Borden walked out of court a free woman.

After Lizzie’s acquittal, Sullivan moved to Montana where she married John Sullivan and lived in privacy. But some later accounts have suggested that Sullivan knew more about the murders than she revealed in court. One of those claims came from Sullivan’s longtime friend Minnie Green.

According to Victoria Lincoln’s 1967 book A Private Disgrace, Sullivan told Green about the Borden murders when she was old and very ill. Sullivan said she liked Lizzie and “helped her out at the trial," wrote Lincoln. Green also said that Sullivan told her she never lied about the events surrounding the murders.

When it came to the identity of the killer, Bridget Sullivan maintained she didn’t know a thing.