Lizzie Borden acquitted of parents’ murders

In a trial that captivates the nation, Lizzie Borden is found not guilty of the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother on June 20, 1893. The case against Borden was based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, and the Victorian-era jury wasn’t convinced that a 32-year-old Christian woman could commit such gruesome crimes. 

On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found dead in the home they shared with Lizzie and her older sister in Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew’s mutilated body was discovered on a couch in the sitting room, with his head and face struck repeatedly with an ax or hatchet. When the police came, they found Abby’s body upstairs, also brutally murdered.

Lizzie was arrested one week later and charged with her parents’ murders. Although the police couldn’t find the murder weapon or establish a clear motive for the killings, the circumstantial evidence against Lizzie made her the prime suspect. A family friend, Alice Russell, said she saw Lizzie burning a blue dress—the same dress she wore the day of the murders—claiming that it was covered in “old paint.” Additionally, a local drugstore clerk said Lizzie had tried to buy poison a day before the murders.

The double murder trial of Lizzie Borden began on June 5, 1893, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Newspapers nationwide closely covered the dramatic proceedings, including the moment that Lizzie fainted in the courtroom after the district attorney ended his presentation of the case. In the press, Lizzie was alternatively characterized as a vengeful harpy or a spotless Christian woman, and the case enthralled the public.  

Judge Justin Dewey dealt a blow to the prosecution by excluding Lizzie’s conflicting and confused statements to the police in the days after the murder, because she didn’t have an attorney present. The judge also blocked the drugstore clerk’s testimony about Lizzie attempting to buy poison. This left the prosecution with a flimsy case, something that Dewey made clear to the jury.

On June 20, after 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. An Ohio newspaper reported: “Miss Borden’s head went down upon the rail in front of her, and tears came where they had refused to come for many a long day as she heard the sweetest words ever poured into her willing ears—the words ‘not guilty.’” 

Lizzie lived the rest of her life in Fall River in a stately home called Maplecroft, which she purchased with her sister. She died in 1927 and was buried next to her parents.