Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story – the infamous murders behind Netflix's No 1 show
More than 130 years after Andrew and Abby Borden were found brutally murdered in their Massachusetts home, nobody knows for certain who killed them. Their daughter Lizzie Borden was charged with both murders and put on trial in a case that became a US national sensation. She was acquitted in 1893, but suspicion followed her for the rest of her life – and well beyond it. Now her story is being…
The Borden family resided in a modest home in Fall River, Massachusetts, far from the city's wealthiest districts. Andrew Borden, their father, was a prosperous businessman who had amassed a significant fortune, but preferred a simple lifestyle. Lizzie Borden, their daughter, was 32 years old when the murders occurred and had never been married.
Her relationship with her sister Emma and stepmother Abby was reportedly tense, as financial disagreements and strained familial bonds ran through the household. On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered in their home, marking one of America's most infamous unsolved crime cases. Lizzie's stepmother was fatally attacked with a hatchet, while Andrew sustained multiple blows to the head and face.
Lizzie claimed she had been in the barn and discovered her father's body upon returning home. Afterward, she alerted their maid, Bridget Sullivan, who was resting in her room when Andrew was found. Lizzie's stepmother was discovered later in the guest room by Sullivan and a neighbor. Charges against Lizzie emerged after her inconsistent accounts and her friend Alice Russell's testimony about burning a dress stained with paint.
However, no definitive evidence linked Lizzie to the killings, leading to her acquittal at trial in June 1893. The Borden murders remain officially unsolved to this day.
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