This is Abby's autopsy photo. I mean, we're talking about, that's inside her skull. She was struck in the back of the head 17 times. Andrew was struck 11 times to the face. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 Hours, and this is My Life of Crime.
So I'm on a train on the way to Fall River, Massachusetts. Now if that name sounds familiar, it's because Fall River is where one of the most sensational crimes of the 19th century took place. Or, in the vernacular of the day, one of the most dastardly and diabolical crimes of the 19th century. Lizzie Boyden took an ass and gave her mother 40 wax. If all you know is what is the Lizzie Borden nursery rhyme... When she seen what she had done, she gave her father 41. And you don't know anything. That's what we've been learning as we decided we were going to reinvestigate the Lizzie Borden case. Did she do it? Did she not? And I thought I knew everything about the Lizzie Borden case from that nursery rhyme. It turns out it was completely wrong. Charles Osgood, you may remember him from CBS Radio, can help set the stage for us, as he did for a Sunday morning piece back in 2002.
Andrew Borden, a leading businessman, was found murdered on his downstairs sofa, the victim of multiple blows to the head. His second wife, Abby, was found murdered in similar fashion upstairs. On the basis of largely circumstantial evidence, 32-year-old Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged with her father and stepmother's deaths. The murders actually occurred in August of 1892. Think about that. And yet what's odd is, who hasn't heard the name Lizzie Borden? 127 years later, 127 years, her name has become part of the popular culture.
You're listening to Ronnie Graham. He's singing in the film New Faces of 1954. Now, I don't remember that movie. You probably don't either, but you may remember Elizabeth Montgomery. She was the witch from Bewitched. She also played Lizzie in a TV movie, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, back in 1975. Mrs. Churchill, do come in. Someone has killed father.
And more recently, Chloe Sevigny played her in a 2018 film named, simply enough, Lizzie. To your knowledge, did your father have any enemies? Every man with the pulse has enemies. With so much written about Lizzie, what's left to learn? I have a feeling we may have some surprises for you. So let's start. First, I need to separate fact from fiction. So like any good reporter, I'm actually going to take you to the scene of the crime. Believe it or not, the real Lizzie Borden house where she grew up still exists. And it doesn't just exist. It's actually a bed and breakfast. And here's the best part. We're all going to spend the night there.
The actual Lizzie Bourne house is kind of nondescript. It's a frame house right across from a courthouse in Fall River. It's painted dark green. Looks like any other mid-19th century house. Green shutters, green paint, two stories. But the side door is what they still use. When you go into the dining room, you definitely go back in time.
Inside, the rooms are small, with flowery wallpaper everywhere. There are delicate white lace curtains and tablecloths, and armchairs covered in dark blue velvet. None of the original furniture actually exists, just reproductions. And there is now electricity in the house, and that was something the Bordens didn't have. In the cramped kitchen, we find Rick Bertoldo. He's a tour guide. If you're crazy enough to want to spend the night in a house where two people were brutally murdered, Rick is more than happy to show you around. How many people come and spend the night here?
Time for a little honesty. In my career at 48 Hours, I have never spent the night in a house, let alone slept in a room where a homicide has taken place. And as you can imagine, I'm getting very creeped out here. What do I face tonight? We're spending the night alone in the Lizzie Borden house where two people were brutally murdered. I'm sleeping in the room where one of them was chopped up.
Can I say? Keep the doors locked. So let's go back to August 4th, 1892. To best tell the story, we've turned to Cara Robertson. You must be Cara Robertson. Hi, nice to meet you. Very nice meeting you, and thank you for doing this. Oh, it's my pleasure. Cara is a lawyer. She first began researching the Lizzie Borden case nearly 30 years ago when she was a Harvard undergraduate, and she just couldn't let go of the story. She just finished a nearly 400-page book called The Trial of Lizzie Borden. How would you describe Lizzie Borden, how she looked, who she was?
Lucy Borden was pretty average looking. Attractive. Perfectly fine looking, not particularly glamorous. Many of the people who retell the story in a fictional way, whether it's film or theater, like to glamorize her and make a romance out of the story. But as the reporters at the trial noted, that she was about medium size, medium height. She had a very strong jaw. That was one of her noteworthy qualities.
And Lizzie was also, at age 32, unmarried, as was her older sister Emma, who was 41. They lived with their dad, Andrew Borden, and they lived with Abby Borden, who was actually their stepmom. Andrew married Abby after the girl's mother died when Lizzie was just two. And there was also the family's Irish maid, Bridget Sullivan. They were all living under one roof in that modest, not particularly happy, Victorian home.
Andrew Borden was a self-made man, but he was descended from one of the founding families of Fall River. So he had some claim to social status beyond his actual wealth. But he was known to be a miser, someone who was a lot more interested, as one journalist put it, in piling up dollars than in spending them. And it was thought that his daughters, Emma and particularly Lizzie, resented not being able to live in a higher style. Emma, however, was out of town on that August morning in 1892. It was around 11 a.m., just before lunch, when Lizzie says she discovered her dad dead on a couch in the dining room. He had been hit several times in the face with an axe.
That's Rick Vertoldo, our tour guide again. He's so anxious to describe what happened that day in the room where we're standing that he shows me actual photos taken by investigators. I'm not kidding. There are real death photos hanging in the house, and not just of Andrew, but also of his wife, Abby. This is Abby's autopsy photo. Most are injured at the back of her head, so they shave the back of her head. Wait a minute, what am I seeing here? This is the back of Abby's head. I mean, we're talking about, that's inside her skull. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
Because as it turns out, shortly after finding Andrew Borden dead, his wife Abby was also discovered. She was on the floor of the guest bedroom. She had also been hit with an axe. She was struck in the back of the head 17 times. She was caught completely off guard by this person that she actually knew. So whoever killed her, she knew this person. And what makes you say that? She wasn't afraid of that person. Right, oh, because it was someone in the room with her. Right.
But then you're saying, Rick, it had to be... Someone she knew. Either Lizzie? It's got to be either a family member or somebody else that she knew. Okay, let me clear something up here. Abby had actually been killed before Andrew, maybe an hour before, according to investigators who found the blood around her head congealed. Somebody was really angry? It certainly looked like a, uh, yeah, passion.
I think Abby's murder probably took only seconds. It was that quick. It was that brutal. So there were only three people then. If you believe it's someone she knew, so it either had to be John Morse, right? Bridget Sullivan or Lizzie Bork. What I find very interesting at this point is that clearly our tour guide isn't convinced that Lizzie is the killer. One of the first suspects was John Morse. He was Lizzie's uncle, and he had been in the house the night before, but on the day of the murders, he had an alibi. So the police cleared him.
And then remember Bridget Sullivan. She was the family's Irish maid. She was also known as Maggie. It turns out she had been outside talking to the maid who lived next door. So police also cleared her. It leaves Lizzie. Lizzie would have had plenty of time to kill Abby, to clean up, put on a dress, and even go out for a walk. But Andrew's murder, it's only minutes after Lizzie discovers her father's body that there are witnesses here in the house. Mrs. Churchill, the next door neighbor, she arrives within two to three minutes. When Dr. Bone arrives, the blood is still seeping from Andrew's wounds. And yet Lizzie has no plan on her whatsoever. It doesn't even look like she washed the blood off.
And that's the thing that's really intriguing about it is how could she have done this and not get any blood on her? She didn't have the time to clean up. And the other strange thing about this case that nobody ever talks about, in both murder scenes there's no trail of blood leaving the scene of the crime. Whoever did this in both murders cleaned up right after themselves. That's why the police believe it was the same person that committed both murders. Because in both situations there's no trail of blood leaving the scene of the crime. Whoever did this cleaned up right then and there.
This lack of a blood trail is really one of the most perplexing parts of this case because not a trace of blood was found on Lizzie. So think about this. How could she hit her dad all those times and not be covered with blood spatter? So do you want to hear about Lizzie's alibi? This is what Lizzie says. She says that she was in the barn at the time that her dad sat down on this couch to take a nap. Correct.
And at this point, then, the owner of the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast joins us. Her name is Leanne Wilber. And if you ask her who killed Andrew and Abby Borden, here's her response. After. Being here in this house for so long, knowing what I do about the case, you flip back and forth every once in a while. You'll read something new that you haven't read before and go, there's no way she could have done it. And then you turn around and you look back at the house and you go, how could she not? But on the other hand, there wasn't a lot of time between when she, quote unquote, discovers her dad and then the police are called and there's no blood found on her. They never found blood-soaked dresses. And she would have had to be, if she was the one who was wielding that hatchet on her stepmom and her dad, wouldn't she have had to have blood spatter on her? The eternal question. Where did the blood go?
Now, that's not the only question I have for Leanne. You know, I understand and couldn't even see why she might have turned the Lizzie Bourne's house into a museum. Because this case, obviously, continues to fascinate 127 years later. But what I don't get, a bed and breakfast? Why is that? Why do people want to sit here? You don't have any trouble running out rooms here, do you? No. There are times you're full, completely booked, and have to turn people away. Have you ever encountered anything you really couldn't explain in this house? Yes. Like what? I was sleeping in Bridget's room one night.
And I had my tea, I had my book. I'm in bed, turned the light off, went to sleep. Now, in Bridget's room, to the left of her bed is this child's rocking chair. And when I woke up in the morning, the chair had moved around to the right of the bed and was facing me like it was watching me sleep all night. The chair moved? Yes. Or someone moved the chair.
Either way, it was not where I had left it when I went to bed. Oh, my gosh. What room were you in? I'm in the room that Abby was killed in. Oh, good. You took my suggestion. Yes. Why? Why? Will there be anything I see? No, no, no. You just... I think he... You seemed a little hesitant, so I was like, oh, put her in the murder room. Of course, of course. Put the one who's most scared in the murder room. You will be fine.
So at this point, I say my goodnights, grab my overnight bag, and head for the hallway. I don't think I'm going to get a lot of sleep tonight. Check back for my next podcast, part two, to see what happened. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 hours, and that's my life of crime. This podcast series is developed by 48 Hours in partnership with CBS News Radio. Judy Teigart is our executive producer. Nancy Kramer is our executive story editor. Mike Villay, the series producer-editor. This episode was produced by Luis Geraldo, Jamie Hellman, and Tamara Weitzman. Morgan Canty and Emma Steele are our associate producers. Craig Swagler, the vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio. Charles E. Pavlunas is the executive vice president of business development and the CFO of CBS News. A special thanks to our guests, Cara Robertson, and the team of the Lizzie Borden-Bed
and breakfast. Finally, a shout out to all of you, our fans. We owe it to you. The millions of fans of 48 Hours in the U.S. and around the world. Don't forget to join me online. I am at EF Moriarty on Twitter, and we are at 48 Hours on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tune in to CBS News every Saturday night at 10 p.m. Eastern as we begin, believe it or not, our 33rd season of Crime and Justice Original Reporting on 48 Hours. On Paramount Plus, our hits hit harder.
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