Two people were murdered in 1892, and the nation can’t stop thinking about them.
Andrew and Abby Borden were in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home when someone took a hatchet to their heads with repeated blows. That someone, the reason behind their deaths’ permanence in historical memory, was likely their daughter/step-daughter Lizzie. The saga of Lizzie Borden, from her odd demeanor upon “finding” her father’s body—one police officer told the court she was “cool” with a steady voice and no tears — to her repeated contradictions around her alibi, to her reputation as just a sedate church volunteer and not a frenzied killer, has captured the nation’s attention for generations. Yet some recent changes to the site of the killings may forever affect how the narrative gets told.
What happened to Andrew and Abby Borden that day is arguably the most famous true crime case after the 1888 Jack the Ripper horrors. In just the past three years alone, books, a feature film, and television treatments have chronicled the Borden murders. A 2009 rock opera titled LIZZIE has been performed in over 60 cities in six countries since its debut and has ten upcoming productions as of this writing (one amazing number has Lizzie’s sister, Emma, singing in staccato, “What the f---, Lizzie, what the f---!?”).
