Did Lizzie Borden Kill Her Parents? | Halloween Episode

In 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered with a hatchet in their Fall River home, and Lizzie Borden was the only family member in the house. We go minute by minute through the day of the murders, line up the suspects, and dig into how a defense built on “nothing feminine about it” got her acquitted. Lizzie Borden took an ax… or did she?

Sources:

Scholarly

[1] Filetti, Jean S. "From Lizzie Borden to Lorena Bobbitt: Violent Women and Gendered Justice." Journal of American Studies 35, no. 3 (2001): 471–84 — JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27557007 Peer-reviewed; strong.

Journalism and reference

[2] The Unsolved Mystery of Lizzie Borden and the Grisly Fall River Axe Murders — BBC Culture. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260914-the-unsolved-mystery-of-lizzie-borden-and-the-grisly-fall-river-axe-murders Reputable outlet; article's URL date is as given in your notes.

[3] Lizzie Borden: biographies and 1892–1927 timeline (compiled by UMKC School of Law students) — crimearchives.net. https://crimearchives.net/1893_borden/html/bios.html Useful but not peer-reviewed; includes an impossible date ("Nov. 31") and a death-age error.

Primary documents (as transcribed in your research notes)

[4] Inquest testimony of Lizzie Borden, Aug 9–11, 1892 — Fall River, MA inquest transcript. https://famous-trials.com/lizzieborden/1444-inquest The transcript pasted in your notes did not include a source URL; this is the inquest page cited by the US Ghost Adventures piece. Confirm the match.

[5] Trial testimony of Bridget Sullivan, June 7, 1893 — Trial transcript, Fall River/New Bedford. Source site not given in your notes; confirm before final citation.

Commercial blog (weakest tier)

[6] Lizzie Borden myths-and-facts article (title and URL not included in your notes) — US Ghost Adventures blog (usghostadventures.com), which promotes tours and stays at the Lizzie Borden House. Commercial; use for myth-busting leads only and verify against the sources it cites.

Cited within that article (not independently verified by me): EBSCO Research Starters, Lizzie Borden (ebsco.com/research-starters/history/lizzie-borden); Library of Congress Chronicling America guide (guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-lizzie-borden/selected-articles) and newspaper issues sn84024546 (1892-08-05), sn94052989 (1892-08-13 and 1893-06-21), sn90059522 (1893-06-17), sn84025891 (1893-06-10); Biography.com, Lizzie Borden's isolated life after the trial; Britannica, Lizzie Borden; Fall River Herald News, myths busted (2022); History.com, 9 Things You May Not Know About Lizzie Borden; Famous Trials, the inquest; Criminal Element, 11 Facts About Lizzie Borden Debunked.

[7] Lizzie Borden — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Borden Used only to cross-check the age at death (66).

[8] Lizzie Borden (1860–1927) memorial — Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115/lizzie-borden Crowd-sourced; used only for burial date (June 4, 1927) and plot.

[9] Borden Funerals — lizziebordenwarpsandwefts.com. https://lizziebordenwarpsandwefts.com/october-mutton-eaters-online/ Fan/history blog; surfaced in search, not read in full; funeral accounts vary across results.

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