The Prosecution’s Case Against Lizzie Borden Was About Money
Netflix’s anthology installment Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story takes a deep look at the psychology, repression, and rage said to have led to the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. The series focuses on Lizzie Borden as the victim of a cruel and repressive household that led to her ultimately snapping, despite Borden being acquitted during an explosive murder trial. The actual trial, however, didn’t touch on the psychology of the house. Prosecutors focused almost entirely on money. This is how it actually played out.
How were Abby and Andrew Borden killed?
On the morning of August 4, 1892, Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby, were found hacked to death inside their Fall River, Massachusetts home. Abby was killed first, struck roughly 18 times with a hatchet-like weapon in an upstairs guest room. Andrew was murdered roughly ninety minutes later, killed on a downstairs sitting-room sofa while napping, suffering around 11 blows to the head and face.
Lizzie, then 32, unmarried and still living in her father’s home, said she had been in the barn loft searching for fishing sinkers when her father was killed. She insisted that she discovered his body upon returning inside. The household’s only other occupant that morning was the maid, Bridget Sullivan. She testified that she hadn’t heard anything unusual, but she was napping far from the crime scene, in an attic room.
Investigators grew suspicious of Lizzie quickly. Her account of her whereabouts shifted over time, and neighbors grew suspicious of her unaffected demeanor. Later, a pharmacist claimed she had attempted to buy poison just a day before her father and stepmother were killed.
She was arrested on August 11, 1892, and formally indicted that December. Her trial began June 5, 1893, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. While the prosecution tried to make a strong case, they were mostly working with circumstantial evidence. No bloodied clothing and no definitive murder weapon were ever located. After roughly ninety minutes of jury deliberation, she was acquitted on June 20, 1893.
The prosecution focused on Lizzie Borden’s dwindling inheritance
Lizzie Borden’s trial was explosive but unsuccessful for the prosecution. There might be a reason for that. They didn’t have much to go on, so they tried to focus on the one fact they could prove: that Andrew Borden controlled the family money. The prosecution spent much of its time arguing that Lizzie Borden was motivated to carry out the killings by concerns that her father was misappropriating funds that would eventually become her inheritance. According to several reports, the prosecution claimed Lizzie’s father had spent the months leading up to his death transferring money to Abby’s side of the family, deeding a house to Abby’s sister and siphoning money from the family fortune.
Prosecutors focused on the money because they believed the shrinking inheritance drove Lizzie to murder her parents out of fear of financial instability. There was a fair amount of money to worry about, too. According to reports, Andrew Borden was one of the town’s wealthiest men, with a net worth of around $300,000 at the time. That fortune would be roughly equivalent to $10 to $11.5 million today. Despite the wealth, Andrew ran his home frugally while reportedly handing off money to relatives. The prosecution’s theory rested on a simple, transactional grievance: Lizzie resented her father’s frugality and resented her stepmother Abby’s growing claim on the family estate.
Lizzie and her sister, Emma, were the only ones poised to inherit Andrew’s fortune, should Abby die first. If Andrew predeceased Abby, the fortune would have gone to her, according to Vanity Fair. Lizzie and Emma’s mother, Sarah Borden, died in 1863 from an illness.
