December 6, 2023 • 21 mins
On a stifling August morning in 1892, a young woman named Lizzie Borden is about to discover the dead body of her father on the parlor sofa. As her screams are heard by neighbors and her stepmother’s butchered body is also discovered, the whispers about her guilt will begin. Join host Matt Marinovich as he spends the night in the infamous place where the murders took place.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Murder Homes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I asked to Bobby put in the macelaunted room in
the house. The manager at the time had me, Andrew
and Abby Borden bedroom. That was where they slept. It
wasn't where any burners occurred. The first night was really
really eerie. That night I heard male voices. When I
heard footsteps and furniture moving from the third floor above me,
(00:27):
I just really didn't feel easy. It felt really kind
of creepy. And then the second night, I slept in
the same room.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
But that's so sweet. Their two bedrooms.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I slept in the side room, which is kind of enclosed,
and I was working in the bed sheets from my
laptop and I felt the presence enter the room and
like all the hair like when my neck stood on end,
and I thought, wow, this is really strange. So it
was like some presence entered the room and I felt
something press its hand on the bed sheet, and I thought, wow,
(00:58):
this is really weird.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
That's Lanzal, owner of the Lizzie Board and Bed and Breakfast.
He's describing what it felt like to spend a night
at the former home of Lizzie Borden, who on the
morning of August fourth, eighteen ninety two, was accused of
brutally murdering her stepmother and father with an axe. I'm
going to guess that you remember the rhyme Lizzie Borden
took an axe and gave her mother forty wax. When
(01:22):
she saw what she had done, she gave her father
forty one. In fact, she gave her stepmom twenty and
her dad a mere ten, probably because the handle broke
off at that point. Although she was acquitted, no other
suspect was ever found, and to this day people are
fascinated by the notorious case. A few weeks after that interview,
(01:42):
Lance invited me to come up to Fall River, Massachusetts
and stay in the home myself. I have to say
I was excited at first. Who doesn't like a summer
road trip, especially in a nice attic room. But a
few days before my departure, I have to admit I
got a tiny bit nervous. I never stayed in a
murder home before, and Lance was graciously putting me up
(02:04):
in the attic where a living maid named Bridget Sullivan
had first heard Lizzie's screaming that her father was dead.
I thought I might need a little advice on how
to deal with any potential ghost that might be wandering
through the home, especially after seeing a horrific crime photo
of Andrew Borden lying sideways on a couch, one eyeball
cleaved into his boots still on. So I called up
(02:27):
my favorite ghost hunting husband and wife team Barb and
Mark Nelson. So my question is what kind of things
do I look for? Not being a psychic but looking
for paranormal things.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So what you would look for when you're going into
a home like this is you want to see are
you picking up anything on equipment?
Speaker 5 (02:48):
My digital recorder, be MTh meter camera, If.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You have nothing set up in terms of equipment, I
would go in and take a pulse.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, take a pulse, sorry, take a pulse metaphorically or
my own pulse.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Or I would see how you feel when you walk
into a room. I know you're not psychic, but sometimes
they don't need you to be terribly psychic in order
to communicate with him.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
You have your own equipment on your body because your
hair will stand up on your arms.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Ok.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
It's like you know how when you rub the rug
and then you get the shock or whatever. So the
energy will be in whatever room the entity or spirit
is and you'll feel it on your arms, your back
of your head, or the hairs standing up. Okay, so
right away, that's a quick way to get an idea
(03:41):
that all something's here.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Ghosts can communicate to you from any part of the home.
It's most likely that you're either dealing with Lizzie Borden herself,
or her parents, or all three of them. And so
what I would say is that they're not trapped most
likely in one area. Idea that you're not in the
room where the murder took place may be completely irrelevant
(04:04):
to your experience. So what I would say is, so
when you walk in, you say hello, I'm Matt, I'm here.
I'm going to be staying overnight. If someone wants to
step forward and introduce yourself, please reach out just.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Like that, Just like what you said, I totally do.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
We also use these things you can get them at
like pet Smart. It's a cat playball and it's just
a plastic ball that lights up when you touch it,
and so we put those around the room and then
when their energy is close to that, it'll light it up.
So at least you'll know that something is there in
(04:43):
the room with you, okay, and I think they're like
a dollar.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
One other thing I would recommend just finding out what
was a popular song from that era eighteen ninety two.
The idea is if you have a small trigger device
or some that would be interesting to them.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Pay attention to smells. You might smell a perfume. Some
people say they smell like roses. That's usually a sign
of something around you, or cigar smell. Maybe he smoked cigars.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Taking barbon Mark's advice, I selected a few old timey
tunes on Spotify that Lizzie and her murdered parents might
find tasteful, packed up the cat balls and my new
electromagnetic field device, and then I hit the road. This
is Murder Holmes. I'm Magrianovitch. The four and a half
(05:45):
hour drive north gave me a lot of time to
think about the facts of the case and my own theory,
which is Lizzie did it first. She had the motive.
Her stepmom, Abby, who she hated, was trying to screw
out of her father's mind. And her father Andrew, a
humorless stick in the mud who had a very frosty
relationship with his two daughters and never put them first,
(06:07):
despite his accumulating wealth. There had been an awful fight
about money a few months before, serious enough that Lizzie
and her sister had temporarily been banished from the home,
and when Lizzie returned, her stepmom was happy to treat
her like a servant again. Every summer day, no matter
how hot they were, an endless list of chores had
(06:28):
to be completed, ironing, scrubbing, changing sheets, laundry, more ironing.
On the sweltering morning of the murderers, Lizzie's stepmom had
given her the worst task in the house, heating up
two flat irons over a crackling fire so that she
could press eighteen of her father's handkerchiefs. The heat and
boredom alone must have made her feel murderous. Lizzie, with
(06:52):
no suitors, with barely any friends, no hope of a
real inheritance, living in a home she despised because it
wasn't even on the right side of the tree, must
have felt like she had nothing to lose when she
hiked up her dress and walked down to the basement,
grasping the axe as soon as the livin maid Bridget
Sullivan left the home to wash the windows outside, and
(07:13):
her father walked out to check on as many rental properties.
Lizzie had her chance. She was alone with her despised stepmom,
walking slowly up the stairs with the axe in her
right hand. She could see her stepmom puffing up some
pillows on a bed abby board and heard the creak
of the floorboard behind her. Turned and Lizzie swung the
(07:33):
axe through the air and sank it deep into her
stepmom's skull, yanking it out just in time to enjoy
the sight of her falling face first on the floor.
Lizzie struck her another nineteen times, an oblong pool of
blood spreading on the carpet. You have to picture Lizzie
at that moment, stepping away from the body, her heart pounding,
(07:54):
both thrilled and terrified about what had just occurred. It
most definitely wasn't boring. Dad was next, but we'll get
to that later. I had arrived in Fall River, which
was nothing like the quaint New England refuge had pictured.
I was slowly climbing the long, slow curve of Second Street,
past tanning salons and hairy parlors, and what seemed like
(08:15):
endless parking lots and fast food restaurants. When I suddenly
saw it and passed it just as fast. I made
a U turn and pulled into its narrow driveway, bathed
in sweat because of my car is faltering ac It
was almost the exact temperature it had been on that
very hot day of August fourth, eighteen ninety two, when
Lizzie would be heard screaming inside the home and then
(08:38):
desperately running for help. The house is still in pristine condition.
It's painted a drab green and sits on top of
a rocky hill overlooking Hope Bay. I'd arrived just in
time to see a tour group walking out, so I
grabbed my mic and introduced myself. I'd settled firmly on
Lizzie being the murderer, but maybe they had other theories.
(08:59):
I can I ask you what brought you here?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
My friend and I are doing a road trip. We
flew in from California to Boston and rented a car,
and we're just doing a whole New England coastal thing.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
And she's a huge Lizzie Borden, Okay, and I grew.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Up knowing the whole Lizzie Borden.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Home thingy.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Do you know a lot about Lizzie bordon I do.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, I'm very fascinated with serial killers and all the
kind of weird and crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So was your mind changed? Do you think she did it?
Speaker 6 (09:35):
I still think she did it.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Whether she did it alone or not, I don't know,
but yeah, I agree.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
I just think at the time that the murders happened,
it was very unusual. I think people were afraid to
maybe convict a woman, or to believe that a woman
could create such a you know, painous crime.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Standing in the shade of a maple tree was the
tour group guy named Karen. She was wearing a long
red gas to put people in the mood to hear
about Lizzie.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
My personal theory it wasn't popular back then, but it
is now.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
She paid somebody.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
The timing and everything, and there was no blood on her.
She didn't even have a hair out of place. All
the neighborhood around here was Irish immigrants. Yes, they had
a hot life, they didn't have an easy life. She
could have easily paid an Irish immigrants. She just got
all that money from her father for selling.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
The house on ferry and bad blood with her stepmother. Correct.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
I think she paid somebody. She was the lookout in
the bond, helped him get away and then ran.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And what about Bridget, like washing the windows, wasn't there
a risk with her kind of being around the house
that the one was a risk.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
But remember Bridget was on that side of the house
at nineteen thirty. That side were the yellow houses.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Okay, well, okay, I got it.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Yeah, she was over there, so she wouldn't see anybody
over here, and.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
She was washing the windows and not inside the house.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
She wouldn'tess right, she wouldn't have seen anybody here.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Karen's mentioned a Bridget Sullivan washing the windows outside the
home is one of the perpetually infuriating aspects of the case,
because how could the maid not see what was happening
inside the parlor when Andrew Borden was killed? But maybe
it was because Lizzie had made her close those blinds
before her father came home. The windows being washed outside
(11:24):
as a blood bath occurs as haunting the image of
Bridget splashing water upwards from a pail to hit the
second four window she couldn't reach, with no idea of
the butchering that was going on inside, this sense of
life going on at the worst moments, or more specifically,
how close we sometimes are to the worst moments without
even knowing it. I particularly love Karen's theory that Lizzie
(11:47):
hired an Irish hitman from a more unseemly part of town,
Corky Row, where the poor were tightly packed into dingy tenements.
I imagine Lizzie in her typical silk shirt and blue blouse,
passing by straight dogs on the cobblestone streets to rendezvous
with a seasoned criminal. Lizzie despised the Iris just as
much as the other Protestants in town, but she hated
(12:09):
her penny pinching father even more. When I interviewed Lance,
he told me that many of the structural elements of
the original home are intact. For instance, he said, the
steps the staircase you hear me walking up are just
as they were the morning of the murders. It's one
(12:31):
of the creakiest staircases I've ever walked up, and if
it was halfway as noisy on August fourth, eighteen ninety two,
Abby Borden would have definitely heard her murderer walking up
the steps toward the second floor. And the only reason
she would have continued puffing up the pillows is that
she wouldn't have been concerned. She would have known that
there was only one other person in the home with
(12:51):
her at the time. Harmless, Lizzie. We'll be back after
a short break. We're back with murder Homes. So I'm
standing in the attic of the Lizzie Burton home and
(13:12):
I'm looking at some dolls or the dollars looking at me.
And they tastefully appointed the attic room with a replica
of Lizzie Borton's dress to my left. And then we
have the dolls. We have a teddy bear. We have
a panda bear that looked like they're from about eighteen
ninety nine. And then more toys over here, some towels,
(13:35):
a lot of animals and toys. And that's about it
for right now. I'm alone in the house and I've
just visited the other rooms. That's me in the attic
of the Lizzie Bordon home. I figured it would be
nice to have a little recording of my voice just
in case Lizzie ambushed me on the way to the
shared bathroom in the middle of the night, and then,
after sending my daughter is a picture of the three
(13:57):
dolls looking at me, and feeling somewhat brave, creaked back
down the stairs again. I headed to the South Coast
plasm Hale and Fall River, where I ate a chicken
sandwich huddled over my car, sweat dribbling down my forehead
as the day got hotter and hotter. When I headed
back to the Lizzie boardon home, the tour group and
their cars were gone for a moment in the stifling heat.
(14:19):
Walking up to her home, I could feel the toxic
mixture of her boredom and loneliness and hopelessness. That was
before I entered the keypad code and felt a welcoming
blast of air conditioning, one of the few modern updates
to the house. There would be only two other guest
rooms occupied that night, one by a couple who really
looked like they didn't want to be there but had
(14:39):
braved it because their kids had booked the room for
them as an anniversary present. Then an entire family who
filed straight into the most expensive room where Abby Borden
was killed. They locked the door behind them as if
they were going to conduct a seance. They would not
reappear again until the following morning. By the time I'd
situated myself back in the attic, I decided to go
(15:01):
through the ghost hunting checklist that barbon Mark had recommended.
I tossed a couple of cap balls on the floor,
introduced myself to Lizzie and also to Abby and Andrew
in case they were hanging around there too. Played an
old timey song on my phone to get the ghost
in the more receptive mood, and then I fired up
the EMF. I was disappointed to see that there was
(15:21):
absolutely zero electromagnetic interference. And I hate to say this,
but as darkness fell, and as I checked some work
emails and read a few pages of a book, I
felt almost comfortable, or, to be more accurate, a little bored.
Just a thought here in that Lizzie bored and attic.
And one of the weird things about a murder home
(15:43):
is when you get a little bit used to it
and the sun is still up, and you kind of
look for things like what the Wi Fi password is,
which I think is a little bit strange considering she
hacked her parents to death. The floor below me. Just
a thought at a six fifty two PM. I'll keep
you updated. It's seven or nine pm, so these updates
(16:03):
are coming fast and furious. But I'm probably going to
pass out soon because there's not much else to do,
and as I confer with my neighbors that there's no
board games here or obviously there's no television or any sort.
The wildfires from Canada are kind of obscuring the sun
right now. But I have to say from the attic,
Lizzie would have had a pretty nice view, and it
has a nice vantage point. It's on a slight hill
(16:25):
for a nice view the entire city of a Fall River.
It wasn't until the sun came up a little after
seven in the morning that I had a strange experience.
I was just about to record one last diary jury
from the attic, envious of the family downstairs, who I
could hear happily climbing down the steps talking about everything
they'd been spooked by that night. At first, it seems silly.
(16:49):
It was a box containing an emergency step ladder, just
in case the board and home burst into flame and
the guests in this room had to escape. I was
staring at the photograph on the face of the box.
A father was helping his daughter out of a burning
home onto a ladder. But it's her appearance and expression
that we're all wrong. She looked like a fucking evil child,
(17:12):
and she was looking down at her father with his
arms outstretched, with this disgusted expression. It's as if she'd
rather burn up in the home he's trying to save
her from and return to hell than let him touch her.
So there's that and this. Maybe ghosts come to us
in ways we don't expect. Aren't lured by dolls and
catballs and electronic devices, but speak to us when they
(17:33):
see fit, or are curious enough about the living to
drop a subtle hint. And there's also the fact that
this is really a murder home. And by the time
I walked down those creaking stairs the last time, it
really felt like it. It's a small home, much more
intimate than I had pictured. The parlor where Andrew Bourdon
was slain is not some grand room. It measures fourteen
(17:55):
by fourteen feet. I had a few minutes to stand
in it all by myself in silence. Someone had tastefully
placed a replica X on the arm of the replica
couch where his real head had once been split open.
But despite this, I could see him his fingers clenched
nearly into fists, his long body tilted at the odd
angle as rigor mortis had set in, legs outstretched, boots
(18:19):
still on his face, a pulpy mess of blood and tissue.
Jacket he wore neatly folded underneath his cheek before he
took a nap. We'll be back after a short break.
We're back with murder Homes. Lizzie's last moments with her
(18:43):
father and the parlor were so ordinary and mildly affectionate
that it might have felt like any other morning. I've
enlisted the help of my producer JB. To play the
part of Lizzie here as she testifies in court. Where
did you leave him on the sofa? Was he asleep?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Pep? No, sir?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Was he reading?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
No?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Sir?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
What was the last thing you said to him? I
asked him if he wanted the window left that way?
Then I went into the kitchen and from there to
the barn. In the barn behind the home, she ate
three pears by a window as she stared down at
her own home, then looked for some lead sinkers, since
she planned to go fishing. This was her alibi when
(19:26):
she returned to two thirty second Street. Her father was
dead three pears. She was exact about some things, and
hazy about the things she chose not to remember. She
had a night key, and on her way up the
stairs after her day spent teaching at the local Sunday school,
she would enter that house as if it were filled
with strangers, as quietly as she could, desperate to avoid them.
(19:49):
She must have already felt like a ghost. Maybe she
crept up the stairs in the evening she had begun
to see two thirty second as a thief. Mit each
room mapped out, timing perfected. She had nothing to lose.
Did you see the blood on the floor.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
No, sir.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
You saw his face covered with blood, yes, sir. Did
you see his eyeball hanging out? No, sir? See the
gashes where his face was laid open?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
No, sir.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I keep thinking of Bridget Sullivan laying down her bed
before noontime, then hearing Lizzie's scream. What happens to a scream?
Are there nano traces of it that are still embedded somewhere?
Can it be conjured out of the air again? How
about Lizzie's voice, the look, and her eye. This woman
who was always a loner at school and remembered for
(20:39):
her sharp sarcasm, but who also had such a soft
spot for animals that, years after she had inherited her
father's fortune, had two bronze ploques that you can still
see today. They are screwed above the stable doors where
her dead horses had once lived. Lizzie was eventually acquitted,
and despite being shunned by Fall River Society after the trial, wow,
(21:00):
she chose to stay there. She and her sister Emma
moved to a bigger home in a better part of
town called Maplecroft, where she remained until her death in
nineteen twenty seven. Lancell bought two thirty Second Street for
two million dollars in twenty twenty two. This is Murder Holmes.
I'm Matt Mrinovitch.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Murder Holmes is.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
A production of iHeart Podcasts. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Murder Homes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I asked to Bobby put in the macelaunted room in
the house. The manager at the time had me, Andrew
and Abby Borden bedroom. That was where they slept. It
wasn't where any burners occurred. The first night was really
really eerie. That night I heard male voices. When I
heard footsteps and furniture moving from the third floor above me,
(00:27):
I just really didn't feel easy. It felt really kind
of creepy. And then the second night, I slept in
the same room.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
But that's so sweet. Their two bedrooms.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I slept in the side room, which is kind of enclosed,
and I was working in the bed sheets from my
laptop and I felt the presence enter the room and
like all the hair like when my neck stood on end,
and I thought, wow, this is really strange. So it
was like some presence entered the room and I felt
something press its hand on the bed sheet, and I thought, wow,
(00:58):
this is really weird.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
That's Lanzal, owner of the Lizzie Board and Bed and Breakfast.
He's describing what it felt like to spend a night
at the former home of Lizzie Borden, who on the
morning of August fourth, eighteen ninety two, was accused of
brutally murdering her stepmother and father with an axe. I'm
going to guess that you remember the rhyme Lizzie Borden
took an axe and gave her mother forty wax. When
(01:22):
she saw what she had done, she gave her father
forty one. In fact, she gave her stepmom twenty and
her dad a mere ten, probably because the handle broke
off at that point. Although she was acquitted, no other
suspect was ever found, and to this day people are
fascinated by the notorious case. A few weeks after that interview,
(01:42):
Lance invited me to come up to Fall River, Massachusetts
and stay in the home myself. I have to say
I was excited at first. Who doesn't like a summer
road trip, especially in a nice attic room. But a
few days before my departure, I have to admit I
got a tiny bit nervous. I never stayed in a
murder home before, and Lance was graciously putting me up
(02:04):
in the attic where a living maid named Bridget Sullivan
had first heard Lizzie's screaming that her father was dead.
I thought I might need a little advice on how
to deal with any potential ghost that might be wandering
through the home, especially after seeing a horrific crime photo
of Andrew Borden lying sideways on a couch, one eyeball
cleaved into his boots still on. So I called up
(02:27):
my favorite ghost hunting husband and wife team Barb and
Mark Nelson. So my question is what kind of things
do I look for? Not being a psychic but looking
for paranormal things.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So what you would look for when you're going into
a home like this is you want to see are
you picking up anything on equipment?
Speaker 5 (02:48):
My digital recorder, be MTh meter camera, If.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You have nothing set up in terms of equipment, I
would go in and take a pulse.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, take a pulse, sorry, take a pulse metaphorically or
my own pulse.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Or I would see how you feel when you walk
into a room. I know you're not psychic, but sometimes
they don't need you to be terribly psychic in order
to communicate with him.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
You have your own equipment on your body because your
hair will stand up on your arms.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Ok.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
It's like you know how when you rub the rug
and then you get the shock or whatever. So the
energy will be in whatever room the entity or spirit
is and you'll feel it on your arms, your back
of your head, or the hairs standing up. Okay, so
right away, that's a quick way to get an idea
(03:41):
that all something's here.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Ghosts can communicate to you from any part of the home.
It's most likely that you're either dealing with Lizzie Borden herself,
or her parents, or all three of them. And so
what I would say is that they're not trapped most
likely in one area. Idea that you're not in the
room where the murder took place may be completely irrelevant
(04:04):
to your experience. So what I would say is, so
when you walk in, you say hello, I'm Matt, I'm here.
I'm going to be staying overnight. If someone wants to
step forward and introduce yourself, please reach out just.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Like that, Just like what you said, I totally do.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
We also use these things you can get them at
like pet Smart. It's a cat playball and it's just
a plastic ball that lights up when you touch it,
and so we put those around the room and then
when their energy is close to that, it'll light it up.
So at least you'll know that something is there in
(04:43):
the room with you, okay, and I think they're like
a dollar.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
One other thing I would recommend just finding out what
was a popular song from that era eighteen ninety two.
The idea is if you have a small trigger device
or some that would be interesting to them.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Pay attention to smells. You might smell a perfume. Some
people say they smell like roses. That's usually a sign
of something around you, or cigar smell. Maybe he smoked cigars.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Taking barbon Mark's advice, I selected a few old timey
tunes on Spotify that Lizzie and her murdered parents might
find tasteful, packed up the cat balls and my new
electromagnetic field device, and then I hit the road. This
is Murder Holmes. I'm Magrianovitch. The four and a half
(05:45):
hour drive north gave me a lot of time to
think about the facts of the case and my own theory,
which is Lizzie did it first. She had the motive.
Her stepmom, Abby, who she hated, was trying to screw
out of her father's mind. And her father Andrew, a
humorless stick in the mud who had a very frosty
relationship with his two daughters and never put them first,
(06:07):
despite his accumulating wealth. There had been an awful fight
about money a few months before, serious enough that Lizzie
and her sister had temporarily been banished from the home,
and when Lizzie returned, her stepmom was happy to treat
her like a servant again. Every summer day, no matter
how hot they were, an endless list of chores had
(06:28):
to be completed, ironing, scrubbing, changing sheets, laundry, more ironing.
On the sweltering morning of the murderers, Lizzie's stepmom had
given her the worst task in the house, heating up
two flat irons over a crackling fire so that she
could press eighteen of her father's handkerchiefs. The heat and
boredom alone must have made her feel murderous. Lizzie, with
(06:52):
no suitors, with barely any friends, no hope of a
real inheritance, living in a home she despised because it
wasn't even on the right side of the tree, must
have felt like she had nothing to lose when she
hiked up her dress and walked down to the basement,
grasping the axe as soon as the livin maid Bridget
Sullivan left the home to wash the windows outside, and
(07:13):
her father walked out to check on as many rental properties.
Lizzie had her chance. She was alone with her despised stepmom,
walking slowly up the stairs with the axe in her
right hand. She could see her stepmom puffing up some
pillows on a bed abby board and heard the creak
of the floorboard behind her. Turned and Lizzie swung the
(07:33):
axe through the air and sank it deep into her
stepmom's skull, yanking it out just in time to enjoy
the sight of her falling face first on the floor.
Lizzie struck her another nineteen times, an oblong pool of
blood spreading on the carpet. You have to picture Lizzie
at that moment, stepping away from the body, her heart pounding,
(07:54):
both thrilled and terrified about what had just occurred. It
most definitely wasn't boring. Dad was next, but we'll get
to that later. I had arrived in Fall River, which
was nothing like the quaint New England refuge had pictured.
I was slowly climbing the long, slow curve of Second Street,
past tanning salons and hairy parlors, and what seemed like
(08:15):
endless parking lots and fast food restaurants. When I suddenly
saw it and passed it just as fast. I made
a U turn and pulled into its narrow driveway, bathed
in sweat because of my car is faltering ac It
was almost the exact temperature it had been on that
very hot day of August fourth, eighteen ninety two, when
Lizzie would be heard screaming inside the home and then
(08:38):
desperately running for help. The house is still in pristine condition.
It's painted a drab green and sits on top of
a rocky hill overlooking Hope Bay. I'd arrived just in
time to see a tour group walking out, so I
grabbed my mic and introduced myself. I'd settled firmly on
Lizzie being the murderer, but maybe they had other theories.
(08:59):
I can I ask you what brought you here?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
My friend and I are doing a road trip. We
flew in from California to Boston and rented a car,
and we're just doing a whole New England coastal thing.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
And she's a huge Lizzie Borden, Okay, and I grew.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Up knowing the whole Lizzie Borden.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Home thingy.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Do you know a lot about Lizzie bordon I do.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, I'm very fascinated with serial killers and all the
kind of weird and crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So was your mind changed? Do you think she did it?
Speaker 6 (09:35):
I still think she did it.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Whether she did it alone or not, I don't know,
but yeah, I agree.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
I just think at the time that the murders happened,
it was very unusual. I think people were afraid to
maybe convict a woman, or to believe that a woman
could create such a you know, painous crime.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Standing in the shade of a maple tree was the
tour group guy named Karen. She was wearing a long
red gas to put people in the mood to hear
about Lizzie.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
My personal theory it wasn't popular back then, but it
is now.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
She paid somebody.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
The timing and everything, and there was no blood on her.
She didn't even have a hair out of place. All
the neighborhood around here was Irish immigrants. Yes, they had
a hot life, they didn't have an easy life. She
could have easily paid an Irish immigrants. She just got
all that money from her father for selling.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
The house on ferry and bad blood with her stepmother. Correct.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
I think she paid somebody. She was the lookout in
the bond, helped him get away and then ran.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And what about Bridget, like washing the windows, wasn't there
a risk with her kind of being around the house
that the one was a risk.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
But remember Bridget was on that side of the house
at nineteen thirty. That side were the yellow houses.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Okay, well, okay, I got it.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Yeah, she was over there, so she wouldn't see anybody
over here, and.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
She was washing the windows and not inside the house.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
She wouldn'tess right, she wouldn't have seen anybody here.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Karen's mentioned a Bridget Sullivan washing the windows outside the
home is one of the perpetually infuriating aspects of the case,
because how could the maid not see what was happening
inside the parlor when Andrew Borden was killed? But maybe
it was because Lizzie had made her close those blinds
before her father came home. The windows being washed outside
(11:24):
as a blood bath occurs as haunting the image of
Bridget splashing water upwards from a pail to hit the
second four window she couldn't reach, with no idea of
the butchering that was going on inside, this sense of
life going on at the worst moments, or more specifically,
how close we sometimes are to the worst moments without
even knowing it. I particularly love Karen's theory that Lizzie
(11:47):
hired an Irish hitman from a more unseemly part of town,
Corky Row, where the poor were tightly packed into dingy tenements.
I imagine Lizzie in her typical silk shirt and blue blouse,
passing by straight dogs on the cobblestone streets to rendezvous
with a seasoned criminal. Lizzie despised the Iris just as
much as the other Protestants in town, but she hated
(12:09):
her penny pinching father even more. When I interviewed Lance,
he told me that many of the structural elements of
the original home are intact. For instance, he said, the
steps the staircase you hear me walking up are just
as they were the morning of the murders. It's one
(12:31):
of the creakiest staircases I've ever walked up, and if
it was halfway as noisy on August fourth, eighteen ninety two,
Abby Borden would have definitely heard her murderer walking up
the steps toward the second floor. And the only reason
she would have continued puffing up the pillows is that
she wouldn't have been concerned. She would have known that
there was only one other person in the home with
(12:51):
her at the time. Harmless, Lizzie. We'll be back after
a short break. We're back with murder Homes. So I'm
standing in the attic of the Lizzie Burton home and
(13:12):
I'm looking at some dolls or the dollars looking at me.
And they tastefully appointed the attic room with a replica
of Lizzie Borton's dress to my left. And then we
have the dolls. We have a teddy bear. We have
a panda bear that looked like they're from about eighteen
ninety nine. And then more toys over here, some towels,
(13:35):
a lot of animals and toys. And that's about it
for right now. I'm alone in the house and I've
just visited the other rooms. That's me in the attic
of the Lizzie Bordon home. I figured it would be
nice to have a little recording of my voice just
in case Lizzie ambushed me on the way to the
shared bathroom in the middle of the night, and then,
after sending my daughter is a picture of the three
(13:57):
dolls looking at me, and feeling somewhat brave, creaked back
down the stairs again. I headed to the South Coast
plasm Hale and Fall River, where I ate a chicken
sandwich huddled over my car, sweat dribbling down my forehead
as the day got hotter and hotter. When I headed
back to the Lizzie boardon home, the tour group and
their cars were gone for a moment in the stifling heat.
(14:19):
Walking up to her home, I could feel the toxic
mixture of her boredom and loneliness and hopelessness. That was
before I entered the keypad code and felt a welcoming
blast of air conditioning, one of the few modern updates
to the house. There would be only two other guest
rooms occupied that night, one by a couple who really
looked like they didn't want to be there but had
(14:39):
braved it because their kids had booked the room for
them as an anniversary present. Then an entire family who
filed straight into the most expensive room where Abby Borden
was killed. They locked the door behind them as if
they were going to conduct a seance. They would not
reappear again until the following morning. By the time I'd
situated myself back in the attic, I decided to go
(15:01):
through the ghost hunting checklist that barbon Mark had recommended.
I tossed a couple of cap balls on the floor,
introduced myself to Lizzie and also to Abby and Andrew
in case they were hanging around there too. Played an
old timey song on my phone to get the ghost
in the more receptive mood, and then I fired up
the EMF. I was disappointed to see that there was
(15:21):
absolutely zero electromagnetic interference. And I hate to say this,
but as darkness fell, and as I checked some work
emails and read a few pages of a book, I
felt almost comfortable, or, to be more accurate, a little bored.
Just a thought here in that Lizzie bored and attic.
And one of the weird things about a murder home
(15:43):
is when you get a little bit used to it
and the sun is still up, and you kind of
look for things like what the Wi Fi password is,
which I think is a little bit strange considering she
hacked her parents to death. The floor below me. Just
a thought at a six fifty two PM. I'll keep
you updated. It's seven or nine pm, so these updates
(16:03):
are coming fast and furious. But I'm probably going to
pass out soon because there's not much else to do,
and as I confer with my neighbors that there's no
board games here or obviously there's no television or any sort.
The wildfires from Canada are kind of obscuring the sun
right now. But I have to say from the attic,
Lizzie would have had a pretty nice view, and it
has a nice vantage point. It's on a slight hill
(16:25):
for a nice view the entire city of a Fall River.
It wasn't until the sun came up a little after
seven in the morning that I had a strange experience.
I was just about to record one last diary jury
from the attic, envious of the family downstairs, who I
could hear happily climbing down the steps talking about everything
they'd been spooked by that night. At first, it seems silly.
(16:49):
It was a box containing an emergency step ladder, just
in case the board and home burst into flame and
the guests in this room had to escape. I was
staring at the photograph on the face of the box.
A father was helping his daughter out of a burning
home onto a ladder. But it's her appearance and expression
that we're all wrong. She looked like a fucking evil child,
(17:12):
and she was looking down at her father with his
arms outstretched, with this disgusted expression. It's as if she'd
rather burn up in the home he's trying to save
her from and return to hell than let him touch her.
So there's that and this. Maybe ghosts come to us
in ways we don't expect. Aren't lured by dolls and
catballs and electronic devices, but speak to us when they
(17:33):
see fit, or are curious enough about the living to
drop a subtle hint. And there's also the fact that
this is really a murder home. And by the time
I walked down those creaking stairs the last time, it
really felt like it. It's a small home, much more
intimate than I had pictured. The parlor where Andrew Bourdon
was slain is not some grand room. It measures fourteen
(17:55):
by fourteen feet. I had a few minutes to stand
in it all by myself in silence. Someone had tastefully
placed a replica X on the arm of the replica
couch where his real head had once been split open.
But despite this, I could see him his fingers clenched
nearly into fists, his long body tilted at the odd
angle as rigor mortis had set in, legs outstretched, boots
(18:19):
still on his face, a pulpy mess of blood and tissue.
Jacket he wore neatly folded underneath his cheek before he
took a nap. We'll be back after a short break.
We're back with murder Homes. Lizzie's last moments with her
(18:43):
father and the parlor were so ordinary and mildly affectionate
that it might have felt like any other morning. I've
enlisted the help of my producer JB. To play the
part of Lizzie here as she testifies in court. Where
did you leave him on the sofa? Was he asleep?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Pep? No, sir?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Was he reading?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
No?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Sir?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
What was the last thing you said to him? I
asked him if he wanted the window left that way?
Then I went into the kitchen and from there to
the barn. In the barn behind the home, she ate
three pears by a window as she stared down at
her own home, then looked for some lead sinkers, since
she planned to go fishing. This was her alibi when
(19:26):
she returned to two thirty second Street. Her father was
dead three pears. She was exact about some things, and
hazy about the things she chose not to remember. She
had a night key, and on her way up the
stairs after her day spent teaching at the local Sunday school,
she would enter that house as if it were filled
with strangers, as quietly as she could, desperate to avoid them.
(19:49):
She must have already felt like a ghost. Maybe she
crept up the stairs in the evening she had begun
to see two thirty second as a thief. Mit each
room mapped out, timing perfected. She had nothing to lose.
Did you see the blood on the floor.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
No, sir.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
You saw his face covered with blood, yes, sir. Did
you see his eyeball hanging out? No, sir? See the
gashes where his face was laid open?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
No, sir.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I keep thinking of Bridget Sullivan laying down her bed
before noontime, then hearing Lizzie's scream. What happens to a scream?
Are there nano traces of it that are still embedded somewhere?
Can it be conjured out of the air again? How
about Lizzie's voice, the look, and her eye. This woman
who was always a loner at school and remembered for
(20:39):
her sharp sarcasm, but who also had such a soft
spot for animals that, years after she had inherited her
father's fortune, had two bronze ploques that you can still
see today. They are screwed above the stable doors where
her dead horses had once lived. Lizzie was eventually acquitted,
and despite being shunned by Fall River Society after the trial, wow,
(21:00):
she chose to stay there. She and her sister Emma
moved to a bigger home in a better part of
town called Maplecroft, where she remained until her death in
nineteen twenty seven. Lancell bought two thirty Second Street for
two million dollars in twenty twenty two. This is Murder Holmes.
I'm Matt Mrinovitch.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Murder Holmes is.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
A production of iHeart Podcasts. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Host
Matt Marinovich
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