Today in History—June 20: Lizzie Borden Is Acquitted of Murder
“Lizzie Borden took an axe / And gave her mother forty whacks / And when she saw what she had done / She gave her father forty-one.” (These numbers are wrong. Stay tuned.)
On this day in 1893, one of the most sensational murder trials in American history came to a shocking conclusion when a Massachusetts jury acquitted Lizzie Borden of murder—after just over an hour of deliberation. Lizzie nearly passed out in court upon hearing the verdict.
The 32-year-old was accused of killing her 70-year-old father and 64-year-old stepmother, Andrew and Abby Borden, in the home they shared.
According to Lizzie, on August 4, 1892, she found her father’s body on the couch. He had been struck in the head and face numerous times with a sharp instrument.
The first police officer on the scene quickly ran back to the station for help, while neighbors calmed the horrified Lizzie. When she asked after her stepmother, two neighbors found Abby dead upstairs. She too had been brutally murdered.
Lizzie’s allegedly emotionless state during police questioning—and inconsistent accounts of her whereabouts, which included spending time in the barn eating pears or prepping for a fishing trip—made suspicion land on Lizzie.
She was also seen burning a dress days after the murder. She claimed it was covered in paint, not blood, but nobody could corroborate the details.
She was jailed in August 1892, and her trial began the following June. The town threw out many motives. The Bordens were wealthy and Lizzie and her sister stood to inherit. Others pointed to family tensions, including Lizzie’s strained relationship with her stepmother.
Lizzie probably heard the schoolyard rhyme about her.
At trial, police testimonies on the suspected murder weapon, a hatchet, contradicted each other. They disagreed about who took it to the station and whether it was found with a handle attached.
A local druggist was ready to testify that a Ms. Borden came to his shop and asked for prussic acid and was refused, which suggested an intent to harm. But the court excluded that evidence, ruling that an attempt to purchase poison did not demonstrate intent.
Without concrete evidence, the jury acquitted Lizzie. The verdict settled the trial but not the suspicion. Lizzie was ostracized by the town, where she remained for the rest of her life. The murders remain officially unsolved.
- ~18: Times Abby was actually struck
- ~11: Times Andrew was actually struck
- $500,000: Borden estate worth
- 1819: SS Savannah becomes the first steamship to cross the Atlantic
- 1837: Queen Victoria ascends the throne at age 18
- 1975: Jaws is released in theaters
