In Part I, we took a look at what happens when blind ambition meets with an iron will. In Part II, we’ll look at two other motivations for murder: resentment and greed.
There’s a musical, a bed and breakfast, and even a jump-rope song. See if you can jump and sing along:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her mother forty-one.
There’s only one problem with this gruesome nursery rhyme from Victorian New England. According to court documents, it’s untrue. But according to the court of past and present public opinion, Lizzie Borden was guilty of hacking her stepmother and father to death.
On the morning of August 4, 1892, someone crept upstairs of the Borden house on Second Street in Fall River, MA and struck Abby Borden on the head with an ax over a dozen times. Then, at least over an hour later, presumably that same person slinked down the stairs and hacked away at Mr. Andrew Jackson Borden.
It took only a couple of days for suspicious eyes to fall upon youngest daughter Lizzie Borden. She found her father’s body and rang out the hue and cry to the Borden’s servant, Miss Bridget Sullivan. After summoning the family doctor, they found the ghastly Mrs. Borden upstairs.
Now remember that 1892 is the pre-CSI era. They had forensics, fingerprints not included. They didn’t have that cool liquid that turns light neon blue when it comes into contact with blood, even after it’s been washed off. They didn’t have much. Unless you count Lizzie Borden’s erratic behavior.
Erratic behavior one
A few days before the deaths, Lizzie Borden tried to buy some poison from the local druggist. She claimed it was to be used as a sealant, but was denied purchase anyway. This evidence was not allowed at trial.
Erratic behavior number two
When asked by police if she was well enough to talk about the murders, she answered in what would become known as her self-possessed way: “I can talk about it now as well as any other time.” In fact, at no point in the investigation did Lizzie show any signs of agitation that her parents had been murdered and did not seem interested in the police catching the killer.
Erratic behavior number three
Lizzie was reluctant to allow the police to search her room on the day of the murders.
Erratic behavior number four
Hacking two people to death means blood splatter. Lots of it. As a matter of course, some of that blood is bound to get on the perpetrator’s clothes. None was evident on the dress she was wearing the day of the murders, but a few days later she burned a dress in the oven.
Sure, Lizzie acted a little too calm and collected after the murders. But we can’t have murder without motive. What drives a daughter to kill her parents? Resentment and greed.
By all accounts, the house on Second Street was not a warm, nurturing place. All members of the Borden house locked their bedroom doors. Sisters Emma and Lizzie received visitors in their respective bedrooms.
The sisters also had become resentful of their wealthy father bestowing monetary gifts on his wife and her family. With their parents dead and no evidence of a will, the Borden sisters inherited half a million dollars.
Could an otherwise mild-mannered, Sunday-school-teaching, animal-loving young lady hack her parents to death for money? Without direct evidence – blood spatter and a murder weapon – the late-Victorian, all-male jury concluded no, a woman could not have committed such heinous crimes.
But we know better. We know our history.
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