AI Summary
5 min readIn the summer of 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts, someone took a hatchet to Andrew Borden and his wife Abby while they were home in the middle of the day. The only other people in the house were Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter Lizzie and the Irish servant Bridget. Neither claimed to have heard or seen anything. The case became one of the most famous in American criminal history, and it was immortalized by a rhyme that got the numbers wrong: Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. The actual count was 19 blows for Abby and 10 or 11 for Andrew, but the rhyme stuck anyway.
The Household on the Wrong Side of Town
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:26) **Welcome & Episode Setup** – Claire and Tess introduce the episode on Lizzie Borden, part of a female killers/axes theme, and note that Tess knows nothing about the case going in.
- 2 (02:11) **The Famous Rhyme & Initial Hook** – Claire recites the iconic “Lizzie Borden took an axe” rhyme, setting up the 1892 axe murders as one of America’s most famous unsolved cases.
- 3 (03:29) **Lizzie’s Early Life & Family** – Background on Lizzie’s birth, her mother’s death, her father Andrew’s remarriage to Abby, and the strained family dynamics.
- 4 (06:26) **Andrew’s Stinginess & Family Tensions** – The Borden home lacks hallways, plumbing, and electricity, causing resentment from Lizzie and Emma, who feel they should live on “the hill” with the wealthy.
- 5 (09:19) **Lizzie’s Personality & the Pigeon Incident** – Lizzie is a churchgoer, temperance movement treasurer, and animal lover; Andrew kills her pet pigeons with a hatchet months before the murders.
- 6 (11:44) **The Food Poisoning & Pre-Murder Tension** – Two days before the murders, the entire household (including servant Bridget) gets food poisoning from spoiled mutton, and Lizzie confides fears of poisoning to a friend.
- 7 (13:25) **The Morning of the Murders** – On August 4, 1892, Andrew leaves for errands, Bridget is forced to wash windows while sick, and the household timeline becomes critical.
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Show Notes
This week we cover the Lizzie Borden murder case, one of the most famous in American criminal history. Accused of brutally killing her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892, Lizzie's trial became a media frenzy. But here’s the twist: she was found not guilty. So was she a cold-blooded killer, or just a single woman in her 30s in the 1800s?! In this episode we break down the crime, the evidence, and bring it back to Bravo more than ever! Let us know your thoughts, Rammies!
Created and produced by Claire Donald & Tess Bellomo
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