The Story Behind Lizzie Borden as ‘Monster’ Season 4 Hits Netflix

On Aug. 4, 1892, a crime of epic proportions rocked Fall River, a bustling mill town in southeastern Massachusetts. Residents Andrew Borden and his second wife, Abby, were discovered bludgeoned to death inside their home on Second St.

The murder weapon? A hatchet.

Beyond its grisly nature, it was also an act of ruthless violence, considering Andrew Borden received nearly a dozen blows to his head and face. Abby Borden got 19.

That alone would have been notable, but when Andrew Borden’s 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie, was charged in the crime, the case made headlines. And in the months that followed her stunning arrest, Lizzie Borden was tried — and acquitted — of murdering her father and stepmother in a courtroom drama rivaling the modern-day trials of O.J. Simpson or the Menendez brothers.

More than a century later, their deaths remain unsolved. But the case is being explored once again through Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy’s anthology series “Monster,” which centers around the stories of real-life individuals whose gruesome actions have shaken the nation and made an indelible mark on history.

Ahead of the Sept. 17 release of Netflix’s “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” TODAY.com spoke with experts who help breakdown the facts, the myths and the ongoing appeal of the case — as well as offering their thoughts on who might ultimately be responsible for the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden.

Who Were the Bordens?

According to Michael Martins — curator of the Fall River Historical Society and author of “Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River” — there was nothing particularly unique about the Borden family.

“If not for the events of August 4, 1892, they would have been completely lost to history,” he explains. “They would just be named in a city directory or nameless faces in a photograph.”

A self-made man, Andrew Borden became wealthy from his dealings in furniture and casket-making in the 1800s. A shrewd financier, he used the money to invest in stocks and real estate, amassing a fortune of roughly $250 to $350 thousand at the time of his death. The fortune, Martins says, was a “considerable amount of money” at the time.

In 1845, he married Sarah Morse and the couple had three daughters, Emma, Alice (who died at the age of one) and Lizzie. Upon Sarah Morse Borden’s death from uterine congestion at 39, Andrew Borden got remarried to Abby Durfee Gray in 1865.

After losing his first wife, Andrew remained friendly with her brother, John Morse, who was reported to have visited the family fairly often over the years.

“According to (Emma and Lizzie), he just sort of showed up from time to time and usually stayed in a room on the second or third floor,” says Martins.

By 1892, Andrew, Abby, Emma and Lizzie still lived together in Andrew Borden’s Fall River home, with the latter considered spinsters at the ages of 40 and 32, respectively.

There are conflicting accounts of Lizzie and Emma Borden’s relationship with their father. Some suggest they were close, while others cite Andrew Borden as a stingy miser — forcing the family to use chamber pots instead of toilets, refusing to put central heat in the house, insisting that spoiled food be served at mealtimes — among other claims. According to Martins, however, there’s little concrete evidence to back up those theories.

As far as Lizzie and Emma Borden’s relationship with their stepmother, what might have been an amicable — if not necessarily warm — relationship soured in the late 1880s when Andrew Borden used a large portion of his fortune to purchase he second wife’s family home.

“We know that from that point, both Lizzie and Emma blamed their stepmother for their father’s actions. Even though he tried to equalize matters by deeding over some property to them, they viewed their stepmother as having played this negative role in siphoning away Borden money to (Abby’s) family,” explains Cara Robertson, former clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, and author of the book “The Trial of Lizzie Borden.”

After that, Robertson says the Borden household was likely filled with a fair amount of “tension.”

“Lizzie Borden famously was very forthright and she complained to people about her stepmother and that was sort of the ‘not done’ thing,” she says.

Though no one knows for sure what went on behind the closed doors of the Borden house, one thing is certain: Andrew and Abby Borden were discovered dead after being violently murdered there.

What Exactly Happened on August 4, 1892?

It was a sweltering summer day in New England.

According to Martins, John Morse was visiting the Bordens in Fall River and joined them for breakfast on that fateful morning. After the meal ended, he left to visit family on the other side of town and Andrew Borden also left to take his morning walk. And Emma? She was out of town visiting relatives.

Left behind were Lizzie, Abby and the Borden’s live-in housemaid, Bridget Sullivan.

According to the police inquest, Lizzie reported spending the morning reading magazines, folding laundry and ironing handkerchiefs before going out to the family’s barn to look for fishing sinkers.

She returned and discovered her father’s body, according to testimony.

Lying on the living room couch was Andrew Borden, dead from repeated blows to his face and head. Upstairs Abby was found facedown on the floor of the guest room, a victim of the exact same fate.

“She appears to have been cornered between a bed and a bureau when she was taken out and she was struck repeatedly with a very small, shop-hatchet like weapon,” says Martins. “It was a brutal vicious crime.”

While some have speculated that the murders could have been a hit on the couple as retribution for business dealings gone wrong, Martins says that it seems unlikely that a hired killer would deliver the amount of blows the couple received.

“The crime clearly was perpetrated by someone who either was totally, totally insane or had some sort of vendetta against these people,” says Martins.

Even more baffling, it was later determined by forensics that the murders occurred nearly two hours apart.

“So, did someone get into the house?” says Martins. “If they did, they managed to get in out and come back nearly two hours later. Or managed to get in and stayed in the house for that amount of time.”

Given that the Borden house was located on a busy street, the killer would’ve also had to come and go unnoticed by neighbors and passersby. More than that, if they remained in the house, how did they go unnoticed for so long? Further adding to the mystery is that according to Martins, there was very little physical evidence.

“They managed to cover their tracks really, really well because there’s so little blood splattered about the house,” Martins said.

The Suspects

At the heart of the Borden murders is a deeply-complex whodunnit that has stumped experts for more than a century.

Among the suspects? The visiting John Morse, who claimed to be riding on a streetcar when the murders were committed.

“He remembered the badge number of the streetcar conductor or streetcar that he took, which seems sort of an odd thing for one to remember,” says Martins. Even so, Martins says Morse was seen by many people that day and likely didn’t stand to inherit in the event of Andrew Borden’s death.

“But there were those who believed that if he did murder the Bordens, he might have been conspiring with the Borden sisters in order to take out Andrew and Abby,” he says.

Then, there’s Bridget Sullivan, the Irish housemaid who was in the house the day of the murders. According to Robertson, Abby Borden was the only member of the household to call her by her given name. Lizzie and Emma only ever referred to her only as “Maggie.”

“It does seemed pointed in this context,” says Robertson, explaining that even though they all lived together in a relatively small space, never learning Sullivan’s real name was “a pretty damning portrait of the people.”

Even so, Sullivan was ultimately ruled out as a suspect.

“We know the maid didn’t come into any sizeable amount of money,” says Martins. And after the murders, Sullivan left the Borden home, eventually settling in Montana and living a quiet life until her death in 1948.

Emma Borden was also considered a possible suspect. “Some people believe Emma Borden returned from the house party that she was at in Marion, Massachusetts and committed the crime; which sounds highly unlikely,” says Martins.

And of course, the murders could have been committed by a random “crazed person,” disgruntled worker of Andrew Borden’s or other unknown person, Martins said, adding that “it’s all up to speculation.”

Lizzie Borden Is Charged

While many people were questioned in connection with the crime, only one was charged: Lizzie Borden.

“If you read any of the trial testimony, the prosecution was saying that clearly Lizzie Borden hated her stepmother and hated her father and was concerned about the money and had every reason to want to see them dead. She was in the house, she was about the place at the time of the murders,” says Martins.

The circumstantial evidence was also damning.

During her trial, the prosecution suggested the 32-year-old had attempted to poison her father and stepmother prior to Aug. 4, presenting witnesses who testified Lizzie Borden tried to purchase prussic acid, or cyanide, claiming she wanted to clean a sealskin cape with it – a fur that would have been hot and unwearable in the dead of summer.

Then there’s the matter of a dress Lizzie Borden burned in the kitchen shortly after the murders occurred. It was a dress she said had paint on it and was doing due diligence in disposing of it. Police never found said dress.

“A painter and a dressmaker testified that she did, indeed, get paint on a dress,” says Martin. But in the aftermath of a double murder, it seemed odd to set aside time to burn an unwanted dress, let alone a dress the police didn’t note during their evidence collection.

Then again, maybe it just wasn’t there.

“It does suggest that the dress was concealed between the time of the murders and the time that it was burned,” says Robertson. “That looks bad for Lizzie Borden.”

But in a drama-filled trial that held the world captive awaiting its verdict, Lizzie Borden was found not guilty. Was it because the all-male jury thought she was innocent or something else?

“The only penalty for murder was the death penalty,” says Robertson. If Lizzie Borden had been convicted, she would have been hanged, something Robertson says the defense team used to seed doubt in the all-male jury’s minds.

“‘If you believe the prosecution, you’re going to send this woman to her death, there’s no alternative,'” she says that the defense reasoned. “And that must have weighed very heavily on them.”

In the end, she was acquitted and returned to Fall River where she remained until her death in 1927.

So, Who Did It?

In the eyes of the court, Lizzie Borden was found innocent of the crime. Public opinion, however, was a different story.

For years after the not-guilty verdict, Lizzie Borden was still thought by many to be guilty of murdering her father and stepmother.

“She was relentlessly haunted by this spectrum of suspicion for the rest of her life,” says Martins.

But the question of her guilt or innocence remains as ambiguous as it did more than one hundred years ago.

“If you believe she’s guilty, then the difficulties of her life after the events of August 4, 1892, perhaps, were atonement for sins. But if you think by any stretch of the imagination that she might have been innocent, then, in her life, you’re going to find the makings of an epic tragedy. So it’s one extreme to the other, but there’s nothing in between,” says Martins.

Who does he think might have committed the crime?

“I have no idea who did it and I don’t think anyone ever will know actually one way or the other,” Martins says.

As for Robertson, she says that if the case went to trial today and she was given the choice between serving as prosecutor or defense attorney, Robertson says she’d choose to prosecute. But that doesn’t mean she’s convinced of Lizzie Borden’s guilt, nor does it mean she has an inkling about who did it.

“You want to be the person who figures out the puzzle,” says Robertson. “Spoiler alert – I don’t solve the mystery.”