July 19, 1860
June 1, 1927

Accused Murderer

Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother were murdered violently in the small New England house the family shared. Lizzie, an unmarried thirty-two-year old, was arrested and tried for the murders. Because the evidence against her was circumstantial and because her calm demeanor in the courtroom contradicted the image of her as a cold-blooded killer (she even fainted when pictures of the bodies were shown in court), she was eventually cleared of the charges. However, public opinion about the trial divided the nation.

A wealthy penny-pincher

Andrew Jackson Borden and his wife, Sarah Anthony Borden, had three children—Emma, Lizzie, and Alice. Alice died in infancy and when Lizzie was two and Emma was eleven, their mother died. In 1865, their forty-two-year-old father married Abby Durfee Gray, thirty-seven. Although Abby was apparently kind to the girls, Emma and Lizzie were not fond...