Crime & Investigation Index

(Quick Start: Crime Overview)

On August 4th, 1892, horrifying news raced through the town of Fall River, Massachusetts: A wealthy married couple, Andrew and Abby Borden, upstanding citizens, had just been brutally hacked to death by a hatchet in their own home. By the next day, the whole state had heard of this shocking event, and within a few more days, the whole nation knew of it, thanks to the newly-created AP wire service. Citizens from Maine to California devoured every detail of the crime and the police investigation that followed. They were shocked further still when the older man’s 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie Andrew Borden, a spinster Sunday school teacher of good character, was arrested for the crime. The case was hotly debated in the editorial pages of newspapers and across family dinner tables until Lizzie’s trial in June 1893, provoking arguments that an eventual verdict of “not guilty” did nothing to resolve. The case, officially unsolved, continues to be scrutinized by historians, documentarians and an entire subculture of armchair sleuths, provoking just as many debates today as it did then.

In this section you will find a short overview of the murders, along with details of the mystifying crime, timelines of events, as well as a description and analysis of the police investigation of the murders. To learn more about the evidence police found which led them to arrest Lizzie Borden and put her on trial, see the section on Evidence.