Myths Index

So many of the quote, accepted facts about the Borden case and about Lizzie’s life are based on legend and innuendo and outright lies,” said Michael Martins to the Fall River Herald in 2021. As the curator of the Fall River Historical Society at that time, he would know. Indeed, much of what people think they know about Lizzie Borden comes from her legend rather than the factual record. This has always been the case. As far back as 1933, Edmund Pearson noted in article for The New Yorker that “the legends about Miss Lizzie and her exploit are nearly as fascinating as the facts.” He then went on to list some of the more entertaining myths that follow Lizzie around, including the scandalous supposition that she killed her father and stepmother while nude.

More than 90 years later, the mythology around Lizzie and the Borden murders that began developing before the victims were even buried not only still thrives, but still expands itself almost daily, fed not only by the fevered imaginations of writers and artists inspired by Lizzie and the murders (as has always been), but also by digital algorithms and A.I.-generated embellishments (which is new).

Of course, some myths are widely known to be untrue and are usually accepted as exaggerated. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks? Abby Borden, Lizzie’s stepmother, received either 18 or 19 whacks from the hatchet that killed her (difficult to be precise when one blow landed on top of another). Other myths are not only deeply embedded in Lizzie’s story but so widely believed that they show up in nearly every account of the murders—usually as a way of setting a properly dramatic context for a dramatic double homicide. Here you will find a debunking of the usual suspects.This section on ‘EVIDENCE’ is the meat and potatoes of this encyclopedia, with the most entries, a number of them quite long due to their complexity. Each entry attempts to look beneath the layers of myth and legend and discern exactly what was found to implicate Lizzie Borden in the murders of her father and stepmother, by both police and investigative reporters, in the days and weeks after she raised the alarm and brought the world peering into her home. Maddeningly, much of what was found was then, and is now, up to individual interpretation as to whether it pointed to Lizzie’s guilt or suggested her innocence, and in most of these entries, I try to present both views in the same way you might hear them in a courtroom. (See Our Approach). Evidence of guilt in a circumstantial case largely turns out to be in the eye of the beholder (see Case Analysis), and it is helpful to keep that in mind as you explore these entries. Note: This section lists entries on evidence that was found. Entries on the way in which it was found, such as searches performed by the police, are listed in the section on The Crime & The Investigation.