How the Gruesome Lizzie Borden Rhyme Gets the Murders Wrong

Most storytellers and sleuths don’t seem as interested in if Borden did it but why. “Unlike the equally puzzling case of Jack the Ripper, where the fascination seems to be who done it,” writes scholar Ann Schofield, “Lizzie biographers almost without exception agree that she done it. All, though, ask why she done it.”

A host of fictional works, historical dives and dramatic adaptations suggest a range of possible motives: a hidden (possibly queer) romance, a family dispute, financial greed, resentment of a gold-digging stepmother or a boiled-over reaction to abuse or patriarchy. All are enticing interpretations but none especially provable.

What we know about the Bordens’ lives certainly tempts sensationalism. Andrew Borden and his second wife, Abby, were reasonably well-to-do residents of Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew was wealthy from a career in real estate but was notably frugal, choosing to live outside Fall River’s elite neighborhood and forgoing luxuries like indoor plumbing.

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He married Abby three years after the death of his daughters’ mother, Sarah, in 1863, and his girls were reportedly not especially fond of their new stepparent. Nothing about the Bordens suggested drama, though: Andrew was retired, and Abby mostly kept to home, where Lizzie and her sister, Emma, (both unmarried) also lived.