The facts vs fiction in ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s fourth instalment of the hit Netflix true-crime anthology series Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is the first to focus on a female subject and also the first to spotlight an alleged murder suspect who was acquitted in court.
The series follows Lizzie Borden as a repressed young New England daughter who grew up in a claustrophobic, Victorian-era, wealthy household built on humiliation and abuse. The Lizzie Borden Story dramatises her alleged crimes through speculation and imagination, citing her suffocating domestic rearing as a potential reason for the notorious 1892 axe murders of her father, Andrew and her stepmother, Abby.
At the heart of the true-crime series is the question: did she really commit the murders? Followed by an even more burning question: if yes, then why?
So, for those curious, here are the facts versus fiction in Murphy and Brennan’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.
Did Lizzie Borden kill her parents?
On August 4th, 1892, Lizzie Borden’s father, Andrew Jackson Borden, 70, and stepmother, Abby, 64, were brutally murdered in a double homicide in their family home in Fall River, Massachusetts. The perpetrator inflicted 18 whacks of a hatchet to her back. Meanwhile, Andrew was killed 90 minutes later in his sleep. His face was reportedly disfigured beyond recognition.
The primary suspect in the double homicide case was Andrew’s daughter and Abby’s stepdaughter, 32-year-old Lizzie Borden, who taught Sunday school.
According to statements, the doors of the house were double-locked on the day of the murder, with Lizzie and the housemaid Bridget Sullivan being the only ones present besides Andrew and Abby Borden. While the crime left the mill town in shock, reports emerged from the Borden family physician shortly after that Andrew, Abby, and Bridget suffered from a stomach upset just days before the murder. Abby believed that she had been poisoned.
During the investigation, Lizzie allegedly couldn’t keep a consistent story. However, a local pharmacy clerk alleged Lizzie bought poison a day before the grisly murders took place, seemingly making her appear guilty. However, when the case went to trial, a jury of 12 members acquitted her of the crimes, with many refusing to believe she could have been capable of executing such a heinous crime.
Did Lizzie Borden really burn a dress?
Lizzie Borden’s friend Alice Russell reportedly claimed during the trial that she witnessed her setting a dress ablaze, which yet another witness claimed Borden wore on the day of the double homicide. The cross-examination allegedly made it clear that she did burn the dress in front of two witnesses.
The axe detail
According to Cosmopolitan, the murder weapon used in the Borden murders was not exactly an axe. It was a hatchet.
Who was Emma?
Emma Borden was Lizzie Borden’s real-life sister, who Billie Lourd portrays in The Lizzie Borden Story. She also lived in the family home, but was reportedly out of the house during the double homicide. While she stood by her sister during the trial and criticised the prosecution’s case, she never openly suggested Lizzie was innocent.
Was Lizzie Borden a lesbian?
Although Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story suggests Bridget Sullivan was Lizzie’s lover, there’s no significant evidence to prove they had an affair at the time of the murder or ever, for that matter. The idea was set in motion in Evan Hunter’s novel Lizzie in 1984, followed by the 2018 film of the same name.
After the homicide, Sullivan allegedly returned to Ireland before relocating to a different American town and marrying a man.