Episode 13: Lizzie Took An Axe

Caitlin and Francesgrace bring in the new season with a bang, by trading rhymes and stories about Emma and Lizzie Borden, of axe-wielding fame.

LINK TO SHOW NOTES

Season 2. Episode 1. Lizzie Took An Axe.

Caitlin: Hello, and welcome to Grave Escapes, the podcast helps those who've died tell their stories once again.

INTRO MUSIC

Caitlin: Hey, Frances.

Frances: Hey!

Caitlin: Long time no see in our recording studio.

Frances: It's been a while.

Caitlin: Yeah, so thank you, everyone. Welcome back to Grave Escapes, Season Two!

Frances: We're excited.

Caitlin: So we took the past two months to travel around to…I want to air quotes here. So just pretend there's quotation marks around this word “Enjoy” our summer. But we spent a lot of time doing some awesome things. I got to go to cemetery events, which, who do that was a thing? We took a lot of time just kind of traveling around ourselves. Frances taught me a lot about some cemeteries close to my house, which I didn't know about. I learned a lot about. So it's been fun. But we're back today to kick off with a tipping point…convicted story. Okay, it's a bit of bang.

Frances: I do like a bit of a bang.

Caitlin: But it's not…it's not what you think. So, first, I actually have to apologize to you, Frances. This is possibly the least prepared I've ever been for an episode, but it's not without trying. So we're all reveal who you're going to do and just moment…

Frances: Oh, yeah! But that's fair.

Caitlin: I…There’s so little on this person that I'm going to be speaking about tonight…I can bring what I have, but I think this is unfortunately one of those times where someone was overshadowed by a family member.

Frances: Oh, that is a fair point.

Caitlin: But I wouldn't say that this person didn't hate that they weren’t, but they probably hated why their sister was.

Frances: Yeah, that's fair.

Caitlin: So who are you going to be talking about tonight, Frances?

Frances: So Caitlin, I’ve got a rhyme for you.

Caitlin: There once was a man from Nantucket?

Frances: Hahaha..

Caitlin: Is that how it starts?

Frances: Not quite

Caitlin: Okay, then what is it?

Frances: Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.

Caitlin: I can’t.

Frances: haha

Caitlin: So I'm not from New England. Do you guys like learn that in school because of how you passed like the first grade?

Frances: So to be honest, I have absolutely no idea when I learned that rhyme. I feel like I've known it my whole life. So I don't know.

Caitlin: I think that it's just like…when you're born, they give you like a social security card, birth certificate, and then a list of rhymes with New England folklore that you have to learn.

Frances: That's fair, honestly. Like that's fair. Apparently, originally, that rhyme was a jump rope skipping rhyme that happened in the…contemporary to the murders.

Caitlin: So should I should I go ahead and ask this? Are you incredibly upset about the fact that it wasn't 40 whacks?

Frances: I'm a little annoyed.

Caitlin: So…So spoiler everyone. She's doing Lizzie Borden tonight.

Frances: Hahaha. Truth.

Caitlin: Why don't you give us an introduction? I do want to say before we start, because Lizzie Borden is such a force.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: I will tell you I have been to her house. Oh, cool. I've been to a ghost hunting tour at her house.

Frances: Nice.

Caitlin: And I just I want to say that I do think she did it.

Frances: Okay.

Caitlin: I don't actually have a problem with the fact that she did it. I'm not pro murder. Please don't quote me on that. But I think that this is one of those instances where this is like a criminal mastermind type of thing/the jury of men were like, she has money. And so white woman…Fuck it. I'm interested to see what you have to say.

Frances: You might come out at the end of this episode with a slight difference of opinion.

Caitlin: Okay, okay. And then I feel like I should spoil for everyone. Because I don't really have much on my person. I'm going to kind of be interjecting with Frances. I'm actually covering Emma Borden, who is the eldest Borden sister… not just Lizzie’s older sister, the eldest Borden sister, and we'll talk about that in a minute too.

Frances: Absolutely.

Caitlin: But Frances, tell me who is Lizzie Borden?

Frances: Okay. Lizzie Borden was actually born Lizzie Andrew Borden.

Frances: Yes. Lizzie, not Elizabeth. She was christened Lizzie.

Caitlin: So they've named her nickname.

Frances: Yep. And she did not enjoy it.

Caitlin: No. All right.

Frances: And her middle name is Andrew.

Caitlin: I mean, that one I can let a family name.

Frances: Her dad really wanted a boy.

Caitlin: Ooooh…

Frances: And so he's like, I'm going to pass on my name and name my daughter Andrew.

Caitlin: Cool. Love that. I have a cousin named Tyler. It's a girl.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: It happened.

Frances: I have no problem with like…no, whatever.

Caitlin: But if she didn’t, that's what we're talking about.

Frances: She did not like her name. She didn't use Andrew. She used the middle initial A and she didn't like Lizzie either.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: Okay, so she was born July 19 1860, which was actually quite a hot summer day just like the day of the murders. She is the third out of the three daughters born to Andrew Jackson Borden and his first wife, Sarah Morse Borden, who had actually been a love match, unlike his second.

Caitlin: Yeah. And so Emma, I want to go and introduce her because I actually do love her name. Full name is Emma Lenora Borden.

Frances: Great middle name.

Caitlin: I love that…Emma Lenora. So she was born March 1 1851. And I just want to we want to go ahead and address the fact that there was a middle Borden sister. Her name was Alice. She did die at age two.

For Emma, I want you guys to come to this understanding that Emma was very much the kind of person who was kind of quiet and out of the limelight, especially with her sister. Oof. She actually was old enough to remember and understand the loss of her sister, Alice. So by the time Lizzie is born, she’s…I believe, nine at the time. So she's a fully functioning child. She will remember these things. And by the time that their mother dies, Emma is entrusted to take care of Lizzie.

Frances: Emma's also 11 when her mother dies.

Caitlin: Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: But yeah, go ahead. Tell me more about Lizzie.

Frances: Okay, so Lizzie did not remember her mother. She was two when the mother…when Sarah Morse Borden passed. And so her dad…I gotta…we got to address the dad. The dad, Andrew Jackson Borden. I'd like to think of him as Scrooge before the ghosts.

Caitlin: Hah! Fair. I will completely agree with that.

Frances: He was an undertaker. So he was a mortician.

Caitlin: Wait, he was?

Frances: Yep. He was a mortician by trade. He worked as a mortician for I believe it was around 30 years and amassed quite a fortune, because he was actually poor. His father was a fishmonger before…as he was growing up, so he grew up poor. And Sarah, the mother actually also grew up relatively poor. She didn't come to the marriage with a large dowry, which is why we think it's a love match. By the time Sarah dies, Andrew Borden is an undertaker. He's also director of the bank. He's also on several boards. He's an investor. He's a landlord. He's amassed property all over town, downtown in the shopping district. He's invested in some of the mills because there's a thriving mill community in Fall River. Like he's got his dirty little fingers in everybody's pies.

Caitlin: This is…this is really interesting.

Frances: Yeah. And he is a skinflint. Like, he is a miser. He doesn't donate money to anyone. He doesn't help the poor. He doesn't help anyone at all. He keeps all of his money for himself and for his family. And he actually uses his position as director of the bank to discover foreclosures, pending foreclosures, and offer cash for property to people he knows are in desperate straits. So he's a jerk.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: But…by all accounts, he loved Lizzie. She was the boy that he wanted basically…He taught her everything about his business. He raised her like a son he wanted. He loved her. When she was, I don't know, 15 or 16, she gave him a ring. He wore no jewelry whatsoever. She gave him a ring that she had bought for him and he wore it on his pinky finger for the rest of his life.

Caitlin: Wow.

Frances: And anytime anyone asked him about it, he said this, Lizzie gave it to me.

Caitlin: That was not really Emma's experience.

Frances: No, it wasn’t.

Caitlin: From the reading and from the small amount that I can find. It was a lot more like she was with her mom.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: And then when her mom died, she felt…This might be me projecting a little bit, but it seemed like she felt kind of abandoned.

Frances: That's fair. He definitely didn't seem to care for Emma terribly much. He actually taught Lizzie how to fish when she was a child. He taught her horsemanship. She could drive a carriage. She could drive a pony cart. I don't know if she could ride a horse, in a saddle, but she could definitely drive a carriage. All of which he taught her. So Lizzie is two when the mother dies. A couple of years later, Andrew realizes that he needs a woman in the house to help raise the children. He can't do it himself.

Caitlin: Oh, no. No. Andrew, no

Frances: And he could do one of two things. Right? He could get a governess or housekeeper.

Caitlin: How about you to do that? That sounds great.

Frances: Or cheaper…He could marry someone. He goes with option two.

Caitlin: I guess it was cheaper, huh?

Frances: Oh, yeah. So he meets a 38 year old spinster. That's what they called her at the time. She was unwed and had no prospects. Abby Durfee Gray. So she's from a well connected old family, in Fall River, just like the Bordens were. Same class of society, which is the upper class. Within I believe it was eight months, they got married. As far as I can tell, she understood what she was going into the marriage for, like she knew what he wanted her for. And she was fine with that. Because she wanted to be married. She wanted the freedom that came with being married. The girls were actually instructed to call her mother. Lizzie did. Did Emma?

Caitlin: The way that our understanding is is that there's a shift where it becomes Mother and actually becomes Mrs. Borden.

Frances: Yes, that was much…Lizzie was an adult when that happened.

Caitlin: Yeah, so it does…Something happens. So I will tell you all with Emma, it’s like because there's so little on her that people write like weird ass fanfiction about Emma and like, how she wanted to turn Lizzie against Abby. And they all…I read this one, which was decently well written, but was basically explaining that Emma would explain to Lizzie the that wasn't her real mom and stuff like that. That is all hyperbole. That is all inference. We don't actually know.

Frances: 100% true. We have no idea. We…I came across some information about Emma's relationship with Abby. In that she refused to call her mother.

Caitlin: Right? Like they they were. Yeah, like but I mean, guys, you're 14. You've watched your mom die.

Frances: Yep.

Caitlin: Your dad remarried. She's acting like a teenager.

Frances: Yeah. And she called Abby. She called the woman by her first name. She called her Abby her whole life.

Caitlin: And then when they got older, it became Mrs. Borden.

Frances: Lizzie, on the other hand, called her mother until she was I believe, 27.

Caitlin: What happened?

Frances: I will come back to that. Okay. I have very little information about Lizzie's childhood, other than at some point she gets taught to fish by her dad. They tend to summer on the farm that he owns in Swansea. All of this…so all of these towns were mentioning are in a very small radius. Now, at the time, it was a little bit longer. It took like a day, maybe a half a day to a day’s travel sometimes by train, sometimes by horse and buggy, but like they're not terribly far away. So they spent the summer on the farm. Whatever.

At some point during this child, Lizzie's childhood, Abby actually convinces Andrew to purchase a new house. She's like: look, the girls are getting older, they're going to need marriage prospects. We're living in a very…we're living in your family's house. It's not in a great section. We need to be in a better part of town so that we can entertain when the girls are of age.

Caitlin: I mean, that's actually fair.

Frances: And Andrews like, yeah, that makes sense. And so he buys a new house. Important fact, the house has a horrendous layout. It was a two…It was a two family house when he purchased it. And he did almost nothing to convert it to a one family. So to get anywhere in the house, there were no interior quarters in the house. There were no hallways. So every room opened into another room.

Caitlin: Yep, that's the house.

Frances: Yep. That will become important later. So he basically like removed the stove from the upstairs kitchen and put a bathroom in the basement. That was pretty much it. That was his renovation.

By all accounts Lizzie was a gentle child. She was amiable. She was outgoing. She was kind, intelligent, basically everybody loved her. She volunteered a ton. As she grew up, she started…she joined the temperance movement, she joined the suffragist movement, she joined the Endeavor Society which would go and sit with people who were sick at home or in the hospital just to keep them company. She taught Sunday School. She seemed to be a very kind person.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: She gave fruit to the neighborhood children when they'd come to ask her if they could pick fruit and her in the yard, because they had a small pear orchard in the backyard.

Caitlin: That's also gonna come in, isn’t it?

Frances: Yep, definitely. She attended church to church regularly, unlike her father, who had an argument with the pastor and quit going to church in protest. Not that he cared too much to begin with. But like she regularly attended church. Very outgoing, very sociable. Very nice.

Caitlin: Okay. And from what I understand about Emma, at this point, she's just kind of withdrawn. She cares and supports about Lizzie. But it's like, she almost just disappeared.

Frances: Yeah, she seems really reclusive. Like, I don’t…she doesn't seem to go to functions or anything.

Caitlin: When we get to their 20s, I will tell you like the one thing I did find. But anyway, so it seems like Emma's just kind of…I mean, again, this is, look, we kind of have to say that this is one of the shitty things about being related to someone infamous, is that ostensibly, she could have been going with Lizzie to all these things, but who are they going to talk about being there?

Frances: Right.

Caitlin: So we don't have a record…we can't confirm this. So Emma just kind of has these weird periods in her life where she just disappears. This this is key because this comes up after the murders as well.

Frances: And part of the part of the reason we know all of this about Lizzie is because of the trial, like the character witnesses, and people writing letters and editorials to newspapers and stuff being like actually She's really nice. Can you stop?

Caitlin: Exactly.

Frances: So she ends up becoming treasurer of the Endeavour Society of Fall River. This is actually…this will be important for the murder.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: When she's about 27, her stepmother, Abby…Abby has a sister who is about to lose her house. Right? So her and her family, they're having some tough times. They don't have a whole lot of money. The house is half owned by the sister and half owned by someone else. I think it's the sister’s step mother.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: And they're about to lose the house because the stepmother, the other owner of the house wants to sell. And she doesn't have enough money to buy out the other half of the house. So Abby goes to Andrew, she goes to her husband, and she says, Can you give this to me? I want to save my sister's house. And he says sure. So he buys the other half of the house and gifts it to Abby, who would then in turn gives it to the sister. So this sister now owns the house.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: This is worth about $1,500 at the time, the half a house that he purchased for her. He didn't tell Lizzie or Emma about this. He didn't. He just didn't. He just did it, gave it to the stepmother, and didn't say anything.

Caitlin: Well, I mean, does he have to?

Frances: He doesn't, but the two of them heard about it from someone else.

Caitlin: Oh, no.

Frances: And they were both extremely upset about it. Because they thought it was unfair treatment. They thought that their stepmother was receiving something that they were being denied. So they went to their dad and they complained about it and he said you know what? That's fair. And he gave them each a half share in the house that they had owned…the previous house that they lived in, which was on I think fairy Street, which was meticulously fair. The house was worth $3,000 at the time. So they each received $1,500 worth of house. Exactly what the stepmother had gotten.

Lizzie claims that she is now content. That's fine. This resolved the issue and they're fine. There's no more strife in the family. However, she ceases calling Abby mother and starts calling her Mrs. Borden.

Caitlin: Well this seems kind of like childish.

Frances: A little. I mean, so at the time Lizzy and Emma both were receiving $200 a year in allowance. And they were adult women who were living in the home they were unmarried. So they were their activities were being curtailed by the fact that they were unmarried and living with their father. He was controlling their purse strings that that evens out to about $4 a week. Which, I mean, it's not nothing in 1892, but it's also not a lot considering they’re upper class women.

Caitlin: So they feel kind of like kept.

Frances: They feel a little kept, and I think they both feel a little cheated. This mother has access to significantly more funds to do whatever she wants than they do. And this seemed to be a little bit of a last straw kind of thing.

Caitlin: Okay, I don’t…I'm gonna be honest, I don't totally get it. No disrespect to, I guess anyone who's going to die in this episode because everyone. Spoiler.

Frances: Heh.

Caitlin: But that just seems like…

Frances: Petty?

Caitlin: Yeah. You know… that's what it is. Okay.

Frances: So that's the strife in the family. That's the supposed strife in the family. Fast forward, it is now 1892. It is August. Supposedly, there's no more strife. There's no more arguments. They seem to be a relatively amiable family to each other, even if they're not necessarily nice to anybody else. Except Lizzie. But there’s not a lot of arguing in the household.

So it's now August. Lizzie was supposed to be going to Marion, Massachusetts to visit a couple of her friends were at one of their summer houses. They were all staying there, five girls. They were all staying there for like a month. And she was supposed to go up with them. But the Endeavour Society scheduled a roll call meeting on the Sunday the sixth, I think it was of August. And Lizzie being treasurer felt like she needed to be at that meeting. So she'd actually stayed home from this trip she was supposed to go on to attend the meeting. And then the next day, she'd go to Marian to visit friends. Spoiler alert, she never got to Marion.

It's the Sunday before the murder and they're eating mutton. It's the Monday before the murder and they're all eating mutton. It's the Tuesday before the murder; they’re still eating mutton. And they're eating it again on Wednesday. It was hot. It was in the high 90s at the time, up to 100 degrees in New Bedford and Fall River at the time. And they were eating a whole bunch of mutton. There was no refrigeration.

Caitlin: Oh no.

Frances: Everybody got sick on Tuesday night, except the maid. The Bordens employed an Irish maid named Bridget Sullivan. She was the only person in her family who'd come here from Ireland, and I'm not sure how long she'd been working for them. But it wasn’t… I don't think it was like a significant amount of time. I don't think it was like 10 or 15 years. So it was it was shorter than that. Bridget didn't eat the mutton on Tuesday and didn't get sick.

So everybody's vomitting, everybody's ill. Wednesday, everybody's still kind of feeling gross. The morning of the murderer, Lizzie wakes up still feeling kind of off, but better. She comes downstairs, but she doesn't intend to eat breakfast, she doesn't feel hungry. So she comes downstairs, she fixes herself a cup of coffee. She eats a pair and potentially a cookie, which I'm not sure if a cookie at the time meant the same thing or if it was like a biscuit kind…like a scone.

Caitlin: Such a random detail.

Frances: She eats a cookie. She also has her period. So she's menstruating. So she goes down to the cellar to wash out the clothes.

Caitlin: Mhm.

Frances: So this is 9am. She comes down at nine, so she's she's roundabout. She's in the basement washing out some cloth. She also is intending to iron some handkerchiefs, so she comes back upstairs. She sets up the iron, she sets that whole thing up, reads a magazine, does some ironing, goes back up to her room. She stays in her room for a while.

At some point she comes back downstairs because she wants to go out into the barn and find some lead, some metal to use as a sinker because remember I told you that her dad taught her how to fish? She really likes fishing. So she's intending to fish in Marion when she visits her friends. So she wants to get some sinkers so she doesn't have to buy them when she gets there. So she comes downstairs. Her dad just arrives home he'd been out all morning doing errands and things. He comes home. Bridget lets him in the front door.

Lizzy sees that he's looking kind of poorly. He seems like he's maybe being overcome by the heat since it's 100 degrees that day. And she helps him lay down on the couch in the sitting room. Yeah, in the sitting room, and then she goes out to the barn, gets the lead sinkers, comes back inside. She's out there. She says she's out there for about 10 or 15 minutes. She comes back inside and discovers that he's dead.

He has been hatcheted in the face with an axe or hatchet some sort of weapon of that description. We're not sure if she thought he was dead already. Or if she thought he was…like severely wounded. She screams for Bridget who's gone upstairs to rest because she's feeling poorly. She's been sick all morning. She calls Bridget back downstairs. She sends Bridget across the street for the doctor. In the meantime, the next door neighbor hears the commotion and comes in and is like are you okay? And Lizzie is crying and kind of having a freakout

Caitlin: Yeeah.

Frances: And she stays with her the whole time. So Lizzy's in the kitchen, freaking out. The dad is dead in the sitting room. No one's found the mother yet. The doctor shows up. Lizzie sends Bridget again. This time for…I believe the police.

Caitlin: So his body is just laying there, right?

Frances: Yep. She sends Bridget out again for something. I think it's to go to get the police. There's some commotion. There's a crowd starting to gather outside of the house now because someone said…someone like shouted that someone had been stabbed. So there's a commotion outside. They're all sitting in the kitchen. At some point, a policeman shows up. And Lizzie sends Bridget upstairs to get a sheet to cover the…or no, the doctor I think actually sends Bridget upstairs to get a sheet to cover the dad's body.

His…actually, so the blows were so strong that it cut his eyeball in half.

Caitlin: Ooh!

Frances: And caved in his skull.

Caitlin: Hmm. So, he was dead.

Frances: He's very dead. So she goes to get the sheet. They're all in the kitchen. Lizzy thinks she hears something upstairs. So she's like, Oh, that must be my mother coming back. She'd been out. Lizzie had told everyone that…she’d gone out…she must have gone out because she'd gotten a note saying that someone was sick. So she's sends Bridget back upstairs to check for the mom. Except, so remember how I said there were no interior hallways in this creepy house?

Caitlin: Mhmm.

Frances: The mother and father slept in the back half of the upstairs and they locked all of the doors, both doors that lead to the front half of the house. So to get to their bedroom, you have to go up the back stairs and to get to the front room—so Lizzie’s, Emma’s, and the guest room—you have to go up the front stairs. Bridget does not go up the back stairs again to see if Mrs. Borden is home. She goes up the front stairs.

She stops on the staircase, sees the body, screams that she's dead or whatever, runs up the stairs, and opens up the shutters to get a better look at the body.

Caitlin: Oh my god.

Frances: Mrs. Borden had received a one hatchet strike to the face, to the forehead, and then fell or something, and ended up on her stomach, and took the rest of the blows to the back of the head.

So one to the front. 18 to the back.

Caitlin: Wow.

Frances: According to the witnesses, Lizzie has no blood on her at all. There's nothing on her dress. There's none in her hair, which is done and not like, out of place. And there's none on her skin. They measured the blood spatter downstairs for the dad's body. It was six feet up the wall.

Caitlin: Oh, Jesus Christ.

Frances: Yep. But Lizzie had no blood on her at all.

Caitlin: I can tell you, if you'd like to know where Emma is at this point.

Frances: Yeah, yeah. So everybody in the house, everybody's like, glommed on this house. Where is Emma?

Caitlin: She's not there.

Frances: Where is she?

Caitlin: So there? There's a lot of speculation. What appears to be true is she was visiting friends, and then actually received a telegram about what had happened. I don't know who the telegram was from. I can't verify that. Oh, do you know?

Frances: I do.

Caitlin: Who was it from?

Frances: The next door neighbor sent her footman or something to send the telegram, but Lizzie told them to telegram Emma, and be gentle about it because there's an elderly person in the house and it might kill them.

Caitlin: That's a weird thing to say.

Frances: Yup. That's what I thought.

Caitlin: Well, Emma, so that seems to be was true. I do also just want to give space to the fact that there are rumors around that Emma actually was seeing a suitor.

Frances: Oooh, I didn't know that.

Caitlin: Yeah, it doesn't appear to be true. But I will say one of the things that I can find about Emma is that she was interested in a gentleman, but he was very much below her social class. And guess who really just proved that?

Frances: I'm guessing the dad.

Caitlin: The dad. So I will tell you all as much as this is becoming Lizzie's podcast, because that's all people seem to care about. Emma was actually not officially a suspect, but at least a person of interest. Because where she was was about 15 minutes away from her house. And so all the witnesses were like, Oh, well, there's no way she was at this house. And then finally, like a few people have been like, it was like 15 minutes, she could have killed them and gone back.

Frances: There was a train that ran between New Bedford and Fall River, like multiple times a day.

Caitlin: Yeah, it's not like like it's not unfathomable. But she was not home.

Frances: Everybody else seemed to be home though, including the weird uncle.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Frances: Which is another like potential suspects. I'm not gonna give like a whole lot of space to him, because I think he's like a weird random aside. So Lizzie sends somebody to send that telegram to Emma. The police show up, and then more police show up. And then some more police show up

Caitlin: Rightly so.

Frances: And then all of the reporters show up. And it looks like some of the reporters were traipsing around in the house and in the barn. While the police were investigating,

Caitlin: Um, all right…

Frances: To be quite honest, the cops all seemed like blithering idiots, and it was an absolute circus.

Caitlin: Oooph.

Frances: So yeah, so they're like they did a supposedly a thorough search of the house at the time and found nothing. They found no murder weapon and they found no bloody clothing. They also found no killer.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: Then they come back the next day and do another search of the house and once again find absolutely nothing. They took all of Lizzie's clothing, all of Emma’s clothing down, they examined it, turned it inside out. They found nothing. On Saturday, they come back again, and search again. This time, Bridget shows them a box of hatchets in the basement. There's two full hatchets and then one broken hatchet. Which the police were immediately like we have found the murder weapon. Yeah, no, they didn't. There was no blood on it at all. They sent it to Boston, to Harvard to be tested and there was no blood on it. So they never found the murder weapon. They also never found the bloody clothes that supposedly she killed the moment or the two of them in.

The family was instructed not to leave the house during this time. And they actually put under police guard, both Emma and Lizzie. Because Emma returned.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah, she comes back. I mean, like, that's it like she's gonna hang out with her friends. You know?

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: Like that would have been suspicious.

Frances: Yes, yes, it would. So like, I don't know if it was Friday, or sorry, Thursday, the day of the murder or the following day that they were all sort of put under house arrest.

Caitlin: Which is I just have to say like, that's actually kind of fucked up. If you think about it

Frances: A little bit, a little bit.

Caitlin: Because like, Hey, you were just too gruesome murders stay in the house.

Frances: Yep, pretty much and Emma had to walk either through Lizzie's bedroom or through the guestroom where the stepmother was killed to get to her bedroom.

Caitlin: So we know we know they're back. When is Lizzy officially charged?

Frances: So fun fact. As a quick aside, Bridget actually leaves the house multiple times with bundles of cloth during the time where they're supposed to all be under house arrest because they just paid no attention to the Irish maid

Caitlin: Did Bridget do it?

Frances: Including Thursday night she was seen with a bundle like an unknown unidentified bundle. And someone witnessed her walk when when she went to get the doctor. She supposedly had acquired a limp that immediately went away and one suggestion was that she was actually smuggling something out of the house under her dress. But we'll circle back to Bridget. So on Sunday is when Lizzie realizes that she is a person that she is the primary suspect because a friend who was in the kitchen with her comes into the kitchen. So there's cops in the yard, the doors, the windows are all open. Emma is at the stove. And Lizzie is gotta dress in her hands that's got that supposedly is covered in paint. Lizzy says it's covered in paint, and she's about to burn it. And she sticks it in the stove and burns the dress. And her friend who's standing there watching her do this goes, you shouldn't have done that because they asked me about your clothing. And Lizzy's, like, Why didn't you tell me that before I stuck it in the stove?

Caitlin: That’s actually a fair point.

Frances: Yep. She's like, I wouldn't have done it. If you told me. She burns the dress. I think it's like another few days or possibly up to a week before they actually arrest her. On Monday, they take out a warrant for her arrest and they do not serve it. And then they do a secret inquest, where they bring her in for three full days for…like interrogation before a judge and some people.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: At the inquest. They also question Bridget and Emma and the doctor and some of the friends. And it's after the inquest that they arrest Lizzie.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: Something you got to know about Lizzie: She is 5’4” and described as ladylike and petite, before the trial…At the trial, she weighs 135 pounds. She says that she gained a bunch of weight in prison because she ordered her meals out every day. Cuz they don't give you they didn't feed her. They gave her like bread and water. And she was like no. And like, sent her footman to the rest to a restaurant every single day for a meal.

Caitlin: Wow.

Frances: So she just ate takeout every day for like nine months and gained something like 20 pounds.

Caitlin: Okay,

Frances: So she was heavier. She almost didn't fit into her dresses by the time of the trial.

Caitlin: Oh my god.

Frances: So she was significantly heavier than than she was when the murder took place. But she's five four weighs, 135 pounds, and is described as having ladylike and petite hands. So fast forward nine months, she's sitting in prison, everybody's speculating the newspapers are going absolutely hog wild, lying a lot and having to print retractions of all sorts. Fast forward. It's now 1893 We are in New Bedford, which is like the next town over or like two towns over or something from Fall River. And she is put on trial.

Caitlin: So I do have to say…I do have to jump in with Emma here. So Emma truly believes her sister didn't do it. So you have to understand legally, Lizzy loses the inheritance, ostensibly because she is on trial. So Emma has all the money and all the power right now. And they both are in complete agreement. They spend all the best money that they can and just go for it. When it comes to her legal team, and all of the work for her defense.

Frances: Oh, her defense attorney was on point.

Caitlin: Oh, yeah. And I also I read that. They also there was some weird like, I know a guy connection. Were like they knew one of the justices.

Frances: Oh probably.

Caitlin: But I mean… it's, you know, the 1800s. Everyone does know everyone.

Frances: Yeah, she had actually several defense attorneys like Jennings. So one of them was Jennings, her father's lawyer. And then there was a guy named Robinson, who is apparently extremely good at cross examination, like really, really good at it.

Caitlin: Yeah, he was.

Frances: Yeah. On-point legal team, A+.

Caitlin: So what happens with Lizzy at the trial, because I feel like what I know is that Emma is like… Emma just seems to kind of like float around the periphery, if that makes sense. Like she's always there.

Frances: Yeah, absolutely.

Caitlin: But we don't really know what she's doing. But she is like going to bat for her sister. Like she fully believes she didn't do it. Where's Lizzie? So she's gained all this weight. She’s…I don't even know at this point. Like is she…has she done it? Because you're saying she didn't but…

Frances: Okay, so she gets put on trial. She’s…she looks very she's described as being very ladylike at the trial. The reporters are shocked that the person that they think committed this horrific murder is petite. She's short. She has ladylike hands. She carries herself. Well, she looks like your traditional Victorian woman. The prosecution, the head of prosecution is a guy named Knowlton, I believe.

Caitlin: Knowlton?

Frances: His last name was Knowlton.

Caitlin: Oh, I thought was his first name. I was like, I've never heard that first name before.

Frances: I have no idea what his first name was. He had no expectation that they were going to get a conviction. He was fully expecting either a hung jury or an acquittal, which he told in a letter to the attorney general of the state.

Caitlin: Wow. That's ballsy.

Frances: He was actually like, is there any way we can not try her at all? Because she's going to get off or it's going to be a hung jury?Obviously, that didn't work out for them very well. They had to try her. Their case was so full of holes, and incorrect testimony, and police officers testifying against each other.

Caitlin: Wait, what?

Frances: Yeah, they actually so there was a guy named fleet, his last name was Fleet, Assistant Marshall Fleet, who they put up on the stand is like a star witness who was going to totally like nailer to the wall or whatever. He gets up on the stand, and he lies.

Caitlin: About what?

Frances: So he says that he never touched the axes. And he never saw one of the axes in the basement. He never touched the axes that Bridget showed them. So he's lying. Also, one of the other cops, I think his name was Medley, or it could have been Mullaly. I'm not sure there were two cops with an M name. And I can't remember which one it was. He was lying. He gets on the stand and he says, Oh, when I got there, just after officer fleet shows up I went up to the loft of the barn and there was dust on the floor so thick, you couldn't see any there was it hadn't been disturbed. There was no footsteps up there. So clearly, Lizzie had never been up there.

Guess what? Two other cops and a reporter got on the stand and said, Yeah, we were up there all together, before Fleet ever showed up. So if that cop was up there saying he didn't see any footsteps, he was lying. And also the window was open. So he testified that was really hot and really stuffy up there. And why would anyone spend 20 minutes looking for a piece of lead in like a loft in a bar and when it's so hot out? The window was open. It was likely cooler than Lizzie's room.

So the cops are like testifying against one another. Some of the witnesses are contradicting themselves. And then he they put Bridget on the stand.

Caitlin: You believe that Bridget did it.

Frances: I do believe that Bridget did it.

Caitlin: Okay, so what happened was the Bridget on the stand.

Frances: Okay, so remember I told you about that inquest that Lizzie had to go to that three day inquest?

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Frances: Yeah, Bridget had testified during that inquest. She's the one who said that Lizzie was crying when she came downstairs. She gave a bunch of tips. She said that the family all ate together. Like there wasn't really a lot of strife in the family, and all this stuff. So she gets on the stand of the trial and flat out lies.

The prosecution is like, Oh, how was Lizzie when you came down from from your bedroom and she says she wasn't crying. She was…she was fine. She looks fine. And the cross examiner, the defense attorney gets up and he's like, I'm gonna read you the inquest minutes real quick. Where you said she cried. And she's like, I don't remember saying that. She says I don't remember or I didn't. She must have been in the stenographer must have been wrong. I didn't say that. She does it for like several different pieces of information. She's complete. She's basically a completely unreliable witness. And the defense tears her apart.

Caitlin: Good.

Frances: So they never put Lizzy on the stand. She doesn't testify at the trial. Because she doesn't have to. The prosecution's case was so bad that they didn't even the defense attorney was like, Yeah, we're not putting her on the stand. She's too blunt. She'll probably anger the jury. And we don't need to, so why bother? So they just didn’t. They didn't bother.

Caitlin: I mean, that’s fair.

Frances: The trial lasted… I think it was 13 days. It was like…about a couple of weeks, maybe 10 to 13 days. The jury goes out, omes back with a verdict. The guy is… you know how they stand up and they say the foreman has to get up. What does the jury say? Or whatever,

Caitlin: Yeah.

Frances: The guy overshot it. He was so eager to say not guilty that he talked over the guy asking him to give the verdict.

Caitlin: Wow. Okay.

Frances: They were like what does the jury— and he said not guilty. The crowd in the courtroom went nuts. Everybody started cheering.

Caitlin: Because no one thought that she did it.

Frances: Nobody thought…at the by the end of the trial everyone was like, clearly she didn't do it. This is nonsense.

Caitlin: Hmm.

Frances: So many of the reporters came out being like, justice was done today. She didn't do it. She gets acquitted.

Caitlin: So I can actually say now. Like where Emma comes in.

Frances: Awesome.

Caitlin: So Emma and Lizzie are ostensibly like, fuck that house.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: And they've also just inherited a laaaarge sum of money.

Frances: Oh, yeah.

Caitlin: So they actually together purchase a home called Maplecroft, which is also in Fall River.

Frances: Awesome.

Caitlin: It’s not far from Lizzie's Murder House. I've been to that house many times. I've also been to Maplecroft outside it is. I think it might still be for sale or it was for sale this year. And basically, they decide that they're going to start living their lives. So, Frances,  Emma at this point is kind of just along for the ride to continue taking care of Lizzie like she has become sort of like her her guardian, almost. I think it goes back to like her mom asking her to take care of Lizzie.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: So what's Lizzie doing during this time? Or should I should I call her by a different name?

Frances: Okay, so you know how I said that Lizzie hated the name Lizzie?

Caitlin: I mean, fair enough.

Frances: She starts calling herself Lizbeth. L-I-Z-B-E-T-H. And she started signing documents this way too. She never legally changed her name. Her name was Lizzie A Borden. But she starts referring to herself as Lizbeth. And Lizbeth aggressively goes back to what she was doing before the murders. She's like, this is my life. Ima live it. And you can't stop me from living my life. So she goes back to volunteering. She goes back to her social calendar. And all of the societies and and things that she was doing before? She continues doing them.

There are basically three major instant incidents that I want to talk to you about in her later life.

Caitlin: Okay…

Frances: So the first one is a very strange incident of suppose had shoplifting. So there's a shop at this time in Providence, Rhode Island that sells small painted…some kind of metal work, I think, or possibly small paintings, I was really unclear about the objects that was supposedly stolen. But two things went missing from the shop. And someone brought one of them back to get like a price on it. And the shop owner was like, where did you get that? And the person goes, Oh, well, Lizzie Borden gave it to me. And so the shop takes out…like…goes to the police and has a warrant for her arrest, written up, and then never serves it.

Caitlin: This is so bizarre.

Frances: She went she goes so she actually goes to the shop. But as far as I know, nothing happens. I don't know if she sold the stuff. I don't know if she paid for it and they lost the receipt and she like gave them the paperwork. But they dismissed the charges. They dropped the charges. They never had her rested. And when someone a newspaperman I believe it was, like sent them a letter about it or call them or something about it. They were like, Oh, it was resolved. They didn't say anything. They wouldn't say anything else. So that's curious in slightly bizarre incident instance number one.

Caitlin: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to make of that.

Frances: It was…I…It was very strange. Later there's somebody forges a letter that supposedly they let her off because she confessed to the murders. But the letter that they said that she supposedly confessed in was a was a forgery. So yeah, it was it's just a very strange incidents. I don’t…I don't really know what to make of it. Instance number two is a little bit more interesting to me. So roundabout 1895, a rumor starts and ends up in the paper that Lizzie Borden is about to get engaged.

Caitlin: What?

Frances: Yep, so it's reported on the guy's name is putting the paper. Very detailed story about how she's about to announce her engagement to this gentleman who lives in, I think it's New Bedford, or somewhere around there. Oh, it might be Swansea. He lives near the farm where she suffered as a child. She's known him for most of her life. He's a school teacher. And they've been carrying on a romantic liaison for a while. And now they're about to get engaged, is the story.

Caitlin: Okay.

Frances: The press hounds him so much he has to go into hiding.

Caitlin: Great.

Frances: He has to stop his job and go into hiding. And she basically is like, can't leave the house for a little while because the press are camped out front. The engagement never happens. But we do have a letter that she wrote…We think it's to him. But she addressed all of her letters to my dearest friend,

Caitlin: Haha!

Frances: Regardless of who they were sent to, so we don't really know. But it seems like it was to him. And it was an apology for any strife that was caused him. And it was very, like…you could tell that it was kind of a love letter and they'd probably…she'd probably been in love with him. But they never got married. I don't know if they even stayed in touch after that. So the press interrupted her life, big time.

Caitlin: That kind of hurts.

Frances: Yeah, a little bit. And I think at that point, she was like, screw everything. I do what I want. And she started hanging out with a bunch of actors.

Caitlin: So this is where I start to find more information about Emma because Emma was not thrilled about her new company.

Frances: Oh, yeah. Neither was anybody else in the town, apparently.

Caitlin: No.

Frances: So she like starts hanging out with this troupe of actors from I think it was Boston, particularly a woman whose name was I believe, Nance O'Neill.

Caitlin: Yep, I've heard of Nance.

Frances: Who was an actor, a relatively well known actress. And Lizzy throws this giant party at Maplecroft for the acting troupe. And in particular Nance and I think Nance actually stays at Maplecroft for a little while. How did Emma feel about that?

Caitlin: So Emma hates this, like I…they reminds me very much of like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Like, the actors are like the scum of the earth. Like, this is not what Emma has wanted for her sister. They are affluent. These people are below them. There's a lot of like, I actually like as much as like, there's nothing on Emma, I feel bad saying this about her because she seems to like have genuinely had a good heart. And one of the best for Lizzie, it's just at the time, an actor was not what was going to be best for her sister.  Yeah. So from what I understand There is a possibility that this is what led to the incident of falling out.

Frances: Yeah, that is my impression as well.

Caitlin: So the year is 1905. Cool. And after the murders have taken place, both Emma and Lizzie lived in Maplecroft this whole time. 1905 comes along, Emma's like fuck this and leaves.

Frances: Yikes.

Caitlin: And whatever happens, no one knows. There are so many theories. The most famous one is…this was portrayed in the Christina Ricci portrayal of Lizzie Borden, which was terrible, but I loved it so much are my favorite fun facts. Just as a quick aside, it is set in the correct time period. They didn't edit out any of the electronics.

Frances: Hahahaha!

Caitlin: You can see the power lines, you can see a truck in one shot. It's great.

Frances: That's hilarious.

Caitlin: Anyway, the leading theory is that Lizzie told Emma that she killed the parents.

Frances: Yikes.

Caitlin: But it's been there's been a substantial amount of time since the trial. I feel like this would have come up.

Frances: It's been what? 12 to 13 years since the murder/trial?

Caitlin: So the other theories that I've seen are one Lizzie was actually having a relationship with Nance.

Frances: Yep, read that too.

Caitlin: And Emma freaked out. The other one is that Emma just continued to disapprove of Lizzie's, quote unquote, new lifestyle. And when she confronted her, Lizzie was ostensibly like, No, my dude. This is what I want it to be.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: Which I mean, if you've been acquitted of murder are found not guilty of murder, you know? Love your life.

Frances: Yeah, right.

Caitlin: But so this is where the weird thing happens. And I actually…I feel like I need to say this. It is tragic that two people were killed.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: All right. We never want to think otherwise. That's what makes us human. But I think one of the other tragedies of Lizzie Borden 's life that we don't talk about is in 1905 it is the last time that Emma and Lizzie actually speak.

Frances: That's so sad.

Caitlin: Because then I think we can kind of just tell you all at this point, the end of their lives, Emma does become a full recluse. She moved to New Hampshire. She tries to hide herself completely. And then this weird thing happens.

Frances: Oh! the death thing?

Caitlin: The death thing.

Frances: That is so weird.

Caitlin: So what I mean you’re first here. What happens?

Frances: Okay, so Lizzie gets quite ill. It’s…oh, my brain just blanked out. She she has a…

Caitlin: She and I had the same thing actually, are besties that way, her gallbladder has to be removed from a bad infection.

Frances: So she has so…she has this operation. And she has a heart attack [it was actually pneumonia] and just like, drops dead one day.

Caitlin: From what I understand, it was like she just her body didn't bounce back.

Frances: And she just…because she was like 65 at this time.

Caitlin: Yeah. So she dies. It's very sad. She is still going by Lizbeth. She is still living Maplecroft.

Frances: Yep, she's living it up. She's got a chauffeur a maid. She's like she had been driving around town doing good works still. And she just dies.

Caitlin: And then here's the weird thing. Nine days later, Emma dies.

Frances: Yeah, that's freaky.

Caitlin: But it's actually even freakier than that, like within hours of Lizzie dying, and Emma actually has the fall.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: That is what kills her.

Frances: Yeah. She like fell down the stairs or something?

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah. The official cause of death is chronic nephritis.

Frances: Huuuh. Okay.

Caitlin: But they died within 90 days of each other. And gentle reader—gentle listeners. They're buried next to each other.

Frances: Yeah, they are.

Caitlin: And the Family Plot. Let's talk about these graves.

Frances: Oh, okay. So fun facts about Lizzie. So—Well, actually, one more aside, before we go on to the actual graves. Lizzie left nothing to her sister in her will.

Caitlin: Jesus Christ.

Frances: But Emma actually left Lizzy some money.

Caitlin: Hmm.

Frances: If so it was basically she left her the share of the house that she owned, Maplecroft because I mean, Emma retained ownership of half of the house for her the rest of her life. And it was basically like in the event that I die first, the other half of the house goes to my sister Lizzie. And Lizzie was like, I'm good. She left basically half of or like a quarter of her estate to the Animal Rescue League of Fall River. But she left a $500 endowment to the city for the perpetual care of the family grave plot.

Caitlin: Hmm.

Frances: So Lizzie’s money when she died is the reason that the grave plot is well kept.

Caitlin: That's really interesting. So the grave plot itself…It’s really weird. The the Bordens never leave Fall River. Like the only one who leaves is Emma and Emma dies and comes back.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: I will tell you the other thing that really broke my heart about the story. The Family Plot has not only the stepmother who was hatched it to death in it, but also Emma and Lizzie’s real mom.

Frances: Aww, Sarah.

Caitlin: So it's a very interesting thing. Like honestly, like in doing research for this. It reminded me a lot of Charles Dow.

Frances: Hmm.

Caitlin: With more murder, obviously.

Frances: Haha.

Caitlin: But like something happened.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: You know, something happened. They don't speak to each other and it's just like, I don't know. Maybe I'm naive. I don't know many people who they just stop talking to someone like that.

Frances: Yeah, it's not like they were estranged for a while or they never were close, or whatever it is.

Caitlin: They were they were sisters, like capital S sisters.

Frances: They went from being like, we live together all of the time to abruptly like, I never want to talk to you again bye.

Caitlin: So that's real. It is fodder, right? Like everyone's like, Oh, obviously, you know, Lizzie told Emma she killed them. But what what would she have had to gain from that?

Frances: Right?

Caitlin: And why wait that long?

Frances: Yep.

Caitlin: So it's just, it's just bizarre to me to think of that, but like something happened?

Frances: Yeah, it's just so random.

Caitlin: So, I guess, I don't know, what's the moral of the story here?

Frances: I think the moral of the story is that anytime…you don't always know what you think you know. Right? Like, everybody thinks they know the story of Lizzie Borden. They think they know who she was. They think they know what she did in her life. And they don’t. They really don't.

Caitlin: I think the other thing to remember is that sometimes the family that you have might not be the family that you need for.

Frances: Yeah.

Caitlin: But like, asterisk there: Don't kill them.

Frances: Yup!

Caitlin: Or, like, have an angry maid. So listeners, obviously Frances and I have spent a little too much time talking about this. And we do want to let Frances talk about her theories of who actually committed the crime. Spoilers. She thinks it was the maid. So we were are going to do a bit of a bonus on Bridget Sullivan as soon as we can and talk about kind of her life and why Frances now believes she did it.

That being said, if you were in the New England area, and you can get to Fall River, you can drive by Maplecroft Lizzie Borden house is a bed and breakfast. I've gone on a ghost tour there. It's truly an interesting place. I've also just gone there. And it's definitely worth seeing and their graves themselves. It's in a beautiful spot. I mean, that’s…the only thing that really unnerved me is the fact that everyone who's buried there. You feel like kind of hates each other.

Frances: Yeah, that's a tense burial plot.

Caitlin: Can you imagine that? Like it's like rest in peace and it's dead of resting in peace. You just you know have to deal with your family. But with that, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Season Two of Grave Escapes we'll see in the cemetery.

OUTRO MUSIC

Caitlin: Grave Escapes is hosted, written and produced by Caitlin Howle and Francesgrace Ferland and is produced and edited by Jesse D. Crichton. The music is melancholy after sound by Kai Engel. Follow us on social media to see images of today's graves and more about us. Our social handle is Grave Escapes. For a transcript, show notes, and land acknowledgement, visit us online at www.graveescapes.com We'll see you in the cemetery.

Frances: We’d like to acknowledge that we recorded this podcast on the traditional lands of the Wampanoag, Pokanoket, and Narragansett peoples. Here in the Northeast and all across the country, native peoples are still here and thriving. For more information about indigenous history, we’ve added a link in the show notes to An Indigenous People’s History of the United States as a place to begin. For ways to support native leaders and communities, we’ve added links to both the North American Indian Center of Boston and Native Land Conservancy.