The trial of Lizzie Borden ended on June 20, 1893, when a New Bedford jury took roughly 90 minutes to acquit her of killing her father Andrew Borden and stepmother Abby Borden with a hatchet the previous August. The verdict shocked much of a public that had followed the case in the papers and believed her guilty, but it followed logically from what the jury was allowed to hear: two of the prosecution’s strongest pieces of evidence had been excluded before opening statements, and what remained was circumstantial.
Why Lizzie Borden Was Charged
Andrew Borden, a 69-year-old Fall River property developer and bank president, was found on the sitting room sofa of the family home at 92 Second Street shortly after 11:00 a.m. on August 4, 1892. His face had been destroyed by at least ten hatchet wounds. About half an hour later, a neighbor discovered Abby Borden upstairs in the guest room. She had been struck at least eighteen times in the head and back.1Famous Trials. The Trial of the Infamous Hatchet Murder Case
Autopsy findings, including the state of digestion in each victim’s stomach, placed Abby’s death roughly an hour to an hour and a half before Andrew’s.2Famous Trials. The Trial of Lizzie Borden: Autopsies Whoever killed Abby had stayed in or near the house for over an hour before killing Andrew. That timing pointed to someone already inside.
Only two people were confirmed in the house during the window when both killings occurred: Lizzie Borden and the family maid, Bridget Sullivan, who had been resting upstairs after washing windows in the heat. Lizzie was the one who called Sullivan down after finding Andrew’s body. Her account of where she had been shifted under repeated questioning, and her explanation that she had been in the barn loft looking for fishing sinkers struck investigators as vague. She was indicted for both murders.
The Two Rulings That Reshaped the Case
Before the trial began, a three-judge panel made two evidentiary decisions that gutted the prosecution.
The first concerned Lizzie’s own testimony at the coroner’s inquest. She had answered questions there without an attorney present, and her account was full of contradictions and implausible claims. Prosecutors wanted the jury to hear it. The judges refused, ruling that Lizzie had been, in practical terms, a prisoner charged with two murders when she testified. She had not been warned of her right to remain silent, and her statements were not voluntary.3Famous Trials. The Trial of Lizzie Borden
The second ruling excluded a Fall River druggist named Eli Bence, who was prepared to testify that Lizzie had come into his shop the day before the murders and tried to buy ten cents’ worth of prussic acid, a deadly poison. The judges held that testimony inadmissible as well.1Famous Trials. The Trial of the Infamous Hatchet Murder Case
Together, the two exclusions removed the evidence most likely to have shifted the jury. The inquest testimony would have shown Lizzie contradicting herself under oath. The prussic acid purchase would have suggested she had been planning to kill someone the day before her parents died. Without them, the state was left with opportunity, a plausible motive, and a burned dress.
The Prosecution’s Case at Trial
The trial opened on June 5, 1893, at the New Bedford Courthouse before Chief Justice Mason and Judges Dewey and Blodgett.1Famous Trials. The Trial of the Infamous Hatchet Murder Case District Attorney Knowlton and Thomas Moody prosecuted.
The state’s argument rested on motive, opportunity, and behavior after the killings. Prosecutors described years of tension in the Borden household. In 1887, Andrew Borden had purchased a house for Abby’s sister, a gesture Lizzie and her sister Emma read as favoritism and a threat to their inheritance. Lizzie reportedly refused to call her stepmother “Mother,” referring to her instead as “Mrs. Borden.” Andrew’s estate was substantial, and the prosecution argued she killed to protect her share.
On opportunity, the state walked the jury through the physical layout of the house, the tight timeline, and the locked doors that made an intruder’s entry and undetected escape extraordinarily unlikely. They introduced a hatchet head with a freshly broken handle found in the basement. And they called Alice Russell, a close friend who had been staying with the Borden sisters after the murders. Russell testified that days later she watched Lizzie burn a blue dress in the kitchen stove. Lizzie told her the dress was stained with old paint. Russell’s account had helped secure the indictment.1Famous Trials. The Trial of the Infamous Hatchet Murder Case
What the prosecution did not have was a confirmed murder weapon, an eyewitness, or any blood on the defendant. The basement hatchet head carried no blood on its blade and could not be conclusively tied to the wounds. No bloodstained clothing was ever recovered from Lizzie.
The Defense’s Case
Lizzie was represented by her personal attorney Andrew Jennings and by George Robinson, a former governor of Massachusetts. They worked every gap in the state’s evidence.
Their central argument was the absence of blood. A hatchet attack that shattered two skulls would have drenched the attacker. Police found no bloodstained clothing on Lizzie or anywhere in the house. The prosecution could not explain how, in the brief minutes between Andrew’s killing and Sullivan’s arrival downstairs, Lizzie could have cleaned herself, changed, and hidden a weapon.
On the burned dress, the defense pointed out that Lizzie had destroyed it in broad daylight, in view of witnesses, with police stationed around the property. If she were destroying evidence, they argued, she had chosen the most conspicuous possible method.
Jennings and Robinson also called witnesses who reported unfamiliar men near the house. Charles Gifford and Uriah Kirby described a stranger near the property the night before. Dr. Benjamin Handy said he had seen a pale-faced young man on the sidewalk near 92 Second Street around 10:30 on the morning of August 4.3Famous Trials. The Trial of Lizzie Borden Robinson argued in closing that the state had no evidence ruling out an intruder, only an argument that one was improbable.
The defense also leaned on the cultural assumptions of 1890s New England. Jennings introduced Lizzie as “a young woman of spotless reputation,” emphasizing her charitable work and her church involvement. The implicit argument was that a refined, churchgoing woman could not have delivered the kind of blows that killed Andrew and Abby Borden. When Lizzie fainted during graphic autopsy testimony, the impression of frailty worked to her benefit.
The Verdict and Reaction
The jury retired on June 20, 1893, and returned in roughly an hour and a half with a verdict of not guilty on all counts. Lizzie wept in the courtroom. Outside, reaction split sharply. Many who had followed newspaper coverage believed she was guilty and that the jury had been moved by sentiment rather than by the evidence. The speed of deliberation suggested the jurors had made up their minds well before closing arguments finished.
Most crime historians who have examined the record since have reached the same conclusion: the circumstantial case was strong, and no alternative suspect has ever been identified with anything approaching the same level of evidence.1Famous Trials. The Trial of the Infamous Hatchet Murder Case The acquittal, legally sound under the reasonable-doubt standard, left the case permanently unresolved.
What the Acquittal Did Not Change
Legal exoneration did not bring social redemption. Lizzie and Emma used their inheritance to buy a large home in Fall River’s Hill neighborhood, which Lizzie named Maplecroft. Fall River shunned her. Shopkeepers were reluctant to serve her, and in 1897 she was publicly accused of shoplifting. Emma moved out of Maplecroft in 1905, saying only that “the house became unbearable.” The two sisters never reconciled. Lizzie died of pneumonia on June 1, 1927, at age 66; Emma died nine days later.
Later theories have tried to fill the gap left by the acquittal, including claims about an intruder who slipped past locked doors, an alleged illegitimate son of Andrew Borden, and speculation about Bridget Sullivan’s testimony. None has produced evidence approaching what the state assembled against Lizzie. The forensic tools that might have settled the question, particularly the ability to distinguish human from animal blood and to perform DNA analysis, did not exist in 1893. The trial ended in acquittal, and the murders were never solved.