Haunted Places: the Lizzie Borden House Fall River, Massachusetts

The Lizze Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts is currently a bed and breakfast open to tourists. However, a little over a hundred years ago, it was the scene of a grisly crime.

The house that sits on 92 Second Street was purchased by wealthy businessman Andrew Borden. He lived there with his second wife, Abby Durfee Borden, and two grown daughters from his first marriage, Lizzie and Emma. However, on the morning of August 4, 1892, both Andrew and Abby were brutally murdered. At the time, only Lizzie and the maid, Bridget Sullivan was home. Sullivan, called Maggie by the sisters, had worked for the Bordens for almost three years. Around 10:45 a.m., Lizzie called for Sullivan, saying I'that her father was dead, someone had come into the house and killed him. Sullivan ran across the street to get Dr. Bowen, a neighbor. When Sullivan returned, she found the body of Abby in an upstairs guestroom. Both had been killed from being struck dozens of times with a hatchet.

Telling inconsistent stories and acting suspiciously, Lizzie was arrested and forced to stand trial for the murder of her father and stepmother. Investigators found a handleless hatchet in the basement. At the time, the Fall River police didn't think fingerprinting had any credibility and refused to test the hatchet for fingerprints. No bloody clothing, which surely would have occurred had Lizzie killed her parents, was ever found.

Lizzie was acquitted of the murder, despite testimony from Dr. Bowen that Abby told him on August 3rd that she and Andrew had been violently ill the night before and she feared they had been poisoned. A clerk at Smith's Drug Store testified that Lizzie had tried to purchase 10 cents worth of prussic acid, better known as cyanide, the morning of the 3^rd. Lizzie denied going to the drug store even though two other people reportedly saw her there. The testimony of the clerk was heard at the trial, but ruled inadmissible by the judge. The case resulted in the now famous childhood rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks.

And when she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one.

After the trial, Lizzie and Emma moved to a new house, with Emma moving out in 1905 due to an argument. By then, actress Nance O'Neil was living with Lizzie. Lizzie died on June 1, 1927 from complications of a gall bladder surgery. Emma died nine days later and the sisters were buried together in the family plot, alongside their murdered stepmother and father.

The rooms available for guests to stay in include Lizzie & Emma's Bedrooms, Abby & Andrew's Bedrooms, and Bridget's Attic Room. Both guests and staff members have reported strange experiences while in the house. Some claim to hear the weeping of a woman, while others claim to have seen ghostly looking women in Victorian era clothing. There are unexplained footsteps, the sounds or doors opening and closing on their own, muffled conversations, and even the bed clothing rumpling on its own.

The Lizzie Borden House is located fifty miles south of Boston in Fall River. The entire house can be rented for parties of up to 20 people or individual rooms may be reserved.