Touring the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast

On the way to 92 Second Street in Fall River Massachusetts my eleven year old and I discussed the possible culprits. We pulled up to the house, which I remembered as being a purplish color with mauve trim but was now two shades of green. The small parking area in the back was a tight fit and a woman came out of the barn/gift shop to welcome us and invite us in where we could purchase our tour and wait for it to begin. The original barn where Lizzie supposedly ate pears from the tree in the backyard as her parents were being murdered was raised and this is a reproduction. As we were half an hour early we had the opportunity to watch a video you can only see if you visit the bed and breakfast. It is of a ghost hunter who has recorded ghostly voices responding to his questions during a recent visit. For purchase as souvenirs, should you be so inclined to want a remembrance of your visit, there were sun-catchers in the shape of an axe or a pear, books that recanted the tale of the murders (including a comic book), bobble head Lizzie dolls dressed in black and red with no pupils in their eyes wielding an axe, t-shirts touting the fact that you survived the night or attended the Lizzie Borden finishing school for making "sharper" young women, and lapel pins in pink and black claiming that all you know about anger management you learned form Lizzie Borden. There is definitely something to be said for working with what you've got.

We entered the house through the front door. We were in a small entry with a winding staircase. The tour guide ushered us into a sitting room to the left. Once we are seated she explained that the house had once been a two family and that was why there weren't any true hallways, rooms just opened up on other rooms. She gave a brief history of how and when the home was bought and an overview of the murders while passing around photographs. We learned that the house has been restored based on the black and white crime scene photographs. The original furnishings of the house were put into a storage facility when Lizzie and Emma moved after the trial and were eventually destroyed during the 1938 hurricane. Woodwork, doorknobs and steam radiators are all original to the house, we were warned that should we touch any of these items we would be touching something Lizzie Borden had touched.

From here we walked through the highly recognizable living room to the dinning room. It maybe a little known fact or it could just be something that is often glossed over for what people feel are the more sensational tidbits, but the bodies were laid out on wood slabs on the dining room floor after partial on sight autopsies while waiting for transport to their next destination. I was too stunned to pay attention to where that might be, the hospital, the morgue, or the coroner's office. There were pictures handed around in this room too. First were the images we are all familiar with, the black and white nightmare of how the bodies were found; facedown on the floor in the guest bedroom for Abbey and splayed over the couch in the next room by the door we just walked through for Andrew. It seems we have become desensitized to these over publicized images so to add to the atmosphere they are working so hard to cultivate they show us the photos taken during or just after the partial autopsies. These show the back of Abby's head shaved so the number and severity of her wounds could be assessed and Andrew with his stomach butterflied for what was standard operating procedure, removal of its contents.

Upon leaving the dining area we are again in the sitting room where Andrew was murdered, his body flopped on the couch like a rag doll. The replacement couch is very much the same style and size of the couch in the photographs and everyone in the group stares at it as if they expect the image that is seared into their brain from the previous room to manifest itself from thin air. In this room is also a picture of the summer home the Borden family referred to as the farm in Swansea. The story goes that the sale of this property is the root reason for the murders.

From here we moved up stairs to the guest room where Abby was dispatched. The tour guide points out a dress in the corner of the room, which was worn by Elizabeth Montgomery in a movie about the murderous incidents in the house. While the dress is interesting it doesn't add to the haunted spooky feeling or the overall creepiness that has made this the top destination of ghost hunters, mediums, and those who want to be. Sharing with us is the tour guides job and at this point she decides to share with us that guests who rent this particular room often boast about sleeping on the floor in the very spot where Mrs. Borden's body was discovered. The creep factor was sufficiently bolstered.

We moved through Lizzie's bedroom with a side step into Emma's. In this room is a dress that is purported to have been one of Lizzie's personal belongings bequeathed to a member of the family upon her death in 1927 and eventually given to the bed and breakfast for display. In the master suite we are regaled with stories of how a closet door, which is generally sticky and difficult to open, will sometimes swing open during the presentation. To prove the point the tour guide has the men of the group struggle to pull said door open. What was once Mrs. Borden's dressing room directly off the master has been converted into an additional bedroom.

On the third floor were the maid's room and storage, now additional bedrooms and a small seating area for guests. The tour ends with a trip down the infamous back staircase that Lizzie supposedly used on her way to the first floor where she discovered her father's body. We find ourselves in the kitchen, which is a mesh of period pieces and what looks to be 1970's cabinets. After a brief question and answer period we exit through the side door taking with us these new horrific images and, if you were lucky enough to remember yours, a digital camera full of pictures you hope will reveal some energy orbs, ghostly images, and maybe even potential answers to the mystery that still envelops the property.