Lizzie Borden’s house: How the site of a murder became a tourist attraction

‘Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.’ It’s a rhyme many of us can likely remember reciting during our childhoods.

You might know that the rhyme is based on the story of the American woman Lizzie Borden from the late 19th century. In the 1890s, she stood accused of bludgeoning her father and stepmother to death with, indeed, an axe. What you may not know is that she was actually acquitted.

The rhyme’s cultural staying power is a testament to how the alleged killer’s reputation has evolved over the decades. Even the Lizzie Borden house where the ‘double murder’ took place has been turned into a popular museum and inn. Crime+Investigation looks at how this Massachusetts property became a tourist attraction, as Lizzie Borden: 40 Whacks reopens the case.

What is the Lizzie Borden house?

Today, you can find the Lizzie Borden house at 230 Second Street in the Massachusetts city of Fall River. It’s advertised as ‘the historic Lizzie Borden house’ and ‘America’s most haunted house’. Were it not for its modern fame, though, it would be easy to mistake it for an ordinary slab of 19th-century architecture.

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For Lizzie herself, that was the problem. Her father Andrew Borden was a wealthy businessman, having made his money in banking and real estate. However, the Lizzie Borden house, with its rather humdrum look, appeared to be below his social station. Lizzie longed to live in a more upmarket part of town that would clearly mark out her family’s upper-middle-class status.

Lizzie had lost her biological mother as an infant, and Andrew had since remarried. As a 32-year-old spinster, Lizzie lived at the house with her father, her sister Emma, and the girls’ stepmother Abby. From the outside, it still looked like a distinctly middle-class property. On the inside, it lacked what were then considered very modern conveniences, like running water and electricity. At Andrew’s insistence, the family lived frugally.

How the Lizzie Borden house gained infamy

On the morning of 4th August 1892, Lizzy frantically summoned the family’s live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan, to the house’s ground-floor parlour. There, Lizzie pointed out her father’s bloodied corpse on a settee. By the look of it, someone had struck him repeatedly with a large, sharp implement. Before long, Bridget also came across Abby’s body in an upstairs guestroom.

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Suspicion soon fell on Lizzie, not least due to her contradictory testimonies about exactly where she was when the killings occurred. She was also thought to resent the tight control her father had over her life. Police found a broken hatchet, the potential murder weapon, in the basement. One witness even claimed to spot Lizzie burning potentially blood-stained clothing in the kitchen.

Though Lizzie was the only suspect put on trial, the jury returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’. Nonetheless, whispers that she had essentially got a free pass because of her affluent background would plague her for the rest of her life. Before the murders, Lizzie had been considered a respectable member of her community. Even after her acquittal, she was now a pariah.

The curious renaissance of the Lizzie Borden house

Lizzie soon moved out of the now-notorious home on Second Street, and would never return. In 1996, the Lizzie Borden house was turned into a B&B. In 2004, Donald Woods and Lee-Ann Wilbers acquired the property. They would hold guided tours there, with the focus very much on the known facts of the case rather than overt speculation.

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In 2021, the Lizzie Borden house was bought by businessman Lance Zaal, who has made his name with ghost tours across the US. Today, it’s possible to go ghost-hunting at the Lizzie Borden house (with staff providing the equipment) and book overnight stays in several rooms, including where Abby Borden was found murdered. The building is also preserved as a heritage site.

So, was Lizzie Borden actually guilty? You don’t strictly need to visit the crime scene in person to decide for yourself. The Lizzie Borden house’s current owners offer virtual tours and a murder mystery game you. It’s a sign of how modern technology enables historical crime cases to be revisited and reassessed in new and interesting ways.

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