Lizzie Borden: 40 Whacks

Lizzie Borden: 40 Whacks revisits one of America’s most notorious murder cases, using rediscovered police interrogation files to examine the evidence, conflicting accounts and family tensions surrounding the deaths of Andrew and Abby Borden. In August 1892, wealthy businessman Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were found brutally murdered with an axe inside their home. Suspicion soon fell on Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie Borden, whose trial would grip America and inspire more than a century of speculation, folklore and a famous nursery rhyme. By returning to the original records, Lizzie Borden: 40 Whacks separates documented evidence from enduring legend, offering a fresh examination of the woman at the centre of a case that continues to fascinate more than 130 years later. Rather than recreating the case as drama, the series uses surviving testimony and historical records to reconsider the investigation, the prosecution and the unanswered questions. It asks what can be established about Lizzie Borden, and why uncertainty still surrounds her today. Coming soon to Crime+Investigation.