Freaky Friday: The Young Witch Has a Plan to Hatch...et

Most of what's been happening in my neck of the woods has been true crime this week: work wise, watch wise, thought wise. Plus my new lease finally starts today and have to plan how to do that, so... might as well celebrate by writing a little more!!

And who better to write about than someone who has been popping up in my feed all week: Ms. Lizzie Borden.

Lizzie Borden was born in Fall River, MA (why do all of these seem to have something to do with New England?). Her parents were Andrew and Sarah Borden, and she also had a sister Emma. Her mother died when she was about 3 and her father remarried a woman named Abby a few years later.

Now, Emma and Lizzie were not known to have the best relationships with the two. Andrew was very frugal, despite his wealth and seemed to have a bias towards his new wife, giving her family members and great deal of things, while the sisters did without. It's believed Lizzie thought Abby married Andrew for his money, so that didn't help matters. She also referred to Abby as Mrs. Borden, and not much else.

Lizzie also took care of pigeons, which Mr. Borden would take to their barn and kill. He claimed it was because they were attracting the local children to come and hunt them. Oh no. Children. Lizzie was reported to be very upset over the situation and I mean...wouldn't you? My own father, who openly admits to hating animals, would not even do this. He has literally chased one of them five miles because they escaped.

The girls were actually made to leave the house on, what wikipedia put in quotation, "a 'vacation'" after a family fight. They didn't come back from said "vacation" until literally a week before the murders, and Lizzie still didn't actually enter the house for another four days.

So....ummmm... this is a pretty famous case. I think we all know what happens next, but... here we go.

August 4th, 1892, Lizzie comes into the house to find Andrew is dead from many a hatchet blow to the face. She claims that she called out to their maid Maggie, that her father was dead. Then when asked about her Abby, she said, that she thought she heard her go upstairs. When she got there, Abby was also dead. Also from many a blow to the face.

Now here's where everything gets jumbled and there are a lot of theories, but the main thing that wins out is this. Lizzie is found to have extremely contradicting stories with everyone involved including herself. At some point her mother went out (nope, Abby was dead when she said that happened), at one point she was outside, but someone else said they heard her laugh upstairs. Lizzie said she helped her father put on slippers, but he still had on his boots.

There is a heck ton going on here, but mostly everything points to Lizzie. So... guess who's going to trial!

But there are some issues with it being Lizzie. For one, her dress had absolutely no blood on it when she called for Maggie. She called for Maggie as soon as saw her father was dead. Maggie even said there was no blood and the time of death was too soon before that considering how much time and effort went into the changing of dresses back in those days. (They did catch her burning a dress though, but it wasn't the one she was wearing that day).

Also they could never find the murder weapon. None of the hatchets or axes in the house had blood on them at all and they could even find a trace of it. None!!

There's also evidence that it could have been her Uncle, who was staying with them at the time and lied about where he was. There's even theories that it could have been Maggie who was napping in the time, but was said that it was lightly.

Whatever it was, the lack of evidence and the thought that no woman could possibly commit such an act (her fainting when they brought in the smashed skulls certainly helped on that account), was enough for the jury to acquit her.

Though that didn't really help her in the end.

She was essentially turned out of society, everyone still being almost positive she did it. She and her sister bought a house together, but after a party for one of Lizzie's favorite actresses, Emma left. The two never spoke again.

So Lizzie didn't have a lot of people in her life by the end. She died on pneumonia in 1927, and left her money to charities and a few close friends and her family members.

Now did she actually commit the murder? We'll probably never really know. At least until we can fully talk to ghosts, because the old Borden home is reportedly haunted, by ghost of battered spirits and Ms. Lizzie herself. People feel presences, get scratched for taking money from a special place for Mr. Borden. Some people have talked to the spirits and believe they have the answer for what happened and why.

But again. Who really knows?