Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.
- Children's nursery rhyme

Q: Miss Borden, I am trying in all good faith to get all the doings that morning, of yourself and Miss Sullivan and I have not succeeded in doing it! Do you desire to give me any information or not?

A: I don't know it! I don't know what your name is!

- Lizzie Borden, replying to District Attorney Hosea Knowlton, at the inquest into the murders of her parents. August 1892.

I have a major creative writing project. You have to take an historical figure or event and turn it into a short story. I want to do it on Lizzie Borden; accused, acquitted but still generally believed to have committed the horrific murders of her stepmother and her father on the morning of August 4th, 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts. I've read one short story about her already, "The Fall River Axe Murders" by Angela Carter. It's so brilliant that writing a story about the case myself is more than a bit intimidating.

Anyway, I know there are people here who read true crime. I'm curious to know if anyone has an opinion. Did Lizzie Borden kill her parents, and if not Lizzie, who did? It doesn't really matter if this helps my assignment. I'm just interested.

I've looked up stuff on the Internet and oh God, talk about information over-load. It's overwhelming.
All I can conclude is:
In 1892, people seemed to watch their neighbours instead of TV. Lizzie Borden and the 26 year old maid, Bridget Sullivan were the only people DEFINITELY at the house while the murders of Abby and Andrew Borden took place. Bridget was cleaning the outside windows some of the time. Neither Lizzie nor Bridget claimed to hear or witness anything unusual, and they never blamed or tried to incriminate each other. The house was on a busy street. People in the neighbouring houses noticed a lot of comings and going that morning. Nobody saw a stranger enter or leave the house, and if the killer left, he or she would have been in quite a mess.
Lizzie was menstruating. The Victorian police on the scene turned gentlemenly blind eyes to certain bloodstained items. Bridget even left the house that night with a small "bloody bundle"!

I dunno who did it. Lizzie or Bridget Sullivan seem the only plausible suspects.

I've always wondered if Lizzie really did it or if someone else did it.

From everything I have read and seen the consensus is that Lizzy did it.

__________________
Well, it was no Goodburger.

You could cut Lizzie a lot of slack if the murders hadn't happened well over an hour apart. On August 4th 1892, Lizzie's mother was "whacked" first, 18 times, a little after 9:30AM.

When Andrew Borden arrived back from running errands downtown, at about 10:30AM, Bridget Sullivan, the maid, had to unlock four separate bolts to let him in. In exasperation, she swore. Lizzie heard, and began laughing - from upstairs. The lay-out of the house made it all but impossible for Lizzie to get back downstairs without seeing her mother's body. If Lizzie didn't do it, there was some maniac hiding in the house for around 90 minutes before "whacking" Andrew Borden in the loungeroom downstairs.

And where was Lizzie while this unknown assailant whacked her father? In her testimony, she claimed she went up to the loft in the barn to find fishing gear.

This was a scorchingly hot day - over 100 degrees well before midday. The loft was so hot - according to police who went up there not long afterwards - it was almost impossible to fathom why anybody would voluntarily hang around there.
But Lizzie (already having said she was too sick to eat breakfast), gave up searching for stuff to go fishing with but stayed up in this place for at least 20 minutes ... to eat pears.

According to Bridget, the town hall clock had just chimed eleven when Lizzie yelled out: "Come down quick! Father's dead! Somebody came in and killed him!"
If Lizzie didn't do it, the unknown assailant had fled the house unseen.
Lizzie told Bridget to leave the house to get the doctor. Strange that she wasn't afraid to be alone in the house, having just seen the sight of her dad.
When the police arrived, there were no signs of forced entry and nothing was stolen.
Lizzie attempted to purchase prussic acid, a deadly poison, the day before the murders and made all sorts of creepy predictions to a neighbour the night beforehand.

Still, nobody saw any blood on Lizzie or on her clothing in the aftermath, which is a hard one to explain if she did it. There was no definitive murder weapon found on the premises. And Bridget Sullivan was there too, and like Lizzie Borden, claimed she never saw or heard a thing.
I think it's possible Lizzie didn't do it, but if she didn't do it, she had to know the identity of the person who did.

Sorry for saying "fuck" in The Library. That's what comes from reading Lizzie Borden's entire testimony during the inquest, on a Friday night too. (Ugh, it's pitiful!)
I quoted that part of her testimony because I really felt for the DA at that point! On and on and on Lizzie gave the most elusive, contradictory replies about where she was and what she was doing that morning. "Miss Borden" was an infuriating witness.

Mr and Mrs borden were killed like an hour and a half apart, and it would have been difficult for an intruder to hide in the house that long. also, the room abby borden was in was locked, and the whereabouts of the key were known only by residents of the house. and finally lizzie was seen burning a bloody dress days later. VERDICT::: GUILTY