Lizzie Borden Took an Axe

**Matthew Traiano** (0:08)
It's an amazing story, it really is.

**Cara Robertson** (0:10)
It's the story of one very unhappy family in a house.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (0:18)
It is a morning like so many other mornings in a small town in New England.

**Andrew Schweichart** (0:23)
A father, a stepmother, living with his two adult daughters.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (0:29)
Lizzie, 32, and Emma, 41

**Cara Robertson** (0:33)
Lizzie was seen by the next door neighbor, and the neighbor asked what's the matter, and she announces that her father has been killed.

**Erin Rubis** (0:44)
Law enforcement personnel arrived and found a gruesome murder.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (0:50)
Two bodies, a lot of blood. There is a husband downstairs, ten wounds to his head.

**Cara Robertson** (0:57)
And almost half of his face is obliterated.

**Erin Rubis** (1:01)
And just on the second floor was his wife. She was face down with a tremendous amount of injury to the back of her head.

**Andrew Schweichart** (1:12)
It seems like the most likely murder weapon was a hatchet with a 3 1⁄2 inch blade.

**Erin Rubis** (1:18)
When someone is struck multiple times with a hatchet to the head, that's personal.

**Cara Robertson** (1:27)
You know, one of the most fascinating parts of this case is that except for around the bodies, there's no blood found anywhere.

**Matthew Traiano** (1:33)
You would think that whoever was the perpetrator would be covered with blood, blood spatter, nothing.

**Cara Robertson** (1:39)
Suspicion turned to the people in the house.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (1:42)
And the only people in the house are his daughter and their housekeeper.

**Cara Robertson** (1:50)
It was so shocking for the police to come to the conclusion that the daughter had killed her father and stepmother.

**Andrew Schweichart** (1:58)
You would have to believe that this sweet, seemingly harmless woman did this horrific thing.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (2:05)
Women are as capable as men, not only for the good, but for the bad as well.

**Cara Robertson** (2:13)
On August the 4th, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.

**Andrew Schweichart** (2:23)
Every generation has that one really terrible case that we don't have any answers to.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (2:30)
There is only one plausible explanation.

**Erin Moriarty** (2:35)
Who do you believe killed Andrew and Abby Borden? Lizzie.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (2:43)
It was Lizzie Borden who intended to murder and did murder Abby and Andrew Borden.

**Matthew Traiano** (2:49)
It was not until I read about this case that I learned that I was wrong. And all of us are wrong.

**Cara Robertson** (2:56)
Lizzie Borden was acquitted, so no one has ever been held accountable for the crimes.

**Erin Rubis** (3:01)
But if not her, then who?

**Andrew Schweichart** (3:05)
This is somebody who may have quite literally gotten away with murder.

**SPEAKER_7** (3:10)
Lizzie Borden took it out and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she seen what she had done, she gave her father 41

**Cara Robertson** (3:24)
The crimes were so violent that many thought that Jack the Ripper had come to America.

**Erin Moriarty** (3:35)
It was an unspeakable crime, a double homicide that captured the attention of the entire nation.
Tonight, on a special 48 Hours, we're taking a fresh look at a cold case, a really cold case. It occurred in 1892, and we're presenting it to a new jury to see if they can separate fact from fable. The defendant was a 32-year-old daughter of the victims, her name, Lizzie Borden.

**Cara Robertson** (4:08)
I began studying Lizzie Borden when I was an undergraduate.

**Erin Moriarty** (4:12)
Los Angeles author Cara Robertson has been living with Lizzie Borden for a long time.

**Cara Robertson** (4:18)
I was interested in trying to find a topic for my college thesis.

**Erin Moriarty** (4:23)
Thirty years later, her thesis became this, a remarkably detailed look at the accusations against Lizzie Borden and her high-profile trial published by Simon & Schuster.

**Cara Robertson** (4:38)
Fundamentally, the case was about whether or not someone like Lizzie Borden could have committed these brutal crimes.

**Erin Moriarty** (4:47)
And in 1893, a jury of 12 men agreed she couldn't, returning a unanimous verdict of not guilty.

**Cara Robertson** (4:56)
This was the kind of crime that just could not have been committed by a woman.

**Erin Moriarty** (5:02)
But despite being acquitted, time and popular culture has forever cast Lizzie as one of America's most notorious killers. So did she do it or not?
To help get to the bottom of this mystery, we brought together a team of paid consultants, two extremely experienced lawyers.

**Anna Sika Nicolazzi** (5:28)
My name is Anna Sika Nicolazzi. I was a prosecutor for 21 years at the Brooklyn DA's office.