Lizzie Borden Took an Ax?

I have a confession. I am a bit obsessed with Lizzie Borden.

I’m not alone. Several dramatizations have surfaced over the years, including a recent, wildly popular, yet quite—ahem—”imaginative” retelling on Netflix.

In fact, my husband Derek and I once spent the night at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts, in the bedroom where Andrew and Abby Borden once slept. The reason? It was the only bed chamber with its own bathroom, and if I had to pee in the middle of the night, I wasn’t going to be caught dead roaming those specific halls.

We even recreated the infamous crime-scene photographs. Don’t judge. Apparently, everybody does it.

Naturally, when I discovered Cara Robertson’s extraordinary book, “The Trial of Lizzie Borden,” I lost my mind. And when Robertson joined me on my ON THE KNOWS podcast, I finally had an opportunity to discuss this fascinating unsolved murder with someone who actually knows what she’s talking about.

Cara began researching the Borden case as a Harvard undergraduate in 1990. She subsequently earned a PhD from Oxford and a law degree from Stanford, clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court and served as a legal adviser at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

In other words, she’s big-time qualified.

What sets Cara’s book apart from countless Borden adaptations is her painstaking reconstruction of the 1893 trial, drawing on courtroom records, newspaper accounts, and historical documents.

For those unfamiliar with the case, Lizzie Borden was accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother with a hatchet. The one that spawned the infamous nursery rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an ax

And gave her mother forty whacks,

And when she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

Fact Check: She was acquitted; it was her stepmother, and the whack count is totally wrong.

Cara explained how the (often shocking) Victorian assumptions about femininity shaped the proceedings. Lizzie was a respectable, churchgoing Sunday school teacher. Surely such a woman couldn’t commit such monstrous acts!

Apparently, a hatchet-wielding murderer simply didn’t fit society’s preferred image of a proper lady.

Especially to the all-male jury. Women couldn’t serve on Massachusetts juries until 1951. 1951!

And the surprises keep on coming. Important evidence never reached the jury, including Lizzie’s inconsistent statements about her whereabouts and testimony concerning an alleged attempt to purchase poison.

Yet what fascinated me most was the magnificent language the journalists used to cover the trial. Their vivid descriptions brought the courtroom and its “characters” to life. As a die-hard linguaphile, I found myself practically swooning over the vocabulary.

Yes, I unapologetically acknowledge I’m always besotted by wit, words, and wordplay.

But our conversation eventually moved beyond murder, courtroom theatrics, and literary appreciation. It became about a search for truth.

Society often seems so desperate for answers that we’re willing to accept unproven claims simply because they come from someone we trust—or because they reinforce what we already believe.

One observation from Cara’s book especially resonated with me: “Most interpretations tell us more about the preoccupations of its chroniclers than any essential truth about the mystery.”

Think about that.

Whether we’re discussing historical mysteries, political controversies, or the latest social media outrage, how often do we mistake someone’s interpretation for fact?

Cara acknowledged that historians and storytellers must constantly recognize how their own circumstances influence their interpretations.

That’s precisely why I admire her approach. She presents the evidence and respects our intelligence enough to let us decide. Cara did the heavy lifting of fleshing out the book so we can do the work of deciding for ourselves.

So, did Lizzie do it?

Cara believes the mystery remains unsolved. I suspect Lizzie was involved but didn’t personally commit the murders. Neither of us can prove it. And perhaps that’s the point.

When I asked Cara my signature closing question, “What do you know?” her answer was perfect: “We’ll never know the truth about Lizzie Borden, but we’ll really enjoy trying to figure it out.”

After 134 years, maybe the most important lesson isn’t discovering who wielded the hatchet.

It’s remembering that wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so.

Randall Kenneth Jones is an author, podcaster, keynote speaker, creative communications consultant, and a self-proclaimed Don’t-Know-It-All. Visit OnTheKnows.com or RandallKennethJones.com.