Lizzie Borden

On the morning of August 4, 1892, one of America’s most infamous murder mysteries began inside a quiet house at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Andrew Borden was discovered brutally murdered on the sitting-room sofa. His wife, Abby, was found upstairs, killed earlier that morning. The house showed no clear sign of forced entry. No stranger had been seen escaping. The murder weapon was never conclusively identified.

Suspicion soon settled upon Andrew’s thirty-two-year-old daughter, Lizzie.

Through the eyes of Nellie Walsh, a fictional fifteen-year-old newspaper messenger, readers enter the crowded Borden house, follow the deeply flawed police investigation, and witness the rumors that spread faster than the evidence. Police officers failed to secure the crime scene. Neighbors, doctors, undertakers, and reporters moved through the rooms. Objects were handled, searches were incomplete, and potentially important evidence disappeared before modern forensic science could examine it.

Lizzie’s behavior raised troubling questions. Her account of the morning changed. She claimed her stepmother had received a note, but no note was ever found. A drug clerk said Lizzie attempted to purchase poison the day before the murders. Her friend Alice Russell later revealed that Lizzie burned a paint-stained dress shortly after the killings.

But the Commonwealth’s case contained serious weaknesses.

No one witnessed either murder. No blood was found on Lizzie’s clothing. No weapon could be connected conclusively to her. Her confused inquest testimony—given without her attorney present—was excluded from trial, along with the disputed poison allegation.

After ten months in jail, Lizzie faced an all-male jury in one of the most sensational murder trials of the nineteenth century. The prosecution argued that no one else possessed her opportunity. The defense insisted that suspicion, however powerful, could never replace proof.

The jury found Lizzie Borden not guilty.

Yet the verdict did not answer the question that has haunted generations:

Who killed Andrew and Abby Borden?

Separating documented history from folklore, Lizzie Borden: Murder at 92 Second Street—What Really Happened examines the crime, investigation, trial, and enduring legend behind the famous skipping-rope rhyme.

Part of the I Witness History (Short) series, this accessible historical novel invites younger readers and adults to examine the evidence, challenge popular myths, and decide for themselves what may have happened inside the Borden house.