48 Hours - Lizzie Borden: Part 2 | My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty

Erin Moriarty spends the night at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast/Museum. Ghosts or not, there is a haunting story that lingers here. The mystery: Why would a 32-year-old woman born into wealth and privilege kill her father and stepmother with an ax? Did she do it? In Part 2 of this unusual narrative, Lizzie Borden is on trial for two brutal murders. Author Cara Robertson has written a fascinating book about Lizzie’s trial and takes us back in time to the justice system of the last century. Cara’s book is written right from the court record. The prosecution has a strong case: Lizzie was home at the time of the murders, she burned a dress and she may have had a motive. The jury deliberated for 90 minutes and the verdict will surprise you.This episode from "My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty" first aired on September 17, 2019. For more episodes like this one, follow "My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty" wherever you get your podcasts.

Duration: 22m
Broadcast on: 22 Sep 2026
Audio Format: other

Hi 48 Hours listeners, it's Erin Moriarty. As you may know, true crime fans are once again being introduced to the story of Lizzie Borden, the Massachusetts woman who was once acquitted of the hatchet murder of her parents in 1892. In 2019, we covered the Borden case in a two-part series in the first season of my 48 Hours podcast series, My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty. Here's part one in its entirety, and be sure to follow the series, My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty, wherever you get your podcasts. Lizzie Borden took it out and gave her mother 40 wet. When she seen it, she gave her father 41. It wasn't a lot of time between when she quote-unquote discovers her dad, and then the police are called, and there's no blood found on her. They never found blood-soaked breasts, and she would have had to be, if she was the one who was wielding that hatchet on her set mom and her dad, wouldn't she have had to have blood spatter on her? The eternal question, where did the blood call? My name is Erin Moriarty, 48 Hours, and this is My Life of Crime. So here I am in Fall River, Massachusetts, for part two of my podcast about one of the most sensational crimes of all time. Lizzie Borden took it out and gave her mother 40 wet. For those who may not know, Lizzie Borden was 32 years old when she became the prime suspect in the axe murders of her father Andrew Borden and her stepmother, Abby. And she seemed like she gave her father 41. Now there's a little poetic license here. Andrew actually had 10 or 11 blows to the head, not 41, and Abby had 17 or 18. And remember, this was back in 1892, but the fascination with this case is so enduring that the scene of the crime, where they were killed, is now the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum. And for reasons that are no longer clear to me, I've agreed to sleep here tonight. Leanne Wilbur owns the place. What, when were you in? I'm in the room that Abby was killed. Oh, good. You took my suggestion. Why? Why? Will there be anything? No, no, no. You just, I think he, you seemed a little hesitant, so I was like, oh, put her in the murder room. Of course, of course. Put the one who's most scared in the murder room. You will be fine. So at this point, I say, my good nights, grab my overnight bag, and head for the hallway.

At the very top of the stairs is the room where I'm going to spend the night. Come in with me. I'm coming into the room because right next to the bed, right where I'm standing right now, between a dresser and the bed, Abby Borden was found, face down, hacked to death. The room itself is actually very nice, although just the little drafty and cold, and I suppose I should have expected that. It's a very old house. The bed is actually extraordinary with this high backboard that almost goes up to the ceiling, and it would be a very charming, very sweet room, if not for the two pictures, sitting right on the dresser. One, I'm picking it up right now, of Abby Borden face down dead, and this one's even more macabre. There she is. You see her face laying straight down on the carpet with blood around her head. How charming.

I get ready for bed. I'm not wearing PJs. I'm actually wearing running clothes. Just in case, I have to make a quick dash. I don't think I'm going to get a lot of sleep tonight. It's now 111, and I wake up suddenly, but it's not ghosts that are waking me up. It's the cold. I've never slept in a place so cold. At 130, I hear voices. Men, but it's not inside the house. It's outside on the sidewalk. Inside the house, it's dead quiet. I feel like I'm not sleeping at all, but clearly I am, because it's now 3 a.m. And for some reason, I'm a little warmer than I was. The house doesn't seem quite as cold. Maybe that's because, as I heard, that Abby Borden is kind of a friendly ghost, a caring ghost, and maybe she's making sure that I'm not quite as cold in her bedroom.

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