"Lizzie Borden Took an Axe" - Encore
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
(upbeat music) - It's an amazing story, it really is. - It's a story of one very unhappy family in a house. - It is a morning like so many other mornings in a small town in New England. A father, a stepmother, living with his two adult daughters. - Lizzie, 32, and Emma, 41. - 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. - Law enforcement personnel arrived and found a gruesome murder. Two bodies, a lot of blood. There is a husband downstairs, 10 wounds to his head. - And almost half of his face is obliterated. - And just on the second floor was his wife. She was faced down with a tremendous amount of injury to the back of her head. - It seems like the most likely murder weapon was a hatchet with a three and a half inch blade. - When someone is struck multiple times with a hatchet to the head, that's personal. - You know, one of the most fascinating parts of this case is that except for around the bodies, there's no blood found anywhere. - You would think that whoever was the perpetrator would be covered with blood, blood spatter, nothing. - Suspicion turned to the people in the house. - And the only people in the house are his daughter and their housekeeper. - It was so shocking for the police to come to the conclusion that the daughter had killed her father and stepmother. - You would have to believe that this sweet, seemingly harmless woman did this horrific thing. - Women are as capable as men, not only for the good, but for the bad as well. - On August the 4th, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. - Every generation has that one really terrible case that we don't have any answers to. - There is only one plausible explanation. Who do you believe killed Andrew and Abby Borden, Lizzie? - Lizzie's responsible for these murders. - It was Lizzie Borden who intended to murder and did murder Abby and Andrew Borden. - It was not until I read about this case that I learned that I was wrong and all of us are wrong. - Lizzie Borden was acquitted, so no one has ever been held accountable for the crime.
Transcription truncated.
Did Lizzie Borden really hack her parents to death? A surprising answer and an inside look at the haunting crime scene. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.