Bad Elizabeth - Lizzie Borden with Ricardo Rebelo

Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother were found hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts over one hundred and thirty years ago, yet everyone today still knows her name. Kids dress up like Lizzie carrying bloody axes for Halloween, or spookily recite the famous nursery rhyme “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks/When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one." But what is the real story behind this gory tale?

Gideon and Kathy break down what happened the morning of August 4th, 1892, examining Lizzie as the number one presumed suspect, but also look into the possibility that someone else might’ve murdered Abby and Andrew Borden. What are the possible motives? Was Lizzie pissed because modern plumbing was available at the time, but her tight-pursed father made the family crap in chamber pots? Or was it for the money? And what exactly qualifies one as a “spinster?” But most importantly, was Lizzie Borden BAD? Gideon and Kathy pull from their many resources, including the salacious, and kinda weird, 1975 made-for-TV movie, “The Legend of Lizzie Borden,” starring beloved “Bewitched” actress, Elizabeth Montgomery, to explore the most critical questions behind one of America’s most enduring crime mysteries.

Later in the episode, Kathy talks to Ricardo Rebelo, an instructor of Film, Video & Communications at Bristol Community College in Rhode Island, from his home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Ric discusses his PBS documentary, “Lizbeth: A Victorian Nightmare,” growing up on the same street from the infamous Borden house, the ecosystem of ghosts that haunt the town of Fall River, and the tourism industry it lures. Tuck in for some good tales as spooky Pumpkin Spice season has officially begun!

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Hosted by Gideon Evans & Kathy Egan Taylor

Produced & Engineer by Will Becton / Executive Producer: Amber Becton

Recorded @ Jett Road Studios

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SOURCES:

The New Yorker: Legends of Lizzie

Smithsonian Magazine: How Lizzie Borden Got Away with Murder

New York Times: Lizzie Borden Took an Ax