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Lizzie Borden Essay examples

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It is best described by the closing arguments for Lizzie Borden's defense, made by her attorney, George D. Robinson:

The Lizzie Borden case has mystified and fascinated those interested in crime forover on hundred years. Very few cases in American history have attracted as much attention as the hatchet murders of Andrew J. Borden and his wife, Abby Borden. The bloodiness of the acts in an otherwise respectable late nineteenth century domestic setting is startling. Along with the gruesome nature of the crimes is the unexpected character of the accused, not a hatchet-wielding maniac, but a church-going, Sunday-school-teaching, respectable, spinster-

daughter, charged with parricide, the murder of parents, a crime worthy of …show more content…

They led a modest life in the south part of town near factories and City Hall. Despite this crowded neighborhood and closeness to the police department, none of the neighbors saw anything helpful on the morning of the murders.

	What makes the Fall River murders so confusing is that the motive, the weapon, and the opportunity for such a crime are all absent. They found no money or jewelry missing, not even small amounts of change were taken in the daytime break-in at the Borden home a year earlier. The home had been locked up as usual, the maid Bridget Sullivan-an Irish immigrant, 26, that had been working at the household since 1889-was washing windows, and daughter Lizzie was inside the house reading a magazine. Even if both were involved for some reason in this shocking crime, what became of the blood so conspicuously missing from the bludgeoned corpses?

	Furthermore, the prosecution never proved the weapon was an axe. When Officer Mullaly asked if there were hatchets in the house, Lizzie replied with, "Yes, they are everywhere." Bridget and Mullaly went down to the basement and found four hatchets: one rusty claw-headed hatchet, two that

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