Going West: True Crime - Jeremiah Lexer & Lizzie Borden // 345

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

In July of 1902, a wealthy Tennessee plantation owner went on a murderous rampage in the middle of the night, killing his entire family with an ax. But what they found at his home after his death was even more horrifying. Since the tragic slaying of six innocent people that night, and dozens of others over the years, the home has been turned into one of the scariest haunted houses in America: Frightmare Manor. This is the story of murderer Jeremiah Lexer. But 10 years earlier, an even more well-known ax murder case occurred just a few states away when a young woman is believed to have murdered her father and stepmother. So this is also the story of Lizzie Borden. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Frightmare Manor: https://frightmaremanor.com/history-jeremiah-lexer-plantation-crockett/ 2. The Southern Voice: https://thesouthernvoice.com/evil-isnt-new-the-jeremiah-lexer-story/ 3. The Knoxville News-Sentinel: https://www.newspapers.com/image/777973849/?terms=jeremiah%20lexer&match=1 4. Historic Archaeology: https://historicarchaeology.weebly.com/journal/small-town-cover-up-of-serial-killer-responsible-for-30plus-deaths 5. UT Daily Beacon: https://www.utdailybeacon.com/opinion/columns/east-tennessees-hidden-history-serial-killers-in-knoxville/article_70a8c42a-bfd6-11e7-ab64-5300d0bb2906.html#:~:text=The%20notorious%20Harpe%20Brothers%20are,in%201798%2C%20beginning%20in%20Knoxville. 6. WBIR: https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/five-at-four/haunted-house-frightmare-manor-specializes-in-screams-and-scares/51-c30cffa1-ae5f-4d8d-bc4d-2b45b730bc55 7. Serial Killer Calendar: https://serialkillercalendar.com/PAUL-REID-THE-FAST-FOOD-KILLER.php 8. Bizarrepedia: https://www.bizarrepedia.com/when-nashville-bled-paul-dennis-reid-jr/ 9. JustThoughtLounge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSfuBN0c_A4 10. Associated Press: https://bobbyrossjr.com/2003/04/27/april-2003-the-associated-press/ 11. Casetext: https://casetext.com/case/state-v-reid-224 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Teeze. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody happy October baby. It's finally the spooky season. Oh yeah, today we are doing something we've never done before. We're covering two cases in one episode. We don't really like doing that because we want, we always want to be able to delve into one particular case and give all the details,

but there's for the first part of this story there's not a ton of information weirdly as we're going to get into. So we had to do another case with it because we really wanted to cover it. Anyway, long story long. Here we are. We've got two cases. If you guys were fans of the dark parts at all, this kind of has a little bit of dark parts flavor to it. Absolutely does.

Yeah, so and it's definitely a spooky case for us to cover. Absolutely. We wanted to have kind of fun with this one and thank you so much to Kayla, Diana, Jessica, and Paul for recommending across these two cases. They just felt like good ones to put together as you guys will see. So thank you guys for tuning in. Again, happy October. Let's get spooky. in again happy October, let's get spooky. Alright guys, this is episode 345 of Going West, a wealthy Tennessee plantation owner went on a murderous rampage in the middle of the night, killing his entire family with an axe. But what they found at his home after his death was even more horrifying. Since the tragic slang of six innocent people that night and dozens of others over the years, the home has turned into one of the scariest haunted houses in America,

Frightmare Manor. This is the story of Jeremiah Lexer, but 10 years earlier, and even more well-known ax murder case occurred just a few states away when a young woman is believed to have murdered her father and stepmother. So this is also the story of Lizzie Borden. Jeremiah Lexer was born on June 6th, 1826, making him the oldest person we have ever talked about on this show.

Born into a wealthy family, Jeremiah lived on a plantation, encompassing 20 acres right on the edge of Hambling County, Tennessee, which is right near the town of Talbot. Now, Talbot is a community of about 9,000 situated near the Cherokee reservoir, and it's about 45 minutes northeast of Knoxville. And it's also where the wolf man is from. Is not.

It's definitely not. It's not. No, definitely not. It's not. No, I'm just messing. I appreciate your knowledge of Talbot. My enthusiasm for the wolf man. Actually, I have a tattoo that says Talbot after Lauren's Talbot. Anyway, so born nearly 40 years before the abolition

of slavery, the Lexar family likely owned slaves and sided with the Confederacy when Tennessee was consumed by the Civil War. So there's that. Now one source claims that he hailed from the East Coast, but that he moved to Tennessee to settle and populate the area. Now Jeremiah is described as one of the founding fathers of both Talbot and Hamlin County, along with Hezekiah Hamlin himself, which is who the county was named after.

Though Jeremiah is remembered as Moody and Brooding, he was regarded as a family man and described as upstanding by others in the community. But take that with a big ol' grain of salt. Yeah, because it's not gonna last long. It's not. And I don't know if it was ever really there to begin with. So the family maintained their sprawling home

in farmland in the south, and Jeremiah's immediate family settled with him as well. So living in the home with him were his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren, aged 12, eight, and four. And eerie enough, years after Jeremiah and his family moved there, starting in 1887, so when Jeremiah

was 61 years old, Sheriff JF Hayes began noticing an uptick in the amount of missing persons cases in this area. It was a seemingly unusual amount given the small size of the community, so remember that. But Hamlin County is nestled near the Appalachian Mountains, and most of you know that a lot of hikers and travelers will just frequently find trouble with harsh terrain or animal encounters, and sometimes ill-intentioned people. Although attempts were made to find the missing parties, of course, no sign of any of them ever turned up. And as time ticked on, more names were added to the list every year. The disappearances continued for 15 years, not so coincidentally, until Jeremiah's death

in 1902, when the community would discover the shocking reason why so many people were vanishing from this area. In the early morning hours of July 5th, 1902, Sheriff JF Hayes responded to a disturbance at the Lexor property, only to find it basically transformed into a morgue. Scattered throughout the house were the chopped up remains of his entire family. His wife, his son, daughter-in-law, and three young grandchildren. And I'm just gonna tell you, weirdly, the victim's names have never been released. Which feels so shitty because we have Jeremiah's full name and we can't even honor the victims

by stating even their first names. Like, this is such an infamous case in Tennessee, so it's really surprising that there isn't a ton of information here. Not even the names, really. Yeah, that's just a really weird detail about this case. So using a freshly sharpened axe, Jeremiah had embarked upon a brutal killing spree, hacking all six family members and spreading their remains throughout the house. Rumors from police at the time indicated that he had also used their blood to write

nonsensical messages on the walls, which some believe were demonic. So after Jeremiah's murderous rampage, he walked to the second floor of the home, perched his axe on the mantle, and jumped, supposedly headfirst from the second story window, either dying on impact or shortly thereafter. He's believed to have taken his own life around 3.25am that day. The witching hour. Which makes it even more spooky here, like in the middle of the night. So when Jaya freaks the property again, the sheriff, he was reportedly so shocked and

horrified by the gruesome scene that he needed to excuse himself to go outside to throw up, which makes sense with how unbelievable this must have been to like stumble upon. And interestingly, the only available first-hand account of this scene comes directly from J.F. and it reads quote, Seeing so much gruesome torture and murder to innocent life was truly sickening. I vomited and had to go outside to regain my composure. Beneath the spatters of blood and ax marks, investigators could still see the drawings

that the children had made along the wall. But sadly, the seven total bodies of the Lexar family were only the beginning. As police combs the property and cleaned up the mess left in Jeremiah's wake, they stumbled upon possibly an even more disturbing discovery. The bodies of dozens of more victims. This is absolutely insane. So in a pit on the sprawling property, the remains of an estimated 31 additional decomposing corpses were recovered in the ground.

According to investigators, Jeremiah not only brutally murdered his victims, but enjoyed mutilating and performing experiments on them, as well as on animals who were found among the human remains. So he's basically like a more horrible version of Edgene. Yeah, totally. We actually just talked about Edgene a little bit in our last episode on Evelyn Hartley, if you guys haven't listened to that one. So evidence of the mutilation and the experimentation was discovered in the barn on Lexer's property, as well as in his office and in the basement inside the home. So somehow, he seemed to manage this without his family or anybody else finding out which probably lends to how sprawling the property really was,

but still. I mean, it is crazy disturbing to think about all this going on just right under everybody's noses, especially since he would often dispose of bodies in the furnace of the basement. Though he had around 30 confirmed victims, he is believed to have had as many as a hundred. Because like I said earlier, there's still so many people that went missing in the area that were never found at all. Yeah, and they couldn't ever make connections to. Exactly, but you probably was responsible for all of them. So with a body count this high and details this shocking, you would think that this would be considered one of the

countries or at least Tennessee's most prolific serial killers but maybe due to his status, there's very little credible information about him and his family and sadly even less about his victims as I mentioned before regarding the names because we don't know any of the names of his other victims either or any of the people that were found in this pit on his property. Which again, is just so sad. So Jeremiah was buried quietly on the east side of the property, and according to locals, the story was just stifled and has never received the notoriety it should have, likely because of Jeremiah's power and financial influence,

even after death. I think it's really interesting that they buried him on that property where all of his victims were found. Like, creepy. Like I wonder, you know, like those ghosts must be just like beating the shit out of his ghost every day. Hopefully, I hope. You know, like, we're actually gonna briefly get into some hauntings here in a bit.

So he probably is still still on that property. So the state of Tennessee actually chose not to release the court documents regarding the discovery until 1987, so nearly 100 years later, and even then, they were not made available to the public. And I wonder why they chose to wait 100 years. That just seems so weird to me. It's a case from 1902, and then all of a sudden,

they're basically like, oh, I think we should finally dig into this one. Yeah, there's just this like weird vibe that they're trying to hide it. Like the fact that even the court documents were released, but not to the public, why not? It's just like they're trying to cover it up. Well, maybe it's because they just,

they didn't want to like scare people away from that area or that county. Maybe. I mean, who knows? So weird. So the house in its surrounding area sat empty for years, as you can imagine, marked with the unmistakable stain of its connection to some of the most disturbing

murders in Tennessee's history. But eventually, the home was purchased to be turned into a restaurant. So a little bit more on that space. Eventually, the home was purchased to be turned into a restaurant. So a little bit more on that space. So the main house was transformed into a restaurant called the Attic, and an addition was made to the ground floor to expand the seating area. Then behind the restaurant, a salon and barber shop opened.

But the new owner meticulously curated the home and garden surrounding the main house in an attempt to kind of revamp its image and move past its dark history. However, the attic really didn't last. So after the attic closed, a new restaurant called Dandridge Seafood took its place. But that restaurant did not make it either, so obviously rumors of the property being haunted began to swirl around this area. And then, after sitting abandoned yet again for 8 years, Chris wouldn't purchase the property in 2009 with a dream of turning it into a haunted house, inspired by its own dark history. Nestled along with his now busy road, the Lexar home at 7588 West Andrew Johnson Highway is now

known as Frightmare Manor. Again, leaning into its dark history, the attraction features axe throwing and something called the Lexar jump, where participants free-fall the length of three stories as if they were Jeremiah making his deadly jump. And I just want to say we definitely don't condone the glorification of senseless crimes, but fuck Jeremiah. Obviously, other than the obvious murderous vibes that any haunted house has, there's no indication of any crudeness or disrespect towards the actual victims of the story.

They're more so, like the Lexar jump is just, like it still feels insensitive, but they're just kind of almost making fun of his death because he's a piece of shit. So luckily they're not doing that with anybody else really, but it is, it still feels kind of like, I completely agree, but I understand also how people would find this kind of exciting because it is a haunted house at the end of the day, right? But I guess the manor does employ their very own Jeremiah Lexer as an emcee of sorts, dressed up in haunted makeup, giving him a zombie-like appearance, and posing for pictures with the guests. And again, not in the best taste, but Frightmare Manor is a crowd favorite,

consistently packing in guests from all over the country, and probably the world between September and November every single year since its inception. It's been touted as the number one must-see haunted attraction in Tennessee and the sixth scariest haunted house in the country. Yeah, so I'm definitely curious if any of you guys have been, like, comment on our socials, let us know what you thought of it, what it was like, because, you know so I'm definitely curious if any of you guys have been like comment on our socials Let us know what you thought of it what it was like cuz you know I'm six scariest in the country then we have no idea But yeah again, we would love to know if you've been there was it scary

So fueling its popularity are the persistent rumors of ghosts on the property as we hinted at earlier The pit where the decomposing bodies were found can apparently be seen covered in white smoke on occasion, which is pretty eerie if true. Attendance and employees of the haunted house have also reported the sounds of screaming and of kids playing, and the smell of bread baking. A few people have also claimed to have seen Jeremiah pacing behind the windows of the house holding an axe.

The owner Chris explained excitedly quote, We attack all five senses when someone steps foot onto this old plantation. When asked how the murders are connected to the new lore of Frightmare Manor, Chris said that he is zeroed in on exploiting the idea that the manor is haunted. He explained, quote, the past two years we have focused on more recent controversial events surrounding the 2001 closing of the successful restaurant on this property. Over the past year, we've dug into the record books and unearthed a lot of forgotten or hidden information about Jeremiah Lexer and his original homestead.

We believe haunted house customers want to experience true terror. Because of this, Frightmare Manor will remain at the old Jeremiah Lexar plantation. We will continue to learn and share with our customers the evidence over the next few years. And a bit more on Jeremiah's headspace, so experts believe that if he were alive today, Jeremiah Lexer would have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and he was likely experiencing delusions and psychosis, including potential voices in his head urging him to commit the heinous acts that he carried out.

We likely won't ever know more about what happened inside that house over the course of the 15 years during which Jeremiah carried out his crimes. But it seems that the best source of information now is a visit to Frightmare Manor. At public mobile, we do things differently. From our subscription phone plans to throwing a big sale right now when no one else is. Well, maybe they are, but who cares, our sale is better. And it's on right now, no waiting necessary. You have the latest phone, now take advantage of a great price on a 5G subscription phone

plan. It's the perfect deal for anyone who could use some savings right now. Subscribe today at publicmobile.ca. Different is calling. Now, as we've said, unfortunately, what we've explained here today is all that is publicly known of Jeremiah Lexer and his victims. And although it happened about 10 years after another brutal ax murder a few states away in Massachusetts, it didn't garner nearly as much attention as the story of Lizzy Borden. Now we know most all of you know her name, but how many of you know her story?

Well somehow, Daphne and I only knew really the basics, so let's dive into who she was and what happened the fateful August evening when Lizzie Borden picked up that axe. So Lizzie Andrew Borden, Andrew, interesting middle name. Her dad's name is Andrew. Lizzie Andrew Borden was born on July 19th, 1860 in the small coastal city of Fall River, Massachusetts, which is known for being a Portuguese immigration hub, like many areas of New England.

Now her English and sister parents, Sarah and Andrew Borden, raised her alongside her sister Emma, and she also had an older sister named Alice, but she died at three years old from hydrocephalus, and two years later, Lizzie was born. Now Lizzie and Emma were in a religious and very modest household, as her father initially had a hard time making money for the family, but eventually, he became very successful

in the business of selling furniture and caskets, and then later being the director of the Durphy Safe Deposit in Trustco and the president of the Union Savings Bank. Like he was so successful that with inflation, he was worth nearly $10 million. And because of this, he was not a very well-liked man in this area.

Well, his money and the fact that he was allegedly very harsh and rude. When Lizzie was just three years old, her mother Sarah sadly died from spinal disease and uterine congestion. But two years later, her mother Sarah sadly died from spinal disease and uterine congestion. But two years later, her father Andrew married a woman named Abby Gray, so this is the woman who essentially raised Lizzie and Emma while their father Andrew worked hard to become the successful man that he did.

But it was because of his wealth that Lizzie always believed Abby married him at all, which will come up later. But basically it didn't seem that Lizzie and her stepmother Abby had a very close relationship and she simply referred to her as Mrs. Borden. Although it's believed that Lizzie and her father were close, it didn't seem like they had the greatest relationship because Andrew did a lot of things that upset her over time. Like for example, her dad killed some pigeons in their barn with a hatchet in May of 1892, so just months before the murders.

And this really upset Lizzy because she loved spending time around the pigeons and had even built them a little perch to hang out on. Other than this, he had so much money, but it didn't seem like he was very generous with Lizzie and her sister Emma, whereas he spent loads of money on Abby and her family, even buying them multiple real estate properties. So Lizzie and Emma made an issue of this because they felt entitled to a real estate gift as well, but they still had to buy it. Now it only cost them what would now be equivalent to around $35 for this property, but they still had to buy it. Now, it only cost them what would now be equivalent to around $35 for this property,

but they then sold it back to their father for what would be now around $160,000, making a pretty nice profit. But still, tensions were high in this family. But anyway, let's get back to Lizzie's childhood and life a bit. When Lizzie was young, she became very involved in the family's local church, where she taught Sunday school to immigrant children and organized various social events for the community. When she wasn't at church or volunteering her time with charity work, she and her sister also helped their father with his business.

And unlike her father, she was actually reportedly well liked, but being 32 at the time the murders were committed, she's often referred to as a spinster, or unmarried woman, which her dad didn't seem to like about her. Yeah, she was, I mean, she had a high status in the area, so she would kind of go out by herself a lot, and her dad didn't like that she didn't have somebody to escort her, she didn't have a man to show her around. He didn't like that she went places by herself. He thought that made him look bad.

So it's really interesting. I mean, this was a very different time where women were more so ornaments and not equals. And yeah, this was more of like a societal kind of like Status thing like you need to have a husband under your arm or or holding your arm when you're going out Right exactly so 32 was like old to be unmarried and yeah, it just really bothered her dad And that's why this theory came in that you know a lot of people believe that Lizzie was gay Which could explain why she never married in the first place? Yeah, there's other things which we're not going to go into later because it's not really relevant, but like she is thought to have later on been in a relationship with a woman and so people

have kind of made up these rumors that she was gay. It's definitely possible, but we are not sure. Well, in late July of 1892, just days before the murders, everyone in the Borden household including Lizzie became very ill, and it felt pretty clear that it was due to mutton that they had eaten, whether the meat had gone bad or they were poisoned was unclear, but Abby, so Andrew's wife and Lizzie and Emma's stepmother, felt that they had been poisoned because of how unliked Andrew was. And again, tensions were really higher on the house during this time, so overall, not a great time for the Bordans, but especially with what was to come. Thursday, August 4, 1892 started off as a normal day in the Saltbox-style Borden House at

230 Second Street. Lizzie's uncle John Morris, her mother's brother, was in town visiting and staying at the house for property-related matters with Andrew Borden. So that morning, John, Andrew, Abby, and Lizzie had breakfast served by their house-servant Bridget Sullivan, who was very close to Lizzie. They were good friends. And Bridget, who was a few years younger than Lizzie, had been working at the board and house for three years. Doing multiple tasks around the house, including cooking, cleaning, and all other household

duties, except for the occasional chores that Lizzie and Emma helped with. But anyway, Emma wasn't home that morning. Though reports aren't completely clear where she was, but it seems like she was out with a man that she had been dating. After breakfast, at about 8.50 a.m., Uncle John left the house to see his other niece who lived nearby for a few hours. Ten or so minutes after this, 69-year-old Andrew Borden went out for a morning walk. While they were out, 64-year-old Abby Borden went upstairs to clean the guest bedroom

that John had been staying in, where she made the bed and tidied up until about 10.30 a.m. shortly before her husband Andrew returned from his walk. As she was finishing cleaning, Abby was murdered with a hatchet right there in the guest bedroom. She was hit on the side of her head right above her ear initially, but once she fell face down on the floor, her killer brought the hatchet down 17 more times to the back of her head. So right after this happened, Andrew came home from his walk and had trouble getting into the front door. For whatever reason, his key wasn't working in the lock, so the maid Bridget Sullivan

had to help open the door. Once inside, Bridget helped Andrew prepare for his nap on the sofa by taking off his walking boots. After he went down for a nap, Bridget Sullivan claims that she retired to her bedroom to rest up for a bit, and this bedroom was actually located in the attic on the third floor of the house. Now within the next 40 minutes, Andrew would be murdered as well. At around 11.10 a.m., Lizzie allegedly called up to Bridget to tell her that someone came into the house and killed her father.

When Andrew was found, he was laying on the downstairs sitting room sofa, fully clothed, with no sign of a struggle around him. It felt obvious that he had been killed in his sleep due to his positioning, but he had still been hit 10 or 11 times directly in the face with a hatchet. The Borden's doctor was called to the scene immediately and pronounced both Andrew and Abby dead right away. But the question was, who would kill them? While police arrived to the scene and got to questioning the two people that were in the

house when the murders occurred, Lizzie and the Borden's live-in servant, Bridget Sullivan. From the very beginning, Lizzie's answers didn't feel right to police. It just seemed like her answers wavered slightly. Like for example, she originally told them that before coming into the house after relaxing outside in the morning, she heard a noise of distress. But then later that same day, she said that she didn't hear anything after all, nor did she sense that anything was a miss in the house. This is also when she told police that Abby had gone to see a sick friend that day, or

she thought that Abby had because essentially she said that a messenger came by the house with a note that said that her friend was sick and she had to go right away, which would mean that according to Lizzie's story, she didn't even know that Abby was home. Lizzie's demeanor during her questioning also disturbed police because she didn't seem upset that her father and stepmother were dead. She was just very calm and relaxed. And that was pretty much it. The police hardly searched the house or questioned Lizzie further

because she said that she wasn't feeling well with the news. And they didn't even check to see if there was any blood on Lizzie's body, which would have been an important thing to do considering hacking someone to death and delivering a total of almost 30 blows across two people, would lead to a lot of blood spatter on the person's body and clothes. But the police didn't look.

And this part is really interesting to me because we know the clothes of this time were a lot more complicated than today. So people with servants, which they did have, they had Bridget, would often help when it came to getting dressed and undressed, hence why even Bridget claimed that she took off Andrew's shoes when he got home, because that's what servants did. And especially for women with corsets and buttoned outfits, the servants were almost essential

to getting dressed and undressed. So a lot of people speculate that Lizzie would have likely been naked while she committed the murders, so that she wouldn't get blood on her clothes. Well, this or Bridget, the only other person in the house, helped her with the murders or was at least complicit in covering them up. But we are going to touch on another kind of clothing detail. That would make it seem that maybe she was dressed, but we'll get to that. But since there wasn't a thorough check of the home, we will never know what the truth is here. But let's get back to what police did investigate. So please check the basement before leaving,

and there they found two axes, two hatchets, and the head of a hatchet, and a broken handle. The latter of which was believed to be the murder weapon that was taken apart. But even with this belief, none of these weapons were removed from the home until the following day, giving a large window of time for the weapon to be cleaned or possibly moved. While overnight, police kept watch over the house and actually saw Lizzie go down into the basement with a caracine lamp and allegedly do something at the sink, so she definitely could have been trying to cover more of her tracks during this time.

Then on top of this, to touch on what Daphne said about being clothed or uncloed during the murders, just assuming Lizzie did this of course, the next day Lizzie's friend Alice Russell saw Lizzie tearing up a dress of hers in the kitchen. Alice thought that this was pretty strange, especially when Lizzie said that she was going to burn the dress, but Lizzie's reasoning was that she got paint on it. But none of this was ever investigated either. So was this dress what she was wearing during one or possibly both of the murders?

Just days after the murders, there was an inquest hearing at the courtroom in Fall River Massachusetts to help determine if Lizzie was behind the murders. And during the hearing, Lizzie was once again all over the place with her story. So a few days later, on August 11,, Lizzie was actually arrested and put in jail, where she stayed for nine months until the murder trial for Abby and Andrew Borden, which took place on June 5, 1893. During the trial, Bridget Sullivan,

again, the servant and maid, her accounts were crucial again, because she was the only technical witness to the murders, despite allegedly not knowing who committed them. On the stand, Bridget reported that she heard Lizzie laughing at the top of the stairs at the time that her father, Andrew, was attempting to come through the door. So this would have been just after Abby was killed. And Bridget apparently didn't see Lizzie, but she heard her and felt confident that she was upstairs.

Now this would mean that Lizzie would have had to have seen her stepmother dead because the crime scene was so graphic that it would have been impossible to miss. So Lizzie upstairs equals Lizzie probably did it. However, Lizzie disputed that she was not upstairs at this time and said that she even spoke with her father after he returned home from his walk when he asked where Abby was. And she claims her response was that Abby had received a note from a messenger stating

that she needed to visit a sick friend and that Abby had gone. But clearly, that didn't happen, because Abby was upstairs when she was murdered. And then there's what Bridget said about helping Andrew take off his boots before he went for a nap on the sofa, because in the photo of Andrew laying on the sofa, bludgeoned, he's still wearing his boots, so statements from Lizzie and Bridget were definitely wobbly, which is very suspicious considering, again, they were the only two people in the house when the murders occurred, or at least the only two people known to definitely be there. While interestingly, just four days before Lizzie's trial, there was another axe murder in the city

of Fall River. 22-year-old Bertha Manchester was hacked 23 times to death in the kitchen of her family's farm. So the jury really took this murder into consideration because they wondered if the Borden's murders weren't carried out by Lizzie, and if the real killer was still out there hacking people up. But later it was determined that she was killed by a former worker of her father, named Jose Carrera, after being fired. And he had actually planned on killing her father, but when he found Bertha, he killed

her instead to get back at him. Jose was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, and he was found to not have any connection to the boardends. But still, since it happened right before the trial, the jury still wondered and took it into account. Also during the trial, Alice, who again was Lizzie's friend, testified that she had seen Lizzie tearing up her dress and that she had plans to burn it, but all this would provide was circumstantial evidence since they didn't have a dress

to examine. And disturbingly, Andrew and Abby's skulls were used as evidence during the trial, and Lizzie fainted when they were shown. To many people shocked, Lizzie Borden was acquitted for the murder of her father and stepmother due to a lack of evidence proving she was conclusively behind it. But to this day, many people believe that she really was the one to do it. And here are some different reasons why. First of all, she was home when it happened.

And the likelihood that both of these murders would be carrying out during the morning without Lizzie or Bridget for that matter, seeing who did it feels very unlikely. Also, the murders weren't committed in rapid secession, like they didn't happen right after the other, there was a break of time between them, so that would mean that someone else would have had to have been lurking around the house unnoticed for around 30 to 40 minutes. Then there are also unsubstantiated claims that Andrew Borden physically and sexually abused his daughter Lizzie, so this mixed with the fact that she allegedly did not like her

stepmother at all, and that her father seemed to give everyone in the family other than Lizzie and Emma Gifts and money, she could have been driven to murder them. After the trial, Bridget Sullivan moved to a farm in Montana where she married a man and died at the age of 82. And it said that on her deathbed, she admitted to changing her story during the trial and lying about what she heard and sought to protect Lizzie from being convicted for the murders. As the story goes, Andrew had trouble getting into the house after his morning walk and had to be led in by Bridget. So if Andrew couldn't get into their always locked house with his key,

how would someone else have? It just doesn't make sense how anybody else could have gotten into the house and committed the crimes undetected if Andrew himself could hardly get inside. Another reason to believe in Lizzie's guilt is that the day before the murders, a local drugist claimed that Lizzie had come into the store and attempted to buy a pricic acid, also known as cyanide, which is a poison, but he refused to sell it to her. So was this her original murder plan? And then when she couldn't get the poison, she just turned to the hatchet instead? Well, later that night, Lizzie went to Alice Russell's house, and during their conversation,

told Alice that she was worried that an enemy of her father was going to kill him. So it feels like this was really just Lizzie trying to plan a non-existent suspect for the upcoming killings. So yeah, I mean, it feels most likely that Lizzy was the one to carry out the vicious slangs herself, but the only time that she ever served for them was the nine months that she spent in jail as she was awaiting trial. Soon after being acquitted, Lizzy and Emma received her father's $8 plus million fortune, so Lizzie bought a new house and fall river in the nicest area of

town that she named Maplecroft. And possibly in another attempt at starting a new, she changed her name from Lizzie to Lizbeth. But starting new didn't change anything about the reputation that Lizzie had around the area, because really everyone believed that she had murdered her parents. So anyone who had been friends with her before the murders, no longer spoke to her, and everyone in town avoided her. She was basically regarded as the creepy lady around town and sometimes kids would even egg her house. But in that house she remained until her final day, June 1, 1927. She had been battling an illness for about a year and even had her gall bladder removed,

but in the end, she died of pneumonia. While Maplecroft went on to be sold and lived in by others, the salt box murder house on 2nd Street has been turned into an official Lizzy Boarding Museum and Bed & Breakfast, where you can either stay the night, eat the same breakfast and your anabby did on the morning of their murders, or take a tour and learn about exactly what's believed to have happened there. And we'll leave you with one last thing for today. Now even though it's not accurate, there is a nursery rhyme, or I guess it's not a nursery

rhyme, but a rhyme about these murders. So I'm going to read it now. Lizzy Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 wax. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. And this month we're going to have some other stories kind of similar to this one. Again, you know, we don't usually do the two cases in one episode, but it felt like they

really did match, right? Like, they really do go hand in hand. They really do, yeah. So thank you guys so much for listening to this one, this kind of different case today. Like Keith said, we'll see you on Friday. If you want to see any photos from these cases, if you want to see what the Lizzie Borden House looks like now, if you want to see what the Jeremiah Alexa House looks like now in Frank Mayor Manor, go ahead over to our socials.

We're on Instagram at going West Podcast, Twitter at going West Pod, and we're also on Facebook. Alright guys, so with that, for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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