Happy 150th Innocent (?) Birthday, Lizzie Borden!

It’s the Lizzie Borden sesquicentennial!  The accused — but acquitted — killer was born on this day in 1860 in Fall River, Massachusetts.

The “acquitted” part is what everyone forgets, which just proves the power of 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.

Borden’s parents were, in fact, gruesomely hacked to death in 1892, and Lizzie (then aged 32) was indeed on the premises.  But in the senSAYshunal trial which followed in 1893, Miss Borden was found not guilty.

Then she moved to Florida and played golf, vowing to find the real killer.  (Kidding!)

As with the O.J. trial, after Lizzie Borden was declared innocent the “real” killer was never found. Borden stayed in Fall River, shunned by most townsfolk, and died there in 1927.  To this day, nobody knows the truth of the case.

The good news is, you can spend the night in her house!

From the Who2 blog:

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