The Rhyme and the Crime: Lizzie Borden’s Forty Whacks
DEBORAH LACY
Lizzie BordenLizzie Borden had an axe
She gave her mother 40 whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father 41
Do you remember that rhyme from childhood? A friend recently brought it up to a group of us and it just rolled off my tongue. I didn’t even have to think about it. But as we started talking about the rhyme none of us knew how much of this short deadly poem is true. So we decided to do a little research on those murders that took place 121 years ago this month, in 1892.
Andrew and Abby Borden were in fact brutally killed that hot August day at their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, but did Lizzie Borden kill them? The facts may surprise you.