Isn't it unlikely that Lizzie Borden really killed her whole family?

Question

If she really did do it, wouldn't that make her the ONLY teenage girl in history to kill her entire family?

Answer 1

Your question is based on two huge misapprehensions. First, at the time of the murders Lizzie Borden was 32 years old, hardly a teenager. Second, she wasn't accused of killing "her whole family," just her father and stepmother. They were the only members of the Borden family killed on that infamous day.

As for whether any teenage girl in history has killed her whole family, I couldn't say. But is it possible that Lizzie Borden, a grown woman, killed her father and stepmother? Certainly.

Answer 2

There are a few really good books about Lizzie Borden that prove how she DIDN'T kill her family. One of the best has a theory about Mr. Borden's illegitimate son, who by the way was an expert axe-man. I guess we'll never really know. Technically she didn't kill her entire family, because she did have a half brother that she was aware of.

Answer 3

Whether she had an illegitimate half-brother isn't relevant to her killing her entire family, as she had a sister who lived in the home at the time as well.

Miss Emma Borden (1849-1927), Lizzie's sister

whale

Answer 4

However little one might know about Lizzie Borden, she is forever immortalized in the playground verse:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

Answer 5

Ms Borden was born in 1860; the murders of her father and step-mother (her whole "family") happened in 1892.
So, she was hardly a "teenage girl"; she was 32 years old.
While she was legally acquited of the crimes, she was never exonerated in the eyes of the public, as the famous doggeral shows:

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks
And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.

"Several theories have been presented over the years suggesting Lizzie may not have committed the murders, and that other suspects may have had possible motives. One theory was that Lizzie was having a lesbian affair with the maid and was discovered by her step-mother. Another was that any number of townspeople could have carried out a grudge against Mr. or Mrs. Borden. Another theory is that the maid did it, possibly out of outrage for being asked to clean the windows, a backbreaking job on a hot day, just a day after having suffered from food poisoning. Yet another theory is that Lizzie suffered petit mal epileptic seizures during her monthly period, at which times she entered a dream-like state, and unknowingly committed the murders then.[
Sullivan allegedly gave a deathbed confession to her sister, stating that she had changed her testimony on the stand in order to protect Lizzie."

The second link has some intriguing ideas - a smaple:

"The murder of Abby Borden took place upstairs in the guest room around 9:30 AM, August 4, 1892, and the murder of Andrew took place about ninety minutes later, in the downstairs sitting room. Andrew had just returned from some errands in town. During this time Bridget Sullivan, the maid, was working in and around the house: cleaning up the breakfast dishes, and washing the outside windows. Lizzie was about as well, attempting to heat some irons on the stove to press her handkerchiefs. Whoever the murderer was, he or she would have needed to enter the house unseen by the several folks out-and-about on a busy residential street on a weekday morning, would have needed to conceal themselves in or around the Borden house for the minimum of an hour and a half between the murders, and then would have needed to leave, again without being seen, only now smuggling out the axe and their blood-soaked clothing. Unless, of course, the murderer had been one of the two women already in the house. Legend would have it that Lizzie was the guilty one.

The origin of this legend can be traced to one Edmund Pearson, author of the standard reference work, The Trial of Lizzie Borden, which was published in 1937. There had been an earlier study by a newspaper reporter, published a year after the trial, but Pearson’s was the first study to include excerpts of the trial testimony. It was Pearson’s book that became the basis for the subsequent avalanche of books, articles, and films that still continues today. In his book, Pearson states his belief that Lizzie was guilty and includes excerpts from the trial to support his argument. Unfortunately, his excerpts are highly selective, including all of the testimony in support of the prosecution's case, but omitting all of the testimony that refuted it.

In 1961, Edward D. Radin, a crime reporter who had covered hundreds of murder cases, wrote his own book, Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story. He was the first author since Pearson to go back to the original 1,930 pages of the trial minutes. More significantly, he had access to the then recently-discovered four volumes of testimony from the preliminary hearing. In his book, Radin states, "Pearson presented such a biased version of the case that it might be considered a literary hoax."

P.S. The family tree - see link 3 - shows no half-brother, though there has been speculation that she had one:

Lizzie Borden
by Arnold Brown

"Based on scanty evidence, conjecture, and conspiracy theories, Arnold Brown suggests that Lizzie Borden had an illegitimate half-brother, and he did the deed, and that Lizzie went on trial to protect him. (I am not giving anything away here; the brother is fingered from the outset.) Everything that followed the murders, Brown says, was planned by the authorities--from the inquest to the trial to the acquittal. The reader has to be careful to distinguish between fact and Brown's opinions, because it isn't always clear which is which. On the other hand, because of its photographs, transcripts and analysis of key testimony, the book is a must for any Lizzie Borden aficionado, but is best leavened with other more objective accounts of the murders. I wish Arnold Brown had written a book about the murders *before* he discovered the "new evidence" he touts so much. "

But I can't say - if Lizzie WAS really guilty of the deeds - whether or not she was "the only . . .(woman) in history to kill her entire family.
Given human nature, however, and the length of human history, I seriously doubt that she was/could have been the first.