Lizzie Borden Took An Axe: The UNSOLVED Homicides of Andrew and Abby Borden

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan

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🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Lizzie Borden took an axe, She gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one. It is a gruesome school yard rhyme known by millions of people, but it is factually inaccurate. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the UNSOLVED Murder of Andrew and Abby Borden in August 1892. Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged in the double homicide and went on trial in June 1893. Many people have heard of the crime but very few know what really happened, including how the schoolyard rhyme is incorrect and how the prosecutor brought the skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden into court!

Transcribe Highlights
00:00.88 Introduction

03:06.17 Fall River, Mass

05:11.48 Skulls in court

11:08.63 Faces Lab at LSU

16:08.46 Andrew Borden, tightwad

20:04.96 Andrew killed Lizzie's pigeons

24:56.48 Head injuries were bad on both

30:55.64 Jury sees the skulls

34:47.96 Conclusion part 1

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:05.5	Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore.
0:10.2	Lizzie Borden took an axe.
0:13.9	She gave her mother 40 wax.
0:17.2	When she saw what she'd done,
0:20.3	she gave her father 41.
0:23.6	My friends, that's a lie.
0:28.6	That's inaccurate.
0:31.6	I don't know who did the computation on that in order to create that...
0:36.6	Wow. Children's rhyme rhyme, nursery rhyme? Though they did
0:43.0	create it, it's inaccurate, numerically, and also from a forensic assessment perspective as well.
0:55.2	As I sit here, I have the autopsy reports of both Abby and Andrew Borden,
1:01.2	who back in 1892 were, in fact, killed with what appears to have been a hatchet.
1:11.6	And their bodies were found in their home.
1:17.6	One on the second floor, that would be Abby,
1:21.6	and one in the parlor reclined on a sofa.
1:26.6	That would be Andrew. But since that date, back in
1:31.9	1892, 133 years ago, mystery still amounts. Coming to you from the beautiful campus of Jacksonville
1:43.8	State University, I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybacks.
1:52.9	Dave, I approached you about this case for a couple of reasons.
1:58.2	One I've told you, these deaths occurred in August of 1892, you know, kind of peeling back to history a little bit and from a forensics perspective and going in and kind of taking a look at the autopsy reports of Andrew and Abby Borden.
2:20.2	But also, I'm kind of doing this as a favor.
	...

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