Research Paper on:
Guilt and Motives in the Case of Lizzie Borden

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Borden" case. While Lizzie was acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother on August 4, 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts, there was still a lot of speculation that she in  fact was guilty and the motives for the murders were sexual abuse from her father and jealousy of her stepmother. Inconsistencies in her testimony and recent investigative evidence seem to  indicate that Lizzie and her sister Emma had endured years of sexual abuse which led them to distant to other men while at the same time they did not like  their new stepmother and the privileges and stock their father allotted to her which the sisters believed were rightfully theirs. Mr. Andrew Borden was a well respected businessman in Fall  River and lived in his home with his wife Abby, his daughters Lizzie (32) and Emma (41), and their "house-guest" John Morse who was Andrew Bordens brother-in-law from a previous  marriage and their maid, Brigitte. On the morning of August 4th, 1892, Mrs. Borden was "hacked to death with an axe" in the second floor bedroom of their house and  later that morning, "Mr. Borden was similarly dispatched while resting on a living room sofa". Reports were that he was "killed in a most grizzly manner in that his head  was struck repeatedly with an axe-like instrument until his face was unrecognizable" (Goldman, 2003; Dorfman, 2001). The original suspects in the case were the maid Brigitte, Lizzie, John Morse and  an unknown vagrant who had been seen in the area prior to the murders but within a week of the investigation, the police arrested Lizzie and indicted her for the  murders (Goldman, 2003). The arrest and subsequent trial which began on June 5, 1893 caused quite a sensation in the area but Andrew Jennings, Lizzies lawyer, argued that "there is