54: Lizzie Borden: Creating a Monster with Dr. Cara Robertson

What if everything we think we know about Lizzie Borden is wrong?

With Netflix once again turning Lizzie Borden into a monster, we're going back to the woman behind the legend. In 1892, Lizzie stood trial for the brutal murders of her father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, inside their Fall River home. She was acquitted—but more than 130 years later, we're still trying to explain who she was and what could have driven her to kill, if she did.

This week on UNMARKED, I’m joined by Dr. Cara Robertson, author of The Trial of Lizzie Borden and one of the foremost researchers on the case, to separate the historical Lizzie from the character we've created around her.

We reconstruct the morning of the murders, examine the evidence against Lizzie, the alleged attempt to purchase poison, the disputed murder weapon, the Borden family's simmering resentments, and the psychology of parricide. And we trace how each generation has reinvented Lizzie—from Victorian spinster to abused daughter to cold-blooded heiress and, now, Netflix monster.

Research in This Episode:

Heide KM. Patricide and steppatricide victims and offenders: an empirical analysis of U.S. arrest data. Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol. 2014 Nov;58(11):1261-78.

Show Notes:

If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself.

Read it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7

If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/

For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes.

Join here:
https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast

UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom.