On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found brutally murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. In the trial which followed, Lizzie Andrew Borden was charged with the murders, and she became immediately infamous as the 32-year-old spinster who killed her parents with a hatchet. To this day, almost 120 years later, almost every American knows her name for this horrific crime.
But did you know that on June 20, 1893, Lizzie Borden was found not guilty of both murders after deliberations that only took an hour and a half? There was neither blood evidence nor a murder weapon found tying her to the crime, which Lizzie herself announced to the maid only minutes after it happened.
No one knows who murdered Lizzie Borden’s parents, but we all believe it was her so unquestioningly that finding out she was acquitted probably comes as a great shock. How would you like to be known a hundred years from now for a murder you were acquitted of? The presumption of innocence protects us from abuse by the government. But what protects us from abuse by the press?
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