Who Else Could Have Killed Andrew and Abby Borden?

Lizzie Borden was the only person brought to trial, but she was far from the only possible suspect considered in the still-unsolved case of Abby and Andrew Bordens murders.

On August 4, 1892, Andrew and his wife, Abby, were found brutally killed inside their Fall River, Mass., home. Abby had been killed upstairs, apparently about 90 minutes before Andrew was attacked while lying on a sitting room sofa.

Suspicion soon centered on Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie, who was home that morning along with the family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan. Lizzie was arrested and tried for both murders, but an all-male jury acquitted her in June 1893. No one else was ever charged.

The verdict left an obvious question that has persisted for more than 130 years: If Lizzie Borden did not kill Andrew and Abby, who did?

Investigators considered other possibilities from the beginning, while later writers have proposed suspects ranging from household employees and relatives to an unknown intruder—and even an alleged secret son of Andrew’s.

After Andrew left the house for his morning errands, Sullivan was the only one besides Lizzie known to have remained at 92 Second Street while Abby was murdered and Andrew later returned, making her an obvious figure for investigators to scrutinize. The 26-year-old Irish immigrant had worked as the Bordens’ live-in maid for nearly three years and knew the family’s routines and layout of the house.

Sullivan said she spent much of the morning washing windows and was outside around the time Abby was apparently killed upstairs. Later, after Andrew returned home, Sullivan went to her attic bedroom to rest. She was there when Lizzie called upstairs to tell her that Andrew had been killed.

Authorities questioned Sullivan extensively but found no physical evidence connecting her to either murder and established no convincing motive. She cooperated with investigators, testified at Lizzie’s trial and was never charged.

Yet later theories have questioned whether Sullivan knew more than she revealed. She was moving in and around the property during the period between the murders, and some writers have found it difficult to believe that she neither saw nor heard anything suspicious. Others have suggested she may have helped Lizzie or deliberately withheld information to protect her.

One particularly intriguing story emerged decades later. According to author Victoria Lincoln, Sullivan told an old friend, Minnie Green, late in life that she had “helped Lizzie out at the trial” and had not told everything she knew. The account was relayed only years after the fact and cannot be independently verified, but it has helped fuel speculation about Sullivan’s role ever since.

Another early suspect was John Vinnicum Morse, the brother of Andrew’s first wife and uncle to Lizzie and her older sister, Emma Borden. Morse had remained friendly with Andrew after his sister’s death, and the two men sometimes conducted business together, including livestock deals.

What made Morse conspicuous was his timing. He arrived unexpectedly at 92 Second Street on August 3, the day before the murders, reportedly without luggage. He stayed overnight—in the guest room where Abby would be killed the following morning—and spent time talking business with Andrew.

On August 4, Morse left the house to visit relatives. When he returned, Andrew and Abby were dead. Police questioned him closely, and Morse provided an extraordinarily detailed account of his movements, including the streetcar he had taken and people he encountered. Investigators corroborated important parts of his story, apparently placing him away from Second Street during the murders.

However, Morse attracted considerable suspicion at the time. His unexpectedly timed visit and unusually precise alibi fascinated the public, and he was reportedly followed by a crowd. Within days of the murders, Andrew’s brother-in-law, George B. Fish, publicly suggested that Lizzie and Morse might have conspired to have Andrew and Abby killed.

Later researchers have continued to question Morse’s alibi and have argued that contemporary accounts contain discrepancies about exactly when Morse left the relatives he was visiting and returned to Second Street. They contend that an earlier departure could potentially have given him time to return before Andrew was killed.

Their theory goes considerably further, proposing that Morse himself committed both murders, but it depends heavily on speculation about his motive, movements and relationship with other members of the household. Investigators at the time found no physical evidence connecting Morse to either killing, and he was never charged.

Police initially looked beyond the Borden family. The brutality of the murders led many to assume the killer was a man, while Andrew’s business dealings raised the possibility that someone held a grudge against him. Lizzie reportedly told her friend, Alice Russell, the night before the murders that she feared someone might harm her father or even burn down the house.

Authorities detained Antonio Auriel, a Portuguese farmhand arrested in a saloon only hours after the murders. The suspicion reflected, in part, investigators’ early focus on immigrant laborers and other outsiders, but Auriel had an alibi and no known connection to Andrew or Abby. He was soon released.

There were also reports of unidentified men near the Borden home. Witnesses described a stranger sitting nearby the night before the murders, while another reported seeing a pale young man leaning against the Bordens’ gatepost on August 4.

The strangest account emerged at Lizzie’s trial. A farmer testified that 12 days after the murders he encountered a mysterious man several miles outside Fall River who repeatedly muttered, “Poor Mrs. Borden.” According to the farmer, the stranger carried a hatchet and appeared to have blood on his clothing. The judges ultimately instructed jurors to disregard the testimony.

The reports fueled what became known as the “Wild Man” theory, but no unidentified stranger was ever connected to the murders. Nor did investigators find obvious signs of forced entry. An intruder would also have had to kill Abby and then remain concealed in or around the house for roughly 90 minutes—or leave and return—before Andrew was killed.

The sightings therefore offered a possible alternative to Lizzie, but never produced an identifiable suspect who could be placed inside 92 Second Street.

One of the most elaborate alternative theories emerged nearly a century after the murders. In his 1991 book, Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter, author Arnold R. Brown argued that Andrew had fathered an illegitimate son named William Borden and that William—not Lizzie—killed Andrew and Abby.

Brown claimed William had been raised elsewhere within the extended Borden family and eventually sought money or recognition from his biological father. His theory placed William inside 92 Second Street on the morning of the murders and also drew Morse into the story, suggesting his unexpected visit was connected to a broader effort to deal with the situation.

The theory offered an explanation for several puzzling aspects of the case, including why someone from outside the immediate household might have been admitted without forcing his way inside.

Brown’s central claim has never been established. There is no reliable contemporary evidence proving William was Andrew’s son or placing him at 92 Second Street on August 4. Later researchers have generally regarded the theory as intriguing but highly speculative.

As investigators failed to identify another viable suspect, their attention increasingly returned to Lizzie. Her accounts of her movements raised questions, and investigators doubted parts of her story about being in the barn shortly before discovering her father’s body. She also said Abby had gone out after receiving a note about a sick friend, but no such friend or note was ever identified.

Other circumstances added to investigators’ suspicions. A drugstore clerk claimed Lizzie had attempted to purchase prussic acid the day before the murders, although that evidence was later excluded from her trial. Days after the killings, Russell saw Lizzie burning a dress, which Lizzie said had been stained with paint.

There was also a possible financial motive. Lizzie had a deeply strained relationship with Abby, and earlier property transfers had created resentment within the family. Even the order of the murders had potential inheritance implications: Abby died first, meaning her property passed to Andrew and, after his death, ultimately to his daughters.

Yet the case remained circumstantial. There was no eyewitness, no blood-covered clothing that could be definitively linked to the murders and no weapon conclusively tied to the killings. At trial, other potentially damaging evidence—including Lizzie’s inquest testimony—was also excluded. The jury found her not guilty.

Her acquittal left the murders without a solution. There were reasons to suspect Lizzie, but not enough to convict her. And despite more than a century of alternative suspects and theories, no one has produced compelling evidence identifying someone else.