Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,414

This is the grave of Lizzie Borden.

Borden was born in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1860. She grew up pretty wealthy and then probably killed her father and stepmother in 1892. I have little particular interest in the details of Borden’s life or the endless, now over a century long speculation about whether she did it or not. What I am interested in here is the phenomenon of true crime. Why do certain cases get such attention? Borden was perhaps the first real true crime case. I can’t think of any murder case before this that got this kind of attention. I could be wrong about this, not being an expert on the matter. But it seems so to me. There was even a classic children’s play song that came from it:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father forty-one.

I don’t have any ability to really understand why this murder led to such an outpouring of interest in way that other people killing their parents didn’t. She certainly wasn’t the first person to do this in American history. It’s probably been about as common a crime through American history generally, by which I mean to say awfully uncommon but hardly unknown. I know of at least one book on another 19th century case in rural Oregon, but that case, while certainly a huge deal locally, did not get any national or even meaningful regional attention outside of the immediate aftermath.

What to me is most interesting about this case then is how it informs the true crime obsession today. I really dislike the culture of true crime in modern culture. I don’t necessarily mean all of it–reading and watching about financial crime for instance I think has value. But the really violent stuff. My wife for instance follows every true crime case, watches the thrown together documentary, reads all the articles, really gets into it. For me, this is just so….depressing. Like, life is hard enough without embracing the worst behavior out there. Meanwhile, I do like violent movies and my wife hates them. I’m like YOU PREFER ACTUAL DEAD PEOPLE TO FAKE DEAD PEOPLE?!?!?!? At least movie violence is fake. But to get into realdead people? Man, that’s just a step too far for me. Not my escapism.

So I figured a discussion of the appeal of true crime, which I gather is more popular today than it ever has been before, though obviously it’s been a form of entertainment and fascination going back at least to the Borden case, is a more interesting potential conversation than a traditional biographical piece on Borden’s life.

Borden died in 1927. She was 66 years old.

Lizzie Borden is buried, with her parents and the rest of her family, in Oak Grove Cemetery, Fall River, Massachusetts.

If you would like this series to visit other people involved in parricides, either as perp or victim, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. The DeFeo family, killed by Ronald Jr. in 1974, are in East Farmingdale, New York, and Jack Graham, who blew up a whole United flight in 1955 to kill his mother, killing 42 others at the same time, is in Denver. Good times! Where’s the fun documentaries about that!!! Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.