26 of The Most Dangerous Female Criminals The World Has Seen Till Date

8. Lizzie Borden: The Perfect Murder?

“Lizzie Borden took an axe/ gave her mother forty whacks/ when she saw what she had done / she gave her father forty-one.” Or so goes the rhyme! In actuality, Lizzie’s stepmother suffered 18-19 blows and her father suffered 11 blows.

Lizzie Borden was tried for the brutal axe murders of her father and step-mother but was acquitted, mostly because the police were lax in collecting evidence (why would a daughter murder her parents?) and then the jury decided to acquit her (particularly after she fainted upon seeing her parents’ heads, presented as evidence).

After the acquittal, Lizzie and her older sister Emma chose to remain in the same town, though they shifted homes and lived somewhat of a grand life with plenty of servants and parties, considering their father’s estate was partly theirs. Later Emma too left Lizzie, after a fight over a party thrown for an actress, and both the sisters lived alone and never married. To date, the murders have not been solved.

So Lizzie Borden might have been the most dangerous woman after all, for she might just have planned the perfect murder. Or maybe it was Emma!