Autumn: What?
ERIN: Go ahead.
Autumn: sh Hello everybody. Welcome to Murder Not Murdering with Autumn.
ERIN: And Erin.
Autumn: The podcast of your dreams.
ERIN: That is not our tagline. But you know what? I'm glad you're all here listening to us right now.
Autumn: We are so happy you're here.
ERIN: I know Autumn loves it when I throw her off kilter and make her do the welcome.
Autumn: I can't even see when it starts recording. So like when you're just sitting there silenced and you're like, go ahead, I'm like, What?
ERIN: I just love it 'cause it makes me laugh. anyways, thank you for listening. We're we are here back on a new episode Tuesday. Thank you again for giving a shit that we are doing this podcast.
Autumn: It's a passion project for us and we love doing it. So it makes us happy that we have people listening.
ERIN: Yeah, and we're gonna talk about murders, which makes us happy.
Autumn: It does make us happy. And it's fall I mean, it's not officially fall season right now, but it is so close.
ERIN: I don't care. It is
Autumn: It's the Burr month and I am the second it's a Burr month, I go into fall mode. It doesn't matter if it's technically summer still, it's fall.
ERIN: Uhuh. No, fuck summer. I'm over it. I am here for fall.
Autumn: And I have rever yes, I have reverse seasonal depression. I'm depressed in the summer and happy as fuck in the fall.
ERIN: I am exactly the same way. Yeah, I love fall weather. I love fall flavors. I'm so here for all of it.
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: I want the crisp weather.
Autumn: Yes.
ERIN: this morning I was so happy I woke up and it was overcast. I was able to throw on a sweater. I was like, this is it, and now it's fucking sunny and stupidly warm. I hate it so much.
Autumn: It's overcast and really it's like intermittently raining over here. It's probably gonna be a thunderstorm shortly.
ERIN: God, I hope so. Not here. I'm so bummered.
Autumn: I love it. I love it.
ERIN: but I do. I love all the fall things. And because of that, my case today is a little bit on the cusp of not Halloween, but definitely leaning into more of that fall energy.
Autumn: Mm.
ERIN: And know that that's what you're gonna be getting from me all the way through October. I am just
Autumn: Yeah, same, same, same.
ERIN: I mean obviously spooky weather, it's getting darker out and all of that lends itself to a true crime podcast, to be honest. Sets the vibe.
Autumn: I decorated for Halloween already, so sorry, not sorry. I did.
ERIN: Yes, I do know that. I do. Autumn sent me pictures. She has one of those giant skeleton things.
Autumn: Yeah, I have we have a a giant skeleton that stays out year round and we dress him for the seasons. So in at Chris
ERIN: Does he have a name?
Autumn: he does we call him Skelly. That's what we call him. And then he has a cat
ERIN: Okay.
Autumn: and we call him Spooky. But
ERIN: Hm, that makes sense.
Autumn: my grandson loves Skelly. Whenever he comes over, he points to him, makes us take him over there, and then he just babbles to him. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen. And it makes having him out year-round totally.
ERIN: Yeah. Plus I just like that he's looming looking at your neighbors.
Autumn: He also yes, he is. And he it's we love him. And our neighbors love him too. The neighbor ladies' kids grandkids call him Bones. Isn't that cute? Yeah, it is cute.
ERIN: Cute. I like that. Yeah.
Autumn: And so we we just we dress him up for the seasons, we put a Christmas hat on him, like a Santa Claus hat, and then he holds Christmas
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: lights like the Grinch. went during Christmas time and then during the like summer months I put a lay on him one time, like a Hawaiian lay. And
ERIN: Mm.
Autumn: just stuff like that. It's fun. We just keep him up year round.
ERIN: Sure, yeah, no, that's fun. You know, I speaking of dressing up, the as everybody knows, I am not a stranger to dressing up. You know I love it. Always love it.
Autumn: Accurate facts.
ERIN: So we actually have an event coming up at my roller skating rink here in Seattle called Southgate Roller Rink. And it is going to be a practical magic pride skate, which I'm so excited for, and I'm so excited for the movie.
Autumn: I know, girl. I am so happy. I dude, the movie!
ERIN: I'm like here's the deal. I have to say, like, I've seen this, like, give Millennial Woman a time right now because this is like the movie of our youth. And so
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: I am just living for this. I'm so excited. I really,
Autumn: Same.
ERIN: really fucking hope the movie's good. But I mean that cast is so wonderful. So I'm I'm really hoping that it's gonna be great. And I I mean, I don't really
Autumn: Yeah, I have a feeling it will be.
ERIN: care. It can be terrible. I don't give a shit. I'm in. Sho a hundred percent. I'm gonna go see the movie.
Autumn: I'll still watch it. I'll still watch it. And I'll still watch it every every fall. I watch that movie. In fact I already have watched it twice
ERIN: Yeah. All year round. I watch it all year round.
Autumn: since the other day. So I mean it
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: just I love it. It's just a comfort movie. I put it on all the time.
ERIN: It's a comfort movie for me too. I love it. I'm so excited. And yeah. We do. And also
Autumn: We need to go to Whitby Island together and take Lulu.
ERIN: I'm dressing up on that night. But I'm not gonna tell you which one. obviously I'm gonna be an Owen sister, so you'll have to figure it out. Don't guess, Autumn. So,
Autumn: I'm pretty sure I okay.
ERIN: we can post a picture. the day after the event, which is happening
Autumn: Yep.
ERIN: next week. And we'll let you know. But also I'm so excited for fucking Halloween because I don't even know what I'm gonna be yet and I usually try to do two costumes so I'm very excited for this.
Autumn: My favorite cells hagrid.
ERIN: yeah, that was a good one. But
Autumn: You did so good. and Madame Leota, you did a really good at that one too.
ERIN: Yeah, that was a really fun one. But you know, I just I love it so much. There's something fun about transforming and just being someone else that just makes it a great time. So
Autumn: She loves it. I it's like I hate dressing up. We're not the same. But
ERIN: Yeah. But I'm really good at it.
Autumn: I love watching her dress up. Like I think it's so fun.
ERIN: Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm excited for this season. And I believe Autumn is going to go to first tonight. And I think you also are leaning into this sort of
Autumn: Yes, ma'am.
ERIN: fall season vibe. And Autumn had a double check with me that
Autumn: I did.
ERIN: that I did not cover this case because at this point we've done a lot of fucking cases and yeah, it's a big one. It's in my my old time crime time.
Autumn: It is.
ERIN: And it very, very much is one that I've thought about doing for a long time. But you know, I don't love doing the hugely famous cases. That is a thing that it's totally Autumn's
Autumn: That's my jam.
ERIN: jam. And I don't usually do them because I like to find really weird ones that no one knows. But listen, people listen for the famous ones and then they get my cases. So surprise. So
Autumn: That's not true. They like your cases too.
ERIN: I hope we'll suck you in, and this is what brought you to our podcast is to s hear this particular case because it is extraordinarily famous as one of probably the
Autumn: Yes.
ERIN: top ten most famous cases ever, I would say.
Autumn: Yes. I would say that too.
ERIN: Yes. So and I really hope I really hope you
Autumn: So let's just hope I do it justice.
ERIN: I really hope you do the rhyme. Are you doing the rhyme in this?
Autumn: You'll find out.
ERIN: Ugh yes. Okay. I'm ready. Strap in guys. Here we go. Autumn. Hit it.
Autumn: There are some names in true crime history that almost everyone recognizes. Even if you don't know the actual story, you've probably heard the rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an axe. And honestly, that's where a lot of people think they know this case. A little girl, supposedly angry at her parents, grabs an axe and murders her father and stepmother. Forty whacks for one, forty one for another. Case closed. Ex You're welcome. Have a great day. Except
ERIN: That's it. It's over. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Autumn: almost none of that famous rhyme is accurate. Lizzie Borden did not receive a guilty verdict. There is no evidence that she gave anyone forty or forty one whacks. And perhaps most importantly, More than 130 years later, we still don't know definitively who murdered Andrew and Abby Borden inside their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. But Lizzie Borden became one of the most infamous women in American history anyway. And when you start looking beyond the nursery rhyme, the story becomes so much stranger. There was a deeply divided family. A wealthy but notoriously frugal father, a stepmother Lizzie reportedly had a complicated relationship with, conflicting statements, a suspiciously convenient fire, an attempted purchase of poison, a missing murder weapon, and two brutal murders committed in broad daylight inside a house where Lizzie was one of the only people present. So today, We're going back to August 4th, 1892, to a quiet home in Fall River, and to one of the most enduring questions in American true crime. Did Lizzie Borden really take an axe? Or did the real killer get away with murder? This is the story of Lizzie Borden. Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in eighteen sixty in Fall River, Massachusetts. And I found it really interesting that she had her father's middle name.
ERIN: That is interesting.
Autumn: Like very interesting, that that like tickled my brain a little. At the time, Fall River was a busy and growing industrial city, known for its textile mills and manufacturing. The Borden family was financially comfortable. Actually, Andrew Borden was a wealthy man. But there was something important about Andrew Borden. Despite having significant money and property, He had a reputation for being extremely frugal. The Borden family lived in a relatively modest home at 92 2nd Street. By the standards of what Andrew could afford, the home was not extravagant. The family also did not live with many of the conveniences that other wealthy families might have expected. And according to historical accounts, that became a source of tension within the household. Lizzie lived in the home with her older sister Emma, their father, Andrew, and their stepmother, Abby Borden. Lizzie and Emma's biological mother had died when the girls were young. Andrew later married Abby. Although Lizzie and Emma referred to Abby publicly as their stepmother, the relationship within the household was reportedly strained. There were disputes over money and property. There were disagreements about how Andrew handled his estate. There were tensions involving Abby's family. The Borden household, at least from the outside, may have appeared stable. But inside that house, there was clearly resentment. And just days before the murders, there had reportedly been serious conflict within the family. That doesn't prove murder. But it does establish something important. This was not necessarily the happy, peaceful household that people may have imagined. The morning of August 4th began like many other mornings in the Borden household. Andrew and Abby Borden were home. Lizzie was home. And the family's live in maid, Bridget Sullivan, was also there. Bridget was known within the household as Maggie, a common practice at the time, despite her actual name being Bridget. I don't understand that, but that is historically accurate.
ERIN: You mean that they just called all maids Maggie?
Autumn: I don't know if that's what they
ERIN: Or that Bridget is short for Maggie is short for Bridget. I am baffled by this.
Autumn: I think I was too and the and I went a little bit down a rabbit hole and from what I can understand is that they basically just call their like live in maids the same name. They never change it. So like if you had a Maggie to begin with, Bridget's now Maggie as well. They never learn the new person's name.
ERIN: Jesus fucking Christ. That's crazy.
Autumn: That's that's that is what I found, but I'm not entirely sure if it's like true true, but I thought it was interesting enough to write. So here's
ERIN: That is.
Autumn: it. So if you see someone named Predit and they are calling her Maggie, that's the same person. Yes.
ERIN: No, no, let her go. It's fine. Let's move on.
Autumn: previous days had been unusual. Several members of the household had been sick. There had been concerns that the family might have been poisoned. This detail would later become especially significant because Lizzie had reportedly attempted to purchase persic acid, a highly poisonous substance from a local pharmacy shortly before the murders. The pharmacist refused to sell it to her. Lizzie denied that she had attempted to purchase the poison. At the time, the story surrounding the family's illness and the alleged poison purchase created suspicion. But on the morning of August fourth, whatever had been happening inside the Borden home was about to become far more serious. Because sometime that morning, Abby Borden went upstairs, and somewhere. Followed her. Abby Borden was found upstairs in a guest's bedroom. She had been brutally attacked. The weapon used was believed to have been a sharp instrument, consistent with a hatchet or an axe. Abby's injuries were devastating. She had been struck repeatedly. historical reports have differed somewhat on the exact number of blows. But there is no evidence supporting the famous rhymes claim that she received forty one. What investigators did believe was clear was that the attack was violent and personal. Abby was found lying face down. She had been attacked from behind. And based on the nature of her injuries and the evidence at the scene, investigators believed she had been killed sometime before Andrew. Which meant something incredibly disturbing. After Abby was murdered, someone remained in or returned to the Borden home. And for a period of time, no one apparently realized that Abby's body was upstairs. Later that morning, Andrew Borden returned home. Bridget Sullivan led him inside. At some point, Andrew went into the sitting room and laid down on the sofa. Lizzie would later say that she had been outside in the barn. Then, sometime around late morning, Lizzie called out for Bridget. Her father, she said, had been killed. Bridget came downstairs, and there was Andrew Borden, still lying on the sofa. But now he was dead. Andrew had been brutally attacked with a sharp weapon. Unlike Abby, he had been lying down when he was attacked. The injuries to Andrew's face were horrific. He had been struck repeatedly. again, the number of wounds was nowhere near the famous forty blows suggested by the rhyme. But the murder was undeniably brutal. Immediately there was one enormous question. How could someone have entered the Borden home, murdered Abby upstairs, waited for Andrew to return, and murdered him downstairs? And how did they escape without anyone seeing them? Because by that point the list of people who had access to the home was very small. And Lizzie Borden was right there. Lizzie became the person who raised the alarm. She told Bridget that her father had been killed. She reportedly sent Bridget for help. Neighbors soon arrived. Police were contacted. And almost immediately the boarding house became the center of an investigation. But there was another problem. Lizzie's statements about where she had been and what she had been doing began to draw attention. She said she had been in the barn. But investigators questioned what exactly she had been doing there. Some of Lizzie's explanations changed or became inconsistent. At the same time, investigators began looking closely at everyone connected to the household. Could a business rival have wanted Andrew dead? Could someone have broken into the home? Could someone with a personal grudge have committed the murders? Andrew Borden had been successful in business, and he was not necessarily described as universally liked. But there was little evidence pointing to an outsider. As investigators searched for answers, suspicion increasingly focused on the person who had discovered Andrew's body. Lizzie. One of the biggest mysteries in the Lizzie Borden case is the murder weapon. Investigators searched the property. They examined axes and hatchets. Eventually they discovered a hatchet head in the basement. The handle was missing. The hatchet head appeared to have been deliberately altered or cleaned. Investigators believed it could have possibly it could have possibly been the murder weapon. But there was a major problem. They could not conclusively prove that it was. No weapon was ever definitively connected to the murders. No one found Lizzie standing over the victims. No one witnessed either murder. And there was no direct physical evidence that conclusively proved she had committed the crimes. That distinction would become incredibly important because suspicion and proof are not the same thing. Lizzie Borden was about to become the subject of one of the most sensational murder investigations in American history. In the days following the murders, people began to examine Lizzie's behavior. Some thought she appeared calm. Others believed her reactions were unusual. But this is one of those areas where we have to be very careful when looking back at historical cases. People respond to trauma differently. The idea that someone didn't act upset enough is not evidence of guilt. However, there were other circumstances that investigators found more concerning. Lizzie's statements were inconsistent. The alleged attempt to purchase poison raised questions. Then there was something that happened just days after the murders. Lizzie burned a dress. The dress belonged to her, and according to the explanations that followed, the dress had been stained with paint. But considering that her father and stepmother had just been murdered, with what investigators believed was a sharp weapon, the destruction of a dress naturally attracted attention.
ERIN: The other question f why would you burn a dress even if it was stained with paint? What's the point in burning it? That just seems y exactly.
Autumn: Right? Like why are we burning it? It's suspicious. It's not normal.
ERIN: Barry No
Autumn: Their questioning could it have contained blood? Was it simply an old dress that Lizzie had decided to destroy? Or was important evidence being burned? Again,
ERIN: Hmm.
Autumn: no one could prove that the dress had been connected to the murders, but investigators were watching Lizzie more closely than ever. Lizzie Borden was eventually arrested and charged with the murders of her father and stepmother. And this was huge. At the time, Lizzie was a respectable, unmarried woman from a prominent family. She was involved in church. She was known within the community. The idea that a woman like Lizzie could have brutally murdered her parents shocked the country. But the prosecution believed they had a compelling case. There was the family tension, the disputed statements, the alleged attempt to purchase poison, the opportunity, and the The burned dress. The fact that the murders happened inside Lizzie's own home also contributed. But the defense had something equally important, the lack of direct evidence. And when Lizzie's trial began in eighteen ninety three, the entire country was paying attention. Which I literally don't know how you do these cases from like the eighteen hundreds without
ERIN: Mm.
Autumn: it being as famous as this one is because shit's weird. Yes.
ERIN: No, it's weird and it's really hard to find.
Autumn: I'm like going I mean the whole Maggie Bridget thing, I'm like, that was weird, but I mean, that's just a small thing.
ERIN: No, it's a lot of research. Like and and the thing is is that
Autumn: I can only imagine
ERIN: there was no rules back then either with newspapers on what they printed being correct. So they would just print whatever they wanted to get attention.
Autumn: Right, sensational headlines. I had to dig and be like, that though, that's not accurate. no, that one's not I was like
ERIN: Yes. Yeah, no, it's so hard.
Autumn: So then I was confused. I'm like, if I say this, is this right or is that just a made up story in the newspaper?
ERIN: I know. It's crazy. It's so hard the old the older cases and
Autumn: So hard.
ERIN: there's no rules with those newspapers and they could do whatever they wanted. So yeah.
Autumn: Yes, I was very it was very much I was like, damn, Erin has a hard but but you love it.
ERIN: Yep, she does. I love it. I love it.
Autumn: So now we're at the trials. Lizzie's trial became a media sensation. Newspapers covered every detail. Not accurately, let's just say that.
ERIN: Let's say it.
Autumn: People formed opinions about her guilt before the trial was even over. And the case had something that still captures public attention today. A wealthy family, a gruesome double murder, a female suspect. And a mystery that seemed almost impossible to solve. The prosecution had to convince the jury that Lizzie had killed Andrew and Abby. But they faced serious problems. There was no eyewitnesses, there was no confession, there was no murder weapon conclusively tied to Lizzie, and much of the evidence against her was circumstantial. The alleged poison purchase became an important issue. But the prosecution's ability to use that information was limited. Other testimony also faced challenges. And Lizzie's offense team successfully argued that the evidence simply did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had committed the murders. The trial lasted only about two weeks, and then the jury was given the case. They deliberated for approximately an hour and a half. And the decision was clear. Lizzie Borden was acquitted. Not guilty. She walked free. But being found not guilty did not mean the public believed she was innocent. And for Lizzie, the trial may have been over, but the suspicion would follow her for the rest of her life. After her acquittal, Lizzie and her sister Emma left the Second Street home. They moved into a much larger house in Fall River. Lizzie even changed the name of the home to Maplecroft. It was, in many ways, the kind of lifestyle that had reportedly been a point of tension between the sisters and their father. Lizzie also began using the name Lizbeth, but the years following the trial were not peaceful. Lizzie and Emma eventually became estranged. The exact reasons for their falling out have been debated. And Emma eventually moved out. The sisters who had been extremely close for most of their lives never reconciled. Lizzie lived in Fall River until her death in nineteen twenty seven. Emma died just days later. And with their deaths, whatever secrets they may have known went with them. Lizzie was never convicted, and And no one else was ever convicted for the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. So did Lizzie do it? And that is the question. The one people have been asking for more than a century. Did Lizzie Borden murder her father and stepmother? Honestly, we don't know. And I think that's what makes this case so fascinating. There are absolutely reasons to suspect Lizzie. She was in the house, her statements raised questions, there were reported tensions within the family, the alleged attempt to purchase poison was suspicious, and the burning of the dress shortly after the murders is difficult to ignore. The prosecution could not prove that Lizzie committed the murders. There were also questions about whether someone else could have entered the home. There were theories involving Andrew's business dealings, the possibility of an unknown intruder, and other individuals who had contact with the family. Over the years, countless theories have emerged. Some believe Lizzie acted alone. Others believe she may have had help. Some believe someone else committed the murders entirely. And because the crime scene investigation of 1892 was nothing like it would be today, there are questions that are simply never going to be answered. Modern DNA testing didn't exist. Crime scene preservation was far more limited. Forensic science was in its infancy. Evidence that might have answered the question forever could have been mishandled. destroyed or never collected in the first place. So today we are left with a story full of suspicion, but without certainty. Perhaps the strangest part of this entire story is what happened to Lizzie's name: the nursery rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an ax. Most people know it. And for generations that rhyme has essentially served as Lizzie Borden's unofficial verdict. The court found her not guilty, but popular culture found her guilty. The rhyme turned a complicated and unresolved murder case into a simple story. Lizzie, the axe, 40 wax. And the idea that everyone knows what happened. But we don't. The truth is we may never know who killed Andrew and Abby Borden. And that is the part of this story that I think gets lost. Two people were brutally murdered. Their killer was never identified with certainty. And instead, the case became a legend, a rhyme, a ghost story, a piece of American folklore. Lizzie Borden became the center of it all. Maybe she was a cold-blooded murderer who managed to outsmart the justice system. Maybe she was an innocent woman who spent the rest of her life being judged for crimes she didn't commit. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe there was more happening inside that house than anyone ever knew. But whatever happened on August 4th, 1892, one thing is undeniable. The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden remain unsolved. And more than a century later, Lizzie Borden is still standing at the center of one of America's most infamous mysteries. So, did Lizzie Borden really take an axe? Maybe, but history can't prove it, and that's why we're still talking about her today. Because sometimes the most famous person in a murder case isn't necessarily the killer. Sometimes they're just the person everyone decided to blame. And in this case of Lizzie Borden, the jury said not guilty, but history still hasn't made up its mind. My sources were the Fall River Historical Society which The Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus Lizzie A. Borden. The official transcript of the trial of Lizzie A. Borden, which was really interesting, I have to admit, to read that. the preliminary hearing in the Borden case, Wikipedia, Unsolved Mysteries, and the Lizzie Andrew Borden primary source documents in the research archive.
ERIN: Yeah, that's a it's a big case. And I what what is your opinion, Autumn?
Autumn: My opinion is that she did kill them. I think she did.
ERIN: I also
Autumn: What is your opinion?
ERIN: agree with that because there's no one else around. I mean, granted, it could have happened. You would have heard screaming. You would have like there would have
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: been something if she was just in the barn, right? So
Autumn: Right.
ERIN: I just feel like yeah, and the tensions in the house, the burned dress, like all of those things add up. It does make me go, mmm, she might have done it. But
Autumn: Mm-hmm. That's how I feel.
ERIN: yeah, I've always thought that.
Autumn: And the the part that all I mean this has nothing to do with if she was guilty or guilty or not, but she was a sp a sp they called her spinster. She was a lonely spinster and
ERIN: Sure.
Autumn: like that's why she killed him. I'm like, no, I kind of feel like she was daddy's favorite and all the evidence points that way. Like she was daddy's favorite. She was really close to him. And I think that she disliked her stepmother
ERIN: Yep.
Autumn: and I think that she killed her stepmother and then once she did that she knew she had to kill her father because he couldn't bear to know that she did such a thing.
ERIN: Yeah. or or maybe like in the heat of the moment, he's like, Stop or whatever, and she just gave him
Autumn: Yeah, because I don't know if that's the the situation. I don't know if he ever knew that Abby was murdered.
ERIN: Nobody knows.
Autumn: Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think that he knew that Abby was murdered. I because he was
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: like sitting on the sofa, right? Like relaxing. So I I think Yeah,
ERIN: That's true. That's true. It makes you think that he was first, yeah.
Autumn: mm, I think she I I think the way Yeah,
ERIN: Lack of forensics is really difficult.
Autumn: the forensic so the forensics. state, but we can't be certain for this because it's so old. The forensic state
ERIN: Sure.
Autumn: that Abby died first. Like the the rate of decomposition,
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: they say she was the first one to die. My theory is that she did kill her stepmother and then
ERIN: Mm-hmm.
Autumn: when her father came home, she was overcome with guilt and was like, well I gotta do him in too because she also at that point realized he probably would be able to know that she did it.
ERIN: Yeah, I mean yes.
Autumn: And she couldn't bear for him to like look at her that way, is how I feel that that happened.
ERIN: That could very well be. It is really hard when you don't have actual forensics. You know, there was no
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: no one studied the body other than like some random people, right?
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: And it's really hard to get all of the details right. But Autumn, I'm gonna blow your fucking mind. Are you ready?
Autumn: I'm ready.
ERIN: Because our cases are shockingly similar.
Autumn: Okay, that's weird.
ERIN: Not only are we close by each other, as far as I mine is in a small town in Connecticut that is right next to Massachusetts. That literally part of my story is that people from Massachusetts would come to this town. also my case is titled The Witch, the Axe and the Gallows. So we have the same murder weapon. Yeah.
Autumn: shit. Okay, I'm ready. I wanna hear it now.
ERIN: All right. There is even more connections, but if I start talking about it, then I'll give everything away. So we're not gonna do
Autumn: Yes.
ERIN: that.
Autumn: Let me know. Tell me it now.
ERIN: Okay, here we go. This is The Witch, The Axe, and the Gallows, The Murder of Sarah Goss. Barkhamstead, Connecticut, 1785. Murder is never justified. Sometimes understanding the circumstances can help see what motivated a killer to kill. Maybe it has to do with jealousy, money, rage, or revenge. And then there are murders that begin somewhere inside the mind of a person committing them. A place where the rules of reality have begun to change. In February of 1785, in a small Connecticut town of Barkhamstead, Thomas Goss killed his wife Sarah with an ax. He did not deny killing her, he did not attempt to construct an elaborate alibi. He did not claim that someone else had done it. Instead, he told authorities that he had killed Sarah because he believed she was a witch. This is the story of Thomas Goss, Saragos, and a murder that sits at a strange intersection of colonial religion, mental illness, superstition, family violence, and an American legal system still struggling with what to do with someone who committed a terrible act while apparently detached from reality. 1785 Barkhamstead was not the town we would recognize today. It was a rural Connecticut. Community incorporated only a few years earlier, surrounded by forests, hills, farms, and roads connecting the region's developing iron industry. Thomas Goss had arrived there decades before the murder. In September of 1762, Simon Baxter conveyed land to Thomas Goss near the Heartland town line. Goss eventually built a house there, and by the mid-1760s, he was operating a tavern. The location was significant. The road near his property connected the iron producing region around Salisbury with routes towards Springfield, Massachusetts. See, we were close. New
Autumn: So close.
ERIN: England axe murders, that's what I'm saying. The road may have looked like a little more than a rough trail by modern standards, But in eighteenth century Connecticut, it carried travelers, goods, and people. Thomas Goss's tavern sat right along that route, so he had a lot of people coming by. For years it was his home and his business. Historical accounts later described it as one of the earliest taverns in Barkhamstead, and for a long time there was nothing about Thomas Goss that suggested he would eventually become a murderer. Me, he's interacting with all these people all the time. You'd think that something would stand out at that point, right? I want
Autumn: One hundred percent.
ERIN: yeah, I want to explain more about Thomas and where he came from. His life was particularly sad, so get ready for this. Thomas was born January 6th, 1734, in Brookfield, Massachusetts. He was the son of Philip Goss and Kaziah Cooley. His early life wasn't especially easy. His father died when Thomas was still a child. His mother died a few years later. Thomas was sent to live with other people in Granville, Massachusetts, and as an adult he became familiar with military service because he served during the French and Indian War and later during the American Revolution. There were losses in his personal life as well. Thomas married Eunice Bancroft in Granville in 1758. They had children, several children, and some of those children died very young. Some of the records surrounding them are incomplete. And then Eunice, his first wife, appears to have died at some point before Thomas remarries in 1777. His second wife was Sarah Balcombe. She was born 1756 in Mansfield, Connecticut. She was a widower, and she had a daughter. You can understand why. They might be attracted to each other as they were both widowers and they also had children.
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: So on May 29th, 1777, Sarah Balcombe Darby married Thomas Goss in Barkhemstead. She became the stepmother to Thomas's surviving children, and together Thomas and Sarah also had children of their own. By the beginning of 1785, Thomas Goss was a husband, a father, a tavern keeper, a landowner. And a man who had lived through decades of enormous change. He had seen colonial America. He lived through the revolution. And he was living in a country that had just become independent. But something was changing inside Thomas Goss, and people were beginning to notice. Later histories of Barkhamstead described Thomas Goss as becoming increasingly disturbed during this period leading up to the murder. One account described him as being. At first harmless, eventually raving. And we need to be careful with language like this because people did not have modern psychiatric diagnoses. There were no modern understanding of psychosis or psychiatric hospitals. There's no system for distinguishing a person experiencing a severe mental disorder from someone who was simply considered eccentric, troublesome, blasphemous, or dangerous. They were still dissecting people to see how our bodies worked and treating with leeches, lobotomies, and dangerous drugs. I
Autumn: Mm.
ERIN: want to preface this because when I read the descriptions of Thomas Goss, we will be looking backward through two different lenses. The first is the language of the eighteenth century. The second is the language of people writing about him decades and even centuries later. So We should not diagnose Thomas Goss from a distance. We don't have medical records, we don't have evaluations, and we don't have his private journals. What we do have are descriptions of his behavior, and those descriptions become increasingly strange. People who knew Goss reportedly noticed changes in him about 1784. He became obsessed with religion in a way that frightened the people around him. He spoke about supernatural forces. He believed that people around him were all involved in conspiracies. And eventually he focused and settled on his wife. Sarah simply wasn't his wife anymore. In Thomas' mind, she had become something else. A witch. This is where this story gets complicated Witchcraft was deeply embedded in colonial New England culture. Connecticut had its own history of witchcraft prosecutions. Earlier Connecticut laws were treated, had treated witchcraft as a capital offense. Biblical language was used to justify those laws, and they were explicit. The famous phrase from Exodus, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Had been taken very seriously by generations of New England Christians. But by 1785, Connecticut was no longer conducting the kind of witch trials associated with the 17th century. The Salem witch trials had been over for nearly 100 years at this point. Yet the idea that supernatural evil could exist in the world had not simply disappeared. And Thomas Goss apparently believed that evil had entered his own home. According to later accounts, Thomas believed that Sarah was part of a group of witches, a coven. He also believed that she and others were conspiring against him. His thinking became increasingly religious and increasingly paranoid. And eventually he became convinced that Sarah had intended to kill him. He later told authorities that she had threatened his life. He claimed that the people around her were all involved. And he believed he was acting in self-defense. But the story Thomas eventually told was stranger than that. He didn't simply believe Sarah wanted him dead, he believed that supernatural forces were also involved. And he believed that God had given him a role in a cosmic struggle between good and evil. At some point, according to historical accounts, Thomas began referring to himself as the second Lamb of God. He believed he had a special religious purpose. He spoke of angels. He spoke of the devil. And he believed he was surrounded by forces that other people couldn't see. Imagine living in Barkhamstead in 1785. Never mind it all sounds like it sucks. Just kidding. There are no streetlights, no telephones, no police department. And your neighbors live a considerable distance away. Your world is mostly your household, your farm, your church, your neighbors, and the roads that and the roads that connect you to the next town. And inside one of those homes, a man is becoming convinced his wife is a witch and his children are sleeping under the same roof. The exact sequence of events inside the goss home is difficult to reconstruct. There's no surviving police report. In any sort of modern sense. There's no complete trial transcripts available to us. The surviving court documents and newspaper reports give us a piece of what happened, and Thomas himself eventually supplied additional details. What we know is during the night of February 16, 1785, or maybe into the early morning of February seventeenth, Thomas Goss killed his wife. Sarah was in the house, the children were there as well. The murder weapon was an axe. The formal inquest conducted the following day documented multiple blows to Sarah's head. The jury described one blow to the forehead above the left eye and the additional blows to the side of the head, with injuries extending through the ear and into the brain.
Autumn: My gosh.
ERIN: The inquest concluded that Sarah had been murdered, and Thomas Goss confessed. But Thomas didn't confess in the way that we expected. He didn't simply say, I became angry, I lost control, I killed my wife. Instead, his explanation came from the world that he believed he was living in. Sarah, in his mind, was this dangerous witch, and he believed he was acting against an enemy. There are later accounts claiming that Thomas, and this part is fucking gross, smeared Sarah's blood on the bodies of his sleeping children in bed. And that detail appears
Autumn: Okay.
ERIN: in later historical retellings. but because it's not as firmly documented as the other court material that I have, as the axe wounds and the confession, I'm treating that as a later reported detail rather than an established fact. What we can establish is that Thomas killed Sarah while their kids were in the home. And afterward, he did something that seems almost impossible to reconcile with the enormity of what he did. He went to a neighbor, told them what happened. The murder was discovered quickly. A local constable, Moses Shepherd, was involved. Then a group of twelve men were assembled to examine the body. This was called the inquest. These were just people in the community. Remember, we don't have modern crime detectives or anything. There's not a crime scene that's roped off. There's no team of detectives in gloves or protective clothing. It's just a group of local men summoned under the law to look at the body and determine what happened. Dr. Timothy Miller was one of the people involved in the inquest. The men examined Sarah's body. They observed her wounds, and Thomas Goss was apparently present during the time, and he was questioned. The verdict of the inquest is one of the most important surviving pieces of evidence in this case. The jurors concluded that Sarah Goss had been murdered. They identified Thomas as her killer. They also noticed that he c they also noted that he confessed in front of them. Thomas Goss was officially accused of murder. The legal machinery moved swiftly. Moses Shepard, the constable, filed a formal complaint. But the language on the document is stark. Thomas Goss was accused of willy willfully killing and murdering his wife with malice and forethought. Basically premeditated murder. Thomas was brought before the Justice of the Peace, Joseph Wilder, and there he entered a plea of not guilty. That may sound strange because he just confessed to a group of twelve men standing in the room with his wife's dead body, but It wasn't unusual for a person to deny legal guilt even when the physical act itself was not in dispute. And in Thomas's case, the coming trial would revolve around something more complicated than whether or not he had killed Sarah. The question would become what was happening inside Thomas Goss's mind when he did it. Now we're gonna talk about the local justice of the peace, Joseph Wilder. He was apparently respected in the community and had been employed. had been appointed to the position repeatedly. And this case became the most famous criminal matter associated with him. Wilder understood something that Thomas Goss's neighbors may not have understood. He could not simply prosecute this murder case himself. The charge was too serious. So Thomas was sent to the county jail in Lichfield. The Justice of the Peace's Court it essentially said that the case was beyond its jurisdiction. Thomas would remain in custody until the Superior Court would l could hear the matter. While Thomas waited for the trial, the story spread. Newspapers picked it up. The American Mercury was the first. The Hampshire Herald followed soon afterward, and the Connecticut Current published its own report. The murder was exactly the sort of story that 18th century newspapers could turn into a sensation. And Thomas's behavior made the story even more compelling. He was not described as a murderer. He was described as a man who believed his wife was a witch. And this is where we have to resist the temptation to turn Thomas Goss into a Halloween character. Because I want him to be. But we're not doing that.
Autumn: Okay.
ERIN: The easy version of this story is a disturbed man thinks his wife is a witch, he murders her, speaks of supernatural and religion, but the actual history is much more unsettling because Thomas was experiencing some form of severe psychosis. he may genuinely have believed what he was saying. That doesn't make the murder less horrifying, it doesn't make Sarah less dead, and it certainly doesn't erase the terror that her children experienced. But it does raise a difficult question. What should a legal system do when a person commits a murder while apparently living in a completely different reality? In 1785, Connecticut had no answers. And the Goss case would put that problem directly in front of a jury. Like I said before, Thomas Goss remained in jail for months. The Superior Court would eventually hear his case, and In July, subpoenas were issued for witnesses. Among the people were Samuel Banning, James Austin, Amos Case, Moses Shepherd, Seth Smith, and Joseph Gilbert. John Canfield was involved as the prosecutor, and Thomas was represented by Uriah Tracy and Colonel Jesse Root. The trial took place in August, and according to the newspaper accounts preserved by the Goss Family Research, the proceedings were presented as very serious and orderly. was selected. Witnesses were examined. The prosecution and defense argued over the evidence. The question of Thomas's mental state was central. The defense argued. That the murder had come from insanity rather than deliberate malice. The prosecution, however, had physical evidence. Thomas killed his wife, and his own words demonstrated that he had understood, at least in some sense, what he had done. The jury ultimately found him guilty. The verdict was not merely murder. It was described as will willful and premeditated murder. And yet there's something fascinating. In the newspaper's description of the trial. The account acknowledged the apparent insanity. People surrounding the case even appear to have recognized that Thomas's mental condition was unusual. The jury didn't simply believe that it excused him from the responsibility, though. this distinction is critical. Thomas could be insane in the ordinary meaning of the word and still be legally guilty. There's not yet modern framework for a psychiatric diagnosis, competency evaluations, diminished capacity, or carefully defined insanity standards. The law was so much more primitive, and the sentence was death. On August 11th, Judge Richard Law formerly sentenced Thomas. He would be taken from jail to the place of execution and hanged by the neck until dead. According to the surviving accounts, He continued to express bizarre religious beliefs. One of the remarkable records that we have comes from questions reportedly put to Thomas near the end of his life, and those question answers were printed in newspapers. They give us a rare glimpse into the mind of this condemned man. He was asked whether he remembered what had happened. He says yes. He was asked whether Sarah had spoken to him. Before the fatal blows. According to the account, Thomas said that she asked whether he intended to kill her. He then supplied religious explanations involving Beelzebub and Mercy. He was asked about the events leading into the murder. Thomas claimed that he had repeatedly gotten up and back down in bed that night, dressing and undressing himself several times. So he was clearly. unrestful and obviously unwell. Thomas was also asked whether he had intended to hide Sarah's body. His answer was horrifying. He said that he believed
Autumn: god.
ERIN: yeah, Autumn. He said that he believed his wife and her associates had planned to kill him. He described the witches and wizard he described witches and wizards. He spoke of a hidden place in the cellar. He talked about Cutting Sarah's body apart and concealing it. And then he said that he abandoned that plan. And again, we don't need to believe the supernatural ex explanation, but we do have
Autumn: Right.
ERIN: to we do have to know that his own words that he was telling us are what he believed. And this part gets me because he was asked about the baby who had been in the bed.
Autumn: Mm, okay.
ERIN: Thomas reportedly answered that the devil had urged him to kill the child, but an angel had commanded him not to, so he left the child alone. That statement is one of the most disturbing pieces of this surviving account because it suggests that Thomas's delusions were not confined to Sarah. His children had entered this supernatural battle that he believed was taking place around him. and in his mind, whether they lived or died was being decided by competing supernatural forces. Then there's another strange layer, and frankly, I think it is a very odd questi line of questioning, in my opinion, but they asked Thomas whether he had been jealous of Sarah. He said yes. He claimed that he had become convinced that she had been involved with other men. He believed some of her acquaintances had been involved in what he considered to be illicit relations with her. And some of the people that he accused eventually became witnesses against him at trial. That part sits with me a minute because I'm like, wait a minute, are you just worried that she's cheating on you? you making all this up, but I don't believe that. I think he really was delusional. But these answers show us that Thomas's beliefs were not one single fixed delusion. It wasn't just she's a witch. It was religion, witchcraft, paranoia, jealousy, and the fear that he was going to be murdered. There was a belief in supernatural enemies, And there was a conviction that he had some kind of divine role. All of these ideas seem to have been woven together, and he was creating a an explanation of his world. Unfortunately for Sarah she was at the center of it. There is a temptation when looking at an eighteenth century case to say if this happened today, everything would be different. And maybe. But we shouldn't oversimplify that either. Modern law does recognize mental illness as relevant to criminal responsibility, but mental illness does not automatically mean that someone is legally insane. A
Autumn: Mm.
ERIN: person can have a serious mental disorder and be found to be criminally responsible. The legal question is much narrower. Did the person's mental condition meet the legal standard for insanity or otherwise prevent the prosecution from proving The required mental state. In Thomas Goss's time, the law had nothing resembling today's system. And the very concept of insanity as a legal defense was still very much developing. There's also another problem with this story. Sarah Goss is often reduced to one single sentence. Thomas Goss killed his wife because he believed she was a witch, but Sarah was a real person. And she was a person before she became a murder victim. But Sarah's murder did not end with her death. There were also children in the household. Thomas and Sarah's children, also the children from their previous lives. They were all very young. Jemima was about seven, Jesse was five, the younger children were even smaller. Thomas's surviving children from his first marriage were very much affected. The records show that the children were eventually placed with different families. Jemima and some of the other children were later assigned guardians. Jesse was sent to live with relatives in Norfolk. Judith Thomas's daughter from his first marriage was placed with the Wilder family. And the surviving records show that the aftermath of Sarah's murder continued for years. The children were not simply returned to some version of normal life after Thomas was arrested. Their family had been destroyed, their mother was dead, their father was in jail awaiting execution, and the children were scattered. They had to grow up carrying a story that would follow them long after 1785. Thomas would spend months after his conviction in the Lichfield Lichfield Jail, where his execution would take place. The town had established an execution site known as Gallows Hill. Executions At this time, we were public. A condemned person would be marched through town towards the gallows. Crowds would gather, ministers would preach, and the condemned would speak. Executions were understood by many people to be public moral lessons. By the time the execution approached, Thomas had become notorious. He wasn't simply a man convicted of killing his wife, he was the man who believed in witches and wizards. Newspapers had repeated the story. The public knew about his bizarre beliefs, and people gathered to witness this final scene. The execution date is one of those little historical mysteries. Some sources give november seventh, seventeen eighty-five, but surviving Connecticut current material Described by the Lichfield Historical Society says Thomas Goss was executed on November ninth. So rather than pretending that this record is perfectly clean, this is one of those places where surviving re surviving sources disagree. What I can confidently say is that Thomas Goss was executed in Lichfield in November of seventeen eighty five. I just want to be very clear about that. The night before his executions, Sheriff Lind Lord reportedly hired guards to watch Thomas. A minister, Judah Champion, preached a special service, and Thomas refused to attend. According to later accounts, He said that God had forbidden him from participating. Instead, he took a nap and then he ate lunch. At noon, Thomas was taken towards the gallows. Accounts say that he appeared calm. There was no dramatic struggle, no last-minute confessions. He just walked towards the gallows. And when he reached the platform, he knelt and prayed, eventually allowing the minister to pray with him. Then Thomas was permitted to To address the crowd of spectators. And what did he talk about? Morality. He reportedly told all of the people gathered about the importance of living morally and raising your children properly. If that alone doesn't address,
Autumn: Of course he did.
ERIN: if that alone does not address his mental state, this man had been convicted of murdering his wife brutally with an axe and spoke about killing his baby because the devil told him to. And he had spent months insisting that his actions had been justified by supernatural forces. And now standing beneath a noose, he's giving moral advice to the crowd. Then comes a very strange statement that he says. Thomas declares that he had never murdered anyone except his wife, which is justified because, you know, God, the devil, and all of that. And then he believed that the sheriff could not hang him, that God would intervene.
Autumn: okay.
ERIN: He was obviously wrong. The execution was carried out, and Thomas Goss died in the gallows. And the world that he inhabited, the witches, the angels, the devils, the conspiracies, and the divine mission died with him. There is something especially haunting about a case like this because we can see the point where two realities collided Thomas's reality and frankly, everyone else's. And somewhere between those two realities was a family that would never be whole again. My sources were the Connecticut Current, the Weekly Intelligencer, the Hit Litchfield Historical Society Archives, the Goss Family Records, Arrest and Complaint Documents, Connecticut History, Hidden in Plain Sight, and the Connecticut General Assembly.
Autumn: Wow.
ERIN: Two New England Axe Murders.
Autumn: Can you even?
ERIN: I cannot even. I was just shocked when you asked me if I had covered Lizzie Borden and I was like, I haven't and then I was just like, Shut, I'm doing an ex murderer too. Similar area, not the same time
Autumn: Ha
ERIN: period, but I was just like, my God.
Autumn: I know, I I'd like done so much research and I've heard it before obviously on podcasts
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: and I'm like, was it my own podcast that I heard it on? Couldn't remember.
ERIN: Right. At this point, honestly, there's been so many times where especially in research, I see so many of similar cases when I'm trying
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: to find, you know, ones to do and I'm like, Wait, did I do that one or just did I do the research on it? 'Cause sometimes I'll start deep diving one and I'm like, No, no, no, I don't want to do that one, I'll do a different one. And so I've done part of the research and then I'm like, shit, no, I did do that one. Or I haven't done and I have to go through all of our fucking episodes to find out whether or not I had covered that case.
Autumn: Mm. To find out. Yes.
ERIN: Yeah. Because I seriously don't know. Sometimes I'm like, wait, I swear I did
Autumn: It's I mean, I
ERIN: it.
Autumn: yeah, my memory's not the best, so I mean, well it is, but not anymore. Like
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: we've done so many I can't remember now.
ERIN: We have done so many. It's kind of crazy. But I am going to stay on the spooky train. I know that that wasn't really spooky with the witches, but it was still.
Autumn: Are you gonna do the one I sent you?
ERIN: maybe. We will see. I might do that one.
Autumn: That one was creepy. I liked the I was like, that's right up Aaron's alley.
ERIN: No, I might do that one closer to October.
Autumn: Halloween.
ERIN: Yes. But I am very excited for all the fall stuff. I'm so excited to get into these like
Autumn: Same C is
ERIN: kind of paranormal ish cases. I love the ones that, you know, where people, especially in that older time or even like what we're talking about now, you know, I think that it's interesting how people justified changes in things. You know, like the weather changed and the crop died. Well, clearly that's because autumn is a witch.
Autumn: Mm-hmm. Accurate facts.
ERIN: you know, that person was sick. She healed one person with herbs. And then, you know, I actually was reading this really great book that I just finished called Wayward. It's by Amelia Hart. ten out of ten. Recommend if you want to if you are reading any fiction books that you like, that one is was fucking great. Anyways, in it, one I'm not giving anything away either. One of the people was she was accused of being a witch because she was an herbalist essentially and a healer and she was healing people and then she got called in to help heal this one woman after the local doctor had treated her with leeches and that was not helping her at all and she was going to die of scarlet fever and the lady was brought in a little too late and the woman died and they were like, it's because she's a witch. She killed her. But she was literally the only person giving her something to save her. You know, so I mean back
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: then y that's how they would justify, well, she died, so it was the witch. Now let's go dunk her underwater and see if she dies. Well, yeah, she's gonna drown if you hold her underwater.
Autumn: Right. If you hold her underwater.
ERIN: You know, or they would put God, some of the things they did, they put like the st the stones on
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: their body and then like stand on them and shit. It was just awful what they did to women back
Autumn: Awful.
ERIN: then. But it's just crazy how people justify changes back then and it was always blamed on someone because it couldn't be, you know, a catastrophic storm or whatever. It had to be something nefarious. I also think they maybe they were bored. I don't know. Anyways, that was my case this week. We hope you enjoyed all of the wax that we told you about. So
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: much axe murdering. we will be back next week. Episodes are always out on Tuesdays. Thank you again for listening to us. We appreciate all of you. Please share with your friends and family. Maybe not your parents after this one.
Autumn: Okay.
ERIN: but anyways, we'll be back again next week. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Autumn: Bye.
ERIN: Go ahead.
Autumn: sh Hello everybody. Welcome to Murder Not Murdering with Autumn.
ERIN: And Erin.
Autumn: The podcast of your dreams.
ERIN: That is not our tagline. But you know what? I'm glad you're all here listening to us right now.
Autumn: We are so happy you're here.
ERIN: I know Autumn loves it when I throw her off kilter and make her do the welcome.
Autumn: I can't even see when it starts recording. So like when you're just sitting there silenced and you're like, go ahead, I'm like, What?
ERIN: I just love it 'cause it makes me laugh. anyways, thank you for listening. We're we are here back on a new episode Tuesday. Thank you again for giving a shit that we are doing this podcast.
Autumn: It's a passion project for us and we love doing it. So it makes us happy that we have people listening.
ERIN: Yeah, and we're gonna talk about murders, which makes us happy.
Autumn: It does make us happy. And it's fall I mean, it's not officially fall season right now, but it is so close.
ERIN: I don't care. It is
Autumn: It's the Burr month and I am the second it's a Burr month, I go into fall mode. It doesn't matter if it's technically summer still, it's fall.
ERIN: Uhuh. No, fuck summer. I'm over it. I am here for fall.
Autumn: And I have rever yes, I have reverse seasonal depression. I'm depressed in the summer and happy as fuck in the fall.
ERIN: I am exactly the same way. Yeah, I love fall weather. I love fall flavors. I'm so here for all of it.
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: I want the crisp weather.
Autumn: Yes.
ERIN: this morning I was so happy I woke up and it was overcast. I was able to throw on a sweater. I was like, this is it, and now it's fucking sunny and stupidly warm. I hate it so much.
Autumn: It's overcast and really it's like intermittently raining over here. It's probably gonna be a thunderstorm shortly.
ERIN: God, I hope so. Not here. I'm so bummered.
Autumn: I love it. I love it.
ERIN: but I do. I love all the fall things. And because of that, my case today is a little bit on the cusp of not Halloween, but definitely leaning into more of that fall energy.
Autumn: Mm.
ERIN: And know that that's what you're gonna be getting from me all the way through October. I am just
Autumn: Yeah, same, same, same.
ERIN: I mean obviously spooky weather, it's getting darker out and all of that lends itself to a true crime podcast, to be honest. Sets the vibe.
Autumn: I decorated for Halloween already, so sorry, not sorry. I did.
ERIN: Yes, I do know that. I do. Autumn sent me pictures. She has one of those giant skeleton things.
Autumn: Yeah, I have we have a a giant skeleton that stays out year round and we dress him for the seasons. So in at Chris
ERIN: Does he have a name?
Autumn: he does we call him Skelly. That's what we call him. And then he has a cat
ERIN: Okay.
Autumn: and we call him Spooky. But
ERIN: Hm, that makes sense.
Autumn: my grandson loves Skelly. Whenever he comes over, he points to him, makes us take him over there, and then he just babbles to him. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen. And it makes having him out year-round totally.
ERIN: Yeah. Plus I just like that he's looming looking at your neighbors.
Autumn: He also yes, he is. And he it's we love him. And our neighbors love him too. The neighbor ladies' kids grandkids call him Bones. Isn't that cute? Yeah, it is cute.
ERIN: Cute. I like that. Yeah.
Autumn: And so we we just we dress him up for the seasons, we put a Christmas hat on him, like a Santa Claus hat, and then he holds Christmas
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: lights like the Grinch. went during Christmas time and then during the like summer months I put a lay on him one time, like a Hawaiian lay. And
ERIN: Mm.
Autumn: just stuff like that. It's fun. We just keep him up year round.
ERIN: Sure, yeah, no, that's fun. You know, I speaking of dressing up, the as everybody knows, I am not a stranger to dressing up. You know I love it. Always love it.
Autumn: Accurate facts.
ERIN: So we actually have an event coming up at my roller skating rink here in Seattle called Southgate Roller Rink. And it is going to be a practical magic pride skate, which I'm so excited for, and I'm so excited for the movie.
Autumn: I know, girl. I am so happy. I dude, the movie!
ERIN: I'm like here's the deal. I have to say, like, I've seen this, like, give Millennial Woman a time right now because this is like the movie of our youth. And so
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: I am just living for this. I'm so excited. I really,
Autumn: Same.
ERIN: really fucking hope the movie's good. But I mean that cast is so wonderful. So I'm I'm really hoping that it's gonna be great. And I I mean, I don't really
Autumn: Yeah, I have a feeling it will be.
ERIN: care. It can be terrible. I don't give a shit. I'm in. Sho a hundred percent. I'm gonna go see the movie.
Autumn: I'll still watch it. I'll still watch it. And I'll still watch it every every fall. I watch that movie. In fact I already have watched it twice
ERIN: Yeah. All year round. I watch it all year round.
Autumn: since the other day. So I mean it
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: just I love it. It's just a comfort movie. I put it on all the time.
ERIN: It's a comfort movie for me too. I love it. I'm so excited. And yeah. We do. And also
Autumn: We need to go to Whitby Island together and take Lulu.
ERIN: I'm dressing up on that night. But I'm not gonna tell you which one. obviously I'm gonna be an Owen sister, so you'll have to figure it out. Don't guess, Autumn. So,
Autumn: I'm pretty sure I okay.
ERIN: we can post a picture. the day after the event, which is happening
Autumn: Yep.
ERIN: next week. And we'll let you know. But also I'm so excited for fucking Halloween because I don't even know what I'm gonna be yet and I usually try to do two costumes so I'm very excited for this.
Autumn: My favorite cells hagrid.
ERIN: yeah, that was a good one. But
Autumn: You did so good. and Madame Leota, you did a really good at that one too.
ERIN: Yeah, that was a really fun one. But you know, I just I love it so much. There's something fun about transforming and just being someone else that just makes it a great time. So
Autumn: She loves it. I it's like I hate dressing up. We're not the same. But
ERIN: Yeah. But I'm really good at it.
Autumn: I love watching her dress up. Like I think it's so fun.
ERIN: Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm excited for this season. And I believe Autumn is going to go to first tonight. And I think you also are leaning into this sort of
Autumn: Yes, ma'am.
ERIN: fall season vibe. And Autumn had a double check with me that
Autumn: I did.
ERIN: that I did not cover this case because at this point we've done a lot of fucking cases and yeah, it's a big one. It's in my my old time crime time.
Autumn: It is.
ERIN: And it very, very much is one that I've thought about doing for a long time. But you know, I don't love doing the hugely famous cases. That is a thing that it's totally Autumn's
Autumn: That's my jam.
ERIN: jam. And I don't usually do them because I like to find really weird ones that no one knows. But listen, people listen for the famous ones and then they get my cases. So surprise. So
Autumn: That's not true. They like your cases too.
ERIN: I hope we'll suck you in, and this is what brought you to our podcast is to s hear this particular case because it is extraordinarily famous as one of probably the
Autumn: Yes.
ERIN: top ten most famous cases ever, I would say.
Autumn: Yes. I would say that too.
ERIN: Yes. So and I really hope I really hope you
Autumn: So let's just hope I do it justice.
ERIN: I really hope you do the rhyme. Are you doing the rhyme in this?
Autumn: You'll find out.
ERIN: Ugh yes. Okay. I'm ready. Strap in guys. Here we go. Autumn. Hit it.
Autumn: There are some names in true crime history that almost everyone recognizes. Even if you don't know the actual story, you've probably heard the rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an axe. And honestly, that's where a lot of people think they know this case. A little girl, supposedly angry at her parents, grabs an axe and murders her father and stepmother. Forty whacks for one, forty one for another. Case closed. Ex You're welcome. Have a great day. Except
ERIN: That's it. It's over. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Autumn: almost none of that famous rhyme is accurate. Lizzie Borden did not receive a guilty verdict. There is no evidence that she gave anyone forty or forty one whacks. And perhaps most importantly, More than 130 years later, we still don't know definitively who murdered Andrew and Abby Borden inside their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. But Lizzie Borden became one of the most infamous women in American history anyway. And when you start looking beyond the nursery rhyme, the story becomes so much stranger. There was a deeply divided family. A wealthy but notoriously frugal father, a stepmother Lizzie reportedly had a complicated relationship with, conflicting statements, a suspiciously convenient fire, an attempted purchase of poison, a missing murder weapon, and two brutal murders committed in broad daylight inside a house where Lizzie was one of the only people present. So today, We're going back to August 4th, 1892, to a quiet home in Fall River, and to one of the most enduring questions in American true crime. Did Lizzie Borden really take an axe? Or did the real killer get away with murder? This is the story of Lizzie Borden. Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in eighteen sixty in Fall River, Massachusetts. And I found it really interesting that she had her father's middle name.
ERIN: That is interesting.
Autumn: Like very interesting, that that like tickled my brain a little. At the time, Fall River was a busy and growing industrial city, known for its textile mills and manufacturing. The Borden family was financially comfortable. Actually, Andrew Borden was a wealthy man. But there was something important about Andrew Borden. Despite having significant money and property, He had a reputation for being extremely frugal. The Borden family lived in a relatively modest home at 92 2nd Street. By the standards of what Andrew could afford, the home was not extravagant. The family also did not live with many of the conveniences that other wealthy families might have expected. And according to historical accounts, that became a source of tension within the household. Lizzie lived in the home with her older sister Emma, their father, Andrew, and their stepmother, Abby Borden. Lizzie and Emma's biological mother had died when the girls were young. Andrew later married Abby. Although Lizzie and Emma referred to Abby publicly as their stepmother, the relationship within the household was reportedly strained. There were disputes over money and property. There were disagreements about how Andrew handled his estate. There were tensions involving Abby's family. The Borden household, at least from the outside, may have appeared stable. But inside that house, there was clearly resentment. And just days before the murders, there had reportedly been serious conflict within the family. That doesn't prove murder. But it does establish something important. This was not necessarily the happy, peaceful household that people may have imagined. The morning of August 4th began like many other mornings in the Borden household. Andrew and Abby Borden were home. Lizzie was home. And the family's live in maid, Bridget Sullivan, was also there. Bridget was known within the household as Maggie, a common practice at the time, despite her actual name being Bridget. I don't understand that, but that is historically accurate.
ERIN: You mean that they just called all maids Maggie?
Autumn: I don't know if that's what they
ERIN: Or that Bridget is short for Maggie is short for Bridget. I am baffled by this.
Autumn: I think I was too and the and I went a little bit down a rabbit hole and from what I can understand is that they basically just call their like live in maids the same name. They never change it. So like if you had a Maggie to begin with, Bridget's now Maggie as well. They never learn the new person's name.
ERIN: Jesus fucking Christ. That's crazy.
Autumn: That's that's that is what I found, but I'm not entirely sure if it's like true true, but I thought it was interesting enough to write. So here's
ERIN: That is.
Autumn: it. So if you see someone named Predit and they are calling her Maggie, that's the same person. Yes.
ERIN: No, no, let her go. It's fine. Let's move on.
Autumn: previous days had been unusual. Several members of the household had been sick. There had been concerns that the family might have been poisoned. This detail would later become especially significant because Lizzie had reportedly attempted to purchase persic acid, a highly poisonous substance from a local pharmacy shortly before the murders. The pharmacist refused to sell it to her. Lizzie denied that she had attempted to purchase the poison. At the time, the story surrounding the family's illness and the alleged poison purchase created suspicion. But on the morning of August fourth, whatever had been happening inside the Borden home was about to become far more serious. Because sometime that morning, Abby Borden went upstairs, and somewhere. Followed her. Abby Borden was found upstairs in a guest's bedroom. She had been brutally attacked. The weapon used was believed to have been a sharp instrument, consistent with a hatchet or an axe. Abby's injuries were devastating. She had been struck repeatedly. historical reports have differed somewhat on the exact number of blows. But there is no evidence supporting the famous rhymes claim that she received forty one. What investigators did believe was clear was that the attack was violent and personal. Abby was found lying face down. She had been attacked from behind. And based on the nature of her injuries and the evidence at the scene, investigators believed she had been killed sometime before Andrew. Which meant something incredibly disturbing. After Abby was murdered, someone remained in or returned to the Borden home. And for a period of time, no one apparently realized that Abby's body was upstairs. Later that morning, Andrew Borden returned home. Bridget Sullivan led him inside. At some point, Andrew went into the sitting room and laid down on the sofa. Lizzie would later say that she had been outside in the barn. Then, sometime around late morning, Lizzie called out for Bridget. Her father, she said, had been killed. Bridget came downstairs, and there was Andrew Borden, still lying on the sofa. But now he was dead. Andrew had been brutally attacked with a sharp weapon. Unlike Abby, he had been lying down when he was attacked. The injuries to Andrew's face were horrific. He had been struck repeatedly. again, the number of wounds was nowhere near the famous forty blows suggested by the rhyme. But the murder was undeniably brutal. Immediately there was one enormous question. How could someone have entered the Borden home, murdered Abby upstairs, waited for Andrew to return, and murdered him downstairs? And how did they escape without anyone seeing them? Because by that point the list of people who had access to the home was very small. And Lizzie Borden was right there. Lizzie became the person who raised the alarm. She told Bridget that her father had been killed. She reportedly sent Bridget for help. Neighbors soon arrived. Police were contacted. And almost immediately the boarding house became the center of an investigation. But there was another problem. Lizzie's statements about where she had been and what she had been doing began to draw attention. She said she had been in the barn. But investigators questioned what exactly she had been doing there. Some of Lizzie's explanations changed or became inconsistent. At the same time, investigators began looking closely at everyone connected to the household. Could a business rival have wanted Andrew dead? Could someone have broken into the home? Could someone with a personal grudge have committed the murders? Andrew Borden had been successful in business, and he was not necessarily described as universally liked. But there was little evidence pointing to an outsider. As investigators searched for answers, suspicion increasingly focused on the person who had discovered Andrew's body. Lizzie. One of the biggest mysteries in the Lizzie Borden case is the murder weapon. Investigators searched the property. They examined axes and hatchets. Eventually they discovered a hatchet head in the basement. The handle was missing. The hatchet head appeared to have been deliberately altered or cleaned. Investigators believed it could have possibly it could have possibly been the murder weapon. But there was a major problem. They could not conclusively prove that it was. No weapon was ever definitively connected to the murders. No one found Lizzie standing over the victims. No one witnessed either murder. And there was no direct physical evidence that conclusively proved she had committed the crimes. That distinction would become incredibly important because suspicion and proof are not the same thing. Lizzie Borden was about to become the subject of one of the most sensational murder investigations in American history. In the days following the murders, people began to examine Lizzie's behavior. Some thought she appeared calm. Others believed her reactions were unusual. But this is one of those areas where we have to be very careful when looking back at historical cases. People respond to trauma differently. The idea that someone didn't act upset enough is not evidence of guilt. However, there were other circumstances that investigators found more concerning. Lizzie's statements were inconsistent. The alleged attempt to purchase poison raised questions. Then there was something that happened just days after the murders. Lizzie burned a dress. The dress belonged to her, and according to the explanations that followed, the dress had been stained with paint. But considering that her father and stepmother had just been murdered, with what investigators believed was a sharp weapon, the destruction of a dress naturally attracted attention.
ERIN: The other question f why would you burn a dress even if it was stained with paint? What's the point in burning it? That just seems y exactly.
Autumn: Right? Like why are we burning it? It's suspicious. It's not normal.
ERIN: Barry No
Autumn: Their questioning could it have contained blood? Was it simply an old dress that Lizzie had decided to destroy? Or was important evidence being burned? Again,
ERIN: Hmm.
Autumn: no one could prove that the dress had been connected to the murders, but investigators were watching Lizzie more closely than ever. Lizzie Borden was eventually arrested and charged with the murders of her father and stepmother. And this was huge. At the time, Lizzie was a respectable, unmarried woman from a prominent family. She was involved in church. She was known within the community. The idea that a woman like Lizzie could have brutally murdered her parents shocked the country. But the prosecution believed they had a compelling case. There was the family tension, the disputed statements, the alleged attempt to purchase poison, the opportunity, and the The burned dress. The fact that the murders happened inside Lizzie's own home also contributed. But the defense had something equally important, the lack of direct evidence. And when Lizzie's trial began in eighteen ninety three, the entire country was paying attention. Which I literally don't know how you do these cases from like the eighteen hundreds without
ERIN: Mm.
Autumn: it being as famous as this one is because shit's weird. Yes.
ERIN: No, it's weird and it's really hard to find.
Autumn: I'm like going I mean the whole Maggie Bridget thing, I'm like, that was weird, but I mean, that's just a small thing.
ERIN: No, it's a lot of research. Like and and the thing is is that
Autumn: I can only imagine
ERIN: there was no rules back then either with newspapers on what they printed being correct. So they would just print whatever they wanted to get attention.
Autumn: Right, sensational headlines. I had to dig and be like, that though, that's not accurate. no, that one's not I was like
ERIN: Yes. Yeah, no, it's so hard.
Autumn: So then I was confused. I'm like, if I say this, is this right or is that just a made up story in the newspaper?
ERIN: I know. It's crazy. It's so hard the old the older cases and
Autumn: So hard.
ERIN: there's no rules with those newspapers and they could do whatever they wanted. So yeah.
Autumn: Yes, I was very it was very much I was like, damn, Erin has a hard but but you love it.
ERIN: Yep, she does. I love it. I love it.
Autumn: So now we're at the trials. Lizzie's trial became a media sensation. Newspapers covered every detail. Not accurately, let's just say that.
ERIN: Let's say it.
Autumn: People formed opinions about her guilt before the trial was even over. And the case had something that still captures public attention today. A wealthy family, a gruesome double murder, a female suspect. And a mystery that seemed almost impossible to solve. The prosecution had to convince the jury that Lizzie had killed Andrew and Abby. But they faced serious problems. There was no eyewitnesses, there was no confession, there was no murder weapon conclusively tied to Lizzie, and much of the evidence against her was circumstantial. The alleged poison purchase became an important issue. But the prosecution's ability to use that information was limited. Other testimony also faced challenges. And Lizzie's offense team successfully argued that the evidence simply did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had committed the murders. The trial lasted only about two weeks, and then the jury was given the case. They deliberated for approximately an hour and a half. And the decision was clear. Lizzie Borden was acquitted. Not guilty. She walked free. But being found not guilty did not mean the public believed she was innocent. And for Lizzie, the trial may have been over, but the suspicion would follow her for the rest of her life. After her acquittal, Lizzie and her sister Emma left the Second Street home. They moved into a much larger house in Fall River. Lizzie even changed the name of the home to Maplecroft. It was, in many ways, the kind of lifestyle that had reportedly been a point of tension between the sisters and their father. Lizzie also began using the name Lizbeth, but the years following the trial were not peaceful. Lizzie and Emma eventually became estranged. The exact reasons for their falling out have been debated. And Emma eventually moved out. The sisters who had been extremely close for most of their lives never reconciled. Lizzie lived in Fall River until her death in nineteen twenty seven. Emma died just days later. And with their deaths, whatever secrets they may have known went with them. Lizzie was never convicted, and And no one else was ever convicted for the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. So did Lizzie do it? And that is the question. The one people have been asking for more than a century. Did Lizzie Borden murder her father and stepmother? Honestly, we don't know. And I think that's what makes this case so fascinating. There are absolutely reasons to suspect Lizzie. She was in the house, her statements raised questions, there were reported tensions within the family, the alleged attempt to purchase poison was suspicious, and the burning of the dress shortly after the murders is difficult to ignore. The prosecution could not prove that Lizzie committed the murders. There were also questions about whether someone else could have entered the home. There were theories involving Andrew's business dealings, the possibility of an unknown intruder, and other individuals who had contact with the family. Over the years, countless theories have emerged. Some believe Lizzie acted alone. Others believe she may have had help. Some believe someone else committed the murders entirely. And because the crime scene investigation of 1892 was nothing like it would be today, there are questions that are simply never going to be answered. Modern DNA testing didn't exist. Crime scene preservation was far more limited. Forensic science was in its infancy. Evidence that might have answered the question forever could have been mishandled. destroyed or never collected in the first place. So today we are left with a story full of suspicion, but without certainty. Perhaps the strangest part of this entire story is what happened to Lizzie's name: the nursery rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an ax. Most people know it. And for generations that rhyme has essentially served as Lizzie Borden's unofficial verdict. The court found her not guilty, but popular culture found her guilty. The rhyme turned a complicated and unresolved murder case into a simple story. Lizzie, the axe, 40 wax. And the idea that everyone knows what happened. But we don't. The truth is we may never know who killed Andrew and Abby Borden. And that is the part of this story that I think gets lost. Two people were brutally murdered. Their killer was never identified with certainty. And instead, the case became a legend, a rhyme, a ghost story, a piece of American folklore. Lizzie Borden became the center of it all. Maybe she was a cold-blooded murderer who managed to outsmart the justice system. Maybe she was an innocent woman who spent the rest of her life being judged for crimes she didn't commit. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe there was more happening inside that house than anyone ever knew. But whatever happened on August 4th, 1892, one thing is undeniable. The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden remain unsolved. And more than a century later, Lizzie Borden is still standing at the center of one of America's most infamous mysteries. So, did Lizzie Borden really take an axe? Maybe, but history can't prove it, and that's why we're still talking about her today. Because sometimes the most famous person in a murder case isn't necessarily the killer. Sometimes they're just the person everyone decided to blame. And in this case of Lizzie Borden, the jury said not guilty, but history still hasn't made up its mind. My sources were the Fall River Historical Society which The Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus Lizzie A. Borden. The official transcript of the trial of Lizzie A. Borden, which was really interesting, I have to admit, to read that. the preliminary hearing in the Borden case, Wikipedia, Unsolved Mysteries, and the Lizzie Andrew Borden primary source documents in the research archive.
ERIN: Yeah, that's a it's a big case. And I what what is your opinion, Autumn?
Autumn: My opinion is that she did kill them. I think she did.
ERIN: I also
Autumn: What is your opinion?
ERIN: agree with that because there's no one else around. I mean, granted, it could have happened. You would have heard screaming. You would have like there would have
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: been something if she was just in the barn, right? So
Autumn: Right.
ERIN: I just feel like yeah, and the tensions in the house, the burned dress, like all of those things add up. It does make me go, mmm, she might have done it. But
Autumn: Mm-hmm. That's how I feel.
ERIN: yeah, I've always thought that.
Autumn: And the the part that all I mean this has nothing to do with if she was guilty or guilty or not, but she was a sp a sp they called her spinster. She was a lonely spinster and
ERIN: Sure.
Autumn: like that's why she killed him. I'm like, no, I kind of feel like she was daddy's favorite and all the evidence points that way. Like she was daddy's favorite. She was really close to him. And I think that she disliked her stepmother
ERIN: Yep.
Autumn: and I think that she killed her stepmother and then once she did that she knew she had to kill her father because he couldn't bear to know that she did such a thing.
ERIN: Yeah. or or maybe like in the heat of the moment, he's like, Stop or whatever, and she just gave him
Autumn: Yeah, because I don't know if that's the the situation. I don't know if he ever knew that Abby was murdered.
ERIN: Nobody knows.
Autumn: Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think that he knew that Abby was murdered. I because he was
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: like sitting on the sofa, right? Like relaxing. So I I think Yeah,
ERIN: That's true. That's true. It makes you think that he was first, yeah.
Autumn: mm, I think she I I think the way Yeah,
ERIN: Lack of forensics is really difficult.
Autumn: the forensic so the forensics. state, but we can't be certain for this because it's so old. The forensic state
ERIN: Sure.
Autumn: that Abby died first. Like the the rate of decomposition,
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: they say she was the first one to die. My theory is that she did kill her stepmother and then
ERIN: Mm-hmm.
Autumn: when her father came home, she was overcome with guilt and was like, well I gotta do him in too because she also at that point realized he probably would be able to know that she did it.
ERIN: Yeah, I mean yes.
Autumn: And she couldn't bear for him to like look at her that way, is how I feel that that happened.
ERIN: That could very well be. It is really hard when you don't have actual forensics. You know, there was no
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: no one studied the body other than like some random people, right?
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: And it's really hard to get all of the details right. But Autumn, I'm gonna blow your fucking mind. Are you ready?
Autumn: I'm ready.
ERIN: Because our cases are shockingly similar.
Autumn: Okay, that's weird.
ERIN: Not only are we close by each other, as far as I mine is in a small town in Connecticut that is right next to Massachusetts. That literally part of my story is that people from Massachusetts would come to this town. also my case is titled The Witch, the Axe and the Gallows. So we have the same murder weapon. Yeah.
Autumn: shit. Okay, I'm ready. I wanna hear it now.
ERIN: All right. There is even more connections, but if I start talking about it, then I'll give everything away. So we're not gonna do
Autumn: Yes.
ERIN: that.
Autumn: Let me know. Tell me it now.
ERIN: Okay, here we go. This is The Witch, The Axe, and the Gallows, The Murder of Sarah Goss. Barkhamstead, Connecticut, 1785. Murder is never justified. Sometimes understanding the circumstances can help see what motivated a killer to kill. Maybe it has to do with jealousy, money, rage, or revenge. And then there are murders that begin somewhere inside the mind of a person committing them. A place where the rules of reality have begun to change. In February of 1785, in a small Connecticut town of Barkhamstead, Thomas Goss killed his wife Sarah with an ax. He did not deny killing her, he did not attempt to construct an elaborate alibi. He did not claim that someone else had done it. Instead, he told authorities that he had killed Sarah because he believed she was a witch. This is the story of Thomas Goss, Saragos, and a murder that sits at a strange intersection of colonial religion, mental illness, superstition, family violence, and an American legal system still struggling with what to do with someone who committed a terrible act while apparently detached from reality. 1785 Barkhamstead was not the town we would recognize today. It was a rural Connecticut. Community incorporated only a few years earlier, surrounded by forests, hills, farms, and roads connecting the region's developing iron industry. Thomas Goss had arrived there decades before the murder. In September of 1762, Simon Baxter conveyed land to Thomas Goss near the Heartland town line. Goss eventually built a house there, and by the mid-1760s, he was operating a tavern. The location was significant. The road near his property connected the iron producing region around Salisbury with routes towards Springfield, Massachusetts. See, we were close. New
Autumn: So close.
ERIN: England axe murders, that's what I'm saying. The road may have looked like a little more than a rough trail by modern standards, But in eighteenth century Connecticut, it carried travelers, goods, and people. Thomas Goss's tavern sat right along that route, so he had a lot of people coming by. For years it was his home and his business. Historical accounts later described it as one of the earliest taverns in Barkhamstead, and for a long time there was nothing about Thomas Goss that suggested he would eventually become a murderer. Me, he's interacting with all these people all the time. You'd think that something would stand out at that point, right? I want
Autumn: One hundred percent.
ERIN: yeah, I want to explain more about Thomas and where he came from. His life was particularly sad, so get ready for this. Thomas was born January 6th, 1734, in Brookfield, Massachusetts. He was the son of Philip Goss and Kaziah Cooley. His early life wasn't especially easy. His father died when Thomas was still a child. His mother died a few years later. Thomas was sent to live with other people in Granville, Massachusetts, and as an adult he became familiar with military service because he served during the French and Indian War and later during the American Revolution. There were losses in his personal life as well. Thomas married Eunice Bancroft in Granville in 1758. They had children, several children, and some of those children died very young. Some of the records surrounding them are incomplete. And then Eunice, his first wife, appears to have died at some point before Thomas remarries in 1777. His second wife was Sarah Balcombe. She was born 1756 in Mansfield, Connecticut. She was a widower, and she had a daughter. You can understand why. They might be attracted to each other as they were both widowers and they also had children.
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: So on May 29th, 1777, Sarah Balcombe Darby married Thomas Goss in Barkhemstead. She became the stepmother to Thomas's surviving children, and together Thomas and Sarah also had children of their own. By the beginning of 1785, Thomas Goss was a husband, a father, a tavern keeper, a landowner. And a man who had lived through decades of enormous change. He had seen colonial America. He lived through the revolution. And he was living in a country that had just become independent. But something was changing inside Thomas Goss, and people were beginning to notice. Later histories of Barkhamstead described Thomas Goss as becoming increasingly disturbed during this period leading up to the murder. One account described him as being. At first harmless, eventually raving. And we need to be careful with language like this because people did not have modern psychiatric diagnoses. There were no modern understanding of psychosis or psychiatric hospitals. There's no system for distinguishing a person experiencing a severe mental disorder from someone who was simply considered eccentric, troublesome, blasphemous, or dangerous. They were still dissecting people to see how our bodies worked and treating with leeches, lobotomies, and dangerous drugs. I
Autumn: Mm.
ERIN: want to preface this because when I read the descriptions of Thomas Goss, we will be looking backward through two different lenses. The first is the language of the eighteenth century. The second is the language of people writing about him decades and even centuries later. So We should not diagnose Thomas Goss from a distance. We don't have medical records, we don't have evaluations, and we don't have his private journals. What we do have are descriptions of his behavior, and those descriptions become increasingly strange. People who knew Goss reportedly noticed changes in him about 1784. He became obsessed with religion in a way that frightened the people around him. He spoke about supernatural forces. He believed that people around him were all involved in conspiracies. And eventually he focused and settled on his wife. Sarah simply wasn't his wife anymore. In Thomas' mind, she had become something else. A witch. This is where this story gets complicated Witchcraft was deeply embedded in colonial New England culture. Connecticut had its own history of witchcraft prosecutions. Earlier Connecticut laws were treated, had treated witchcraft as a capital offense. Biblical language was used to justify those laws, and they were explicit. The famous phrase from Exodus, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Had been taken very seriously by generations of New England Christians. But by 1785, Connecticut was no longer conducting the kind of witch trials associated with the 17th century. The Salem witch trials had been over for nearly 100 years at this point. Yet the idea that supernatural evil could exist in the world had not simply disappeared. And Thomas Goss apparently believed that evil had entered his own home. According to later accounts, Thomas believed that Sarah was part of a group of witches, a coven. He also believed that she and others were conspiring against him. His thinking became increasingly religious and increasingly paranoid. And eventually he became convinced that Sarah had intended to kill him. He later told authorities that she had threatened his life. He claimed that the people around her were all involved. And he believed he was acting in self-defense. But the story Thomas eventually told was stranger than that. He didn't simply believe Sarah wanted him dead, he believed that supernatural forces were also involved. And he believed that God had given him a role in a cosmic struggle between good and evil. At some point, according to historical accounts, Thomas began referring to himself as the second Lamb of God. He believed he had a special religious purpose. He spoke of angels. He spoke of the devil. And he believed he was surrounded by forces that other people couldn't see. Imagine living in Barkhamstead in 1785. Never mind it all sounds like it sucks. Just kidding. There are no streetlights, no telephones, no police department. And your neighbors live a considerable distance away. Your world is mostly your household, your farm, your church, your neighbors, and the roads that and the roads that connect you to the next town. And inside one of those homes, a man is becoming convinced his wife is a witch and his children are sleeping under the same roof. The exact sequence of events inside the goss home is difficult to reconstruct. There's no surviving police report. In any sort of modern sense. There's no complete trial transcripts available to us. The surviving court documents and newspaper reports give us a piece of what happened, and Thomas himself eventually supplied additional details. What we know is during the night of February 16, 1785, or maybe into the early morning of February seventeenth, Thomas Goss killed his wife. Sarah was in the house, the children were there as well. The murder weapon was an axe. The formal inquest conducted the following day documented multiple blows to Sarah's head. The jury described one blow to the forehead above the left eye and the additional blows to the side of the head, with injuries extending through the ear and into the brain.
Autumn: My gosh.
ERIN: The inquest concluded that Sarah had been murdered, and Thomas Goss confessed. But Thomas didn't confess in the way that we expected. He didn't simply say, I became angry, I lost control, I killed my wife. Instead, his explanation came from the world that he believed he was living in. Sarah, in his mind, was this dangerous witch, and he believed he was acting against an enemy. There are later accounts claiming that Thomas, and this part is fucking gross, smeared Sarah's blood on the bodies of his sleeping children in bed. And that detail appears
Autumn: Okay.
ERIN: in later historical retellings. but because it's not as firmly documented as the other court material that I have, as the axe wounds and the confession, I'm treating that as a later reported detail rather than an established fact. What we can establish is that Thomas killed Sarah while their kids were in the home. And afterward, he did something that seems almost impossible to reconcile with the enormity of what he did. He went to a neighbor, told them what happened. The murder was discovered quickly. A local constable, Moses Shepherd, was involved. Then a group of twelve men were assembled to examine the body. This was called the inquest. These were just people in the community. Remember, we don't have modern crime detectives or anything. There's not a crime scene that's roped off. There's no team of detectives in gloves or protective clothing. It's just a group of local men summoned under the law to look at the body and determine what happened. Dr. Timothy Miller was one of the people involved in the inquest. The men examined Sarah's body. They observed her wounds, and Thomas Goss was apparently present during the time, and he was questioned. The verdict of the inquest is one of the most important surviving pieces of evidence in this case. The jurors concluded that Sarah Goss had been murdered. They identified Thomas as her killer. They also noticed that he c they also noted that he confessed in front of them. Thomas Goss was officially accused of murder. The legal machinery moved swiftly. Moses Shepard, the constable, filed a formal complaint. But the language on the document is stark. Thomas Goss was accused of willy willfully killing and murdering his wife with malice and forethought. Basically premeditated murder. Thomas was brought before the Justice of the Peace, Joseph Wilder, and there he entered a plea of not guilty. That may sound strange because he just confessed to a group of twelve men standing in the room with his wife's dead body, but It wasn't unusual for a person to deny legal guilt even when the physical act itself was not in dispute. And in Thomas's case, the coming trial would revolve around something more complicated than whether or not he had killed Sarah. The question would become what was happening inside Thomas Goss's mind when he did it. Now we're gonna talk about the local justice of the peace, Joseph Wilder. He was apparently respected in the community and had been employed. had been appointed to the position repeatedly. And this case became the most famous criminal matter associated with him. Wilder understood something that Thomas Goss's neighbors may not have understood. He could not simply prosecute this murder case himself. The charge was too serious. So Thomas was sent to the county jail in Lichfield. The Justice of the Peace's Court it essentially said that the case was beyond its jurisdiction. Thomas would remain in custody until the Superior Court would l could hear the matter. While Thomas waited for the trial, the story spread. Newspapers picked it up. The American Mercury was the first. The Hampshire Herald followed soon afterward, and the Connecticut Current published its own report. The murder was exactly the sort of story that 18th century newspapers could turn into a sensation. And Thomas's behavior made the story even more compelling. He was not described as a murderer. He was described as a man who believed his wife was a witch. And this is where we have to resist the temptation to turn Thomas Goss into a Halloween character. Because I want him to be. But we're not doing that.
Autumn: Okay.
ERIN: The easy version of this story is a disturbed man thinks his wife is a witch, he murders her, speaks of supernatural and religion, but the actual history is much more unsettling because Thomas was experiencing some form of severe psychosis. he may genuinely have believed what he was saying. That doesn't make the murder less horrifying, it doesn't make Sarah less dead, and it certainly doesn't erase the terror that her children experienced. But it does raise a difficult question. What should a legal system do when a person commits a murder while apparently living in a completely different reality? In 1785, Connecticut had no answers. And the Goss case would put that problem directly in front of a jury. Like I said before, Thomas Goss remained in jail for months. The Superior Court would eventually hear his case, and In July, subpoenas were issued for witnesses. Among the people were Samuel Banning, James Austin, Amos Case, Moses Shepherd, Seth Smith, and Joseph Gilbert. John Canfield was involved as the prosecutor, and Thomas was represented by Uriah Tracy and Colonel Jesse Root. The trial took place in August, and according to the newspaper accounts preserved by the Goss Family Research, the proceedings were presented as very serious and orderly. was selected. Witnesses were examined. The prosecution and defense argued over the evidence. The question of Thomas's mental state was central. The defense argued. That the murder had come from insanity rather than deliberate malice. The prosecution, however, had physical evidence. Thomas killed his wife, and his own words demonstrated that he had understood, at least in some sense, what he had done. The jury ultimately found him guilty. The verdict was not merely murder. It was described as will willful and premeditated murder. And yet there's something fascinating. In the newspaper's description of the trial. The account acknowledged the apparent insanity. People surrounding the case even appear to have recognized that Thomas's mental condition was unusual. The jury didn't simply believe that it excused him from the responsibility, though. this distinction is critical. Thomas could be insane in the ordinary meaning of the word and still be legally guilty. There's not yet modern framework for a psychiatric diagnosis, competency evaluations, diminished capacity, or carefully defined insanity standards. The law was so much more primitive, and the sentence was death. On August 11th, Judge Richard Law formerly sentenced Thomas. He would be taken from jail to the place of execution and hanged by the neck until dead. According to the surviving accounts, He continued to express bizarre religious beliefs. One of the remarkable records that we have comes from questions reportedly put to Thomas near the end of his life, and those question answers were printed in newspapers. They give us a rare glimpse into the mind of this condemned man. He was asked whether he remembered what had happened. He says yes. He was asked whether Sarah had spoken to him. Before the fatal blows. According to the account, Thomas said that she asked whether he intended to kill her. He then supplied religious explanations involving Beelzebub and Mercy. He was asked about the events leading into the murder. Thomas claimed that he had repeatedly gotten up and back down in bed that night, dressing and undressing himself several times. So he was clearly. unrestful and obviously unwell. Thomas was also asked whether he had intended to hide Sarah's body. His answer was horrifying. He said that he believed
Autumn: god.
ERIN: yeah, Autumn. He said that he believed his wife and her associates had planned to kill him. He described the witches and wizard he described witches and wizards. He spoke of a hidden place in the cellar. He talked about Cutting Sarah's body apart and concealing it. And then he said that he abandoned that plan. And again, we don't need to believe the supernatural ex explanation, but we do have
Autumn: Right.
ERIN: to we do have to know that his own words that he was telling us are what he believed. And this part gets me because he was asked about the baby who had been in the bed.
Autumn: Mm, okay.
ERIN: Thomas reportedly answered that the devil had urged him to kill the child, but an angel had commanded him not to, so he left the child alone. That statement is one of the most disturbing pieces of this surviving account because it suggests that Thomas's delusions were not confined to Sarah. His children had entered this supernatural battle that he believed was taking place around him. and in his mind, whether they lived or died was being decided by competing supernatural forces. Then there's another strange layer, and frankly, I think it is a very odd questi line of questioning, in my opinion, but they asked Thomas whether he had been jealous of Sarah. He said yes. He claimed that he had become convinced that she had been involved with other men. He believed some of her acquaintances had been involved in what he considered to be illicit relations with her. And some of the people that he accused eventually became witnesses against him at trial. That part sits with me a minute because I'm like, wait a minute, are you just worried that she's cheating on you? you making all this up, but I don't believe that. I think he really was delusional. But these answers show us that Thomas's beliefs were not one single fixed delusion. It wasn't just she's a witch. It was religion, witchcraft, paranoia, jealousy, and the fear that he was going to be murdered. There was a belief in supernatural enemies, And there was a conviction that he had some kind of divine role. All of these ideas seem to have been woven together, and he was creating a an explanation of his world. Unfortunately for Sarah she was at the center of it. There is a temptation when looking at an eighteenth century case to say if this happened today, everything would be different. And maybe. But we shouldn't oversimplify that either. Modern law does recognize mental illness as relevant to criminal responsibility, but mental illness does not automatically mean that someone is legally insane. A
Autumn: Mm.
ERIN: person can have a serious mental disorder and be found to be criminally responsible. The legal question is much narrower. Did the person's mental condition meet the legal standard for insanity or otherwise prevent the prosecution from proving The required mental state. In Thomas Goss's time, the law had nothing resembling today's system. And the very concept of insanity as a legal defense was still very much developing. There's also another problem with this story. Sarah Goss is often reduced to one single sentence. Thomas Goss killed his wife because he believed she was a witch, but Sarah was a real person. And she was a person before she became a murder victim. But Sarah's murder did not end with her death. There were also children in the household. Thomas and Sarah's children, also the children from their previous lives. They were all very young. Jemima was about seven, Jesse was five, the younger children were even smaller. Thomas's surviving children from his first marriage were very much affected. The records show that the children were eventually placed with different families. Jemima and some of the other children were later assigned guardians. Jesse was sent to live with relatives in Norfolk. Judith Thomas's daughter from his first marriage was placed with the Wilder family. And the surviving records show that the aftermath of Sarah's murder continued for years. The children were not simply returned to some version of normal life after Thomas was arrested. Their family had been destroyed, their mother was dead, their father was in jail awaiting execution, and the children were scattered. They had to grow up carrying a story that would follow them long after 1785. Thomas would spend months after his conviction in the Lichfield Lichfield Jail, where his execution would take place. The town had established an execution site known as Gallows Hill. Executions At this time, we were public. A condemned person would be marched through town towards the gallows. Crowds would gather, ministers would preach, and the condemned would speak. Executions were understood by many people to be public moral lessons. By the time the execution approached, Thomas had become notorious. He wasn't simply a man convicted of killing his wife, he was the man who believed in witches and wizards. Newspapers had repeated the story. The public knew about his bizarre beliefs, and people gathered to witness this final scene. The execution date is one of those little historical mysteries. Some sources give november seventh, seventeen eighty-five, but surviving Connecticut current material Described by the Lichfield Historical Society says Thomas Goss was executed on November ninth. So rather than pretending that this record is perfectly clean, this is one of those places where surviving re surviving sources disagree. What I can confidently say is that Thomas Goss was executed in Lichfield in November of seventeen eighty five. I just want to be very clear about that. The night before his executions, Sheriff Lind Lord reportedly hired guards to watch Thomas. A minister, Judah Champion, preached a special service, and Thomas refused to attend. According to later accounts, He said that God had forbidden him from participating. Instead, he took a nap and then he ate lunch. At noon, Thomas was taken towards the gallows. Accounts say that he appeared calm. There was no dramatic struggle, no last-minute confessions. He just walked towards the gallows. And when he reached the platform, he knelt and prayed, eventually allowing the minister to pray with him. Then Thomas was permitted to To address the crowd of spectators. And what did he talk about? Morality. He reportedly told all of the people gathered about the importance of living morally and raising your children properly. If that alone doesn't address,
Autumn: Of course he did.
ERIN: if that alone does not address his mental state, this man had been convicted of murdering his wife brutally with an axe and spoke about killing his baby because the devil told him to. And he had spent months insisting that his actions had been justified by supernatural forces. And now standing beneath a noose, he's giving moral advice to the crowd. Then comes a very strange statement that he says. Thomas declares that he had never murdered anyone except his wife, which is justified because, you know, God, the devil, and all of that. And then he believed that the sheriff could not hang him, that God would intervene.
Autumn: okay.
ERIN: He was obviously wrong. The execution was carried out, and Thomas Goss died in the gallows. And the world that he inhabited, the witches, the angels, the devils, the conspiracies, and the divine mission died with him. There is something especially haunting about a case like this because we can see the point where two realities collided Thomas's reality and frankly, everyone else's. And somewhere between those two realities was a family that would never be whole again. My sources were the Connecticut Current, the Weekly Intelligencer, the Hit Litchfield Historical Society Archives, the Goss Family Records, Arrest and Complaint Documents, Connecticut History, Hidden in Plain Sight, and the Connecticut General Assembly.
Autumn: Wow.
ERIN: Two New England Axe Murders.
Autumn: Can you even?
ERIN: I cannot even. I was just shocked when you asked me if I had covered Lizzie Borden and I was like, I haven't and then I was just like, Shut, I'm doing an ex murderer too. Similar area, not the same time
Autumn: Ha
ERIN: period, but I was just like, my God.
Autumn: I know, I I'd like done so much research and I've heard it before obviously on podcasts
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: and I'm like, was it my own podcast that I heard it on? Couldn't remember.
ERIN: Right. At this point, honestly, there's been so many times where especially in research, I see so many of similar cases when I'm trying
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: to find, you know, ones to do and I'm like, Wait, did I do that one or just did I do the research on it? 'Cause sometimes I'll start deep diving one and I'm like, No, no, no, I don't want to do that one, I'll do a different one. And so I've done part of the research and then I'm like, shit, no, I did do that one. Or I haven't done and I have to go through all of our fucking episodes to find out whether or not I had covered that case.
Autumn: Mm. To find out. Yes.
ERIN: Yeah. Because I seriously don't know. Sometimes I'm like, wait, I swear I did
Autumn: It's I mean, I
ERIN: it.
Autumn: yeah, my memory's not the best, so I mean, well it is, but not anymore. Like
ERIN: Yeah.
Autumn: we've done so many I can't remember now.
ERIN: We have done so many. It's kind of crazy. But I am going to stay on the spooky train. I know that that wasn't really spooky with the witches, but it was still.
Autumn: Are you gonna do the one I sent you?
ERIN: maybe. We will see. I might do that one.
Autumn: That one was creepy. I liked the I was like, that's right up Aaron's alley.
ERIN: No, I might do that one closer to October.
Autumn: Halloween.
ERIN: Yes. But I am very excited for all the fall stuff. I'm so excited to get into these like
Autumn: Same C is
ERIN: kind of paranormal ish cases. I love the ones that, you know, where people, especially in that older time or even like what we're talking about now, you know, I think that it's interesting how people justified changes in things. You know, like the weather changed and the crop died. Well, clearly that's because autumn is a witch.
Autumn: Mm-hmm. Accurate facts.
ERIN: you know, that person was sick. She healed one person with herbs. And then, you know, I actually was reading this really great book that I just finished called Wayward. It's by Amelia Hart. ten out of ten. Recommend if you want to if you are reading any fiction books that you like, that one is was fucking great. Anyways, in it, one I'm not giving anything away either. One of the people was she was accused of being a witch because she was an herbalist essentially and a healer and she was healing people and then she got called in to help heal this one woman after the local doctor had treated her with leeches and that was not helping her at all and she was going to die of scarlet fever and the lady was brought in a little too late and the woman died and they were like, it's because she's a witch. She killed her. But she was literally the only person giving her something to save her. You know, so I mean back
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: then y that's how they would justify, well, she died, so it was the witch. Now let's go dunk her underwater and see if she dies. Well, yeah, she's gonna drown if you hold her underwater.
Autumn: Right. If you hold her underwater.
ERIN: You know, or they would put God, some of the things they did, they put like the st the stones on
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: their body and then like stand on them and shit. It was just awful what they did to women back
Autumn: Awful.
ERIN: then. But it's just crazy how people justify changes back then and it was always blamed on someone because it couldn't be, you know, a catastrophic storm or whatever. It had to be something nefarious. I also think they maybe they were bored. I don't know. Anyways, that was my case this week. We hope you enjoyed all of the wax that we told you about. So
Autumn: Mm-hmm.
ERIN: much axe murdering. we will be back next week. Episodes are always out on Tuesdays. Thank you again for listening to us. We appreciate all of you. Please share with your friends and family. Maybe not your parents after this one.
Autumn: Okay.
ERIN: but anyways, we'll be back again next week. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Autumn: Bye.
