‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’: What Netflix changed about the real Lizzie Borden case

Netflix’s ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ has brought one of the most enduring mysteries in American true crime back into the spotlight, but the eight-episode series mixes documented history with substantial fictionalization.

The fourth installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s ‘Monster’ anthology stars Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden, Vicky Krieps as Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden and Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden. The series was released on Netflix on September 17 and drew 12.1 million views globally in its first week, topping Netflix’s English-language TV chart for September 14–20.

At the center of the story is a real crime that remains unresolved more than 130 years later.

What really happened?

On August 4, 1892, Andrew Borden and his second wife, Abby Borden, were found dead inside their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew had suffered 11 blows and Abby 19, according to the historical record cited by Netflix. The popular nursery rhyme that says Lizzie gave her stepmother 40 blows and her father 41 is therefore not an accurate account of the number of wounds.

Lizzie, then 32, lived in the house and became the principal suspect. She was arrested on August 11, 1892. Her trial began in New Bedford on June 5, 1893, and on June 20 a jury found her not guilty. No one else was ultimately convicted of the murders.

The acquittal did not establish that Lizzie was innocent in a historical sense. It established that the prosecution had not proved her guilty beyond the legal standard required at the trial. The case remains officially unresolved, and the question of whether Lizzie committed the murders has never been definitively answered.

The real Sullivan was an Irish immigrant who worked as the Bordens’ live-in maid and became an important witness in the case. Her testimony placed Lizzie at the house around the time of the murders, but Sullivan also testified that she had never witnessed hostility between Lizzie and Abby. Lizzie was ultimately acquitted.

That distinction is important: Bridget Sullivan was real; “Maggie” as Lizzie’s romantic partner and murder accomplice is a fictional construction.

The family tensions were real, but the series intensifies them

There were documented tensions within the Borden family, particularly over money.

Lizzie and Emma objected after their father purchased a house for Abby’s half-sister and put it in Abby’s name. Lizzie later testified that the dispute contributed to her decision to stop calling her stepmother “Mother” and instead use “Mrs. Borden.”

But the evidence does not establish the kind of systematic cruelty portrayed in the series.

Sullivan, who worked inside the home, testified that she had never heard Lizzie and Abby raise their voices at one another. Other witnesses described tensions, but the historical record contains conflicting accounts rather than a clear picture of an abusive household.

The show therefore takes a real source of family conflict and expands it into a much more explicit explanation for the eventual violence.

The prussic acid episode has a historical basis — but the series changes it

One of the more interesting examples of fact being transformed into drama concerns prussic acid, an extremely poisonous substance.

Lizzie did attempt to purchase prussic acid from a drugstore shortly before the murders. Investigators considered the episode suspicious, but it was not admitted as evidence at her trial.

The series turns that episode into a much more dramatic failed poisoning attempt involving Andrew and Abby becoming violently ill after eating spoiled oysters. Netflix acknowledges that this is one of the places where the historical material has been substantially altered.

So the attempt to obtain the poison is historical; the depicted poisoning episode is dramatized.

Did Lizzie burn a bloody dress?

The dress is another example where the historical record is more complicated than the series suggests.

A friend, Alice Russell, testified about Lizzie burning a dress after the murders. But Emma Borden disputed the implication that the dress was destroyed to conceal blood, saying it was an old, dirty and faded dress that Lizzie wanted to get rid of.

Netflix says the series presents Russell’s account as fact and therefore simplifies a disputed piece of evidence.

Nance O’Neil was real — but she did not coach Lizzie through the trial

Jessica Barden plays actor Nance O’Neil, who becomes an important figure in the later part of the series.

O’Neil really did become friends with Lizzie, but the timing is dramatically different.

Lizzie met O’Neil in 1904, more than a decade after her acquittal. The series, however, uses O’Neil as a figure who helps Lizzie navigate her murder trial.

The real Lizzie did cultivate a carefully controlled public image during her trial, but her lawyers—not O’Neil—were responsible for guiding her defense strategy. Lizzie did not testify in her own defense.

The friendship itself is historical. The courtroom role given to O’Neil is not.

What about Lizzie and Nance being lovers?

The historical relationship between Lizzie and O’Neil has long generated speculation.

The two women became close after meeting in 1904, and their friendship was followed by rumors about the nature of their relationship. Emma moved out of the sisters’ home in 1905, and later accounts speculated that O’Neil or Lizzie’s social life might have contributed to the estrangement. Emma herself never publicly explained the full reason for leaving.

There is not enough historical evidence to establish that Lizzie and O’Neil were lovers.

Interestingly, the Netflix series does not simply turn that speculation into an explicit romance. Instead, it uses the relationship as part of its broader exploration of Lizzie’s isolation and life after the trial.

The series adds another murder

One of the clearest fictional additions is the killing of Bertha Manchester.

In ‘Monster’, Manchester becomes part of Lizzie and Maggie’s story and effectively serves as an earlier experiment in violence.

The real Bertha Manchester was also murdered, but the circumstances were different. Her killing occurred after Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered and shortly before Lizzie’s trial. A Portuguese immigrant, Jose Correa de Mello, was falsely convicted of the crime. Netflix says the series changes the chronology and purpose of Manchester’s murder.

Aileen Wuornos is another major fictional connection

Sarah Paulson appears in the series as Aileen Wuornos, the American serial killer whose crimes occurred almost a century after the Borden murders.

Wuornos is a real person and her crimes are historical. The connection between her and Lizzie Borden, however, is largely a creation of the series.

‘Monster’ presents Wuornos as being connected to the Borden story and suggests a lineage between the two women as examples of female violence and rage. Netflix acknowledges that there is no evidence the real Wuornos was fixated on the Borden murders.

This is therefore best understood as a thematic device rather than a documented historical connection.

What remains unknown?

Perhaps the most important fact about the Borden case is also the simplest: we do not know who killed Andrew and Abby Borden.

Lizzie was accused, arrested and tried. She was acquitted. The evidence presented against her was largely circumstantial, and significant physical evidence tying her to the killings was absent. Her inquest testimony was excluded from the trial, and she did not testify in her own defense.

Alternative suspects have been proposed over the years, including Lizzie’s maternal uncle John Morse and other people connected to the family. None was convicted of the murders.

That uncertainty is precisely what allows ‘Monster’ to construct its own answer.

The show does not merely recreate the evidence; it imagines what might have happened behind closed doors and supplies motives, relationships and connections that the surviving historical record cannot establish.

Fact versus fiction at a glance

Element	Historical record	Netflix series
Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in 1892	True	True
Lizzie was accused and arrested	True	True
Lizzie was acquitted in 1893	True	True
Andrew suffered 11 blows and Abby 19	Historical record	Reflected in the series’ account
Lizzie attempted to obtain prussic acid	True	True, but dramatized
Bridget Sullivan worked as the Borden maid	True	True
Sullivan was Lizzie’s romantic partner	No evidence	Fictionalized
Sullivan helped Lizzie commit the murders	No evidence	Fictionalized
Lizzie and Abby had family tensions	Documented	Expanded dramatically
Lizzie burned a dress after the murders	Yes, but circumstances were disputed	Presented more definitively
Nance O’Neil knew Lizzie	True	True
O’Neil coached Lizzie through the trial	No — they met in 1904	Fictionalized
Bertha Manchester was murdered	True	True, but circumstances and chronology altered
Aileen Wuornos was connected to Lizzie’s story	No evidence	Fictionalized/thematic connection

Ultimately, ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ is less a reconstruction of a solved crime than a dramatization of an unsolved one. The historical case supplies the murders, investigation, trial, acquittal, family tensions and later relationships; the series fills the gaps with a narrative about repression, female rage, sexuality and violence. Netflix itself describes the lead character as a “very fictionalized version” built from details of the real woman’s life.

That distinction matters because Lizzie Borden was never convicted of killing her father and stepmother. More than a century later, the historical record still does not provide a definitive answer to the central question that the series turns into its own dramatic conclusion.

‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’: What Netflix changed about the real Lizzie Borden case

Netflix’s ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ revisits the 1892 murders, combining documented events with fictional relationships, motives and crimes to explore the unsolved case.

What really happened?

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The biggest difference: Netflix gives Lizzie a motive