The Case of Lizzie Borden: The Amanda Knox of 1890

Cover of Chloë Sevigny
A sensational trial covered by a hungry media. A bloody murder scene that involved a sharp, brutal blade, and then a surprising acquittal of an alleged "killer girl" who captured the nation's attention.

Sounds like the trial in Italy and recent acquittal of American-abroad student Amanda Knox for the sexual assault and murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher. But this case happened over 100 years ago, to one Lizzie Borden.

News that Amanda Knox's murder conviction had been overturned caused Web searches to surge around the similar story. As a CNN blog put it, there's nothing like the mashup of "sex, violence, and media hysteria" to keep a story alive, even when the main player has long since died.

The gruesome case of this "femme fatale" alleged that the Fall River, Massachusetts, woman had whacked her stepmother and father to death with an ax.

The story goes like this: In August 1892, Lizzie Borden, who was said to have problems with her parents, claimed to have found them beaten dead in the house. She was charged with the murders but then exonerated the following year after a highly publicized trial found nothing more than circumstantial evidence.

The penny press, the Internet of the 1890s, closely followed the case, questioning the defendant's sexuality and sanity (sound familiar?). Books on Borden were also popular, and she quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Her life inspired a ballet by Agnes de Mille, an opera, and a jump-rope rhyme ("Lizzie Borden took an ax/Gave her mother 40 whacks...").

"Simpson's" fans may remember her cameo (bearing an ax, natch) in the episode, "Jury of the Damned." Even Chloë Sevigny, an actor with a penchant for unconventional roles like "Big Love," is said to be developing a project for HBO around Borden, whom she called a "countercultural icon."

But even icon status didn't let Lizzie off the hook. After the trial ended, the freed woman was still ostracized by the town of Fall River, where she continued to live until her death in 1927. So far, Amanda Knox, has been warmly welcomed back to Seattle, Washington, seems to have escaped that same fate, despite lingering questions around the case.