{"id":1840,"date":"2008-10-16T13:08:45","date_gmt":"2008-10-16T17:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/MondoLizzie\/?p=1840"},"modified":"2008-10-16T13:08:45","modified_gmt":"2008-10-16T17:08:45","slug":"salems-lizzie-borden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/salems-lizzie-borden\/","title":{"rendered":"Salem’s Lizzie Borden"},"content":{"rendered":"

From October 13, Boston Herald:<\/a><\/p>\n

Salem museum puts Lizzie Borden on display for all to judge
\nBy Laurel J. Sweet | Monday, October 13, 2008
\n\"pickelfrombostonherald\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo by Lisa Hornak
\nOnly in Salem, where history evolved from hysteria, could a Sunday school teacher as steeped in secrets as Lizzie Borden fit in as naturally as a new desperate housewife on Wisteria Lane.<\/p>\n

But even if you can recite the childhood rhyme by rote – \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lizzie Borden took an ax . . .\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – you likely know little of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true story\u00e2\u20ac\u009d behind the infamous 1892 hatchet murders of Fall River millionaires Andrew and Abby Borden, and what became Victorian Massachusetts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 trial of the century.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lizzie Borden is still something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not discussed in polite society in Fall River,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Leonard Pickel, a professional haunted house designer who, with his wife, Jeanne Escher-Pickel, has realized a decade-long dream of dedicating a museum to the enduring whodunit – albeit, one 65 miles from where the ax fell on Borden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father and stepmother 40 bloodcurdling times.<\/p>\n

The venture threatened to be a fight to the financial death. The current owners of the Borden house in Fall River – since 1996 a bed and breakfast for the ghoulishly inclined – filed a federal lawsuit against Pickel in August, fearing tourists would be confused by the two locations. As part of an out-of-court settlement, Pickel has already changed his Web site from lizziebordenmuseum.com to 40whacksmuseum.com.<\/p>\n

Here on Salem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pedestrian mall, where pagans peddle plastic Dracula fangs, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The True Story of Lizzie Borden\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has restored an educational component to this increasingly kitschy Halloween heartland.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People are looking for dark history, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not looking to be scared,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pickel said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a story of a very strong woman who got away with murder. Literally.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The self-guided tour takes about 45 minutes to complete. There is a sense of foreboding as one wends through eight rooms to dirge music, drinking in sepia-toned storyboards, gruesome autopsy photos, and recreations of New Bedford Superior Court and the Borden family plot. A real-life cast of potential suspects plays out like a parlor game of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Clue.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

On June 20, 1893, an all-male jury took just 30 minutes to find the 32-year-old spinster not guilty of killing the banker\/casket salesman and his bride, allegedly to get her mitts on their money.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For 116 years, people have been writing books that try and solve the crime,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pickel said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We make no suppositions as to who we think did it. The truth is, no one will ever know what really happened.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From October 13, Boston Herald: Salem museum puts Lizzie Borden on display for all to judge By Laurel J. Sweet | Monday, October 13, 2008 Photo by Lisa Hornak Only in Salem, where history evolved from hysteria, could a Sunday school teacher as steeped in secrets as Lizzie Borden fit in as naturally as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13,7,10,18,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6-degrees-of-separation","category-book-and-media-reviews","category-borden-buzz","category-fall-river-news","category-lizzie-4-sale","category-on-the-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/mondolizzie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}