Abby and Andrew Borden, Lizzie’s stepmother and father were killed in Fall River, Massachusetts , on August 4,1892. Bridget Sullivan was the Borden family maid and was reportedly the only other person in the house the day Lizzie Borden’s parents were axed to death .
Sullivan lived in Anaconda for 45 years after the Borden family murders. During her testimony on June 7, 1893, Sullivan revealed that she came into the country seven years back. This includes Evan Hunter’s 1984 novel Lizzie, the 2018 movie of the same name which starred Chloe Sevigny and the new Netflix version. Ella Beatty plays Lizzie Borden in the Netflix series which premiers on September 17.
Her parents were Eugene and Margaret (Leary) Sullivan, and she was born in Cork County Ireland. “My work was washing, ironing and cooking and sweeping. I did not have the care of any of the bedchambers except my own. My room was in the third story, right over Mr. In her testimony she described the events of the day, as observed while she was out cleaning windows. “I heard the City Hall bell ring and I looked at my clock and it was eleven o’clock. I wasn’t drowsing or sleeping. In my judgment I think I was there three or four minutes. I don’t think I went to sleep at all. I heard no sound; I didn’t hear the opening or closing of the screen door. I can hear that from my room if anyone is careless and slams the door. The next thing was that Miss Lizzie hollered, “Maggie, come down! The report also noted that Sullivan had not accurately portrayed the tense feelings between Lizzie Borden and her stepmother Abby. Several retellings of the Lizzie Borden story have explored the possibility of her and Sullivan being lovers.
Borden’s, and his was over the kitchen,” Sullivan had further said. Sullivan had noted that she had not seen anybody approach the house and at one point of the day Lizzie Borden told her to come down, saying that somebody had killed her father. I said, “What is the matter? She says, “Come down quick; Father’s dead; somebody came in and killed him. This might be ten or fifteen minutes after the clock struck eleven, as far as I can judge,” she had said during the trial. Sullivan later spoke to a friend, Minnie Green, who she told that she’d ‘helped Lizzie out at the trial’ and had been ‘less than candid’, according to the report.
