What Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story gets right (and wrong) about the Borden murders

Lizzie Borden.

The name instantly conjures images of axes (or more accurately, hatchets), that 19th-century Greek Revival-style Massachusetts home, and children singing that creepy rhyme : Lizzie Borden took an ax / And gave her mother 40 whacks. / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father 41.

Though Borden was acquitted of the murder of her father and stepmother in 1893, the case has attracted armchair detectives and adaptations for more than 100 years.

They range from Elizabeth Montgomery's Emmy-winning performance in 1975's The Legend of Lizzie Borden to Christina Ricci's Lifetime movie rendition in Lizzie Borden Took an Ax and its spinoff series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles , and most recently, Chloë Sevigny's underrated turn in the 2018 sapphic thriller, Lizzie .

Now, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's Netflix series Monster, which previously explored the controversial representations of killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein , takes on Borden's story.

Here's what you should know about Lizzie Borden, the grisly crimes she was accused of, and how the Netflix series portrays her.

Did Lizzie Borden kill her parents? Portrait of Lizzie Borden (1860-1927).

Credit: Getty Images / Bettmann What actually happened the day of the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden? The timeline has had true crime enthusiasts obsessed for decades.

According to historians , on the morning of Aug.

4, 1892, at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts, Andrew Borden and his second wife, Abby, were found murdered in their home.

Though the murder weapon was never found , it was clear to investigators that an axe or hatchet was used.

Lizzie Borden, Andrew's 32-year-old daughter, was tried for the murders.

At the time, the only other person in the house was the Borden's Irish maid Bridget Sullivan, called "Maggie" by the Bordens, who gave her the name of their previous maid.

In her testimony , Lizzie claimed she'd been in the barn, walked into the house, and found her father's body in the living room.