How Lizzie Borden Actually Died: Inside Her Final Year at Maplecroft
While Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story skips her later decades entirely to invent a 1920s suffragette finale, historical records document a quiet, ailing final chapter at her French Street mansion, Maplecroft. Lizzie Borden died at age 66 on June 1, 1927, taking whatever secrets remained regarding the August 1892 axe murders to her grave.
Medical Decline and Secret Hospitalization
Lizzie’s health deteriorated significantly throughout her final year:
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Undercover Surgery (1926): In 1926, Lizzie was admitted to Truesdale Hospital in Fall River for gallbladder removal surgery. Seeking to avoid press and public scrutiny, she checked in under the alias “Mary Smith Borden” in a private room.
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Incomplete Convalescence: While initial reports noted she was on the path to recovery three weeks post-operation, The New York Times later confirmed that she never fully bounced back physically.
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The Final Illness: By late spring 1927, Lizzie was largely bedridden at Maplecroft. Contemporary regional papers offered slightly differing details:
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The Fall River Daily Globe reported she battled pneumonia for about a week.
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The New Bedford Evening Standard reported the cause as heart disease.
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Her official death certificate lists chronic myocarditis (severe inflammation of the heart muscle) complicated by pneumonia as the primary cause of death.
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The Question of a Deathbed Confession
Despite persistent folklore and public anticipation over 34 years following her acquittal, Lizzie never made a deathbed confession.
Prominent crime writer Edmund Pearson, who documented the case in depth during that era, noted that Lizzie passed away without giving an admission, an apology, or any revelation regarding who wielded the hatchet against Andrew and Abby Borden. She maintained her legal innocence until her final breath.
The Tragic Nine-Day Coincidence & Oak Grove Cemetery
Lizzie’s death set off a final, eerie coda for the fractured family:
| Milestone | Historical Facts |
| Emma Borden’s Death | Exactly nine days later, on June 10, 1927, Lizzie’s elder sister Emma died at age 76 from chronic nephritis in Newmarket, New Hampshire. The sisters had maintained strict, total estrangement for 22 years following Emma’s departure from Maplecroft in 1905. |
| Burial & Rest | Lizzie was buried in the family plot at Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River. In death, she was interred alongside the very victims she was accused of slaughtering—her father Andrew, her stepmother Abby, and her sister Emma—under a headstone reading simply: “Lizbeth Andrew Borden.” |
