Interested in taking your coffee and breakfast with a side of Victorian double homicide? Consider enjoying a stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum, which recently sold to US Ghost Adventures owner Lance Zaal for $2 million.
Located in historic Fall River, Mass., fifty-some miles south of Boston near the Rhode Island border, the Lizzie Borden House was the site of the unsolved double-axe murder of Andrew and Abby Borden, Lizzie’s father and stepmother. The case went down as one of the most infamous cases in true crime history simply because of its sheer brutality and the fact that a woman, Lizzie, was the prime suspect, an almost unheard-of prospect during the late 1800s that generated heaps of publicity.
During the trial, the prosecution argued that Lizzie was unsatisfied with the way her wealthy but notoriously frugal father forced the rest of the family to live modestly — such offenses like living in a working class neighborhood of town and having no indoor plumbing were said to have enraged Lizzie — and that she murdered her parents to take control of the family fortune. Despite her shaky alibi and the mountain of evidence stacked against her, the jury deliberated for just an hour and a half before acquitting her. Nonetheless, no other suspect ever emerged in the case and Lizzie was ostracized by the townsfolk for the rest of her life. Her pariah status in the community did not, however, stop Lizzie and her older sister Emma from adopting a life of luxury: shortly after the trial, they moved to a large house on the fashionable side of town and hired a bevy of servants to look after them.
US Ghost Adventures, not be confused with the reality Travel Channel show “Ghost Adventures,” is a company that offers “entertaining, historic and authentic ghost tours” in 33 cities across the United States. They even sell a haunted doll named Lily that is supposed to protect buyers from evil spirits! Zaal has plans to continue the bed and breakfast business and will retain the original staff. “We’re not a haunted house. We don’t jump out and scare people,” he said in an interview with Realtor.com. “This is legitimate, real history. Things happened here.”
The listing was held by Suzanne St. John of Century 21.