Once upon a time, there was a couple named Andrew
and Sarah Borden. They had a daughter named Emma. One day Sarah said, "Oh! Oh!" and she had another baby girl. 
They named their new baby 'Lizzie'. As soon as the child could talk she said she wanted her named changed to 'Lizbeth' but no one would listen. Lizzie's father was a mortician and furniture dealer. Some people said Lizzie saw her father doing something bad to a dead woman. Some people said her father cut dead people's feet off to fit them into cheaper coffins he made them pay more for. Whatever went on, something made Lizzie very scared, and sometimes she would stare off into space for a long time.
Then one nice, sunny day Andrew and Emma and Lizzie were all standing around a bed. You see, Sarah was going to die any moment. She looked at Emma and said, "Take care of Baby Lizzie". Then she died.
Andrew was making good money
and after a while he decided to get married to a lady named Abby. Emma was very upset. 
She was supposed to take care of Baby Lizzie. Baby Lizzie loved Abby. She loved Lizzie and took good care of her. She played games with her and even made breakfast fun. :eggface: As the years went by, Abby had had too many of those breakfasts. She did not look the same as she did when she first married Andrew.
For a while she tried to be a bulemic 
but she found that just made her stomach empty and she was more hungry. Some people say that Andrew did not like Abby any more. So he married another lady just for a few hours. They had a baby named Billy.
One day Andrew gave Abby some property, so that Abby's sister would not get kicked out of her house. Lizzie got mad.
Emma was furious. 
For five years all you could hear in the Borden house was arguing. 
Whenever Andrew went downstreet to do business and people asked how things were at home, he would become embarrassed.
"Well," he would say, "It isn't any party." 
One day Lizzie and Emma came up with a plan
, so they could get all of Andrew's money and be done with Abby at the same time. Soon it was time to carry the plan out. Some people say that Lizzie put poison in Abby and Andrew's supper on Tuesday night that made them very sick.
But Dr. Bowen told them it was nothing other than 'summer complaint'. That made sense to Abby, because Andrew did complain a lot. But Andrew just told Dr. Bowen he would not pay any bill he tried to stick them with. All nite Tuesday and into Wednesday, Abby and Andrew were sick.
Then that afternoon who should come for a visit but Uncle John Morse. 
All afternoon, Lizzie stayed up in her room reading.
Then that evening she went to see her friend, Alice. Lizzie was all excited. 
"They are going to come and burn the roof over our heads!" she said. Alice just shrugged it off. 
"Whatever," Alice said.The next morning, Bridget, their maid got up early. She had been out doing adult things the night before and did not feel good this morning.
She cooked breakfast for all, then had to go out in the yard. Andrew and John Morse
read the newpaper and joked about owning Jay Gould's yacht. Then Andrew left for town. John Morse left for town. And Abby told Bridget to wash the windows, then went upstairs to change the sheets after John Morse slept on them. Lizzie took an axe upstairs to where Abby was kneeling on the floor, tucking in the bedspread. Abby looked up.
In a little while, Abby was not alive any more.A little later, Andrew came home. He fell asleep on the sofa.
Soon Lizzie came in with her axe 
. She made sure that Andrew was not still living when she left that room.Word spread fast. Soon a lot of people were there. Dr. Bowen was an early arrival.
So was Mrs. Churchill 
and Alice Russell. 
Bridget looked at Lizzie.
"Miss Lizzie, where was you?" she said. Lizzie said, "I heard a groan and came in - or something like that." Lizzie said, "Dr. Bowen, I have nervous excitement. Can I have a narcotic?"
Dr. Bowen said of course, and got a needle out of his medicine bag that was pre-filled with morphine 
and shot Lizzie with it. "Funny," said Dr. Bowen. "I shot you and you're still standing up!" 
Alice Russell laughed. They all laughed and laughed at the doctor's sense of humor. The doctor was trying to make Lizzie feel better by saying that. When she was a little girl and had to have a shot of morphine, he would always say that after.The Bordens were buried, but the doctors cut their heads off so they could study them later.
It was not long before the marshal of the town came to see Lizzie.
"I'm afraid that you, Miss Borden, are suspected." Lizzie looked at him. 
"I'm ready to go now." And with that, so am I. Part 2 to be continued.
That was great, Sherry! Very creative. I can see it a now, a children's pop-up book of the Borden murders
Would have given me yet another excuse to complain about the state of the world. 
Emma said, 
"Believe it or not," she said to Mrs. Reagan, the guard, "I would be glad to even see mutton." "Well, that's good," said Mrs. Reagan, "because that's what you're getting for dinner." 
One day they talked about Andrew's eyeball. 
Lizzie pretended to faint. 
"I can't recall," she said most of the time.
She was a relative of Dr. Bowen. 
She once said that someone could pull her tongue out and she would never repeat some things about Lizzie. Now people wished she had let someone do it.
There were other people who said they saw different people around there as well, and they tried to describe them as best they could. Here are some newspaper sketches of what those suspects probably looked like: 
(front view) 
(side view - this one must have been arrested) 
(a normal looking guy no one would ever suspect, which is why they never found him) Even the guy who ran the Chinese laundry was suspected. 
These did give the jury some doubt if Lizzie did it or not. 
"I ask you," he said. "Does she look like a fiend?" And he held up a picture of one. 
'No', the jury nodded their heads. 'She does not look like that.'
(See? That is a photo of one of the jurors playing basketball as they waited.)
"Not guilty, Miss Lizzie!" And she left the courthouse without delay. 
Charles Holmes held a party for Lizzie at his home on Pine Street. Only Lizzie's hotsy-totsy friends were invited. 
