LIZZIE BORDEN, 1860, Fall River, Massachusetts, United States.

Lizzie Borden was a red-haired girl, polite and kind, who lacked nothing, busy with the activities of every young woman of her age, from growing flowers to parish activism. Still, something cracked in her fragile balance, and on the day of the tragedy that befell her family, she was heard by the maid burst into abnormal, insane laughter. That day while she was alone in the house, her parents were slaughtered with axes in real carnage. No one else besides her was present and no one else seemed to have had the material opportunity to carry out such heinous murders. But there was no motive, and the judges thought it unlikely that such a fine and fragile young lady could have committed such an atrocious act. Lizzie had also attempted the day before to purchase the prussic acid needed to preserve a fur coat. Poison which she is forced to give up due to the lack of a recipe. However, Lizzie was caught in the act while burning her bloodstained dress and often fell into contradiction, so much so that public opinion branded her as guilty and her rhyme, still known today, began to circulate in the streets:

"Lizzie Borden took an axe

and gave her mother forty whaks

When she saw what she had done

she gave her father forty-one"

(Lizzie Borden took an ax, and gave her mother forty strokes, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.)