Hi, I'm Shannon, C-SPAN's podcast producer, and this week on the Lectures and History

podcast, part two of our program on the trial of Lizzie Borden.

University of Maryland history professor Michael Ross discusses the 1893 trial of Ms. Borden.

She was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe.

The murders and subsequent trial received widespread publicity at the time, and Lizzie Borden became a lasting

figure in American popular culture. More after this. Okay, everyone, welcome back. This is History 134, spies, assassins, martyrs, and witches,

famous trials in American history at the University of Maryland. And this is the second part of a two-part

lecture on the Lizzie Borden trial from the 1890s. A trial that comes as the result

of a horrific murder where a prominent Fall River Massachusetts businessman Andrew Borden and his wife,

Abby, are murdered in the middle of the day in horrific ways.

Eighteen blows to the head with a hatchet or axe to Abby Borden and 11 to the face of

Andrew Borden.

All while Andrew Borden's daughter is home in the house as well as their housekeeper in broad daylight and no sign of a robbery.

The Fall River Police arrive at the crime scene, and depending on which newspaper you're reading,

these are either efficient police who did as much as they could,

or they are an inept bumbling gang of Irish Catholic policemen.

Some of the press less open-minded about immigrants and Irish Catholic police,

and they say that the police bumble and that the crime

scene is hopelessly compromised and they're tracking blood throughout the House and make a number

of bad decisions that undermine the quality of the evidence that they find.

They search part but not all all, of the house.

In the Victorian era, it was improper to go up and rummage around at a women's bedroom.

...