34 Years
Community | posted September 30, 2009
by RICHARD WOLF, playwright of AFTER THE MURDERS
The case of Lizzie Borden had always fascinated me. Many years before this play, I’d read a book about the ax murders of her father and step-mother and had also seen the made-for-television movie.
How could a person commit such a grisly crime, much less a woman? What sort of inner rage sparked such a release? Then, in the midst of my new readings, a strange thing happened. I ran across the most intriguing fact of all from my point of view – after her acquittal she lived thirty-four more years staying right in her home town, and the scene of the crime, Fall River, Massachusetts.
At the time of my readings this fact was almost treated as a short, relatively minor postscript to the murders and her acquittal. Although I could understand the salacious appetite for most of those who would read about her was first and foremost the run-up to and the ghastly murders themselves, for me I had to know about her life after.
So began the research, as many books as I could find that would at least have partial sections of them about the years that followed for her. The internet also proved an invaluable research tool. What I found was that I had wandered into a Pandora’s Box of utterly fascinating material filled with art theft, lesbianism, a home in the best section of Fall River, unforgiving townspeople, newspapers never letting go of the story – ever, sibling conflict, steel-edged defiance and most of all, the unforgettable and bizarre character of Lizzie herself.
I had to write a play about all of this, about her, about AFTER THE MURDERS.
