Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan was the only person besides Lizzie Borden known to be at the Borden home when Andrew and Abby Borden were killed on August 4, 1892. That fact has kept the family’s live-in maid at the center of an alternate theory about the still-unsolved Fall River murders.
Abby was struck about 18 or 19 times with a hatchet in an upstairs guest room around 9:30 a.m. Andrew was struck about 10 or 11 times on the sitting-room sofa around 11 a.m. Lizzie’s sister Emma was out of town, and her uncle John Morse had left earlier that morning.
Bridget, an Irish immigrant in her mid-20s who had worked for the family for about 3 years, said she felt sick from the heat that day. Abby sent her outside to wash windows, placing her away from the house around the time Abby was killed. A neighboring servant reportedly saw her working outside during that window.
After Andrew returned home, Bridget said she went to rest in her third-floor attic room. Lizzie soon called to her, “Maggie, come down quick; Father’s dead.” Bridget later accompanied a neighbor upstairs, where they found Abby’s body.
Police questioned Sullivan extensively, but she was never charged or treated as the primary suspect. She testified at both the inquest and Lizzie’s trial, saying she’d heard no struggle, seen no blood on Lizzie and considered the family’s relationships “pleasant.” Lizzie was acquitted.
The case against Bridget rests largely on opportunity. Advocates of the theory question how 2 violent attacks could happen in a small, frequently locked house without her hearing anything. They also point to a basement bucket containing bloody cloths. Bridget said she hadn’t seen them before, while Lizzie identified them as menstrual rags. Police didn’t examine the matter further.
Later stories suggested Bridget protected Lizzie, helped her or received money to stay quiet. Victoria Lincoln wrote in her 1967 book A Private Disgrace that Bridget’s friend Minnie Green claimed Bridget had said she “helped Lizzie out at the trial” and hadn’t revealed everything she knew. The account was recorded decades later and remains hearsay. Claims that Bridget made a documented deathbed confession or bought property with Borden money also lack reliable evidence.
The alleged romance between Lizzie and Bridget has an even thinner historical basis. Lizzie called Bridget “Maggie,” the name of the family’s previous maid, and no contemporary evidence establishes an affair. Mystery writer Evan Hunter introduced that relationship in his 1984 novel Lizzie, and later screen versions adopted it.
No blood was found on Bridget, no weapon was connected to her and investigators established no clear motive. Her account survived cross-examination, and police focused their case on Lizzie. Bridget died in Anaconda, Montana, in 1948, while the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden remain officially unsolved.
