R.I.P. (Rest in Pestilence) Abby Borden

The episode opens a century away, on a Florida roadside in 1988. A hitchhiker tells the man who picks her up that her name is Lizzie Borden, then admits it is Aileen Wuornos. He assaults her and tries to leave; she shoots him. Later, at a roller rink, she reads about the Borden case and is furious at what she finds — the stepmother who killed the birds, the father who did nothing.

Back in August 1892, Abby goes to Andrew's workshop and asks for a divorce. She has her own list of grievances, including his affairs with the maids. He agrees, but refuses to give her half of everything, so she decides to leave by train for New York. Lizzie and Maggie walk through the plan one last time, down to which of Andrew's axes each of them will carry.

When Abby comes home and tells Lizzie she will not miss her — calling her a debt never repaid — Lizzie says it is Abby who has always been the thing wrong with the house. She cuts Abby's face with a hatchet, stops Maggie from intervening, and follows her upstairs to finish it. The two of them bury Abby's bag and the bloody clothes, Maggie washes Lizzie clean, and Lizzie says it is her father's turn.

Abby Borden was killed in the upstairs guest room on the morning of August 4, 1892, probably between about 9:00 and 10:30, while she was tidying the room. She was struck about nineteen times with a hatchet-type weapon, most of the blows to the back of her head as she lay on the floor. That much the series follows. There is no evidence that she had asked for a divorce or planned to leave, and no witness saw her killed.

The cleanup is also reshaped. No bloodstained clothing was ever found. The detail that most troubled investigators came days later, when a family friend, Alice Russell, saw Lizzie burn a dress in the kitchen stove, explaining that it was stained with paint. The prosecution used that at trial; the jury acquitted anyway.

The 1988 scene is the first appearance of Sarah Paulson's Wuornos, and it is dramatized even on its own terms: her first documented killing, of Richard Mallory, was in November 1989. The series puts her here to set up a parallel it pays off in Episode 6 and the finale. The Aileen Wuornos guide covers every scene she is in and the real case behind them.