Netflix releases Ryan Murphy's Lizzie Borden series as fourth Monster season

The anthology's fourth instalment

On 17 September 2026, Netflix released the eight-episode miniseries Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, created by showrunners Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. The project marks the fourth iteration of the true-crime anthology, following previous seasons dedicated to Jeffrey Dahmer, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, and Ed Gein. Ella Beatty portrays Lizzie Borden, making her the first female lead character in the anthology's run. The supporting cast includes Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden, Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden, and Vicky Krieps as the domestic maid. Max Winkler directed the premiere and the bulk of the episodes, while Sarah Adina Smith directed two episodes of the miniseries.

The 1892 Fall River murders

The television series reconstructs the events of 4 August 1892, when 70-year-old Andrew Borden and his 64-year-old second wife, Abby Borden, were slain inside their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Abby was killed first in an upstairs room during a summer heatwave, sustaining between 13 and 19 blows from a small axe or hatchet. Andrew was attacked roughly an hour to ninety minutes later while asleep on the parlor sofa, receiving between 11 and 18 strikes. Lizzie, who was 32 years old at the time and taught Sunday school at the Central Congregational Church, alerted authorities to her father's body. Only Lizzie and the family's Irish domestic maid, Bridget Sullivan, were present on the property, while her 41-year-old sister Emma Borden was out of town.

Evidence and the 1893 acquittal

Investigators discovered no signs of forced entry and confirmed that no valuables had been taken from the residence, narrowing the focus to individuals already inside. Police found a handleless hatchet head in the basement, which prosecutors considered the probable murder weapon. Officer Phil Harrington recorded in his contemporaneous notes that Lizzie showed little emotional distress regarding the killings and did not voice a desire for the culprit to be captured. Suspicions grew after a local pharmacist reported that Lizzie had attempted to purchase prussic acid the day before the murders, and a witness later testified to seeing her burn a blue dress. Defense attorneys leveraged Victorian cultural expectations, arguing that a respectable woman lacked the physical capacity and disposition for such violence. With the pharmacy inquiry ruled inadmissible and physical proof lacking, an all-male jury acquitted Lizzie in June 1893 after she had spent nearly a year in prison.

Dramatisation and cultural legacy

The production examines the domestic hostility preceding the killings, depicting Andrew Borden as a wealthy property owner whose parsimony constrained his adult daughters. The narrative details familial disputes over financial allocations, including Andrew transferring a property to his sister-in-law and slaughtering pigeons Lizzie kept in the family barn. Rather than maintaining historical ambiguity, the miniseries explicitly portrays Lizzie committing the axe murders, focusing on psychological coercion and domestic rebellion.

We wanted to explore whether monsters are made or born.

The release adds to more than a century of artistic works examining the Borden case, ranging from Lillian Gish's role in the 1933 play Nine Pine Street to the 1948 ballet Fall River Legend, the 2009 rock opera Lizzie the Musical, and the 2018 film Lizzie.