Subs created by: David Coleman.
On this dead files special investigation...
Amy and I are investigating the famous Lizzie Borden house.
This is different for me.
I don't like this.
Usually, I don't know anything about a location before I get there.
This would be where the father died.
No one knows what really went down inside that house.
Uh, fighting, really pounding on her.
Just really nasty.
And a hundred years later, this house still haunts people that visit here.
I don't know what I'm dealing with.
I saw this black mass. I was scared.
There's something down there.
My name is Amy Allan.
A lot of dead people are here.
I see dead people.
This is not good.
I speak to dead people...
He is very pissed off.
And they speak to me...
The house is angry.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
He's killed people.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Dischiavi. I'm a retired New York City homicide Detective...
He got shot at his house?
And I know every person, every house has secrets.
Aren't you terrified being here?
It's my job to reveal them.
That sounds like something out of The Exorcist.
But Steve and I never speak...
We never communicate during an investigation...
Until the very end...
It's bad.
When we uncover if it's safe for you to stay...
I'd like some answers.
Or time to get out.
Steve and I conduct our investigations separately.
And we never know about each other's findings until the very end.
It's his job to find out about the history of the locations.
And to interview witnesses to see if there's any connections,
between his findings and my experiences.
I'm headed to Fall River, Massachusetts.
A small town that was known for something that happened over a hundred years ago.
This place is where Lizzie Borden was accused of killing her parents with an axe.
I'm meeting with a woman named Lee-Ann Wilbur.
She bought the Borden house, where the murders took place,
and turned into a bed and breakfast.
Now Lee-Ann and her guests are seeing and hearing things they can't explain.
We're here to see if we can figure out what's going on.
I'm kind of worried.
It's so old, and people have been running through it
and mucking around in there for...
A long time.
Before I enter a location, I place myself into a meditative state.
It allows me to have a clear...
And complete connection with the dead.
Even though the story of Lizzie Borden is famous,
most people have no idea what Lizzie looks like.
Neither does Amy.
So just like any other location, it's important that I remove,
or hide any old photographs that may influence Amy during her walk.
♪ Lizzie Borden took an axe...
♪ Gave her mother 40 whacks...
She tries to make them go crazy.
She just is, like, wants to just be around...
And make us nuts.
Can she cause people to see things here?
What sort of things?
Hallucinations.
I mean, she's very disturbed.
Really, really, really disturbed.
My head hurts.
She's crawling through the walls.
So this is the famous Lizzie Borden house.
Yes, it is.
So, Lee-Ann, what kind of experiences have you had here?
Let me show you.
Well, this bedroom is where I used to sleep.
I had come up to bed one evening, and I come up the stairs.
I come into the room, and as soon as I hit the doorway...
It felt like, um, sickness.
It just... very, very hard to breathe.
As soon as I lay down, it felt like somebody sat...
The pressure increased. It felt like somebody was sitting on me.
Mm, this person...
Is crazy.
Mental, mental.
- This is a woman? - Yeah. Mm hmm, this is a woman.
- What's wrong? - I don't like it in here.
Why?
Um, because...
I'm being touched.
And that she's over. She's, like, seeping out of the...
Ceiling.
She makes me sick.
Physically sick.
Why does she?
I think it's her energy.
Because her energy is... crazy energy.
Okay.
So it's, like, really hyper... and, like, intense.
I hate it in here.
And this is the room where Mrs. Borden's body was discovered.
She had come up here to tidy up the room.
She was up here making up the bed when her attacker came in and murdered her.
What a strange, strange, strange...
Place, this is.
Oh, God.
I don't like that crazy lady.
What's wrong?
Uh, she's...
I don't know. I feel scared of her.
- Why? - I don't know.
- What's she gonna... - Because she's [Bleep] crazy.
Well, what could she do?
What do you need to be scared of?
Her emotions make me...
Feel funny inside.
And, like, I feel like she knows I'm here now or something.
I feel weird.
Like she growls. She's, like, growling.
Right now?
Uh-huh. Like, she's like, over there, and I...
But I hear here and so, like, she's like, breathing and growling.
She's like...
Like that. Like...
Drooling.
And it was also in this room that I had my most disturbing experience in the house.
I was up here one morning, also making up the bed,
and as I leaned over the end of the bed here, it got very hard for me to breathe.
The feeling I had when I pushed myself up was it felt like somebody...
Hit me in the chest.
It was hard enough to knock the breath out of me,
and I started falling to the floor.
And as soon as I did, I was just... I was crying.
I was sobbing before I even hit the floor.
And my... the feeling I had was just overwhelming sadness.
Just so much of it, I was... I was crying uncontrollably.
Almost paralyzed.
I stayed there for a few minutes before crawling out of the room to the telephone
and calling one of my employees to come in and help me.
I mean, I think that would've scared the hell out of me if that happened to me.
I left abruptly. I slept in my car.
I didn't come back into the house till the next day.
What'd you wanna show me down here?
Well, this past August, I had an investigative group here.
They left abruptly, around 2:30 in the morning.
And they left out through the bulkhead here, through the basement.
After they left, I came into the house, shut the house down, I went to bed.
The next morning, around 11:00 A.M., I came out.
I passed the bulkhead door, and this is what I found.
- Are those flies? - Yes, they are.
- That's a lot of flies. - There were hundreds of them.
So, Lee-Ann, did this ever happen before?
No.
- Was there anything dead? - No, not at all.
- And it was just in this one spot? - Exactly in this one spot.
- Did they ever come back? - No, they did not.
And there's no explanation that you can think of?
Nothing we could come up with.
Oh, so this would be the couch.
Or...
One that, I guess, looks like it, where the father died.
We are standing in the sitting room, where Mr. Borden was actually found.
His body was found here on the morning of August 4th, 1892.
He had been hit ten times to the face with what was believed to be a hatchet.
Lee-Ann, how can Amy and I help you?
Well, I don't know what I'm dealing with.
I'm hoping that the two of you can help bring some understanding
to some of the events that have happened over the last few years
to both my staff and my guests.
I need to move this couch.
How? Like, away from the wall?
- That way. - Okay.
Mm. Don't wanna tear anything.
Oh.
There's a Ouija Board under here.
That's not good.
Occasionally, I'll see Ouija Boards at people's homes,
and I get a little concerned.
Because I think that it can open doors to the dead.
When I came across this Ouija Board, it had a very strong vibe.
Why did you want to move the sofa?
Um...
The area was bothering me.
Lee-Ann bought this place to attract people with morbid curiosities.
But I think she got more than she bargained for,
because a lot of her guests are terrified by their experiences.
Robin and her niece Miranda are just two of them.
So, Robin, what happened?
We decided to spend the night. We stood up to about 12:00, 1:00.
We saw shadows a few times.
Tall shadow.
It actually goes into The Master Bedroom,
and once it gets over the threshold, I no longer see it.
- Which had startled me. - How'd you feel?
I was just kind of shocked because I didn't know what was gonna happen.
Do you see anybody?
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Well, there's a man there who's...
Can you describe him?
Well, he looks pretty tall.
I don't think he likes women very much.
Not at all.
What kind of a figure was it? Did it look like something in particular?
Actually the shape of a person, but it was a tall shadow.
Let me ask you this. Would you stay here by yourself?
No.
Lot of fighting. A lot of fighting.
- Who's fighting? - Man.
Like, I wish I could say, like, how much stress...
I'm feeling right now.
Like it's like...
There's just a lot of, um...
Fighting. Physical. Just, uh... there's a male and a female, and...
Lee-Ann's night manager also had an experience.
And apparently, it really freaked him out.
Ben, thanks for meeting with me.
So you had an experience here.
- Yes. - What room is this?
This is The Master Bedroom.
This is the room where Andrew and Abby Borden slept when they lived here.
Okay, so what happened?
Well, I was sitting on the bed, reading a magazine,
and it was about 2:00 in the morning, and I saw a shadow move across the door frame.
And a couple minutes later, I saw the same exact thing.
And a few minutes later, I saw it again...
This tall...
Black mass...
And it moved all the way across the wall.
And it just disappeared.
It felt like it was someone...
Watching me, someone coming up here to check out what was going on.
And I just immediately got the impression it was Mr. Borden.
I was scared.
The man smacking the woman.
Man...
Like [Bleep]. Like...
And she's pretty small.
He's pretty big.
Like, you could just... you can see, like, her whole face like...
You know what I mean? Like, he smacked, and you can just, like, feel, like, the...
Like, I mean, really pounding on her.
Like, pulling her hair. Like...
Just really nasty.
Like, just, like, beating the crap out of her.
Who is it?
I think it's the father.
Just really nasty.
Like, just, like, beating the crap out of her.
Who is it?
I think it's the father.
Three witnesses have seen tall, Dark Shadows.
And Ben is convinced that it's Mr. Borden.
I don't like chasing shadows. That's all I've got right now.
I need to find out more about Mr. Borden.
Why somebody would take a hatched to his head,
and if it has any connection to what's happening
in this house more than a hundred years later.
I understand you know a lot about the Borden family.
What do you know about Mr. Borden?
Mr. Borden was 5-foot-10. He was a very thin, angular man.
He was a creature of habit and had a certain
routine that he would do every day.
And that was post office, bank.
He was on the board of several Mills and Banks.
He was pretty ruthless. He was a tough nut.
Um, I see, like, banking.
I think he was into Banking and numbers.
Like, him going to work.
Banking and numbers.
What's going on?
Well, I'm hearing a female.
And she's like...
Stressed out. She's, like, tired.
Like...
Doesn't wanna...
Deal with anything anymore.
She's got dark hair. She's kind of petite.
Uh, but she's got, like, a full build. Like, a full... she's, like...
Stocky, I guess?
And...
Her hair's all frazzled.
Like, it's done up but it's, like, all frazzled.
Did Lizzie Borden do these murders?
I think she did.
Why do you think that?
Money, and lots of it.
It's easy to make a case for her guilt.
Lizzie has no alibi for either murder.
Again, like, a lot of beatings.
Lots of beatings.
There's, like, rape and rape.
Uh... people being tied up.
Tied up.
There was incest.
Historians and legal experts have spent the last hundred years,
trying to solve the Borden murders.
And I don't expect to figure it out today.
But if I can find out why Mr. Borden was murdered.
Maybe I can figure out why Lee-Ann's staff thinks he's still at the house.
This was obviously a major crime here.
It was.
At the time, do you know if, uh, murder was common in the area?
There certainly were murders in Fall River.
Um, what was unusual about this was that,
you had a prominent elderly gentleman and his wife slaughtered in their home.
And you had a daughter who was suspect.
Did anyone try to come after Mr. Borden before?
Well, it's certainly possible because someone got into the house
shortly before the murders and took some things,
and Andrew Borden did have three locks on the front door of his home.
Okay, so there had been a burglary at the house.
Yes.
There was incest.
Incest.
Crying, yelling.
And, like, really bad, like, harmful, hurtful...
Painful...
Sex.
Really, really nasty stuff, really.
It's disgusting.
Everyone in this town has a strong opinion about Mr. Borden.
I need to do my own research about his family and the murders.
I also need to see if I can find documentation on a rumor I once heard.
It's well-known that in 1892, Mr. Borden and
his wife were found in their home, murdered.
Their heads brutally caved in with a hatchet.
Lizzie became the key suspect.
She went to trial.
After 26 days, she was acquitted.
Some say she got away with a double murder.
I find what I've been looking for...
A paper written by a psychologist in 1997,
speculating that the Bordens' murderer was sexually molested.
And destroyed the eyes and faces of those who victimized her.
So they couldn't see the monster she felt she had become.
In other words, Lizzie killed her father because her father molested her.
That paper was published 15 years ago.
So I'm headed to meet with an expert on the criminal mind,
to see what she has to say about it.
Professor, thanks for meeting with me.
I wanted to talk to you about why Lizzie Borden may have killed her father.
I have some crime scene photos.
Now do you see the same rage that I see in these photos?
I don't see some guy coming in to do a burglary and doing that.
I've had experience with sexual abuse cases,
and I wanted to get your professional opinion
that that might've been what as going on here.
The thing with sexual abuse trauma...
Is that, um, you're not gonna have immediate reaction...
To your perpetrator.
You know, you're gonna sit with that, and it's gonna boil and boil and boil.
If her father were abusing her.
That kind of reaction would be quite normal.
To just...
Lash out in anger.
And kill them in a very ugly way.
Her father would... he'd be a good suspect for incest.
Mph.
No. I kind of... I have another thing that happened, in my head.
Um, that...
Uh, there's a lot of, like, dirty, dirty sex in here.
What is it?
Well, I'm getting, like, sisters...
Sisters that did... stuff together.
- Okay. - Sex.
- To each other? - Yeah.
- To... okay. - Yeah.
So they're sisters and they're having sex together.
I need to find out if sexual abuse came up as a defense during the trial.
So I'm going to meet with the expert on the Lizzie Borden court case.
Let me ask you something. Were there any other suspects in Mr. Borden's murder?
Um, he had enemies.
He was a... he was rather ruthless in business.
Anything come up about possible sexual abuse?
Was that ever brought up at trial?
That's been a theory.
But there was no sexual abuse introduced.
Was there any other evidence that wasn't brought up?
A lot of evidence was excluded.
One of the judges had been appointed by Lizzie's lead defense counsel,
who was the former Governor of Massachusetts.
- Which is a conflict of interest. - Yeah.
Frank, you're the foremost expert on the Lizzie Borden trial.
- So I gotta ask the question. - Yes?
Do you think Lizzie did these murders?
Is there proof beyond a reasonable doubt? I think... I think there is.
- If this murder took place today... - I think she'd have been convicted.
She had kind of a large,
round but square kind of face.
Okay.
She was a little...
Um, stocky.
She had almond-shaped eyes, but they were wide.
How old?
Late 40s or early 50s.
And she has, uh, thick eyebrows.
Uh, her nose...
Was kind of, like, thinner up here.
Straight.
Um, but then it kind of, like, is full here.
Does this look like her?
Yeah, that looks like her.
Now that Amy and I have finished our investigation,
we finally get to hear each other's findings.
Well, it's good to see you guys again.
Uh, Lee-Ann and Ben, this is Amy, my partner.
Lee-Ann owns the Lizzie Borden house.
She runs it as a bed-and-breakfast.
Uh, Ben's the night manager.
Uh, and both of them have had experiences that have freaked them out.
Amy and I came in to do our investigation, and the way we do it is independently.
I do my investigation, as far as the house goes and what I can find out.
Amy does her walk.
This is the first time we're actually seeing each other
and talking to each other since the beginning of the investigation.
So, Amy, what did you find on your walk?
Well, when I was doing my walk.
Uh, one of the things that happened in the living area...
Was my guides were yelling at me to move the couch.
- Do you wanna move it? - Yeah.
There's a Ouija Board under here.
That's not good.
My spirit guides will lead me through my walks
and give me information when no one else will.
And so all I hear is, move it! Move it! Move it! Move it!
And there was a Ouija Board under the couch.
This one has a problem. The dead are tired of being...
Contacted here.
I would recommend you remove this one simply because the dead,
here are having issues with it.
Sometimes when I'm doing my evening hosting with the guests,
I will take the Ouija Board and I will...
Hide it from them.
I'm not anti-Ouija...
But, they're... they're tired of it.
The next thing that I encountered was, uh, a nasty man.
Fighting, physical. Just, uh...
There's a male and a female and... mm.
You know, and he is pretty big.
Just really nasty.
Like, just, like, beating the crap out of her.
He was a tall man.
He was very, very angry, and he was stressed out about his home.
He was stressed out about his work, which involved numbers and banks.
Honestly, just a miserable, miserable man.
- Mm. - And took it out on...
Everyone around him.
I think it was Lizzie's father.
Ben, why don't you tell Amy about your story?
Um, upstairs on the second floor in The Master Bedroom...
I was sleeping one night, and...
Three different times I saw this tall...
Black shadow.
And it moved all the way across that wall.
It was clear as day.
I got the immediate feeling that he...
Was a man and he was very overbearing...
I just immediately got the impression it was Mr. Borden.
I talked to Shelly, who's a historian,
and she told me, uh, Mr. Borden was a tall man.
He was lanky.
He got into investment properties and he lent people money, like a bank.
He did... did pretty well for himself.
Was the shadow Ben saw Mr. Borden?
What you saw...
Could possibly be him.
It could've been Mr. Borden that Ben saw, but I think it was someone else...
Or something else.
And I don't think that Ben or Lee-Ann,
are ready to hear that yet.
So I then went into the kitchen, because I heard two women talking in there.
And when I went in there, I actually saw one of the women.
Her hair's all frazzled.
Like, it's done up, but it's, like, all frazzled.
And, um, she doesn't want to deal with anything anymore.
Extreme stress, extreme panic, and just really frazzled.
- Now you did a sketch, right? - Yeah, I did.
Okay.
Now this is the sketch from the woman in the kitchen?
Yes.
It's...
This is amazing.
Now this is the sketch from the woman in the kitchen?
Yes.
It's...
This is amazing.
Now during my investigation, I was able to acquire,
a very rare picture of Lizzie Borden as an old woman.
Uh, I want you guys to take a look at this and tell me what you think.
That's Lizzie Borden.
What's going through your head when you see it?
It's unmistakable.
Uncanny.
Same features, frizz in the hair.
Um...
What do you got?
This is where it gets a little disturbing.
What is it?
Well, I'm getting, like, sisters...
Sisters that did... stuff together.
- To each other? - Yeah.
- To... okay. - Yeah.
The second floor I did pick up on...
Incest.
But what I saw was...
Two women.
And I got that they were sisters.
And that they were having a sexual relationship.
There was an older sister and then the younger sister,
and the older sister was definitely the one who was...
Orchestrating.
It's weird.
I do believe that Mr. Borden sexually abused his daughters.
And this is the way the girls learned how to show love and affection to each other.
The more you learn about things, it brings you to a conclusion for a case.
When both parents were murdered, the older sister got the inheritance.
But she split it with Lizzie, which she didn't have to do.
Now on top of that, she pays out of her money,
the 25 grand for the defense team for Lizzie.
Could this be the scenario?
Mr. Borden abuses his daughters, and the stepmother does nothing.
Two sisters plan a murder.
They split the money and move on with their lives.
- Is it possible? - Oh, yes.
I think there were a lot of bad things that happened here.
And she was a victim.
As well as a murderess.
There's something else that I encountered on my walk.
When I went upstairs on the second floor.
What I saw was a woman...
And she was completely insane, and she was crawling on the walls,
scratching on the walls.
Mph. This person...
Is crazy.
And... but she's over there. She's, like, seeping out of the...
Ceiling.
- Amy, do you know who this woman is? - I believe it's Lizzie Borden.
But it's just one aspect of her personality that...
Um, is kind of stuck in...
The emotional and mental state...
Of being potentially abused.
Not processing it.
Um, and it's all kind of accumulated into this, that...
This aspect of her, broke off, like shattered.
And is in a place where everything began.
The part of Lizzie Borden that I saw was like a split personality.
It was the part of her that committed the murders.
The part of her that went crazy.
And when she died that part of her returned to this house,
because of what she did here.
So if Mr. Borden is residual,
is this crazy piece of Lizzie what's tormenting everybody in the house?
Yes.
This fractured piece of Lizzie can manipulate emotions,
just like I think it did to Lee-Ann.
But I can tell by the look on Lee-Ann's face that she doesn't believe me.
But I know what I saw, and I don't think this is going to stop,
until everyone here really wants it to stop.
So how's this all sinking in? I mean, kinda blew me away tonight.
It's just a shock to hear that.
Ben and I will defiantly be discussing quite a few of...
Uh, many of the thing you've said, long after you've left.
I hope the information we brought you guys, helps kind of clear things up.
I'm glad to know, what's going on. You know?
People who come and have issues later,
feel free to contact me, and I'll help, I'll help them out.
Call her if things start going... a little wacky here.
If anything major happens I will, I will uh, call for help.
You know, thank you for that offer.