Netflix Brings the Lizzie Borden Story Back to the Screen

Promotional image for Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story. Credit: Netflix

A Famous Unsolved Case Returns as Drama

Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story brings the 1892 Fall River murders back to the screen through a heavily fictionalized version of Lizzie Borden’s life. The historical record is clear on the central legal facts: Andrew and Abby Borden were killed, Lizzie was charged, and a jury acquitted her in 1893.

No one was later convicted of the murders. More than a century later, that unresolved ending continues to give writers and filmmakers room to imagine what might have happened inside the Borden home.

Netflix’s series uses that uncertainty deliberately, but it does not present itself as a documentary reconstruction.

The Show Builds Fiction Into Real Events

Netflix’s own account describes the series’ Lizzie as a fictionalized version of the historical woman. Actor Ella Beatty said she used real source material as a starting point for a character that the creators were ultimately imagining.

The series keeps recognizable facts from the case but turns disputed or ambiguous material into definite dramatic events. Details that historians still debate become motivations, relationships and actions on screen.

That is one of the central pleasures of historical drama, but it is also why viewers need to know where the court record ends.

Bridget Sullivan Becomes a Very Different Character

The real Bridget Sullivan worked as a maid in the Borden household. In the series, the relationship between Sullivan and Lizzie is dramatically expanded into a romantic and criminal partnership.

Netflix explicitly identifies that material as part of the show’s fictional treatment rather than a documented fact of the historical case.

The series also creates a narrative connection between Borden and Aileen Wuornos, the Florida serial killer who lived nearly a century later. Netflix notes there is no evidence that the real Wuornos was fixated on the Borden case in the way the show imagines.

Those choices reveal what the series is trying to do: connect famous female crime stories across time, even when history itself does not provide the connection.

Where the Historical Record Ends

The safest way to watch Monster is to separate three layers. First are the established facts: Andrew and Abby Borden were killed in 1892; Lizzie was prosecuted; she was acquitted.

Second are disputed historical details that have produced theories for generations. Third are elements the series invents or reshapes for dramatic purposes.

Netflix does not hide that distinction. Its own background material openly explains that the creative team filled gaps and imagined a version of Lizzie rather than claiming to solve the murders.

The Uncertainty Is Why the Story Keeps Returning

The Borden case has endured in books, plays, films and television partly because there is no final criminal verdict identifying the killer. An acquittal closed the case against Lizzie, but it did not answer the cultural question of what happened inside the house.

Monster uses that open space as fiction. Viewers can enjoy the drama without treating invented relationships or motives as evidence.

The historical Lizzie Borden was acquitted. The Netflix Lizzie exists inside a story built more than 130 years later. Keeping those two versions separate makes the real mystery more interesting, not less.

References: Netflix Tudum - What’s the True Story That Inspired Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story?

The Truth In Facts team was assisted by generative AI technology in creating this content