LIZZIE BORDEN: The story of teen Lizzie Borden and the murder charges against her have has taken on an almost mythical status for people hearing it in 2017.

But 125 years ago, Bradford Era readers were hearing about the allegations for the first time, as news of the famous criminal case unfolded on the front page.

Halloween week seemed a good time to revisit the case.

Lizzie Borden was tried and found not guilty of the gruesome Aug. 4, 1892, murder of her father and stepmother. She was 32 at the time.

Later that month, witnesses testified for several days at a hearing in the matter.

An article that appeared in The Era on Aug. 26, 1882, describes the appearance of Lizzie and her sister in the courtroom: “Lizzie bore an expressionless countenance and bit at the edge of a palm-leaf fan, while Emma hid her face behind a similar article.”

Testimony outlined in that day’s paper expressed the grisly nature of the murders, with a medical examiner reporting 10 hatchet wounds found on her father’s body and 18 found on her  stepmother’s.

On Aug. 27, 1882, an article stated that the courtroom heard the day before “the most gruesome part of the testimony yet given,” during which “Miss Lizzie and Miss Emma closed their eyes and flushed and showed much feeling.”

Three days later, a drug clerk testified that Lizzie called his store three times the day before the murder looking for prussic acid — a poison — but was refused. She denied the allegations.

The next day, Officer Philip Harrington testified that “Lizzie was cool and collected but would not or could not tell witness anything at all about the matter. Said she was in the barn 20 minutes at the time the murder was committed,” the front page of The Era read.

The trial itself was held the next year in 1893. Lizzie was acquitted.

The news story prompted this popular poem:

    Lizzie Borden took an axe

    And gave her mother forty whacks,

    When she saw what she had done,

    She gave her father forty-one.

No individual is credited with writing it.

Since then, several theories have surfaced as to what may have happened — her father had many enemies — but many still speculate it was the accused daughter.

The case remains unsolved to this day.