Separated by more than half a century, Lizzie Borden and Aileen Wuornos remain two of the most infamous women in true crime history.
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story links their stories through fiction, portraying Wuornos—the Florida serial killer believed to have killed seven men—as someone fascinated by Borden. The series even shows Wuornos visiting the Massachusetts house where Borden’s father and stepmother were murdered.
Their legal outcomes, however, were dramatically different. Borden was acquitted of the double murder that captivated the nation, while Wuornos was convicted and ultimately executed.
In the closing moments of the eight-episode Netflix drama, Borden appears to Wuornos in the afterlife. “All is forgiven. All is understood. At last,” she tells her before leading the condemned woman into the great beyond.
But did Lizzie Borden and Aileen Wuornos ever have a real-life connection?
Here’s what is known about the supposed link between the two notorious figures:
Who is Aileen Wuornos?
Wuornos endured a troubled childhood in Michigan before moving to Florida at age 20. According to court records, she supported herself as a sex worker along the state’s highways. Wuornos said that customers had “maced, beaten and raped” her, maintaining that she killed some of the men in self-defense.
“You go in those woods and go through what I went through with these scum,” she said in an interview featured on Oxygen’s Snapped: Notorious. “And then you tell me if I deserve life in prison or death row at all.”
Wuornos was convicted in 1992 for the killing of Richard Mallory. She later pleaded no contest to five additional murders, according to earlier Oxygen reporting, and was suspected in a seventh case, though she was never charged in that death.
What Was Lizzie Borden Accused of?
Borden’s murder case unfolded nearly 100 years earlier.
On Aug. 4, 1892, she was accused of killing her father and stepmother with a hatchet, a shocking crime that rattled the otherwise quiet Fall River, Massachusetts, community.
Many people at the time doubted that a woman could commit such a brutal act. With limited physical evidence tying her to the killings, Borden was acquitted in 1893, according to Biography.
Did Aileen Wuornos Have Any Connection to Lizzie Borden?
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Borden died in 1927, nearly three decades before Wuornos—portrayed by Sarah Paulson in the Netflix series—was born in 1956.
There is no known real-world relationship between the two women, and no evidence that Wuornos ever knew of Borden.
Murphy’s fictional version of events gives Borden a prominent place in Wuornos’ thoughts, including during the killer’s final moments as she is secured to the gurney for lethal injection.
“Meeting my maker,” Wuornos says in the series. “Also that Lizzie Borden, ’cause she’s the one who got away with it.”
The story then moves back to the early 1900s as Borden’s narrative reaches its conclusion. After Wuornos dies, the series returns to the execution chamber, where she awakens in the afterlife and finds Borden and her housekeeper, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, waiting to guide her onward.
Did Aileen Wuornos Ever Really Visit Lizzie Borden’s Home?
The drama also depicts Wuornos and her girlfriend traveling to the Fall River home where Borden’s father, Andrew Borden, and stepmother, Abby Borden, were killed. In one especially provocative scene, the couple has sex on the couch where Andrew died.
The historic property now operates as a bed and breakfast, inviting guests to enjoy a “hauntingly good time.” Still, there is no evidence that Wuornos ever visited the house.
Why Was Aileen Wuornos in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story?
As for why Murphy and Brennan’s anthology series, chose to intertwine the two women’s stories, Ella Beatty—who plays Borden in Monster—offered her thoughts.
“The show is exploring a legacy of female rage and reaction to the set of circumstances that they are presented with,” she told Tudum. “I think there’s a connection [between Borden and Wuornos] that Ryan and Ian were interested in mapping and exploring.”
She went on to add that incorporating Wuornos into the story helped address the broader question of “why women kill.”
“Every season of Monster has been an exercise in understanding the person’s psychology,” she said. “Are they born or are they made? I knew from the beginning that Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan were really interested in exploring what brings a woman to the point of violence.”
Brennan added that he believed Wuornos was a “fascinating character.”