NEW SERIES On a suffocating August morning in 1892, the wealthy but notoriously frugal Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were hacked to death with an axe inside their locked home in Fall River, Massachusetts. While popular history remembers this horror through a macabre children’s nursery rhyme, the true story has remained buried under a century of folklore. Lizzie Borden: Forty Whacks strips away the legend to deliver a gripping psychological thriller built directly upon the raw, contradictory, and deeply unsettling transcripts of the original, rediscovered police interrogation files. These forgotten inquest records serve as our gateway into the story, exposing the verbal chess match between District Attorney Hosea Knowlton and the chillingly self-possessed 32-year-old Sunday school teacher, Lizzie Borden. The case triggered a massive media spectacle across Victorian America. During the trial, the all-male jury struggled to reconcile standard Victorian expectations of a female Sunday school teacher with such extreme violence. The legend of America’s “first female serial killer” has long been fossilised in true crime lore as a sensationalist fable of a bloodthirsty, man-hating monster. Yet, the truth is far more complex, lurking in the dark, dusty corners of archives that the public was never meant to scrutinise. Our fresh, visceral way into this haunting narrative is built directly upon the actual FBI case files from the era and the exclusive, guiding testimony of Brian Jarvis, the lead detective who hunted Aileen down, built the case, and sat across from her in the interrogation room. Through Jarvis’s memories and the cold precision of the federal files, we strip away decades of Hollywood mythmaking to expose a tragedy of absolute societal failure, breathtaking betrayal, and the fine, blurred line between a cold-blooded executioner and a shattered victim fighting to survive. Through Jarvis’s sobering reflections and the unvarnished records of the FBI, Aileen Wuornos: Damsel of Death reopens a tragic case file, forcing us to confront whether we executed a monster, or a woman who had been left to rot by the world long before she ever pulled the trigger. LIZZIE BORDEN: FORTY WHACKS AILEEN WUORNOS: DAMSEL OF DEATH NEW SERIES VIEW MORE GENRE Crime & Investigation DURATION 2 x 60’ / 1 x 90’ PRODUCER Spirit Studios BROADCASTER Hearst Networks YEAR OF PRODUCTION 2026 VIEW MORE GENRE Crime & Investigation DURATION 2 x 60’ / 1 x 90’ PRODUCER Spirit Studios BROADCASTER Hearst Networks YEAR OF PRODUCTION 2026 PROGRAMMES 2026 10/11
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