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The infamous story of Fall River’s Lizzie Borden has become one of New England’s most haunting legends, but there was another gruesome killing in the Borden family that has received little attention — until now.
In the basement of Miss Lizzie’s Coffee, which is right next door to the Borden House in Downtown Fall River, it’s said that a great aunt of Lizzie Borden killed her two young children before taking her own life — decades before the notorious trial shook the South Coast region.
It’s a story that was even unknown to the Pereira family, who opened the coffee shop in 2023, completely unaware that the building housing their new business had a dark past.
“People started coming in and asking us, ‘Do you know what happened here?’” Olivia Pereira said, who runs the shop alongside her parents and her boyfriend.
With the help of some dedicated Borden family experts, of which there are plenty, the Pereiras began to uncover the tragedy of 242 Second Street, which happened about 40 years before the 1893 trial of Lizzie Borden.
Pereira said Lizzie Borden’s great uncle and great aunt, Lawdwick and Eliza Borden, once lived in what is presently the coffee shop. Eliza had three children in quick succession, and one day, took two of them to the basement of the home and drowned them in the cistern, before killing herself. Pereira said they were able to uncover these details through old newspaper clippings, like the Fall River Weekly News.
An article from the time referred to the incident as a “Melancholy Affair.” Through a modern lens, it was likely an extreme case of postpartum depression or psychosis, Pereira said.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.
“It started to make a little more sense,” Pereira said. “When I had gone into the basement previously I was like, ‘I don’t really like it down here…’ It looks creepy, it feels creepy.”
Armed with new knowledge of their property’s past, the Pereiras said they wanted to be careful to not exploit a tragic event into a kitschy tourist trap. With that in mind, the team at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee encourages its patrons to donate to research or charities related to postpartum depression and psychosis.
“Mental health treatment for women is not very well researched now, but it was obviously much less researched back then,” Pereira said.
Beyond that, the family wants people to feel educated on Fall River’s history, a city the Pereiras are proud to be natives of.
There are plenty of South Coast goodies to be had at Miss Lizzie’s — namely the malassadas, a type of Portuguese fried pastry coated in sugar and cinnamon, and the sweet bread. There’s plenty of different coffee flavors and iterations to try too — the iced variety comes with a ghost outline in the drink upon request.
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The cafe doubles as an art gallery and Lizzie Borden gift shop, with plenty of pieces dedicated to the Fall River area and the Borden family history.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing since Miss Lizzie’s opened in 2023. The owner of the next-door Lizzie Borden House sued the coffee shop for using the Borden name and claiming that they were trying to profit off the bed and breakfast and museum’s business.
The Pereiras won the case, though. Olivia’s father, Joe, said that he presented his case without an attorney in court, arguing that no one owns the Borden story, or history in general for that matter.
The Borden story is big business. People from around the globe have dropped into Miss Lizzie’s to get a first hand look at the history of the family.
“I am a Lizzie Borden addict,” Laurie Woodruff of Portland, Oregon, said. “I have been watching documentaries on it since the fourth grade and I read a book a couple of months ago. And so my dad had a work trip up in Boston, so seeing that Massachusetts, we decided to come.”
The Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, home to two notorious unsolved murders, is definitely in theme with Halloween. Hannah visited the house to learn more.
When Lizzie was on trial for the double murder of her father and her step mother, some people speculated that a murderous gene ran in the family, given the story of Eliza a few decades prior. However, Eliza was not a blood relative to Lizzie; she married into the family through Lizzie’s great uncle, Lawdwick. Eliza’s oldest child, the one who was spared, lived long enough to see Lizzie go to trial.
“I think people didn’t really know about what had happened here because obviously, first things first, the Lizzie Borden murder was the trial of the century and that had kind of taken a lot more attention,” Pereira said. “This was a lot more of a sad as opposed to a mystery and like intrigue... And I hope that we’re changing the conversation around it.”
“I think that she [Eliza] might enjoy the fact that we try to shine a light on postpartum depression,” Pereira added.
Miss Lizzie’s Coffee is located at 242 Second Street in Fall River and is open everyday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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Colton Bradford, Matt Fortin, Jodi Parrish and Nick DeVito
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