The real ‘most foul’ death of Bertha Manchester, who died six days before Lizzie Borden’s trial

Bertha Manchester was Lizzie Borden’s first murder with training wheels in the Netflix show, but in real life, literally everything – and I mean everything – was different. 

During the explosive dinner party in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, where Nance threw a hissy fit, and Andrew did too, Bertha was introduced as the grumpy old lady down the road. The insufferable Mrs Borden gifted Maggie to Bertha to get back at her over the oyster incident. 

Bertha was pretty damn horrible in the show, to the point that most of us were pleased when Lizzie got her axe stuck in her stomach. 

But, as with with most things in the Ryan Murphy universe, it’s mostly made up. 

Credit: Netflix

Bertha Manchester was not an old lady

In the Lizzie Borden show, Linda Reiter played Bertha Manchester, but in reality, she wasn’t much older than Lizzie herself. She was just 22 when she was murdered, but was described by historians as “well-built and feisty.” 

Did Lizzie Borden kill Bertha Manchester? 

Netflix’s show claimed that Bertha was Lizzie and Maggie’s first victim, but that was mostly an invention to forcibly lift the Borden tale to the same height as earlier seasons’ monsters. 

In the real world, Bertha was killed AFTER Lizzie Borden was arrested. In fact, the killing happened just six days before Lizzie’s trial, and Lizzie had been in custody for 10 months at this point. She couldn’t have killed Bertha. 

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Still, it caused quite a stir, naturally. 

“Startling Parallelisms,” the Boston Daily Globe noted at the time. “Many Points of Resemblance Between the Manchester and Borden Murders.”

When writing to Lizzie’s prosecutor, a doctor even joked: ‘Killing people with hatchets is a Bristol County habit.”

Credit: Netflix

Okay, so who did? 

Back in 1893, Bertha Manchester was killed by José Correa de Mello, a 19-year-old Portuguese immigrant who had worked for her father. 

He claimed that Bertha’s father, Stephen, owed him wages, so he went to the home to collect them. He came face-to-face with Bertha, and a confrontation ensued. Bertha reportedly fought valiantly, using an axe as a weapon, but it was that very same axe that was used to kill her. José struck her in the face 20 times. 

The similarities between the two cases are incredibly clear, so José was initially considered a suspect in the murders of Abbey and Andrew Borden. Police later confirmed that he wasn’t in the country at the time. 

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is streaming now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.