Bertha Manchester is the Borden family’s despicable neighbour in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, and while she meets a grisly end in the Netflix show, her real life death is even more disturbing. Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true crime anthology series has never been known to stick closely to the facts. We saw it with Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein, but perhaps even more so with Lizzie Borden, in part due to the time in which the crimes took place. Lizzie’s father Andrew and stepmother Abby were brutally murdered with a hatchet all the way back in 1892, when photography was cumbersome, filming was brand new technology and forensic science was only just starting to emerge. In other words, there are a lot of gaps in what we know about the case, and Monster certainly isn’t afraid to fill them. One of many changes is the story of Bertha Manchester. What happens to Bertha Manchester in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Credit: Netflix Played by Linda Reiter, Bertha is introduced as the hateful neighbour of the Bordens’. To make up the numbers, she and her pet dog join a dinner Andrew hosts for his late wife Sarah’s brother, John Morse (Joey Pollari). During their dinner, Abby (Rebecca Hall) offers up Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan’s (Vicky Krieps) services to Bertha after Bridget poisoned her and Andrew with dodgy oysters. What they don’t know is that the oysters were put in their meal on purpose to try and kill them, but their attempt failed. Later, when Bridget and Lizzie are alone, they start making new plans for how they’re going to get rid of Abby and Andrew. Bridget reveals to Lizzie that Bertha had whipped her with a cat o’ nine tails simply for looking at her in a way Bertha deemed inappropriate. But it soon becomes clear that Bertha is actually attracted to Bridget herself, and rather than confront her own sexual desire, she blames Bridget for supposedly tempting her. This version of Bertha is, frankly, despicable, and so Bridget comes up with a plan: they’ll first kill Bertha as a practice run. “We have to make sure we know what we’re doing, and that we have our courage,” she says. Credit: Netflix And so, on their chosen evening, they lure Bertha downstairs. Out of the darkness, Lizzie emerges, swinging her axe right into Bertha’s stomach. The scene is as gruesome as you’d expect from Monster – the axe gets stuck in her stomach, and Lizzie spends an agonising minute trying to pull it back out as Bertha screams in pain. Bridget freezes, and so Lizzie grabs the hatchet from her hand before plunging it into Bertha’s head, finally killing her. When the police find her around a week later, they put it down to a robbery and arrest an innocent man for the crime. That’s where Bertha’s story ends in Monster, and it’s safe to say the show took some creative liberties. The disturbing case of the real Bertha Manchester Bertha Manchester was a real person and she really was brutally murdered with an axe in Fall River – but Lizzie and Bridget had absolutely nothing to do with her death, and she lived around eight miles from the Bordens. In reality, 22-year-old Bertha was killed on May 30, 1893, almost 10 months after Andrew and Abby Borden. Lizzie couldn’t possibly have been responsible, considering she was literally sitting in jail awaiting her murder trial at the time. Bertha was actually killed just six days before Lizzie’s trial began. And somehow, the real details are arguably even more horrific than what Monster shows. Bertha was home alone at her family’s dairy farm when she was attacked, and her body was later discovered in the kitchen. She had been struck in the head with an axe more than 20 times, with the force of the attack knocking out five of her teeth. According to local historian and Borden expert Stefani Koorey, the man convicted of Bertha’s murder was José Correa de Mello, a young Portuguese immigrant who had previously worked for Bertha’s father. Author William D. Spencer explains in The Other Fall River Tragedy: The Murder of Bertha Manchester that de Mello went to the farmhouse looking for money he believed he was owed and began searching the property. Credit: Fall River Daily Herald/Public Domain Bertha apparently confronted him and a struggle followed. Spencer describes her as “well-built and feisty” and writes that she fought back, initially attacking de Mello with the axe herself. But he managed to overpower her and take the weapon, with his defence later claiming a “mad passion” came over him before he repeatedly struck her in the head. De Mello was ultimately convicted of Bertha’s murder and sentenced to life in prison, although he was released in 1914 after serving 21 years. Unsurprisingly, another person being brutally hacked to death with an axe in Fall River just days before Lizzie’s trial attracted a lot of attention, and some believe it may have created doubt in the jurors’ minds. But unlike Monster suggests, Bertha definitely wasn’t Lizzie and Bridget’s practice run. For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: Netflix/Fall River Daily Globe/Public Domain Post navigation Next story
