Lizzie Borden's House

The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum in Fall River, Massachusetts was the scene of one of the bloodiest murders in American history. It may now also be one of the most haunted houses in America, and you can spend the night there! When we went to investigate the Borden house, we found far more than we could have imagined…

 Excerpt from Ghost Investigator-Volume 2: From Gettysburg, PA to Lizzie Borden, AX

…Propping up the pillows on the bed, I stretched out on the comfortable mattress and took a deep breath. At last, I could relax! Until about two minutes later when I thought I heard footsteps in the hallway and sitting room outside my door. It was probably Diane, or Mike and Kelly returning from dinner, I thought. And even if it was a ghost, I was far too tired to care at that moment.

However, the footsteps and creaking continued, and several times it sounded like someone was approaching our room, but the footsteps stopped when they reached the door. If this was someone’s idea of a joke, I was not amused. If it was Diane or some guests, I wanted to know what they were doing. It if was something else, I had to know.

Getting up from the bed, I opened the latch, pulled open the door and looked out. Mike and Kelly’s room was still empty, and no one was in the sitting room. Going down the hall I found that the bathroom and Bridget’s room were also empty, and no one was on the stairs. Still more tired than curious, I went back into our room and made sure the latch was securely closed. It is an old-fashioned type of latch where you need to firmly press down a lever in order to raise an iron bar out of a slot. It is not the type of mechanism that could possibly open on its own. Or so I thought.

About a minute after I climbed back into bed, the footsteps began again. Then I heard the distinctive clinking sound of the lever being depressed and the bar snapping out of the slot, and the door swung open about eight inches. I expected to see the door continue to open and Bob walk in. The door stopped and no one was there.

Bob and I have a deal that we never play jokes during an investigation, and I couldn’t believe he would pull anything like this now, in the Lizzie Borden house of all places. Literally leaping out bed this time, I swung open the door and said, "Bob, this isn’t funny!" There was no response. I hurried to the other rooms and found no one. I called down the stairs and there was silence. Apparently, someone was very curious about me and wanted to get my attention. Phantom footsteps and opening my door was a sure way to accomplish that…

 The latch on the Jennings Room door, on the third floor of the Borden house. The lever on the outside must be depressed completely in order for the bar to rise out of the slot. I was the only person on the second and third floors when this door opened by itself.