The Lizzie Borden Axe Murders: Rebuild the Crime Scene in VR

Fall River, 1892

The Borden murders are one of America's oldest unsolved cases. Andrew Borden, a wealthy but notoriously frugal businessman, was found on the sitting room couch with his skull caved in. His wife Abby was discovered upstairs in the guest bedroom, face down, struck from behind. The attacks happened roughly 90 minutes apart, in the middle of a hot August morning, in a house where several people were present.

Lizzie Borden, 32, became the primary suspect. Her behavior after the murders struck investigators as odd: she gave conflicting accounts of her whereabouts, and she had attempted to buy poison the day before. But at trial, key evidence was excluded, her testimony was compelling, and the jury acquitted her in under 90 minutes.

The case has fascinated amateur detectives for over a century. The layout of the house, the timing of the attacks, and missing evidence all create a puzzle that people are still trying to solve.

What you build in Episode 1

In Crafting Crimes, you reconstruct the Borden house room by room on your virtual modelist desk. Using hand tracking on Meta Quest, you place walls, arrange furniture, and position objects exactly as they were found in 1892. Carol K. Ras narrates the story as you build, guiding you through the timeline of that morning.

Each object you place reveals new information on the case. The parlor couch where Andrew was found. The guest bedroom upstairs. The narrow staircase that connects the floors. As the miniature takes shape, the spatial relationships between rooms start to tell their own story.

Step inside the crime scene

Once the diorama is complete, something shifts. You shrink down into the model and suddenly you're standing inside the Borden house at full scale. The rooms that were miniatures on your table are now around you. You can walk through the parlor, climb the stairs, look into the bedroom.

This is where things click. Standing in the house, you start to notice things. How close the rooms are. How thin the walls must have been. How someone could, or couldn't, have committed a murder upstairs without being heard in the kitchen below. The physical layout raises questions that reading about the case never does.

No gore, just investigation

Crafting Crimes doesn't show graphic violence. There are no bloody recreations or shock images. The tone is investigative. The Borden case is presented through evidence, architecture, and narrative. You're piecing together a puzzle, not directly watching a violent crime unfold.

The episode takes about 20 minutes and is completely free on the Meta Quest Store. It's designed as a way to see if the format works for you before trying Episode 2 (the Wonderland Murders) or waiting for Episode 3 (the Mona Lisa Heist).

A case that still has no answer

Over 130 years later, the Borden case remains officially unsolved. Dozens of theories exist: Lizzie acting alone, Lizzie with an accomplice, the family's uncle, the maid, even a stranger. Crafting Crimes doesn't tell you who did it. It gives you the crime scene, the evidence, and the timeline, and lets you walk through it yourself. What you conclude is up to you.