Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story includes plenty of outlandish details from the life of one of America’s most notorious accused murderers, some real, some fictionalized. 

But one of the most surprising elements of the series is based in reality. Yes, the house where Lizzie Borden allegedly murdered her parents with an axe is now a bed and breakfast. “I couldn’t believe that,” Monster co-showrunner Ian Brennan says. “It’s stunning.”

Where is the Lizzie Borden house? 

The Lizzie Borden House (billed by its owners as “America’s most haunted house,” although residents of Amityville, New York might beg to differ) remains open in Fall River, Massachusetts, the town where Borden lived in the 1890s.  

Did Aileen Wuornos really stay at Lizzie Borden’s house?

In the series, Aileen Wuornos (Sarah Paulson) and her girlfriend Shelby (Jessie Lee) stay in the Borden bed and breakfast, and have an awkward exchange with the proprietor before spending the night in each other’s arms in Borden’s bed. 

In reality, there’s no evidence that Wuornos was fixated on the story of Borden, and since she was arrested in 1990, six years before the Borden home opened as a bed and breakfast, she certainly never stayed there. But the idea does make for a timeline-warping dance sequence to Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy.” 

Suzanne Tenner/Netflix

Where did Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story film?

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story was filmed largely in Los Angeles, while the flashbacks to the life of Elizabeth Báthory were filmed in the Lazio region of Italy.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is now streaming on Netflix.