Was it the heat of August or the heat of the moment? From a cult leader to a disgruntled daughter, August has coffins full of murder.Aug. 4, 1892Lizzie Borden took an axe,And gave her mother forty whacks.When she saw what she had done,She gave her father forty-one.Two murders took place about 90 minutes apart on the morning of Aug. 4. Andrew and Abby Borden were bludgeoned to death in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, victims of a brutal hatchet attack. Andrew Borden had been attacked and killed while sleeping on the sofa, and a search of the home led to the discovery of the body of Abby Borden in an upstairs bedroom.According to Biography.com, policemen called to the scene suspected Lizzie Borden, daughter of Andrew Borden, although she was not taken into custody at that time. Her sister was out of town at the time and was never a suspect. During the week between the murders and her arrest, Lizzie burned a dress that she claimed was stained with paint. Prosecutors would later allege that the dress was stained with blood, and Lizzie had burned the dress to cover up her crime.From History.com, the evidence that the prosecution presented against Borden was circumstantial. It was alleged that she tried to buy poison the day before the murders, and, although fingerprint testing was becoming commonplace in Europe at the time, the Fall River police were wary of its reliability and refused to test for prints on the potential murder weapon ó a hatchet ó found in the Bordensí basement.Lizzie was indicted on Dec. 2, 1892. Her widely publicized trial began the following June in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Lizzie did not take the stand in her own defense and her inquest testimony was not admitted into evidence. The testimony provided by others proved inconclusive. On June 20, 1893, Lizzie was acquitted of the murders. No one else was ever charged with the crimes.Aug. 8, 1969According to Britannica, in the summer of 1969, Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski were renting the house at 10050 Cielo Drive in the exclusive Benedict Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.The world of Hollywood glamour and the counterculture underbelly converged on Aug. 8. With Polanski in London for work on another film, an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant Tate was being entertained at home by three friends: hairstylist Jay Sebring, longtime Polanski buddy Voytek Frykowski and Frykowski’s girlfriend, Abigail Folger.Cult leader Charles Manson ordered his follower Charles ìTexî Watson to go to that house with three other ìFamilyî members and kill everyone there ìas gruesome(ly) as you can.î Manson was familiar with the residence because it was the former home of a record producer who had rejected him.At around midnight, three members of the Family arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive and got out of a car while a fourth, Linda Kasabian, remained behind the wheel as a lookout. After cutting the telephone line, Tex shot 18-year-old delivery boy Steven Parent, who had the misfortune of being out front in his car, before slipping inside with Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel. The four people in the house were forced to gather in the living room, and all were barbarically killed before the night’s end.By yearís end, all the killers had been arrested, and the 1970 trial of Manson and his followers attracted national attention. In 1971, Manson and the four murderers were sentenced to death; however, following the abolition of capital punishment in California in 1972, their sentences were commuted to life in prison. Although they eventually became eligible for parole, their requests were repeatedly denied. Tate was buried with her unborn son in a family plot in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, according to Biography.com.Aug. 27, 1979From History, Lord Louis Mountbatten, a war hero, elder statesman and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, was spending the day with his family in Donegal Bay off Irelandís northwest coast. Fifteen minutes after setting sail, a planted bomb was activated by two members of the Provisional IRA, a paramilitary group of Irish nationalists.ìThe boat was there one minute and the next minute it was like a lot of matchsticks floating on the water,î a witness told The New York Times.ìFifty pounds of gelignite exploded, sending showers of timber, metal, cushions, lifejackets and shoes into the air,î Andrew Lownie, author of ìThe Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves,î wrote for the BBC. ìThen, there was a deadly silence.îThree others were killed in the attack, including Mountbattenís 14-year-old grandson, Nicholas. The IRA immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it detonated the bomb by remote control from the coast. It also took responsibility for the same-day bombing attack against British troops in County Down, which claimed 18 lives.Aug. 31, 1888Mary Ann Nichols, the first known victim of London serial killer ìJack the Ripper,î is found murdered and mutilated in the cityís Whitechapel district.According to Crimeinvestigation.co.uk, Mary Ann Nichols, known as ìPolly,î married William Nichols, a printerís machinist, and they had five children. Mary was a known heavy drinker, which most likely contributed to the breakdown of her marriage. Nichols continued to pay Mary an allowance of five shillings a week until it was reported she was living with another man. She later spent time in the workhouses and lived off her earnings as a prostitute.Her body was found by two workmen in front of a dimly lit gated stable entrance in Buckís Row at around 3:40 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 31, 1888. Nichols had been savagely attacked across the throat, exposing her vertebrae and also repeatedly stabbed in the stomach. Her abdomen was cut open, exposing her intestines, with two small stabs in the groin area.From Britannica, some dozen murders between 1888 and 1892 have been speculatively attributed to Jack the Ripper, but only five of those, all committed in 1888, were linked by police to a single murderer. The so-called ìcanonical fiveî victims were Mary Ann Nichols (found Aug. 31), Annie Chapman (found Sept. 8), Elizabeth Stride (found Sept. 30), Catherine (Kate) Eddowes (found Sept. 30), and Mary Jane Kelly (found Nov. 9). In 1892, with no leads found and no more murders recorded, the Jack the Ripper file was closed.
