Lizzie Borden’s famous nursery rhyme got the murder weapon completely wrong

Lizzie Borden might just be the most notorious woman in America's criminal history, who has never actually been found guilty of a crime.

Her alleged crimes have recently been highlighted in true crime anthology series Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, detailing the brutal murder of her father Andrew Borden and stepmother Abby Borden in 1892.

While you may not have been familiar with Lizzie Borden's story prior to the Netflix series, you may have heard the disturbing old nursery rhyme regarding her parents' murders.

"Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks," the rhyme states. "When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty one."

Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story (Netflix)

This, as we know, is not historically accurate for a number of different reasons.

The first being, Lizzie was formally acquitted for the murders of Andrew and Abby, regardless of what many people believe really happened.

Abby was also Lizzie's stepmother rather than her biological mother and the murder weapon was not an axe.

The weapon that killed the married couple was actually a hatchet, which is much smaller and lighter than an axe.

Meanwhile, the numbers are also highly sensationalized. The nursery rhyme says 64-year-old Abby was hit around 40 times, when in actual fact, it was believed to be 19.

Lizzie's 69-year-old father was said to be hit 10 or 11 times in the brutal attack.

Lizzie Borden was acquitted of her parents' murder (Netflix)

While police initially believed the killer was an outsider, attention quickly turned to Lizzie after the 32-year-old gave several different accounts of what she had been doing on the morning of the murders.

She initially said she'd been in the barn and later found her father's body and gave conflicting answers on when she had last seen Abby.

Investigators and newspaper reporters alike both recalled the woman showing little to no emotion despite having allegedly found her father after he was savagely murdered.

Then it was discovered that just days before the murders took place, Lizzie had allegedly attempted to get hold of prussic acid, which is a deadly poison.

After the murders, Lizzie's friend stayed at her home and reported witnessing her burning a dress in the kitchen stove. The dress was believed to be stained with her parents' blood and eventually led to her arrest.

Eventually, after a lengthy trial, a jury found Lizzie not guilty and no one else was ever charged with the murders.