Ryan Murphy reportedly eyes Lizzie Borden for fourth season of misunderstood, sexy Monsters

With Ed Gein reportedly heading to Netflix for season three, Ryan Murphy is sharpening his axe for season four.

By Matt Schimkowitz | July 8, 2025 | 3:19pm

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

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Ryan Murphy reportedly eyes Lizzie Borden for fourth season of misunderstood, sexy Monsters

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Ryan Murphy is doubling down on patricide. Variety reports that for the fourth season of Monster, his breakout Netflix true-crime drama series about hot, misunderstood killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, we guess, Murphy is diving into the mysterious case of Lizzie Borden, who was accused and later acquitted of the murder of her father and stepmother. However, Netflix has not officially ordered a fourth season of Monster, so take this with a grain of salt for the time being. The third season of Monster will follow the career of serial killer Ed Gein, who very sexily made household items out of his victims’ flesh in the 1950s. While the Gein case was pretty cut and dry, Borden’s is more akin to the Menendez murders, which Murphy examined last season. The very popular Menendez season coincided with former L.A. District Attorney George Gascón’s attempt to reopen the Menendez case for re-election purposes.

Borden would be the first season to focus on an accused killer who was ultimately acquitted of the crime. Does that make her a Monster? It’s hard to say, but her father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby Gray, whom Lizzie derisively called “Mrs. Borden,” were killed by an axe-wielding murderer in August 1892. Lizzie, who was home at the time of the murder and found her father’s body, remained a prime suspect for years after her acquittal. She also became something of a folk legend thanks to jump-rope rhymes that mischaracterized the murders: “Lizzie Borden took an axe/and gave her mother forty whacks/When she saw what she had done/she gave her father forty-one.” In reality, it was only 18 for her stepmother and less than a dozen for her father, exactly the type of thing Murphy and a cast of hotties can finally clear up.