Lizzie Borden's famous axe may not have actually been the murder weapon

Lizzie Borden is all the rage at the moment, thanks to Netflix's latest true-crime series Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, which brings her infamous axe murders back to screens in suitably gruesome fashion.

There's just one small issue: that famous axe may not have been the murder weapon at all.

Ryan Murphy's latest series Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story landed on Netflix last week, with Ella Beatty taking on the role of Borden and bringing one of America's most infamous murder cases back into the spotlight.

Ryan Murphy and the cast of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story (Dia Dipasupil/WireImage)

The series dramatises the brutal 1892 killings of Lizzie's father, Andrew Borden, and her stepmother, Abby, with an axe playing a pretty central role in the story.

It's also the image most of us have come to associate with old Lizzie. You may be familiar with that famous rhyme: "Lizzie Borden took an axe..."

Only, when you dig into the actual evidence, the details get a little bit fuzzy.

The story has been retold many times over the years, with Lizzie becoming almost inseparable from the image of a woman wielding an axe before supposedly brutally murdering her parents.

And Netflix has naturally leaned into that grisly reputation, putting the axe front and centre as it dramatises the killings.

Lizzie Borden stood trial, and was later acquitted, for killing her parents with an axe. (Getty Images/ Bettman)

Thanks to that famous rhyme about how Lizzie Borden 'took an ax', the image of Lizzie wielding the weapon has stuck in the public imagination.

But, according to Smithsonian Magazine, that rhyme isn't actually accurate.

"The weapon wasn’t an ax, but rather a hatchet, a smaller, lighter tool," it explains.

You heard it here first. Don't rely on nursery rhymes for your sources.

And although it's true that a hatchet was found in the cellar of the Borden family house, there has never been definitive proof that it was the weapon used to kill Andrew and Abby.

In fact, a Harvard University chemist examined two axes and two hatchets recovered from the cellar and found no blood on any of them, according to Smithsonian.

So while Netflix has put that infamous image of Lizzie Borden marching around with an axe back in the spotlight, the real story is a lot less clear-cut.

Ella Beatty plays Borden in the new Ryan Murphy series. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Lizzie was charged with murdering her father and stepmother in 1892, but was acquitted at trial the following year.

More than 130 years later, it's still unclear what really happened, and now it turns out we can't even be completely sure what weapon was used.

But if you ask Ryan Murphy's crew, they're sticking with the infamous axe.

In fairness, the hefty weapon makes for a great story and, apparently, addictive television.

After it dropped on Netflix last week, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story shot up to the number one spot on Netflix's Top 10, according to Variety, earning 12.2 million views within its first four days on the streaming service.

All eight episodes of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story are streaming now on Netflix.