Sarah Paulson Is Chilling… Netflix’s Monster Is Connecting Lizzie Borden With Another Notorious Female Killer — And The New Season Is Exploring A Dark Question About What Drives Women To Violence! Ella Beatty stars as Lizzie Borden, while Sarah Paulson appears as Aileen Wuornos in scenes set generations later. Rather than directly connecting their crimes, the series uses both women to examine female rage, violence and the circumstances surrounding their infamous stories. It’s a disturbing new direction for the Monster anthology — and its first season centred on a female figure.

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Sarah Paulson Joins Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story as Aileen Wuornos in a Chilling Link Across Generations

A concerned person in a blue jacket stands in a vintage room with patterned wallpaper, ornate wooden furniture, and a black-and-white cutout of a woman in period clothing in the background.

Netflix’s Monster anthology is turning its attention to Lizzie Borden for its fourth installment — but the infamous 1892 murder case will not be the only story explored.

Ella Beatty leads Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story as Borden, the Massachusetts woman accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. For the first time, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s anthology is placing a female figure at the centre of a season, following previous installments about Jeffrey Dahmer, Erik and Lyle Menendez, and Ed Gein.

One of the season’s most intriguing additions is Sarah Paulson as serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Although Wuornos lived almost a century after Borden, the series uses her story to explore the legacy of female violence and the question of what circumstances can push someone toward killing.

Aileen Wuornos enters Lizzie Borden’s story

Watch the Monster The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer, Where Ella Beatty Sees Red - Netflix Tudum

Wuornos has no direct connection to the Borden murders. Instead, the series reportedly moves across different periods to examine how Lizzie’s story and cultural reputation echoed through later generations.

Beatty explained that Murphy and Brennan were interested in exploring a connection between Borden and Wuornos through the broader theme of female rage.

For Beatty, the central question is consistent with the psychological territory Monster has explored since its first season: whether people who commit horrific acts are inherently that way or shaped by their circumstances.

Wuornos provides another perspective through which the series can investigate that question.

Between 1989 and 1990, Wuornos killed seven men in Florida and was ultimately convicted of six murders. Her case became a national sensation, in part because she did not fit the profile commonly associated with serial killers. She was executed in Florida in 2002.

Her life has subsequently been revisited numerous times in popular culture. Charlize Theron portrayed Wuornos in the 2003 film Monster, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the performance.

Netflix returned to her story in 2025 with the documentary Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, which incorporated archival material and prison interviews to reconsider her life and crimes.

Sarah Paulson reunites with Ryan Murphy

Monster Season 4 Lizzie Borden Trailer: Ella Beatty, Charlie Hunnam

Casting Paulson as Wuornos also reunites the actress with Murphy after an extensive history of collaborations.

Paulson has previously worked within Murphy’s television universe on projects including American Horror Story, Ratched and American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.

This time, she enters Monster as a figure whose presence helps expand the season beyond a straightforward dramatization of the Borden case.

Beatty and Paulson already knew each other before filming. The pair worked together on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ stage production Appropriate, and Beatty has spoken warmly about the relationship they developed during that experience.

Ella Beatty becomes the anthology’s first female central figure

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story' Trailer Teases Sarah Paulson Charlie Hunnam

Beatty’s casting represents a significant shift for the franchise.

Season 1 followed Jeffrey Dahmer, while the second installment examined Erik and Lyle Menendez. Season 3 focused on Ed Gein, played by Charlie Hunnam. Netflix says the fourth installment will follow the anthology’s first female “monster.”

Beatty said she approached the role with the psychological questions raised by previous seasons firmly in mind, particularly the circumstances that might lead a woman toward violence.

The real Borden case has remained part of American crime folklore for more than a century. Borden was accused of killing her father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892.

The Netflix cast surrounding Beatty includes Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden, Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden, Billie Lourd as Lizzie’s sister Emma, Vicky Krieps as the family’s live-in maid Bridget Sullivan, and Jessica Barden as Lizzie’s actress friend Nance O’Neil. Paulson completes the announced principal ensemble as Wuornos.

Monster expands beyond the original crime

Rather than limiting the season entirely to reconstructing the events surrounding the Borden murders, the inclusion of Wuornos suggests Murphy and Brennan are again interested in examining how notorious crimes become part of popular culture.

That approach echoes territory explored elsewhere in the anthology, where the creators have looked beyond individual crimes to consider the cultural fascination surrounding notorious figures.

With Borden and Wuornos separated by generations but brought together thematically, the fourth season is positioned to examine female violence through more than one historical lens.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story premieres on Netflix on September 17, 2026.