Reason serial killer Aileen Wuornos appears in Netflix’s Lizzie Borden series despite being born decades later

Ryan Murphy's Monster anthology turns to one of America's most notorious murder cases in its fourth season, but it also features a killer who committed crimes almost a hundred years later.

Welcome to Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the legendary TV creator’s new bloody tale that puts Lizzie Borden and the August 1892 murders of her father and stepmother with an axe at the centre of its story.

The series also includes Aileen Wuornos, the Florida serial killer who was convicted of murdering seven men between 1989 and 1990. Wuornos was executed in 2002, and her case later became the subject of the 2003 film Monster, starring Charlize Theron.

The eight-part Netflix series arrived on Netflix on 17 September, with Ella Beatty playing Lizzie Borden, the Massachusetts woman accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892.

Borden was acquitted of the murders at her trial in 1893, and the case has remained the subject of speculation ever since. Netflix's drama takes that uncertainty as a starting point, presenting a fictionalised account of the events surrounding the killings.

Beatty, who previously appeared in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, leads a cast that includes Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden, Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden, Vicky Krieps as the family maid Bridget "Maggie" Sullivan and Billie Lourd as Lizzie's older sister Emma.

Ella Beatty plays the titular character (Netflix)

Jessica Barden plays Nance O'Neil, a stage actress who became a friend of Lizzie Borden years after her trial and acquittal.

Back to Sarah Paulson and her role Aileen Wuornos, Monsters co-creator Ian Brennan explained by Wuornos plays a major role in the show despite not being born until 1956.

“She's such a fascinating character,” Brennan told Tudum. “She could easily be her own season of the show.”

“The show is exploring a legacy of female rage and reaction to the set of circumstances that they are presented with,” Ella Beatty added. “I think there’s a connection [between Borden and Wuornos] that Ryan and Ian were interested in mapping and exploring.”

Murphy and Brennan have taken some liberties with the timeline to apparently make a wider point about who is labelled a ‘monster’.

Krieps also plays Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the Hungarian noblewoman whose story has become surrounded by centuries of legend.

Actress Sarah Paulson plays serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Netflix)

Murphy has said the series is less interested in simply recreating the crimes than in examining the circumstances surrounding women who have been labelled 'monsters'.

"So we are kind of doing this fantasia of women vs. the system," Murphy told THR. "And it’s not what they did; it’s the question of: What made them do it? Why did they do it, if they did it? That’s what the show is about."

Netflix's official synopsis describes Borden as trapped in a cruel Victorian-era household before the murders of her father and stepmother shock the nation. But Borden was accused of the killings and acquitted.

The distinction is important: Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is a fictionalised drama inspired by a historical case, rather than a definitive account of who killed Andrew and Abby Borden.