Olivia TremblayWhen Netflix dropped Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on September 17, 2026, it became one of the most-streamed limited series in Canada within a week of release. Billie Lourd — best known to Canadian audiences from American Horror Story — plays Emma Borden, the quietly devastated older sister of one of history's most scrutinized accused murderers. The show is compelling true crime. It is also an unexpectedly sharp lesson in what happens when a parent dies without a clear estate plan in a blended family.
The Lizzie Borden murders of August 4, 1892 have never been solved with legal certainty. What historians and estate practitioners agree on is the motive most often cited: a blended family inheritance dispute that had been escalating for years. For Canadians watching the show and quietly wondering whether their own family situation carries similar risks, the answer from 2026 data is sobering.
What the Lizzie Borden Case Was Really About
Andrew Borden was worth the equivalent of approximately $1.5 million CAD in today's money — a remarkable fortune in 1892 Fall River, Massachusetts. His second wife, Abby Durfee Gray, became stepmother to two adult daughters, Lizzie and Emma, who never fully accepted her. The family tension was not simply personal. In the months before the murders, Andrew Borden had begun transferring property to Abby and her relatives. Lizzie and Emma feared that the wealth their biological mother had helped accumulate over decades was being redirected — that it would pass to a woman neither of them had chosen as family.
When Andrew and Abby were found dead from axe wounds that morning, Lizzie became the primary suspect. She was arrested, tried, and acquitted in June 1893. The estate was subsequently divided between the two sisters. What the Netflix series captures with uncomfortable clarity is that the dispute did not begin with the murders — it began years earlier, with ambiguous intentions, undocumented agreements, and a family structure nobody had thought to formalize legally.
That dynamic has not changed. It has accelerated.
Are Blended Family Inheritance Conflicts Still This Common in Canada?
According to the STEP Barometer 2026 — published in June 2026 by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, which surveyed estate practitioners internationally — 71% of professionals now identify blended families as the single demographic most likely to generate inheritance disputes. In the same survey, 68% reported an increase in conflict specifically between stepchildren and surviving spouses.
In Canada, approximately one in three marriages is a second or subsequent marriage, according to Statistics Canada. That means millions of Canadian households carry exactly the structural fault lines that made the Borden home so volatile: adult children with expectations about an inheritance, a surviving spouse with a legal claim that may supersede those expectations, and no formal document specifying who gets what and when.
The question most Canadians watching the show are quietly asking themselves is: could this happen to my family?
What Happens If a Parent Remarries and Dies Without Updating Their Will in Canada?
This is the mechanism the show dramatizes but never fully explains.
Under Ontario's Succession Law Reform Act — and parallel legislation in other provinces — when a person dies without a valid, updated will (a state called intestacy), the surviving spouse receives the first claim on the estate. In Ontario, that "preferential share" is currently set at $350,000. Only after the surviving spouse receives that threshold amount does anything pass to the children — and even then, the remainder is divided according to a provincial formula, not the deceased person's likely wishes.
For adult children who spent decades expecting to inherit a family home or retirement savings, discovering that a stepparent has automatic legal priority is a shock. And it frequently becomes the start of expensive, emotionally exhausting litigation.
Ontario changed one important rule in 2022: marriage no longer automatically revokes a will made before the marriage. So a will from a first marriage may still technically be valid after a second. But "technically valid" and "accurately reflecting the deceased's wishes" are very different things. A will written in 2005 that leaves everything to a first spouse — who predeceased the testator — may now send the entire estate into intestacy by default, triggering the exact preferential-share calculation above.
A wealth management adviser or estate lawyer can review an existing will and flag these gaps long before they become probate court battles.
A Concrete Case: What Sophie and Her Brother Faced in Toronto, 2026
Consider Sophie, a 42-year-old project manager in Toronto. Her father remarried in 2008 when she was 24. He made a will in 2005 that left his estate equally to Sophie and her brother Daniel. He never updated it after the second marriage. He never told his second wife about the will. He never told Sophie or Daniel about his beneficiary designations.
When her father passed away in February 2026, his estate included a paid-off house in Scarborough valued at $890,000, an RRSP of $240,000, and a chequing account with $60,000 — a total of approximately $1.19 million.
Here is how the assets moved:
If → then: The RRSP had a beneficiary designation naming the second wife directly. That $240,000 passed entirely outside the estate — directly to the stepmother, with no probate, no delay, and no obligation to share it with Sophie or Daniel. The Succession Law Reform Act does not govern assets with named beneficiaries on registered accounts.
The house and chequing account fell into the estate and were governed by the 2005 will, which divided them equally between Sophie and Daniel. Each stood to receive roughly $475,000 after estate administration costs. But the stepmother challenged the will, arguing she had an equitable interest in the family home — having lived there for 18 years and contributed to its maintenance and improvement.
The dispute was settled out of court in October 2026 for $95,000, plus $22,000 in combined legal fees. Total cost of the conflict: $117,000, or roughly 10% of the original estate value.
Had Sophie's father consulted a wealth management adviser after the 2008 remarriage — updating his will, reviewing RRSP beneficiary designations, and considering a marriage contract specifying how property would be handled on death — the entire conflict was preventable. A properly structured estate review in 2008 or 2010 would have cost approximately $1,500 to $3,500 in legal and advisory fees. The return on that investment: $117,000 preserved, and a family relationship that survived.
What Canadian Families in Blended Situations Should Do Now
The Borden case endures because it captures something primal about money, family, and unspoken expectations. But nothing in it was structurally inevitable. The same is true for most Canadian blended-family estate conflicts today.
For families navigating second marriages or step-relationships, a short priority list covers the main risks:
1. Update your will after any major life event. Marriage, divorce, the death of a beneficiary, or the birth of a grandchild all change the picture. In Canada, if you die without an updated will, provincial intestacy rules — not your intentions — determine who receives what.
2. Review all beneficiary designations separately from your will. RRSPs, TFSAs, life insurance policies, and pension plans pass outside the estate and are governed entirely by the named beneficiary. Many Canadians discover too late that these designations still name a deceased first spouse or an ex-partner from a previous relationship.
3. Consider a domestic contract. In Ontario, couples in a second marriage can negotiate a cohabitation or marriage contract that specifies how property will be handled on death — protecting both parties and reducing the risk of conflict for children from earlier relationships. This is not a sign of distrust; it is the functional equivalent of a business partnership agreement.
4. Communicate with your family while you are alive. The STEP Barometer 2026 notes that emotional factors — surprise, perceived unfairness, and the absence of any prior conversation — drive disputes as much as legal ambiguities do. A family meeting facilitated by a financial planner, with everyone in the room and a general outline of the estate plan on the table, can prevent misunderstandings that become litigation after death.
According to data published by Justice Canada, estate and probate disputes have grown at an average of 7% annually since 2019. The Borden family could not have predicted that their dysfunction would still be streaming on Netflix 134 years later. Canadian families today can predict the risks — and with the right professional guidance, they can act before the conflict begins.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Estate laws vary by province. Consult a qualified wealth management adviser or estate lawyer for guidance specific to your situation.
