FALL RIVER — Richard Sorenson arrived nearly half an hour before the next tour was scheduled to begin.

This wasn’t his first time to Fall River. In fact, it was his fourth. But he’d never been inside the house. Not yet, anyway. He sat anxiously, waiting on a former church pew inside the gift shop. His excitement was obvious.

“When I first pulled up in front of this house, boy, I tell you what, it was one of the most exciting days in my life. Then I went to Maplecroft, and then to the cemetery. I probably spend more time at her grave site than my own parents',” said Sorenson, who lives in a small Indiana town just outside Chicago.

“If I had the chance to go back in time, to do one thing, to meet one person…” he continued, before trailing off. “A lot of people would say George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. The list goes on and on. Not for me, though. For me, it’s Lizzie Borden.”

According to the staff of the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast – the former home of Fall River’s most famous daughter and site of the grisly murders she was accused of committing – there are thousands of people just like Sorenson who will travel from all over the world to visit the city landmark.

And while the Borden story has been mined countless times, both by creators of fiction and documentaries, producers dabbling in the ever-popular genre of true crime have recently set their sights on other sordid chapters in Fall River’s history.

Last month, premium cable channel Epix announced it would partner with Blumhouse Television to produce a multi-part documentary series based on the so-called "Fall River cult murders” of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The announcement came several days after “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez” debuted on Netflix, recounting the murder trial of the former New England Patriots tight end, held in Fall River.

Elsewhere, a Canadian film crew is working on a documentary on former mayor Jasiel Correia’s arrests on charges that he defrauded investors in his smartphone app company and extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from cannabis businesses.

There’s no telling how the legacies of any of these stories may stack up against Borden’s decades or centuries from now.

What is clear is people have seen a profit to be made off of Fall River’s stories and identified an audience of non-local people who find these stories interesting enough to plan a trip.

But what does this mean for the city itself? Is there something to be gained from this newfound attention? Or should that idea be pursued at all?

Omar Doherty, whose company, Boston Crime Tour, takes customers on a walking tour highlighting various criminal cases in Boston’s history, said it looks like Fall River has the potential to benefit from a similar business based on its own past.

“I think with time, certainly Fall River could have something like that,” he told The Herald News. “If people are coming to the Lizzie Borden house, that could be a good jumping-off point for the tour, but it’s all about how the material gets presented.”

Boston Crime Tour is going into its sixth year of business, and Doherty reports that interest and bookings have grown each year. He has managed to bring in additional tour guides and is working to expand into a bus tour that could be offered during the winter months.

Fall River Historical Society has found success in offering similar services. The society works with busing companies to market a tour that takes visitors to Lizzie Borden’s former home, her grave and other local historical sites of note. Curator Michael Martins said the tours are “tremendously” popular and that more could be done to capitalize on the city’s history.

“It’s ready to sell. We market (our tours) but we don’t have a huge marketing budget and we would need help doing it,” said Martins. “There’s tremendous ability to expand. The potential is pretty much limitless.”

Interest in marketing Fall River as a tourist destination comes at a time when the storytelling genre of true crime is enjoying a boost in popularity, particularly with the rise of podcasting. The podcast "Serial," which depicts the 1999 murder of a Baltimore teen, broke records in 2014 when it achieved 5 million iTunes downloads faster than any other previous program. It was quickly followed by a rapid succession of serialized and episodic crime podcasts that would go on to inspire TV shows and films consumed by even larger audiences.

However, Martins said he sees the Borden story as a case very much separate from the various other Fall River stories that have recently caught the attention of out-of-town documentary producers.

“I hardly think any of these particular events will bring many people in, but there’s no doubt that the Borden case will,” he said.

Local author Maureen Boyle, whose book “Shallow Graves: The Hunt for the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer” recounts a series of local unsolved murders in the late 1980s, eschewed the notion that the Fall River area has an unusually high number of bizarre crimes.

“The reason why people in Fall River or a community like New Bedford might think it’s unusual is because it’s in their town,” she said. “It’s not that this area has more weird crime, it’s just that this is an area where people have long memories.”

The history local residents have managed to use as a tourist draw has at least proved there is a local market for true-crime tourism.

“I think we’re busier now than we were when we first opened,” said Richard Bertoldo, a tour guide and manager at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast. “It’s people from all over the world. Last year, we had a couple from New Zealand stay at the house.”

The property, site of the 1892 hatchet murders of Borden’s father and step-mother, boasts a rare five-star rating on TripAdvisor based on over 1,000 reviews. It offers guided tours and overnight stays. Tourists can also peruse the gift shop, where unique souvenirs such as Lizzie Borden bobbleheads and blood-spattered pillowcases are available for purchase.

“In the summertime, from June to October, we are straight-out busy,” said Bertoldo. “We can accommodate up to 20 people on a tour and that’s for six tours a day. We have well over 10,000 people a year come through here.”

One concrete improvement Martins suggested Fall River adopt is reopening a tourism center for the city. Not long after the former tourism center closed roughly 20 years ago, Martins said the historical society saw an estimated 80% drop in visitors.

If the community decides to further pursue a future in true-crime tourism, particularly the Borden case, Martins said the appropriate levels of respect and caution would have to be taken.

“You have to be true to the story and remember these individuals were brutally murdered. It has to be done in a way that on one level is entertaining, but also factual,” he said. “Could this be used to bring maybe a significant number of people into Fall River over the course of a year if it’s marketed properly? Yes. Do I think it should be? Yes, if it’s done tastefully.”

Finding the right balance of entertainment and respect for the victims of crimes was also pointed out by both Doherty and Boyle as an important element to marketing anything based on real-life tragedy.

The passage of time also plays a key factor. Doherty can list off all the usual suspects one might expect to be included in the Boston Crime Tour. Whitey Bulger, the Boston Strangler and the Great Brinks Robbery are all there, but the Boston Marathon Bombing is noticeably absent.

"It's still too sensitive," he said. "Eventually, it would be a disservice not to mention and remember it, but you have to do it in the most respectful way. ... That was my main concern when I started doing this because there are still people walking around that are affected by all of this."

While the idea of using personal tragedies as a revenue generator has attracted its criticisms from detractors, Boyle also noted that continuing to tell these kinds of stories serves as an important form of historic preservation.

"The point is to document it. To let the public know these people existed," she said. "They say history repeats itself. If you don't pay attention to crime and how criminals act, if you don't find ways to prevent it, it will keep going."