Villisca, Iowa, is the same kind of small town found all across the Midwest. The one thing this little town has that others like it do not, is a decades-long unsolved murder.
The Villisca Axe Murder occurred in the early part of the 20th century when the town itself was still struggling to find its place. Even then the town didn’t have more than a few thousand residents, and it still hasn’t grown much beyond that. The small town was home to a busy downtown commercial center, which was popular at the time, but it was also home to a tragedy that shook the entire community.
On June 10, 1912, eight bodies of the J.B. Moore family were found in a small house in Villisca. Locals were shocked when word trickled down that the family had been brutally murdered. Almost immediately whispers circulated through town, with neighbors sharing the latest gossip, and discussing what exactly happened.
The night the murders happened was a quiet, and uneventful one. June 9th was relatively warm, and the local businesses closed up shop early in preparation for events held at the Presbyterian Church. J.B.’s wife Sarah had helped organize the Children’s Program at the Church, and walked home with their four children. Along for the night were two friends of her daughter. Sarah walked home, careful to keep an eye on all six children, and quickly met her husband, who led the family home.
A neighbor working on hanging her laundry outside noticed that she hadn’t heard any noises coming from the house, despite the fact that the children were usually fairly noisy. She also could not remember hearing JB leave for work that morning, and he typically left early in the morning. Thinking the family might be sick, she knocked on the door and shouted Sarah’s name, but received no response. Upon trying to open the door, she discovered that it was locked. The neighbor, Mary Peckham, then did a few chores outside the Moore house, hoping that the family was simply sick. After a few hours of hearing nothing, she finally called Ross Moore, JB’s brother.
Ross met Mary at the house, and tried the same things she did earlier in the morning. He knocked on the door, shook the handle, and shouted for Sarah and JB, to no avail. Eventually he gave up and used his spare key to unlock the back door. The two cautiously walked through the house, still calling out the couple’s names and hoping for a response. Ross pushed open a bedroom door, and ran quickly from the house. There, lying on the beds, were two small bodies, obviously dead.
Not long after, the City Marshall Frank Horton arrived, and began examining the scene. He discovered the bodies of two little girls in the downstairs bedroom. The 12 year old, and 8 year olds were Ina and Lena Stillinger, the two friends the children had brought home the night before. In the master bedroom upstairs, Horton found the bodies of all six Moore family members. Gone were little Catherine, only 10, and the three boys; Herman who was 11, Boyd who was 7, and little Paul who was only 5. Also dead in the room were Sarah and JB. Every person in the house had been killed by an ax to the head, which had crushed their skulls.
Problems quickly arose, based on the inability of local law enforcement to handle, and maintain the scene. Nothing like the murders had ever happened in Villisca before, and no one was quite sure what to do. Rather than blocking off the crime scene, the law enforcement watched as neighbors and other residents simply walked through the house. Dozens of people touched the dead bodies, and some people were even seen carrying away items from the house. The Villisca National Guard was eventually called in to help cordon off the crime scene, and stop more people from walking around the house. By then though, far too many people had already contaminated the scene, destroying what little evidence police had.
The Villisca Ax Murders are still considered an unsolved mystery to this day. The police had a few suspects, but none seemed to pan out the way they hoped. Every day it seemed as though they had a new suspect, or a new theory as to the true murderer, but nothing was ever found. Even today there is a debate over the true killer. Some believe the murderer was someone passing through the area, a hobo, or a traveling preacher. Still others think the murders were the result of a serial killer though no other similar killings have ever been mentioned. More tend to believe the killer was someone familiar with the area, someone who both lived, and worked in Villisca.
One suspect was Iowa State Senator Frank E. Jones. Jones hired JB Moore to work for him, but Moore eventually went out on his own, taking one of Jones’s biggest clients with him. Some claimed that Moore was also sleeping with Jones’s daughter-in-law, and that rumors of their affair were wide spread at the time. Others claim that Jones hired William Mansfield to carry out the actual murders. James Newton Wilkerson, an agent for the Burns Detective Agency wholeheartedly believed this theory, and also believed that Jones only intended for JB to die, not the rest of the family. Unfortunately Mansfield had an alibi for the murders, and was working in a different state at the time.
One unusual suspect in the Villisca Ax Murder case was a preacher by the name of Reverend George Kelly. Even today Kelly is believed as many to be the true murderer of the Moore family. Kelly was a traveling preacher who was in Villisca the day of the murders, and according to some, he confessed to the murders, saying that a vision told him to do it. He also wrote letters to officials about the murders, and included details they claimed someone could only know if they were there when it happened. He was later sentenced by the court to spend time in a mental institution, and eventually arrested in connection with the Moore killings. Kelly was acquitted on all charges.
Andy Sawyer was another strong suspect in the case. Sawyer was a transient whose name was repeatedly brought up in conjunction with the case, despite no evidence. One of his former bosses told police that he talked frequently, and in depth about the case and well as carrying an ax with him frequently. Sawyer had been arrested in Osceola the night of the murders, but some believe he had more than enough time to make it back to Villisca.
Others claim that if a transient did perform the killings, the most likely suspect was Henry Moore. Later in 1912 he had been convicted of a similar killing in Columbia, Missouri, in which he killed his mother and grandmother with an ax. Some believe that Henry Moore was one of the country’s first serial killers, and had traveled the Midwest performing similar murders before being caught.
There are those that now claim the house where the Villisca Ax Murders occurred, is haunted. The house was in danger of being torn down in 1994, to make more room for the expanding town. Two local preservationists, Darwin and Martha Linn, who had already found success with restoring an older building, bought the house themselves. The couple completely restored the house, and in 1998 it was included on the National Register of Historic Places. A few years later, rumors of a haunting began.
Visitors to the house have claimed to have experienced some truly strange, and unusual events there. The voices and laughter of kids are frequently experienced, even when there were no children there. Others have witnessed things in the room moving, and electronic equipment that acts up, or refuses to work completely.
Today, we know only a little more than they knew when the murders first happened. Investigators at the time discovered that the murders happened around midnight, only a few hours after the family returned home from church. Investigators also discovered that the killer covered their faces after they were dead, which some believe shows the killer cared for the family. The murderer also took pains to draw the curtains in the house, as if to block out the outside world, and even covered open windows with clothes belonging to the family.
Lamps were also found scattered throughout the house; one at the foot of the girls bed, and the other with the rest of the family. The murder weapon was also discovered in the first floor basement. The ax was one that Moore had owned, and it appeared that someone tried to clean it. The only evidence law enforcement ever found was some food left on the counter, suggesting that the killer interrupted someone in the kitchen. Also found at the scene was a key chain, and a pan of blood and water. Another odd piece of evidence was that the doors of the house were all locked from the inside.
Its now been over ninety years since the gruesome murder rocked the small town of Villisca, Iowa. Even today, it appears this is one case that will never be solved.
Sources:
http://www.villiscaiowa.com/
http://www.prairieghosts.com/villisca.html
http://www.millersparanormalresearch.com/Pages/2004/pages%202004/Business_Case7_History.htm
