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While Wilkerson suspected that Frank F. Jones was the dark mind behind the Villisca murders, he believed that the man who actually brought down the axe was one William “Blackie” Mansfield. Mansfield was a suspected serial killer believed to be responsible for the murder of his wife, infant child, and in-laws, as well as similar axe murders committed in Paola, Kansas just four days before the Villisca murders took place. According to Wilkerson, Mansfield was hired by Jones to execute the Moore family. The detective convinced a Grand Jury to open an investigation on Mansfield in 1916, though an alibi eventually led to Mansfield’s release. Sometime around midnight between Sunday, June 9, and Monday, June 10, 1912, a person or persons entered a modest house in Villisca, Iowa, and bludgeoned to death eight people sleeping there, including two adults and six children aged 5 through 12.
House Tours
Local officials quickly lost control of the crime scene, where an estimated 100 people arrived to gawk at the mutilated bodies. Fingerprinting had yet to become a widely established tool of criminal investigation in the US, and the massive disturbance to the house from onlookers prevented detectives from collecting sufficient evidence for a conclusive investigation. The killer or killers used the blade of the axe on Sarah, while using the blunt end on the rest of the victims. Herman, Mary Katherine, Arthur, and Paul were next bludgeoned in the head in the same manner as their parents. Afterwards, the murderer returned to the master bedroom to inflict more blows on the elder Moores, knocking over a shoe that had filled with blood, before moving downstairs to the guest bedroom and killing Ina and Lena.
The Brutal Story Of How The Villisca Axe Murders Unfolded
Villisca Ax Murder House is 'one of nation's most haunted places' - WCVB Boston
Villisca Ax Murder House is 'one of nation's most haunted places'.
Posted: Tue, 31 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
"Just tons of crime scene, all destroyed by half the town wandering around looking at it." The crime scene was a macabre tableau of brutality, with shattered skulls, pools of blood and peculiar details. Despite a nationwide manhunt, multiple suspects and two trials, the murder remains unsolved. A number of books and documentaries have chronicled the murders and subsequent paranormal investigations of the Moore house. They cite various individuals who claim to have seen a man with an axe roaming the hallways, or heard the desperate cries of children in their bedrooms, or become trapped inside the bedroom closet where Lena Stillinger is thought to have hid from her attacker.
Who Committed The Villisca Axe Murders?
Following Darwin’s unfortunate passing in 2011, his wife Martha took over operation of the house for the next twelve years, actively involved in operating the house with longtime manager Johnny Houser. Its sister company, Junket, provides food tours, brewery tours, special events, historic tours, and specialty experiences across the country. The 1,200 square foot house contains two stories and a cellar, and was originally constructed in 1900. Over the following ninety years, the “Villisca Axe Murder House” had 7 additional owners. The Moore home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 and received the “Preservation at its Best” award in the small public category from the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance in 1997.
What was that? My night in the Villisca Ax Murder House - Shaw Local News Network
What was that? My night in the Villisca Ax Murder House.
Posted: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The Villisca Ax Murders of June 1912 remain an enduring and unsettling enigma in Americancriminalhistory. In this quaint small Iowa town on a pleasant summer’s night, eight unsuspecting victims-including six children - were bludgeoned to death as they slept following a church service.Despitea nationwide manhunt, multiple suspects and two trials, the murder remains unsolved. The Villisca AXE Murders of June 1912 remain an enduring and unsettling enigma in American criminal history. In this quaint Iowa town on a pleasant summer’s night, eight unsuspecting victims, including Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah Moore and six children were bludgeoned to death as they slept following an evening church service.
The Villisca Ax Murders: 111 years later
Sawyer was apparently very interested in the Villisca murders, and is said to have slept fully dressed while gripping the axe that he used as a worker on the Burlington Railroad. Though the town sheriff detained Sawyer, he was dismissed as a suspect when it came to light that he’d been arrested for vagrancy in Osceola, Iowa on the night of the murders. The first was a four-pound piece of slab bacon leaning against the wall next to the axe. The murderer also had searched dresser drawers for pieces of clothing to cover the mirrors in the house and the glass in the entry doors. On the kitchen table was a plate of uneaten food and a bowl of bloody water. Sometime after midnight, the killer or killers picked up Joe’s axe from the back yard, entered the house, and bludgeoned to death all eight of its occupants.
He also had a history with the Moore family, as many had seen him watching them while at church and out and about in town. A dry cleaner in a nearby town had received bloody clothing from Kelly a few days after the murders. He reportedly also asked police for access to the home after the crime while posing as a Scotland Yard officer. The house change hands a few times over the past 100 years, and the reported ghost encounters just keep accumulating. So while what happened there in 1912 makes it a terrifying place to be on its own, ghosts or no ghosts, it definitely continues to earn its title as one of America's most haunted houses. Nine months before the murders at Villisca, a similar case of axe murder occurred in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
KCRG-TV9’s piece featured an additional video with a tour inside the notorious home. The documentary, now available on DVD, features Dr. Edgar Epperly, the historian considered the foremost authority on the Villisca murders. Authorities first became interested in Rev. Kelly a few weeks after the murders after being alerted by recipients of his rambling letters. Sarah Moore was a co-director and her children performed their little speeches and recitations along with the other Sunday school members.
The Case Goes Cold And The Villisca Axe Murders House Becomes A Tourist Attraction
The community has a proud military history, beginning with the construction in 1912 of Iowa’s only publicly funded and longest operating Armory on the north side of the town square. "The slaying of the entire family promises to become a mystery which will take much time to unravel," a Tribune reporter wrote at the time. The family was discovered in the morning after Josiah Moore didn't answer a call from his clerk. Neighbors became concerned that the Moores were not up doing their typical morning routines, prompting neighbors to call some of their relatives. At one point, after a long interrogation, he eventually signed a confession detailing the crime. However he almost immediately recanted, and a jury refused to indict him.
Josiah Moore had worked for Frank Jones at his implement store for many years before leaving to open his own store. Moore reportedly took business away from Jones, including a very successful John Deere dealership. Moore was rumored to have had a sexual affair with Jones’ daughter-in-law, though no evidence supports this. Linn and Sampson say that Laursen has recovered from his injuries, but will not comment any further out of respect for the family. The town has drawn a lot of attention since the Laursen episode, however, and both Sampson and Linn, the caretaker, say they have been inundated with media inquiries, which they hope will end soon. The Villisca Ax Murder House has even been featured on the popular web series, Buzzfeed Unsolved.
While we know the names of the victims of the Villisca axe murders, the identity of their killer remains a mystery. In spite of a bevy of clues and a host of possible suspects no convictions were ever obtained. Kelly had arrived in Villisca for the first time the Sunday morning of the murders and attended a Sunday school performance by the Stillinger girls before departing early Monday. He returned two weeks later, and, posing as a detective, joined a tour of the murder house with a group of investigators. Ignoring the sleeping girls downstairs, the stranger made his way up the stairs, guided by the lamp, and a seemingly unerring knowledge of the home’s layout. He crept past the room with the children, and into Mr. and Mrs. Moore’s bedroom.
Lora Castleman with Local 5's sister station in Arkansas learned more about the century-old mystery surrounding what happened on June 10, 1912. The Moore-Stillinger funeral services were held in Villisca’s town square on June 12, 1912, with thousands in attendance. National Guardsmen blocked the street as a hearse moved toward the firehouse, where the eight victims lay. Their caskets, not on display during the funeral, were later carried on several wagons to the Villisca Cemetery for burial.
This aroused suspicion and a private investigator wrote back to Reverend Kelly, asking for details that the minister might know about the murders. Kelly replied with great detail, claiming to have heard sounds and possibly witnessed the murders. His known mental illness made authorities question whether he knew the details because of having committed the murders or was imagining his account. "There is a whole body of folklore surrounding the Moore murders," Rundle, the documentarian, says.
Detective Wilkerson wasn’t the only one who believed that the Villisca murders had been the work of a serial killer. In May 1913, a federal investigator declared that not only had he solved the Villisca murders, but also 22 other axe murders across the country. He laid the blame at the feet of Henry Lee Moore—no relation to Josiah Moore and his family—who had already been convicted of the murder of his mother and grandmother just a few months after the Villisca killings. Henry Lee Moore served out 36 years of a life sentence and was paroled in 1949. In spite of the claims of the federal investigator, Henry Moore was never charged with the Villisca killings or any of the other murders of which he was suspected. "The ax was left downstairs, raw bacon laying on the floor, mirrors covered with sheets, food on the table, cigarette butts in the attic, bloody water," Houser said.
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