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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. The Children’s Day service was an end-of-the-year Sunday school program. Sarah Moore was a co-director and her children performed their little speeches and recitations along with the other Sunday school members. Legislation was written in response to the murder, including the establishment of the current State Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s predecessor.
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Villisca townspeople tramped through the house for over 24 hours between the discovery of the murders and the removal of the eight victims. 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 first was a four-pound piece of slab bacon leaning against the wall next to the axe.
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Then he made his way to the children’s room, and finally back down to the bedroom downstairs. In each room, he committed some of the grisliest murders in American history. James started his research in an attempt to solve the Villisca murders, and with his daughter found archival newspaper stories detailing dozens of families murdered under similar circumstances across the US. The Jameses thus believe that Mueller was guilty of the Villisca murders as part of a killing spree that lasted over a decade, killing at least 59 people in 14 separate incidents, including the Colorado Springs and Paola crimes. The Jameses identify common features to these crimes, many of which are also found at the Villisca scene.
The Villisca Ax Murders: 111 years later
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. Though he had no relation to the Moore family, Henry was an alleged serial killer who, only months after the Villisca killings, murdered his mother and grandmother with an axe in a crime that bore striking similarities to the Moore slayings.
Ross called the local marshall and told him that something terrible had happened. He was a successful businessman in Villisca, excelling at everything he lent his hand to. After he amassed reasonable wealth during his thirties, he later went on to marry and have four children with his wife, Sarah. While working as a farmhand, he is rumored to have fathered a child the underage daughter of a farmer. He had run-ins with the law and was convicted of forgery in 1910 and served time in a Kansas state prison.
Today, historians and those who have studied the AXE murders extensively, seem to be made up of three camps. There are many who, to this day, believe Frank F. Jones, the prominent Villisca resident and Iowa State Senator who Moore had worked for was responsible. Kelly made a confession which was later withdrawn before his trial. Following the murder, many Villisca residents believed Iowa State Senator Frank F. Jones was the culprit.
What to know on the anniversary of the 1912 Villisca ax murders
The House and Murders were used as the setting and premise of the haunted house horror film The Axe Murders of Villisca (2016). Police obtained a confession from him; however, it followed many hours of interrogation and Kelly later recanted. Naturally, a house with such a dark and mysterious past quickly attracted rumors of a haunting. The house was lived in for years after the murder, although families never stayed for long. From what I can tell, there’s not a ghostly phenomena that hasn’t been reported at the house—disembodied footsteps, things moving, voices, apparitions, shadows, bad vibes. Moore and Jones despised each other, according to Villisca residents.
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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. Seemingly afterwards, a 4lb slab of bacon was taken out of the icebox and laid next to the axe.
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In the 1990s, the home was painstakingly restored by historians Martha and Gavin Linn at greatexpense and effort to appears exactly like the night of the crime, right down to the lack ofelectricity or running water. Due to their dedication, the Josiah B. Moore House is now on theNational Registry of Historic Places. Historic Mysteries provides captivating articles on archaeology, history, and unexplained mysteries. While many have tried to solve the case, the Villisca murders remains a mystery and most likely will forever. It wasn’t until 1917 that a Grand Jury indicted Kelly for the murder of Lena Stillinger. In August of that year, Kelly confessed to the murder, saying that God had whispered “suffer the children to come unto me” in his ear.
The gruesome killings were discovered the next morning, when Mary Peckham, the Moores’ neighbor, noticed that the family hadn’t started their morning chores around 7 a.m. She called Russ Moore, Josiah’s brother, who let himself in with his copy of the house key. After discovering the bodies of the Stillingers, he called the local peace officer, who called in investigators. It wasn’t until police became aware of Kelly’s past that he became a suspect in the Villisca killings. In his teenage years, Kelly had struggled with severe mental illness and also had a history of sexual deviance.
Accusations regarding the culprit spread quickly throughout the small town of Villisca, Iowa, sparking suspicious glances among neighbors that would lead to friendships torn asunder. Unfortunately the crime-solving technology of 1912 was not sophisticated enough to identify the murderer, and the case has gone unsolved to this day. Amateur detectives ranging from historians to psychics have tried their hand at solving the case, but a verdict has never been reached. Kelly was left-handed, which police determined from blood spatters that the killer must be.
Investigators also found untouched food and bloody water during the search. After the search, people were let in to see if they could have committed the crime, completely contaminating the weapon. The ax was left in the guest room, next to a four-pound piece of slab bacon. At some point, the killer had covered all of the mirrors in the house with blankets and clothes, and cooked himself a plate of food, which was left untouched in the kitchen. There’s something so hauntingly intriguing about little details like this in unsolved murders. Sometime after midnight on June 10th, 1912, six children and two adults were found bludgeoned to death by an axe that was left at the scene.
YouTubers Sam and Colby published a paranormal investigation video of the murders. YouTuber Bailey Sarian featured the murders on an episode of her weekly series, Murder, Mystery & Makeup. The murders were described in Episode 271 (October 17, 2021) on the podcast Morbid.
By the time he was arrested, five years had passed since the murders. That, combined with a coerced confession and a lack of physical evidence, left one jury hung, and a second ended in a mistrial. 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. As for the perpetrator of the Villisca Axe Murders, the police had shockingly few leads. A few half-hearted efforts to search the town and surrounding countryside were made, though most officials believed that with the roughly five-hour head start that the killer had had, he would be long gone. Bloodhounds were brought in, but with no success, as the crime scene had been fully demolished by the townspeople.
The killer took the house keys as he left, locking the doors behind him. Marshall Henry Horton arrived on the scene thirty minutes later and thoroughly searched the Moore house. He found a dead body in every bed, along with a blood-covered axe still lying in the room where the Stillinger girls lay dead. The entire Moore family and their two friends were brutally slain.
