Mystery: The Villisca Axe Murders

In Belliska, Iowa. The Moore family had consisted of six Josiah, who was also known as Joe Moore, his wife Sarah Moore, the kids, Hermann Mary, Katherine Boyd, and the youngest Paul, were in the modest home near the train station, where they regularly attended services in a Presbyterian church. On Sunday evening, June ninth, nineteen twelve, the Moore family, along with Aina and Lena Stillinger, went to a children's Day service in their church. The Stillinger girls asked her parents to stay the night with the Moors, since the walk to their home was dark. The children's Day service was an end of the year's Sunday school program. With Sarah Moore as a co director of the church. She had her kids, kids and the other members performed speeches and recitations as part of the service. The night was cloudy, damp, and cool, but it didn't stop them from worship and social interaction. The activity lasted until nine thirty and the parishioners bid goodbye to settle the night. Little did they know that this would be the last time that the Moors, only the Sillinger girls would be seen alive on the quiet morning of June tenth, nineteen twelve, the idyllic and agricultural life of Viliska, a town in Montgomery County, Iowa, was broken by the terrifying news six children to adults. Their heads were all covered in bed sheets. They had been murdered viciously by an unknown killer. Such terrible and unsolved crime that would span decades of investigations in numerous trials, and it earned it the name the Viliska Acts Murders. My name is Edwin, and here said dark Knight. At around midnight, while the town was asleep, an unknown killer picked up Joe's axe in the backyard, entered the Moor's household, and bludgeoned them to death. At seven point thirty in the morning on June tenth, Mary Peckham, and older neighbor of the Moors, who was hanging her laundry outside, found it unusual that the house was quiet and deserted, doors were all locked, and the window blinds were all pulled down. Feeling suspicious, she let the moors chickens out, which were unfed, and called Ross Moore, a local pharmacist, and Joe's brother. Ross arrived around eight am and unlocked the front door using the spare key. Stepping inside the completely dark house, Ross opened the door wide and saw the two figures covered in sheets, the bedclothes and blood on the bed. Horror gripped them and he immediately came back to the porch where Mary was standing to call Joe's Hardware store clerk Ed Shelley to fetch Marshal Henry, who was also known as Hank Horton. Hank was the town's marshall who had been a carpenter most of his life became a marshal six years before that. He had no proper police training, but regularly did his duty by reminding merchants to keep their businesses safe, keep disputes from drunk residence in town. Hank, along with Ed Shelley, came down to the household. Hank described the house as the darkest night in there, and somebody murdered in every bed. The downstairs bedroom where the unrecognizable Stealinger girls were found, the partially cleaned murder weapon was left leaning against a south wall next to a four pound slab of bacon which was wrapped up in a cloth. There was a lamb at the foot of the bed on the floor, a plate of uneaten food and a bowl of bloody water. Drawers for clothes were left open, and a black skirt was draped over the mirror on the dresser. Other clothes were being used as covers on the glass entry door and other windows. It was a superstitious belief back then that if someone dies, mirrors should be covered to avoid the spirits from leaving the house. On the other hand, authority's guessed that the covered mirrors and windows were done purposely by the killer to avoid getting light to the crime scene. The bacon's slab was believed to be used as a sexual representation of Lena, since her wounded hand was thrown over her head, her nightgown had been pulled up to her waist, and her undergarments had been removed and thrown into the bed. There was a blood spot on her left leg, just above the knee, which made the townspeople further speculate that she was molested or raped after defending herself from the killer, though the doctors concluded that she had not been sexually abused. Her younger sister, Aina, who was struck on the head, was lying next to her Ed, who was sickened and frightened from the gruesome sight, came back to the porch. Hank climbed the steep and narrow s shaped stairway leading to Joe and Sarah's bedroom. Hank, after pulling off the bed sheets from the couple, was met by an even more horrific sight. The couple's heads were believed to be struck repeatedly. Joe's face was beyond recognizable, his temple down to his upper teeth was crushed down to a pulp on the bed. Sarah, according to the doctor who examined her, was bashed by the axe blade multiple times, which reduced her face into slices. The couple's room ceiling had a gouge directly over the dead bodies, which was believed to be the marks of the upswing when the killer hurled the axe on them. Dust was also evident on the plaster of the bed, and a pull of blood in Sarah's shoe was found. The south room, where the more kids were sleeping, Hank first saw Herman Moore, the eldest of the siblings, lying on his stomach with a hit on the back of his head. The authorities adduced that he was dealt with by the pole of an axe. In the southwest corner of the room, Mary Catherine was lying on her back on the couch with a strike on her head, and the northwest corner of the room were Buoyd and Paul, whose heads were also bludgeon to death. The authorities assumed that the kids, just like their parents, were murdered in their sleep, as there was no evidence of struggle in the room. The kid's room ceiling had cut as well, which were measured eight feet above the floor. Hank Horton, Doctor Cooper and doctor Williams. These three men completed the cursory examination the crime scene before the news of the murder spread like wildfire around the town, which prompted the town's mayor to officially close business. According to one resident who it is a chaos and was interviewed by doctor ed Kepperley, troops of people went in there. Doctor Linquist, a county corner from Stanton, arrived in nine thirty and while examining the bodies downstairs, people were prying, moving things, shouting and running from room to room as if the murder scene was some sort of entertainment. McCall, a local poll hall operator, had beented one week after the murder that he took a half inch of Joe's skull from the crime scene. Bruce Dillions, a stringer from Omaha World Herald, took photos using his Kodak camera and was apprehended by Ross Moore. The victim's brother took the camera film and stomped it on the ground. June twelfth, nineteen twelve, two days after the murder, a large funeral in long possession, guarded by the Iowa National Guard troops, was held in the Veliska town Square. An estimated crowd of five to seven thousand mourners watch as the horse drawn horses and wagons carried the bodies to the Veliska Cemetery. The Moore family were buried in a mass plot marked by a large family monument with smaller stones for each individual. The Stilinger girls were buried together in the same cemetery in Sherifstone. The event was remembered as Funeral in the Park. The murder gripped the town in horror, worry, and accusations, but the murder on the loose, They speculated that the killer was hiding in a barn. At nine pm on June tenth, two bloodhounds, along with the handler from Beatrice, Nebraska, were deployed to track the murderers scent. They were followed by a large crowd. Some were on foot and others were on horseback. They made their second run down and finished before midnight. They also traced a route for the third time in the morning, but to no avail. The searge was a failure. The small community was frightened that the madman would strike again. Once the night fell. Families doubled up with a shotgun guard awake. All night locks were sold out, windows were nailed shut, and dog prices were above all else. Rumors were growing and slowly divided the townspeople. The day after the murder, M. W. McClarty, an assistant warden an expert at the Leavingworth Penitentiary, arrived to investigate the scene. The community was hopeful of his appearance, but his arrival shook the confidence of the townspeople when he arrived drunk. When sober, he made a detailed analysis of the scene, but no usable fingerprints were found. But after carefully studying the blood spots and axe cuts made in the ceiling upstairs, he concluded that the killer was left handed. The murderer acted on a frenzy killing impulse when striking the children in the south room, waving the axe one handed over his head. Moments after the ghastly murder, the community had divided opinion on who was a perpetrator. Various names were linked, but two prime suspects were investigated, William Mansfield and Reverend Lynn George Jacqueline Kelly. In an evening of April nineteen fourteen, two years after the terrifying murder, James Newton Wilkerson, a Texas Land agent and an undercover operative of Burne's Detective Agency working out of Kansas City, visited Ross Moore's drug store and told him that Fernando Frank Jones was a man behind the murder. The speculations and accusations against f. F. Jones lasted two more years, and it all became even more intriguing when in June nineteen sixteen, it was Sunday and two days before the Republican primary election. That's when several of Veliska's citizens received an anonymous flyer in the mail which contained eleven Worth Penitentiary mugshot of a man named William Mansfield. Under the photo was a question that asked if they wanted their state senator the man whose money had paid this man to kill the more family. The accusation had gone public and brought a detrimental part in F. F. Jones candidacy. He lost a nomination to County Attorney Ratcliffe. Born in eighteen fifty five, New York State, F. F. Jones moved to rural Veliska from Illinois in eighteen seventy five and taught school in the community. He was married in eighteen eighty and by eighteen eighty two he left school, teaching and farming to become a bookkeeper for a hardware and implementing firm in Viliska, who was also the founding pillar of the community's Methodist church, where he served for twenty five years as a Sunday school superintendent. By nineteen oh one, Jones bought into a new retail partnership where Joe was already working. Joe worked for seven years under Jones firm and became the crack salesman for Jones of Viliska. Dismayed by his long working hours from seven am to eleven pm, six days a week, he left in nineteen oh seven, taking the valuable John Deere plow company with him and set himself as a formidable rival in business against Jones. Adding fuel to the fire was an affair between Joe and Donna Bentley Jones, pretty and vivacious daughter in law married to Jones's son, Albert Jones. Donna was a local beauty and a school teacher whose numerous affairs were popular in town. Within a year after her marriage, she began entertaining male visitors, and one of them was Joe Moore. Donna's telephone calls to Joe were no secrets, since they had to be placed through an operator. The growing rumors about their infidelity enraged Jones that by nineteen twelve they began avoiding each other when crossing on the same street. As for William Mansfield, he was arrested in nineteen sixteen and brought to Montgomery County from Kansas, not only on the grounds of being a paid killer to the moors. On July fifth, nineteen fourteen, he was a chief suspect of the axe murders of his wife, child, and parents in law in Blue Island, Illinois. It was also believed that he was responsible for the killing of Roland and Anna Hudson, a young couple from Ohio who had moved to Poolo, Kansas just a few months before. The murder happened on June fifth, nineteen twelve, four days before the Velliska incident. No weapon was found, but it appeared that a pickaxe or mason's hammer had been used. The further strengthened Wilkerson's claim against F. F. Jones and Mansfields. He brought three eye witness accounts in court. It was Vena Tompskins, who was camping outside of Veliska with her husband, who was working on the brick paving of Third Avenue. She claimed to have overheard three men talking about money behind the old slaughter house just southeast of Veliska during the fall of nineteen eleven. She thought that one of the men looked alike Frank Jones, she could not swear it was him. The second witness was Alice Willard, a divorced se and living with her father, Mister Holland. Their house was just a block south of Joe Moore's house. She claimed that on June eighth, nineteen twelve, she saw two strangers walk by the moor house, then turned south at the corner and come by her house. Frightened, she looked at them closely. Later that night, she was walking with the traveling salesman Ed McCrae and saw three men approaching from the south. They hid down in a plump thicket. As a man were approaching, Alice recognized the two strangers that she had met earlier that morning. They were Bert McCall and Albert Jones. She did hear them talking about get Joe first and the rest will be easy. In Alice's second account, she changed from Albert Jones to Frank Jones, which led to the conviction of Wilkerson for a contempt of court. The last presented witness account was of Ed Landers. He and his family were staying with his mother just across the street east and up the block north from the crime scene on June nineteen twelve. He initially testified to the corner that nothing unusual happen on Sunday night. He changed his mind and claimed that at eight fifteen Sunday night, while he and his wife were walking, a man just a few steps ahead of them turned and walked right into Joe's house. He identified the man as Albert Jones. That same year, after lengthy proceeding and hearing several minor witnesses, the jury decided a not guilty verdict and only required F. F. Jones to pay court costs. Mansfield was also released from prison when he was able to prove that he was working in Illinois when the murder occurred. It was indicated in his payroll records. He won a lawsuit against Wilkerson, but the majority of Montgomery County citizens were convinced that Jones uses money in political influence to escape justice, and even to this day, they believe that Fernando Frank Jones is a guilty one. Another man indicted to the murder was Reverend Lynn George Jackline Kelly Preecher. Kelly was born in England, and he and his wife Laura, arrived in New York City in nineteen oh four. Kelly's father and grandfather were congressional ministers. To keep up with his mother's expectations, he studied excessively, which caused him mental breakdowns and eventually stopped him from going to university. Between nineteen oh four and nineteen twelve, he served a dozen or more Methodist churches. He preached in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. In the spring of nineteen twelve, he gave up on Methodists, citing that you can starve working for the Methodists. He then enrolled in the Presbyterian Cemetery in Omaha, Nebraska. His classes were scheduled to begin in September nineteen twelve. The seminary president arranged for him to service three open churches that summer, Arlington, Pilot Grove, in the rural parishes in Veliska, and that very first time he was in Villiska was on the murder weekend. As a reverend assigned to the Presbyterian Church in Viliska, Kelly attended the Sunday school performance on Sunday evening, just hours before the murder. Seated at the back of the church, he saw Joe Moore beaming with pride as his children said their recitals while his wife Sarah helped direct the show. At five nineteen am, three hours before the murder was discovered, Reverend Kelly boarded the westbound train number five. He allegedly told the other travelers that there were eight dead souls in Velliska, Iowa. The murderer had caused him obsession. He wrote letters to stay in local investigators, private detectives, relatives of the victims. Two weeks after the murder, Kelly arranged to stay over on Monday in Viliska and persuaded a reverend to take him to the murder house. Consequently, a group of investigators were going and Kelly joined them. Such letters and actions made Tom O'Leary, a representative of Hayes Detective Agency, become suspicious of Kelly. He wrote a coy letter to the reverend asking him details about that Sunday night. Kelly responded with details that were rather imaginary or incriminating. The state Attorney General quietly investigated Kelly throughout the summer and fall of nineteen twelve, but no arrest was made because of Kelly's position as a minister and his mental illness made the authorities uncertain of his involvement in the crime. Two years past, and Kelly was in winter South Dakota, serving as a preacher and a shorthand reporter. Under the presence of hiring a private secretary, he placed an ad in the Omaha World Herald. A young woman, Jessemine Hodson, responded to his letter, but was shocked when the reverend demanded that he must type in the nude. She took the letter to her pastor, who in turn took it to the police and with the intent of knowing Kelly's nature. The police, posing as Jessamine, responded to his letters, which grew even more indecent. When the evidence was enough for a case to open against him, they arrested and sentenced him in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. In May nineteen fourteen, Kelly was transferred to Saint Elizabeth Hospital, the National Mental Hospital in Washington, d c. While undergoing therapy, he wrote letters to Attorney General Cousin expressing his concern that he might be the suspect of the Buliska murders. Cosson assured him that he was not a suspect and that he should focus on his therapy. His inkling became a reality when in nineteen seventeen April, the investigators conducted an extensive investigation into his possible guilt, led to the issuing of a bench warrant for his arrest. In the afternoon of May fourteenth, nineteen seventeen, he voluntarily presented himself to Montgomery County Sheriff Bob Dunn. Kelly spent the whole summer, being interrogated repeatedly. In the late afternoon of August thirtieth, Kelly was brought into an interrogation room in the Logan Jail and confronted by Attorney General Horace Havner, state agents O. Rock and James Risden, and the Harrison County Sheriff M. D. Myers. The interrogation lasted throughout the night, breaking occasionally to return him to a cell. When Kelly was in his cell, he found two thieves who convinced him, according to their experiences, they would go easier on him if he confessed. Little did he know that those criminals were G. W Atkins, a deputy sheriff, and a newspaper editor from Missouri Valley Round seven a m August thirty first, Kelly, convinced by the two impostors, broke and dictated a made up confession. He claimed that he had difficulty sleeping during the murder night, so he went for a walk, and while walking down the middle of the street, he saw green light in the house and two children, the Stillinger girls, who were getting ready for bed. He heard the lord's voice commanding him to suffer the children to come on to me. He walked at the back of the house, picked up the axe, went to the kitchen door, and proceeded to kill everyone. He stayed in the house and left town at first light. Tuesday September fourth, nineteen seventeen was the first day of Kelly's trial, and it lasted until Wednesday, September twenty sixth, nineteen seventeen. Judge Boyce proceeded over the jury. The jury deadlocked eleven refusing to indict him, and was dismissed Friday, September twenty eighth, nineteen seventeen. A second cursory trial was held in November, with all the juries acquitting Kelly from the charges. By the time Kelly's trial began, the jury and the authorities, especially Attorney General Havener, were all under scrutiny of the majority of Montgomery citizens. They firmly believed that Jones uses money and political influence to frame the mentally ill Reverend Kelly. In return, Havener and most other police officials accused James Newton Bulkerson poisoning the minds of the citizens that eventually they had to let the real killer go free. The number of trial proceedings and the years of investigations all went into dust as nobody was charged for the moor In Silingric murders. To add intrigue to this case, John Warrene Noel, a vilisk of photographer and staunch Wilkerson's supporter, was found shot and dying on a railroad platform in Albia, Iowa. The coroner's in quest ruled it to be suicide, but the other Wilkerson supporters believed it was murdered to shut him up. In June nineteen eighteen, James Wilkerson and may Noel, John's widow were arrested in Ottumwa, Iowa, and the charge of conspiracy to commit adultery. Six months later, the judge, without substantial evidence to prove against them, acquitted the two from the allegations. American historian and cetician George William James, along with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James, authored a tree true crime book called The Man from the Train, which claimed to have discovered the existence and identity of the serial killer. They believed that a certain Paul Mueller, a German immigrant to which described as short and muscular in stature, with unusually small and widely spaced teeth. He was claimed to be a German military veteran and was known as a skilled carpenter with the limited command of English. He operated throughout North America and killed between forty and one hundred people from between eighteen ninety seven and nineteen twelve. His first murder was a family in west Brookfield, Massachusetts, who employed him as a farm hand in eighteen ninety seven. Murders during these times mostly occurred near railway tracks or stations. The Moorhouse had numerous occupants after the murders. In nineteen ninety four, it was purchased by Darwin and Martha Lynn and returned to its original condition without plumbing an electricity. At present, the furniture is arranged according to photographs of the scene. Regular tours are offered and a fee can be reserved for all night visits. The owners encourage those who are going to spend the night take photographs and record their experiences on audio and videotapes. For a spooky adventure. To further scare and stir your imagination, a corkboard with photos of paranormal evidence like apparitions, mists, ghostly orbs, objects being moved in of someone with scratches on his back, or posted to document the strange occurrences people experience all while visiting the house. Twenty fourteen, eight thirty seven year olds Robert Stephen Larson Junior from Ryland, Wisconsin, arrived there with his group of friends for a recreational paranormal investigation. He was alone in the northwest bedroom and the rest of his friends were outside. Suddenly he called them for help using their two way radios. His companions found him stabbed in the chest, which was apparently self inflicted. They called nine one one and Larson was brought to a nearby hospital. Larsen recovered from his injuries. According to the Montgomery County Police report, the incident happened around twelve forty five, which was said to be the estimated time of the nineteen twelve More and Stillinger murders. The Moorhouse was featured on the show's Ghost Adventures and Scariest Places on Earth. Was also a popular topic on podcasts like Lore and My Favorite Murder. In the mainstream media, Fourth Wall Films released a documentary on it called Veliska Living with a Misery, and in June twenty seventeen, Netflix released a horror film called The Axe Murders of Veliska. The fear that the people of Viliska felt those nights following the murders must have changed their lives forever. A murderer was among them and it really could have turned neighbor against neighbor. And now all that's left for us to remember so carefully crafted stay with evidence lighting every single room, the same ones that the family got to see right before they were murdered. Perhaps that's why they decided to stay in the familiar setting of their memories. This episode of a Dark Memory was written by Maria del Carmen Sesban, researched by Medel Inguera, and produced by me Edwin Kobarujez. If you have an idea for a topic that you want to listen to on here, be sure to send us an email or leave it to the description of this episode. Up next, be sure to check out my other podcast called True Scary Story, where people share their own experiences. And if you're more into fictional storytelling or creepy pastas, be sure to check out my other show called Scary Story Podcast right now on your podcast player. Thank you very much for listening, See you soon.