Past midnight on June 10, 1912
a horrific crime was committed that remains unsolved today. Villisca, Iowa at
the turn of the century was the typical peaceful American small town.
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| Villisca Axe Murder House |
June 9th was a
Sunday and Josiah “Joe” Moore a Villisca businessman accompanied his wife,
Sarah, and their 4 children, Herman 10, Katherine 10, Boyd 7, and Paul 5 to the
local Presbyterian churches’ Children’s Day service. The Moore children among
other Sunday school attendees performed speeches and recitations.
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| The Moores, their children and the Stillinger girls. |
It was a special night made
more exciting by the fact that two neighbor children, Lena 12 and Ina
Stillinger 8 attended with the family and were given permission to go home with
the Moore children for a sleep over.
The church service ended
around 9:30 p.m. and the Moore’s and their 2 guests walked home. The children
were treated to milk and cookies and then put to bed for the night.
The church service was the
last time these 8 people were seen alive. Even today not all the facts are known
including who committed the murders. Tragically, sometime between midnight and
the early morning hours each person sleeping in the Moore house was brutally
murdered.
Two cigarette buttes where
found in the home’s attic so it is speculated that the murderer or murderers
waited in this room until the family returned and settled in for the night.
The following morning an
elderly neighbor, Mary Peckham became concerned when at 7:30 a.m. the Moore
house was unusually quiet and deserted. Joe’s brother Ross arrived and spotted two
figures in the back bedroom covered with a sheet--he also saw blood.
The town’s Marshall, Hank
Horton was sent for and he announced that there was “somebody murdered in every
bed.” The murder weapon an axe that had been partially wiped clean was found
leaning against the wall in the back downstairs bedroom.
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| There are still dents in the ceiling from the upswing of the axe. |
Horton had found the two
Moore adults and the six children all in bed, they were covered with
bedclothes. Each of their skulls had been bludgeoned 20 to 30 times with the
blunt end of the axe.
One Possible Murderer
The Reverend Lyn George
Jackline Kelly was tried and acquitted twice for the murders of the Moore
family and the Stillinger girls.
In the early morning
following the murders he boarded a train in Villisca headed westbound. He
allegedly told his fellow travelers that there were 8 dead souls back in
Villisca--butchered in their beds as they slept. At the time he made this
statement the bodies had not yet been found.
Kelly had arrived in Villisca
for the first time on the Sunday morning of the murders. He had attended the
Sunday school performance given by the children. Two weeks later he
arrived in Villisca again. He posed as a detective and joined a tour of the
murder house with a group of investigators.
The authorities initially
became interested in him several weeks later after being alerted by several
people who had received “rambling letters” from him.
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| Rev. Kelly |
Kelly was the son and
grandson of English ministers. He suffered a mental breakdown while still in
adolescence. After immigrating to America he had preached at several Methodist
churches across the Midwest.
At the time of the Villisca
murders he was preaching in several small Iowa towns just north of Villisca. He
had developed a reputation for “odd behavior.” He had been convicted of sending
obscene material through the mail and had been committed to a mental hospital
for a time.
In August, two months after
the murders Kelly signed a confession to the murders. He stated God had whispered
to him “suffer the children to come until me.”
During his trail Kelly
recanted his confession--eleven of the twelve jurors acquitted him. A second
jury was convened and Kelly was acquitted again in November.
Several bizarre items where
left at the murder scene. The first was a 4-pound piece of bacon that was found
propped against the wall next to the axe.
The murderer had taken items
from the bedroom dressers and covered all the mirrors in the home. He also
covered the entry doors. He left a plate of uneaten food on the kitchen table
along with a bowl of water stained with blood.
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| Henry Lee Moore suspected of being serial killer. |
Some speculate that the
murders were actually done by a serial killer. At the time of the Villisca
murders over the course of two years from 1911 to 1912 at least 20 other people had been bludgeoned to death with an axe across the Midwest--none of
these crimes were ever solved.
Read Somebody Murdered in
Every Bed, Part ll here. I talk about the hauntings that have occurred in the
home since the murders.
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