[OVERVIEW]

The Villisca axe murders refer the the 8 people who were bludgeoned to death with an axe between June 10, 1912 and June 11, 1912 in the town of Villisca, Iowa.

[DETAILS]

The Moore family consisted of Josiah and Sarah and their four children, Herman (11), Mary (10), Arthur (7), and Paul (5). The family was very well liked.

On the evening of June 10, 1912, the family went to a church for a Child's Day Program. The kids wanted some neighborhood kids to come back home with them to spend the night, that parents agreed. Those kids were Ina (8) and Lena (12) Stillinger.

The program ended at 9:30 pm and the family walked to their home. The arrived somewhere between 9:45 and 10 pm.

[FOUND]

The next day, around 7, Moore's closest neighbor, Mary, came by after concern grew because she hadn't noticed any of them come outside to do their chores, which was extremely odd.

She knocked on the door and when no one answered she tried opening the door, but it was locked. She let their chickens out and called Josiah's brother, Ross. Ross too got no answer from his brother.

Ross had a copy of the house key and used it to open the door. Mary stayed at the door while Ross searched the house. He searched the guest bedroom first where he saw Ina and Lena's bodies on the bed. Moore immediately told Peckham to call Hank Horton, Villisca's primary peace officer, who arrived shortly thereafter. Horton's search of the house revealed that the entire Moore family and the two Stillinger girls had been bludgeoned to death. The murder weapon, an axe belonging to Josiah, was found in the guest room where the Stillinger sisters were found.

Doctors concluded that the murders had taken place between midnight and 5 a.m.

There were two cigarette butts on the attic floor, leading investigators to believe the killer, or killers, waited in the attic until the family got home and fell asleep.

The killer(s) began in the master bedroom, where Josiah and Sarah Moore were sleeping. Josiah received more blows from the axe than any other victim; his face had been cut to such an extent that his eyes were missing. They used the blade of the axe on Josiah while using the blunt end on the rest of the victims.

They proceeded into the children's rooms and bludgeoned Herman, Katherine, Arthur, and Paul in the head in the same manner as their parents. They 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.

Investigators believed that all of the victims except for Lena Stillinger had been asleep when murdered. They thought that she was awake and tried to fight back, as she was found lying crosswise on the bed, and with a defensive wound on her arm. Lena's nightgown was pushed up to her waist and she was wearing no undergarments, leading to law enforcement speculation that the killer(s) sexually molested her or attempted to do so.

All the mirrors were covered, and to this day it's still unknown why.

[SUSPECTS]

Over time many suspects emerged.

[ANDREW SAWYER]

One suspect was a man named Andy Sawyer. No real evidence linked Sawyer to the crime, but his name came up often in grand jury testimonies.

According to Thomas Dyer of Burlington, Iowa, a bridge foreman and pile driver for the Burlington Railroad, S.A. (Andy) Sawyer approached his crew in Creston at 6:00 a.m on the morning the murders were discovered. Sawyer was clean-shaven and wearing a brown suit when he arrived. His shoes were covered in mud and his pants were wet nearly to the knees. He asked for employment and, as Dyer needed an extra man, he was given a job on the spot.

Dyer testified that later that evening when the crew reached Fontanelle, Iowa, Sawyer purchased a newspaper and went off by himself to read it. The newspaper carried a front page account of the Villisca murders and, according to Dyer, Sawyer "was much interested in it." Dyer's crew complained that Sawyer slept with his clothes on and was anxious to be by himself. They were also uneasy that Sawyer slept with his axe next to him; he often talked of the Villisca murders and whether or not a killer had been apprehended.

He reportedly told Dyer that he had been in Villisca that Sunday night and had heard of the murders. Afraid of being taken as a suspect, he had left and gone to Creston. Dyer was suspicious and turned him over to the sheriff on June 18, 1912.

Dyer later testified that prior to the sheriff's arrival, he walked up behind Sawyer. He was rubbing his head with both hands and suddenly jumped up and said to himself, "I will cut your god damn heads off." At the same time, he made striking motions with the axe and began hitting the piles in front of him.

Sawyer was dismissed as a suspect in the case when officials learned that he could prove he had been in Osceola, Iowa, on the night of the murders. He had been arrested for vagrancy there, and the Osceola sheriff recalled putting him on a train (to send him away) at approximately 11 p.m. that evening.

[HENRY LEE MOORE]

This Moore is in not relation to the murdered family.

Henry was a suspected serial killer who was convicted of the murder of his mother and grandmother several months after the murders in Villisca, his weapon of choice being an axe. Before and after the murders in Villisca, the very similar axe murders on his mother and grandmother were committed, and all of the cases showed striking similarities

[FRANK F. JONES]

Frank Jones was a Villisca resident and an Iowa State Senator. 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.

[WILLIAM "BLACKIE" MANSFIELD]

Another theory was that Senator Jones hired William "Blackie" Mansfield to murder the Moore family. It is believed that Mansfield was a serial killer because he murdered his wife, infant child and parents-in-law with an axe two years after the Villisca crimes. He is believed to have committed the axe murders in Paola, Kansas, four days before the Villisca crimes. He was also suspected in the double homicide of Jennie Peterson and Jennie Miller in Illinois. Each crime site was accessible by train, and all murders were carried out in virtually the same manner.

Mansfield was released after a special Grand Jury of Montgomery County refused to indict him, on grounds that his alibi checked out. Nine months before the murders at Villisca, a similar case of axe murder occurred in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Two axe murder cases followed in Ellsworth, Kansas, and Paola, Kansas. The cases were similar enough to raise the possibility of having been committed by the same person. Other murders reported as possibly being linked to these crimes include the numerous unsolved axe murders along the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1911–1912, the unsolved Axeman of New Orleans killings, as well as several other such murders during this time period.

However, R.H. Thorpe, a restaurant owner from Shenandoah, Iowa, identified Mansfield as the man he saw the morning after the Villisca murders boarding a train at Clarinda. This man said he had walked from Villisca. If proven to be true, this testimony would disprove Mansfield's alibi. Furthermore, it was reported that a Mrs. Vina Tompkins, of Marshalltown, was on her way to testify that she heard three men in the woods plotting the murder of the Moore family a short time before the killings.

[REVEREND GEORGE KELLY]

George Kelly was an English-born traveling minister in town on the night of the murders. Kelly was described as peculiar, reportedly having suffered a mental breakdown as an adolescent. As an adult, he was accused of peeping and several times asking young women and girls to pose nude for him. On June 8, 1912, he came to Villisca to teach at the Children's Day services, which the Moore family attended on June 10, 1912. He left town between 5:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on June 10, 1912, hours before the bodies were discovered. Reverend Kelly had confessed to the murders in court, but the jury didn't believe his confession.

In the weeks that followed, he displayed a fascination with the case and wrote many letters to the police, investigators, and family of the deceased. 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.

In 1914, two years after the murders, Kelly was arrested for sending obscene material through the mail (he was sexually harassing a woman who applied for a job as his secretary). He was sent to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the national mental hospital in Washington, D.C. Investigators speculated again that Kelly could be the murderer of the Moore family.

In 1917, Kelly was arrested for the Villisca murders. Police obtained a confession from him; however, it followed many hours of interrogation and Kelly later recanted. After two separate trials, he was acquitted.

[THOUGHTS]

Who do you think killed this family and why?