The Villisca Axe Murders

In June 1912, the small town of Villisca, Iowa, awoke to a nightmare. Eight people, including six children,  were found brutally murdered inside a quiet white house on East 2nd Street. The doors were locked, mirrors were covered,  and more than a century later, the question still echoes: who wielded the axe that night?

Join us as we follow the trail of one of America’s most haunting unsolved murders, through the tangled investigations, shifting suspects, and eerie aftermath that still lingers in the town of Villisca today.

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Sources & References

Suarez, Michel. - The Villisca Murders Axe, Sleep, Repeat 

https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/villisca-axe-murders

Villisca Axe Murder House Official Site – https://www.villiscaiowa.com

archival documents 1912–1917)

James, Bill & McCarthy James, Rachel. – The Man from the Train 

Thank you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

A quick note for our listeners. We've just added something new for our Patreon community. On top of early access and bonus episodes, the Great Trail members can now listen to the after the trail, a special segment we'll be releasing after each case. It's where I put aside the script for a while and share my own thoughts, reflections, and what stayed with me while researching the story. If you'd like to hear more and join a growing community of listeners who walked this trail with us, you can find it on Patreon at the Great Trail Level. And now let's get into today's story. It was a quiet summer night in Villeska, Iowa on 9th of June 1912. The kind of night when the air sits still, farmhouses dim their lights, and the only sound is the creak of old wood. In that stillness, eight people would be murdered inside a small house with no clear motive and with no one ever convicted. This is the story of the Villiska Axe Murders. A case that would rattle the town, haunt investigators, and remain unsold for more than a century. It sat in Montgomery County, Southwest Iowa, with about 2,500 residents. It was the sort of place where everybody knew each other. The town had grown steadily thanks to the railroad. Velisca was a stop on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy line, a route that brought steady business in the area. Shops and hardware stores lined the main street, and now local farms could ship their goods far beyond the county. There was nothing unusual about Velisca, just another quiet town enjoying its share of early century prosperity. At 508 East 2nd Street stood a modest Queen Anne style house built in 1867 with a sloping yard and a wraparound porch. That home would later be known as the Moore House when Josiah Beamore bought it in 1903. Josiah was known as a dependable, hardworking man, the kind of businessman who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He ran a John Deere implement dealership and spent much of his time on the road, traveling by horse-drawn buggy to nearby farms, fixing machines, shaking hands, and making cells. Sarah was a homemaker, a teacher, and an organizer by nature. She managed the family's meals, the housework, and much of the local Presbyterian church children's activities. By 1912, the Moors had four children, Herman, age 11, Mary, age 10, Arthur, age 7, and Paul, age five. That Sunday in June in 1912, the day that would unknownly become their last, was full of life and excitement. The family spent the afternoon at the Presbyterian church for Children's Day, an early celebration that Sarah had helped organize. After the service and a bit of ice cream with friends, the children asked two of their classmates, Lena and Ina Stillinger, to stay the night at their house. They had never slept away from home before, but their parents agreed. It was summer, and Villisca was the kind of town where nothing bad was supposed to happen. That evening, the children settled in the bedrooms. They talked and whispered, sharing the small secrets kids do before falling asleep. Downstairs, Josiah and Sarah finished their nightly chores, checked the doors and turned out the lamps, and before long the house was quiet. The last train had passed, the lights along Main Street were out, and the small white house on East 2nd Street stood quiet in the dark. Inside, the Moore family was asleep. Josiah and Sarah slept upstairs. Across the hall, their children shared the other room, and downstairs, Lena and Ina slept in the front bedroom. In that silence, sometime after midnight, someone stepped quietly inside. The intruder moved through the dark rooms, careful not to wake anyone. He carried Josiah's own axe, taken from the shed outside. He went first to the main bedroom. Josiah laid closest to the wall. The first blow came fast and hard, crushing his skull before he would even wake up. Sarah was next. The killer struck again and again. Then he went to the children's room. Each one was killed as they slept. None of them made a single sound. Downstairs slept Lena and Ina. When the intruder entered their room, Lena woke. Her arm was raised, her body slightly turned, as if she'd seen something move in the dark. She may have caught a glimpse of the killer before the final blow fell. Ina never moved. When it was all over, the killer didn't run. He stayed in the house for a while, covering mirrors with cloth, drawing the curtains and laying pieces of clothing over each victim's face. In the kitchen, he even prepared a meal, though he never ate it. When he finally left, he placed the axe at the foot of the bed and slipped out into the quiet night. By morning, when the sun rose over East Second Street, lightning the Moorhouse just as it always had inside, there was only silence and darkness. The sun was already high, and neighbors were out attending gardens and feeding animals. Next door, Mary Peckham noticed something odd. The moorhouse was unusually quiet. The blinds were still drawn, no one was outside, and Josiah hadn't come out to do his morning chores. At first, she thought they might be sleeping late after the long church day before. But as the morning went on, her concern grew. Around 8 a.m., she walked over and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She tried the handle, but it was locked. Even the barn was quiet with no sign of anyone moving inside. After checking around the house and seeing that all the curtains were closed, Mary decided something wasn't right. So she called Ross Moore, Josiah's brother. When Ross arrived, he knocked again and again before unlocking the front door. The smell hit him first. As he stepped into the house, he called out their names, but no answer. As he walked cautiously through the house and into the main bedroom, when he opened the door, he saw something that no one should ever have to see. On the bed laid Josiah and Sarah, both covered with sheets drenched in blood. Ross then knew something horrible had happened in the house and rushed outside and shouted for Mary to call the marshal. When Marshal Hank Horton arrived and he entered the house, what he discovered was a bloodbath. Moving carefully from the main bedroom, he found the children. Each of them had been killed in their beds. All eight victims had been struck repeatedly with an axe. Like any small town, word spread through Villisca faster than anyone could control. By noon, the house was surrounded. Curious townspeople gathered outside, whispering and weeping. Some even ignored the marshal's warning and rushed inside to see for themselves. It was a complete chaos. Reporters, neighbors, even local officials wandered through the crime scene, leaving footprints and disturbing evidence. In 1912, there was little understanding of preserving a scene, and the house quickly filled with the onlookers. One witness later said, there were so many people inside that morning. The floorboards creaked under the weight. By that afternoon, the Moore home had become both a place of horror and one of an unspeakable cry. And sadly, a source of morbid curiosity. The news would soon spread far beyond Valesca to the Moines of Man in Chicago. And the story of the small town's nightmare was only the beginning. Neighbors, reporters, even children had wandered through the house before he was sealed. Any evidence present in the house was now contaminated, making any reconstruction far more difficult. Sheriff Oran Jackson and Marshal Henry Horton took charge of the case. The axe left inside the house, though wiped clean, still showed traces of blood and was confirmed to be Josiah's. That meant the killer hadn't brought a weapon but had taken it from the shed sometime after entering the house. Medical examiner's report indicated that all eight victims were struck while they slept, though Lena showed a defensive wound on her arm, suggesting she might have woken up during the attack. The killer used the blunt side of the axe, and the time of death was estimated to be between midnight and the early morning hours. Next, the sheriffs looked into the odd state the house was left in. Every mirror had been covered, and all the curtains were drawn. On the kitchen table, investigators found a bowl of uneaten food beside the slab of bacon wrapped in cloth. It seemed the killer had stayed in the house for some time after the killing. They also found a few other strange details. Two cigarette butts were discovered in the attic, leading police to believe the killer might have waited there before the family came home that night. A lamp was found near Josiah and Sarah's bed, suggesting it had been used to move through the house without casting much light. In the kitchen, a small bowl of bloody water hinted that the killer may have washed his hands before leaving. Each of these details painted the same picture, after deliberately blungeoning eight people to death. The killer appeared calm, deliberate, and unhurried. Whoever had done this hadn't fled in panic, they had taken their time. With the crime scene left unsealed and chaotic, crucial evidence was lost. Reports later claimed that some of those who entered the house even took pieces of the scene as souvenirs. One man was said to have picked up a fragment of Josiah's skull. So, with little physical evidence to rely on, investigators turned their attention to people. At that time, investigation often meant Sheriff Warren Jackson and a few local officers sitting in a room, trading theories and compiling names with very little evidence. Once the list of the suspect was drawn up, the search began, and over the months that followed, several people would fall under suspicion. Each seemed plausible for a while until the evidence, or luck of it, told a different story. The first name to draw attention was Frank Jones, a respected businessman. He had once employed Josiah at his hardware and implement store before Josiah left to open his own John Deere dealership. When Josiah departed, he took a major account with him, and in a small town, that loss stung and people speculated that Jones had never forgiven him. Some even believed that Frank Jones had gone so far as to hire a man to kill Josiah out of revenge. That idea gained momentum when a private detective named James Wilkerson from the Burns Detective Agency arrived in town. Convinced he could solve the case, Wilkinson built an elaborate theory linking Frank Jones and a known criminal called Mansfield. He gathered witness statements, tracked down old co-workers, and claimed Mansfield had been paid to commit these murders. Wilkinson pushed his theory so far that a grand jury actually indicted Mansfield. But when the court examined the evidence, it fell apart. Payroll records and witness testimony proved Mansfield had been in Illinois that night, clocked in at a meat-packing plant miles away. The charges were dropped, Mansfield was released, and although Wilkinson's investigation collapsed, he refused to let it go, publishing a pamphlet accusing Jones of political corruption in a cover-up. In the end, both Frank Jones and Mansfield were cleared, and the case was no closer to being solved. Then came Reverend George Kelly, a traveling preacher originally from England. He had been in Villisca that same weekend, attending the Children's Day service at the Presbyterian Church, the one Sarah Moore helped organize and where her children performed. Kelly was remembered as a nervous, eccentric man, small in stature, constantly talking and often unsettling in manner. The morning after the murders, he boarded the train out of Villiska at 5:19 a.m. Passengers later recalled him pacing, mumbling scripture under his breath and appearing restless. As investigators dug deeper, his name came up again and again. He seemed unusually fixated on the case. He even wrote to the police, reporters, and even the victim's relatives. He also tried to obtain copies of the autopsy report, claiming it was for study. Eventually, police tracked him down and brought him in for questioning. During one interrogation, he gave what they described as a confession where supposedly he said he had followed the Moore family home from church and entered their house after midnight. But his story shifted every time he repeated it, changing details about how, when, and why the murders happened. Still, with no other strong suspects and a confession on record, Reverend George Kelly quickly became the focus of the investigation. Authorities believed they finally had their mark. When investigators arrested Reverend George Kelly, it finally felt to many like the case was closing. He wasn't just another suspect. He seemed to fit what people imagined a killer to be. Small, nervous, eccentric, with a strange way of speaking and an unsettling stare. He was odd and people didn't like it. But does being odd make someone a killer? Still, there was one thing that couldn't be ignored. He had been in Villisca the night the murders took place. He had attended the Children's Day service at the Presbyterian Church, and witness confirmed that he sat in the pews during the event, quietly watching the service. Also, the next morning at 5 a.m., he boarded an early train out of town. The timing alone was enough to make people wonder, was he in a rush to leave the scene of a horrific crime he committed? There was also the fact that in the months following the murders, he became strangely fixated on the case. He wrote letters to the police and to relatives of the victims. And although this might have been dismissed as a morbid fascination, after all, people had been collecting pieces of scalp from the crime scene on that first day, many began to wonder if Kelly's obsession came from guilt. So, with what they saw as mounting evidence pointing to Reverend George Kelly, authorities finally built a case against him. His strange behavior, religious outburst, and the detailed letters he sent were enough to raise serious suspicion. He was arrested in Connecticut and brought back to Iowa, smiling for reporters and telling them that God had shown him the truth. But whilst in custody, that truth kept changing. In one version, he said voices had told him to kill. In another, he claimed he'd blacked out and woken up covered in blood. Sometimes he even described the house and the victims in incredible detail. But it's unclear whether authorities overlooked the fact that every one of those details had already been printed in the newspapers he read every day. For them, it seemed simple. They had their murderer, and that murderer was Reverend George Kelly. The first trial began in Red Oak, Iowa in September 1917, five years after the murders. Unsurprisingly, the courtroom was full with townspeople and relatives of the victims. The prosecution built its case almost entirely around Kelly's confession. They called witnesses to describe his strange behavior, brought in handwriting experts, and presented train schedules to show he had opportunity. Their argument was simple. He was a stranger, he was odd, and he had killed eight people before vanishing. But the defense told a different story. They argued that he was not a killer, but a man suffering from severe mental illness, someone lost in his own world of visions and fears. They brought in witnesses who described him as peculiar but harmless, prone to delusions and religious ramblings. Boarding house owners recalled him pacing the halls at night, and his former employers described him as unstable but never violent. The key moment came when the defense challenged his confession. They showed that it had changed multiple times and that police had questioned him for hours without rest. In one version, he entered the house through the front door, in another, the back. Sometimes he used the sharp edge of the axe, sometimes the blunt side. Even the order of the victims shifted each time he was asked. To the jury, it was becoming clear that this wasn't the account of a cold-blooded killer, but the ramblings of a confused and fragile man. By the time they began deliberating, his confession seemed unreliable, more the result of exhaustion and pressure than truth. After several days, the verdict came back. A hung jury. Two months later, a second trial began in November 1917. This time, things went even worse for the prosecution, which struggled to hold the jury's attention. The evidence was weak, George Kelly's earlier confession had been discredited, and his behavior after the murders now seemed more like illness than guilt. When the trial ended, Reverend George Kelly was acquitted. He left Iowa soon after and disappeared from public life. Some reports claimed he was later institutionalized, while others say he lived quietly under a different name. No one else was ever charged for the Velisca murders. The families and the town had waited five long years for justice and instead were left with debotched investigation and a suspect who seemed both too strange and too fragile to be a monster. After the trials ended, Veliska never felt the same. People locked their doors, drew their curtains, and kept guns under their beds for a town which once felt safe. Fear had settled in quickly after the murders and stayed. Newspapers across the country called it Murder Town, Iowa, and reporters came from as far as Chicago and New York, turning Velisca into both a crime story and a curiosity. Soon after, tourists began arriving on East 2nd Street, asking which house had belonged to the Moors. And with that, the stories began, some crazier than others, but over the years, investigators and amateur slews returned to the same names. Frank Jones, the powerful businessman with a feud to settle. William Mansfield, the alleged hired killer with a matching pattern of axe murders, and Reverend George Kelly, the strange nervous preacher who confessed and then recanted. Modern researcher added another possibility that Velisca was one of several linked axe murders across the Midwest, perhaps by a single traveling serial killer who moved by train. Each theory explained something about this horrific crime. But never everything. As the decades passed, the Moore home stood empty for years before being restored in the 1990s by Darwin and Martha Len to its 1912 state, including the wallpaper, the lamps, even the beds, exactly as they had been that night. Today, it stands as a museum, and not only. Visitors come from all over, historians, crime researchers, ghost hunters, and some say they've heard footsteps in the rooms. Others swear they've seen shadows move across the upstairs hall or heard children's laughter carried through the night. The house has even been featured in countless documentaries and even paranormal shows. Whether you believe those stories or not, Josiah and Sarah Moore, Herman, Mary, Arthur and Paul, Lena and Ina, eight names, each belonging to someone loved, someone missed, someone whose chance at a full life was taken away. We shall remember them not for how they died, but for the ordinary, peaceful life. They should have continued to live, and perhaps remembering them is the only kind of justice still possible. That brings us to the end of this episode of Clue Trail. If you'd like to hear more stories like this or join us for reflections in after the trail, you can find those over on Patreon. You can also follow Clue Trail on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for updates on upcoming cases. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leaving a quick rating or review helps more listeners find a shop. Thank you for walking this trail with me. Until next time, stay safe, stay curious, and keep following the clues.