Obscure Occurrences : The Villisca Axe Murders

 The church service on the 9th of June, 1912 had ended at about 9:30 pm and the Moores slowly made their way back towards their home, attracting attention from the people they encountered. In synchronisation with the warm and pleasant evening, the adults maintained a slow and leisurely pace while the kids giggled and laughed as they chased each other. In addition to their four children, Josiah Moore and his wife Sarah had arranged for two of the younger daughters from the Stillinger household to spend the night at their place. The adults showed no urgency during their three-block walk from the Church, allowing the children to tire themselves in order to make their bedtime a less-intense labour.

(Source: Morbid Kuriosity)

 As the cheerful group had passed by Hank Horton, the Town Marshal, they stopped to exchange greetings. While some of Villisca’s other residents had demonstrated a tendency to mock the man for diligence, Josiah admired the manner with which Horton performed his duty. They eventually reached the Moore residence following which Sarah gently guided the children into the kitchen for a serving of milk and cookies before settling them down into their beds. Parallelly, Josiah made his way to the woodpile to fetch fuel for the fireplace.

 After collecting an armful of logs, Josiah nudged the axe lying on the floor with his foot, trying to push it a little further under the pile, in order to conceal it from the sight of passers-by. It was an insignificant act, one that he had repeated every evening since moving into the property, but unbeknownst to him, he was being keenly observed that evening.

 After completing his task, Josiah walked back over to the house and shut the door behind him. Candlelight and sounds of happiness emanated from the main residence while the woodpile stood silent a few feet away from the barn. Hidden away in the outbuilding’s darkened interior, a man stared intently across the yard through a small hole in the wooden wall. The happy group had caught his attention, causing his gaze to fall upon twelve-year-old Lena, the older of the two Stillinger girls, for a short period.

 The lamps in the Moore household were slowly extinguished one by one as the family and their two little guests settled into their beds, filling the uninvited stranger with a warm and pleasant feeling. Shortly afterwards, he would go on to satisfy the painful urges that had grown to consume him.

Discovery

 The following day, Mary Peckham, the family’s elderly neighbour, noticed that nobody had emerged from the Moore residence that morning to tend to their animals. She let the family’s chickens out for them before proceeding to knock on their main door. The warm woman was not able to raise anyone’s attention despite several attempts and found that all of the building’s windows had been covered with either curtains or bedsheets. She immediately returned home and called Ross Moore, Josiah’s brother who worked at the nearby drug store, for assistance.

 Ross arrived shortly, only to fail in his attempts to elicit a response from inside. Using the spare key Josiah had given him, he eventually gained entry. However, he still had to use a degree of force to open the front door, as it had been closed from the inside with clothing on its edges. Ross cautiously stepped into the house, immediately noticing the deafening silence accompanied by an odd smell which hung in the air. Firstly, he arrived at the guest bedroom, where he found the lifeless bodies of the two Stillingier girls. The bedsheets covering them were drenched in their own blood.

 Unnerved by the grotesque sight, Ross stumbled back out of the dark house and yelled at Mary, who had been waiting outside, to call for Hank Horton. When the town’s Peace Officer arrived half an hour later, he found Ross sitting near the house with his head buried in his hands. The Marshal immediately ventured into the house alone and he emerged a few minutes later with a pale face. The hardworking local official, whose duties involved dealing with thefts and bar room brawls, was not prepared for something of this magnitude. Recovering his composure, he immediately started to issue relevant orders, summoning the Sheriff from nearby Red Oak along with men from the National Guard to secure the crime scene. Canines were also requested for assistance.

(Source: Wiki Media)

Details of the Murder

 Horton headed into the town, enlisting the help of a doctor and photographer to help him document his findings. Parallelly, the deputies and soldiers that arrived to guard the scene were deeply affected by the horror which had consumed Horton. Every occupant inside the house was dead, mauled with the use of Josiah’s axe, which had been left carefully against the wall in the guest bedroom, next to the lifeless bodies of the Stillinger children. Two fresh cigarette buts were later found in the attic, indicating that the murderer might have concealed himself there after entering the property, patiently waiting till everyone fell asleep.

 The first to die were Josiah and Sarah, both battered to death in the master bedroom. Sarah’s skull had been broken with the blunt end of the axe while her husband’s head had been slaughtered with the bladed end. From there, the murdered had paraded through the other family bedrooms, killing Herman, Mary, Arthur and five-year-old Paul by thumping their heads with the axe’s blunt end. After the onslaught, it appeared that the man had returned to the parents’ bedroom, attacking Josiah’s face with the blunt side of the weapon. The blows had been so strong that his eyes had liquified under the pressure.

 The murder had then diverted his attention towards the Stillinger girls, who had been sleeping in the guest bedroom. The positioning of Lena’s corpse suggested that she had been the only victim to have woken up during the bloody massacre. She lay slightly further down than her younger sister as if trying to wiggle free from her attacker. The wound on her upper arm suggested that she had held it outstretched in an effort to shield herself from the murderer’s blows of death.

 Lena’s night clothes were pulled up and her underwear had been used by the killer to wipe the blood from the murder weapon. Unfortunately, this was not the last of the grisly and unnerving details. One of Sarah’s shoes, which had been placed underneath her bed, had filled up with her blood. The attacker had knocked it over when he had re-entered to inflict further damage to her husband’s corpse.

 The crime scene suggested that the killer had been deliberate and methodical, taking his time as he went about bludgeoning the family to death. He had used all the bedding and clothes in the house to hide the faces of his victims, to cover up the windows and the mirrors and to wedge the external doors closed. He had also moved a slab of bacon from the ice box to the guest bedroom, poured a bowl of water to wash his hands and then left it on the table along with the remainders of a small meal he had apparently prepared.

 In line with Doctor Cooper’s report, each victim had been killed by repeated blows from the axe, around twenty to thirty strikes each in some cases. The indentations on the ceilings of each bedroom suggested that the killer had swung the axe down from a commendable height, grazing the roof beams as it passed.

(Source: Morbid Kuriosity)

Investigation

 Word of the murders had quickly spread beyond the town’s borders, causing the gathering of a substantial crowd from all over the country when the bodies were recovered. As darkness fell and the tracker dogs finally arrived, the residents retreated to their homes and locked their doors. The once-calm streets of Villisca were no longer a safe place to be at night.

 As the sheriff and his deputies used the canine units to track the killer’s route away from the house, Horton had trailed behind due to his involvement in the investigation. The dogs paused briefly at the door of Frank Jones, a prominent businessman, before suddenly moving off again. They lost the trial at the nearby Nodaway River, unable to identify the direction in which the murderer had taken after crossing the water. Enquiries at local hotels failed to propose a potential suspect, and neither was the stationmaster able to recall seeing any suspicious passengers arriving or departing the town. Thus, by the end of the first 48 hours, the investigating authorities had no further clues to pursue.

 With no state police or FBI in existence back then, a fund was organized in order to pay for a private investigation into the murders. There were four major investigative agencies operating in the United States at the time of the incident and the Kansas office of the Burns Detective Agency was given the responsibility. Through a combination of undercover work and public appeals, the agents who were dispatched to the town identified a number of suspects and arrested them.

 Josiah Moore had been a revered member of the community with no known enemies, but he had never had a good relationship with Sam Moyer, his brother-in-law. Witnesses confirmed that during a family argument, Sam had once threatened to kill Josiah. Sam was arrested and interviewed, but the evidence against him was non-existent. Thus, as soon as he produced an alibi, he was released.

 Andrew Sawyer, a local itinerant, was detained next. The day after the murders he had approached a nearby railway crew, asking if any work was available. His clothes, however, were sodden and dirty. His foreman had contacted the sheriff to report that Andrew kept on making repeated references to having just come from Villisca and knowing more about the case than he was supposed to. The deputies who arrested Andrew reported that he had immediately become enraged, threatening to behead them. However, it was later proven that he had been in police custody on the night of the murders.

 Henry Moore, a convicted killer who had murdered his mother and grandmother with an axe, was later interviewed by the police but there was insufficient evidence to associate him with the crime.

James Newton

 In an effort to resume the investigation that had stalled after two years, the Bruns Agency despatched another agent to Villisca. The newly assigned detective’s motive, however, was less about seeking justice and more about seeking wealth. The name of the deceitful and greedy agent was James Newton and he had built a moderately successful career by manufacturing and twisting the affairs of each case to fit his desired outcome. In the Villisca investigation, his technique would be taken to a further level.

 Immediately after arriving in the town, James seized on the fact that the canines had paused momentarily at Frank Jones' doorstep and set about putting together a case against him. Jones owned a tool company that Josiah had once managed for him. When he had left his position to start his own business, a notable portion of Jones’ customers followed him. Using this tale as the motive for the murders, James initiated a public campaign to get Jones associated with the crime. As Jones had successfully campaigned to be elected as a Senator, he sought out his rivals for funding.

 James held public meetings, taking the word of any lunatic as solid fact until he constructed a sufficient narrative to put before a curt gathering. However, not one of the witnesses he bought into the courtroom had credibility, causing his first attempt to convict James to fail.

 In July of 1914, two years after the massacre in Moore’s residence, William Mansfield, an Illinois resident and army veteran, was arrested on suspicion of using an axe to kill four members of his own family. The new arraignment that James bought into the court maintained that Jones had paid him to murder the Moore family. Jones persistently fought the allegation until he and William were cleared of the charges six years later.

 Eventually, James’ career ended in disgrace. It was discovered that he had been using the funds of the case to fund his political career, causing his removal from the case, but the damage he had already caused to the wider investigation of the murders was irreparable. He was sacked altogether several years later, after being caught having an affair with the wife of a client.

A Self-Proclaimed Killer

 The last suspect to be charged with the killings was George Kelly, the minister who had spoken at the service the Moores had attended on the right of their deaths. He had attempted to accuse himself in the early days of Hank Horton’s investigation but had been warned off due to his mental health issues.

 In 1914, Kelly was committed to a mental facility, after trying to persuade a 16-year-old girl to sleep with him. While being held there, he allegedly confessed to the Villisca Axe Murders again. He was tried at court twice for the crimes and released on both occasions when it was proven that his account had no resemblance to the case itself.

Conclusion

 The savage and brutal nature of the crime committed at the heart of the community alarmed the local residents. With modern technologies to aid, it is comparatively easier to analyse and evaluate such incidents, but to the people of that era, it was nothing but incomprehensible. The Moore residence still sits in Villisca, serving as a reminder of the brutal bludgeoning of its owners while protecting the identity of their killer.

(Source: Morbid Kuriostiy)

 The circumstances surrounding the murders seemingly suggested that the killer must have had an existing link to the victims and the town, causing a closed line of thinking which was not sufficient enough to catch the killer. Furthermore, James muddying the waters made the situation worse. Unfortunately, despite the advancements in technology and forensic science, the case remains a century-old mystery.