... " A night alone in the Villisca Axe Murder House"....

Place  

Villisca Axe Murder House

Location 

Villisca, Iowa, U.S.A

Author

Pictures and Article  by "Midnightman"

History

On June 10^th 1912, in a small house on the outskirts of Villisca, Iowa, 8 people including 6 children were murdered with an axe the killer was never caught. The victims, Josia and Sarah Moore their 4 children and overnight guests the Stillinger sisters, all now lie buried within a few feet of each other in the town cemetery. Although there were several suspects and two of the most prominent, William Mansfield and the Reverend George Kelly were separately brought to trial there were no convictions. The murder remains a mystery over a hundred years later. 

I had flown into Omaha, Nebraska from Los Angeles and arrived on time at about 3 in the afternoon. After collecting the rental car I set out on the hour and a half journey to Villisca and hoped to be in town by about 5pm. I had booked my night in the Axe Murder House several weeks in advance and would be staying there entirely by myself in order to investigate the haunting's that have alleged to have taken place. 

As I left Omaha and drove along the highway through the open corn fields of Iowa I listened to the radio. I had checked the weather forecast over the last several days it mentioned there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms in the area. The local news station now confirmed that there was in fact a high probability of thunderstorms and also that the area was on a tornado alert. At that point I remember thinking that as if spending the night in haunted house by myself wasn't enough, with there being a thunder storm and the possibility of a tornado it was sounding like one of those straight to video horror movies. After about an hour drive to the east there is a sign pointing south to Villisca. It was another 20 minutes along highway 71 and then I saw the "Welcome to Villisca" sign on the left hand side, just off the freeway.  

I had brought with me as much monitoring and camera equipment as I could transport via plane including a laptop with two 56 Led infra red cameras, 2 hand held video cameras, a digital SLR camera, several digital tape recorders digital thermometers, 3 DC trifield meters, and a AC EMF meters. Several prominent paranormal groups have investigated the house previously and captured some interesting footage including the door in the upstairs children's bedroom apparently opening and closing on command by itself. However I do approach an investigation with few expectations as instances of genuine paranormal phenomena are exceedingly rare and unless you accept that then you can become increasingly uncritical of what you consider evidence in order to fulfill unrealistic expectations.  

I was scheduled to meet one of the employees at the Olson Linn museum which is also run by the owners of the Villisca Axe Murder House Mr. and Mrs. Linn, who would then take me to the house itself which is just a few blocks away. Villisca is a town that was built as a result of the cross state railroad that was established in the late 1800s, and many of the original buildings still survive. There is a gas station a few shops a bank and a restaurant. Its main street is just a few blocks long, and most of the town is residential with some small industrial areas on the outskirts near the railroad tracks. At one time it was the centre of the regions agriculture community and had over 50 stores and two daily newspapers, its population is now just under 2000.  

I found the museum after following the posted signs that indicated east, then south towards the town centre. I parked outside the building, in the large plate glass window at the front there is a sign advertising tours of the axe murder house. As well as overnight stays they conduct daytime and gaslight evening tours of the property which is only a few minutes walk away. On the front door it said the museum was closed, but there was a note saying that the person I assume I had come to meet was at a house located north a few blocks then another block to the east. I didn't realize it until I got there but the house in question was in fact the Axe Murder House itself.  

I drove slowly along a small rural street that ran east to the edge of town. There were no sidewalks and the small neatly kept houses were a mixture of old and modern. At its end there is an intersection and on the left hand side was a 2 story white house with a sign on the front porch which said "Moore Family Home", and in smaller letters below "Axe Murder House". My first impression was that from the outside it doesn't look like a haunted house, at least not during the daytime. But then what does a haunted house look like? Next to it there is another slightly larger house which was there at the time of the murders and belonged to a neighbor by the name of Mary Peckam who at around 7am on the morning of June 12^th was the first to realize that all was not well in the Moore House.  I drove the car around to the side of the property, and parked it in the small driveway beside the recently built barn that also now served as a meeting and viewing room for visitors and paranormal investigators.  One thing that you don't notice from the front of the Axe Murder House, but everyone must comment on is that the upstairs attic windows look exactly like the ones from the house in the movie the Amityville Horror. They are eye shaped and close to each other, that give the appearance that perhaps the house itself is looking down at you. The house does have a feel of isolation about it as it is the last one on the block at the edge of town. Across the street there is an open area with a power grid and what look like a few storage buildings, beyond that are the railroad tracks. 

The murder house has actually been restored by its current owners to be as close to its original state as possible, this included removing any modern fixtures and also going so far as to strip out the plumbing and electricity which the house wouldn't of had at the time of the murders. As I walked to the rear porch of the house I noticed a small storage shed in the garden to the right hand side, although this is not original it is in fact a recreation of the coal shed where the axe to kill the family was taken from. The weapon itself is still in existence and there have been recent moves to try and bring it back to Villisca and put it on display.  

Even from the outside the first thing you will notice about the house is how small it is to have had 6 people living in it, and then to have had 8 people murdered there with an axe. In many ways this makes it more horrific then if it was some vast sprawling mansion. People were butchered within a few feet of each other, there was no where to run and hide and there must have been blood splatters everywhere.  

The approach to the porch at the rear of the house is via a small wood walkway that leads to the kitchen. As you get closer you do feel as if you are stepping back to another time, and although outside it is still light through the pains of glass on the door you can see that even at this time of day the house is in semi darkness. I knocked on the door, at the same time peering inside. I could see a cooking stove to my left and a breakfast table against the far wall, laid out with cutlery. There are curtains on the windows on the other side of the room that block out most of the sun. I waited for about 5 minutes but there didn't appear to be anyone there.  

A short while later I found a pay phone at the nearby convenience store and managed to make contact with Mr Linn who is one of the owners of the house. He told me that he and his wife would meet me there in about half and hour, and that the rear door to the property was already open so I could go in and start unpacking my equipment. Initially I just took my camera and video camera with me as I returned to the house as I wanted to photograph it before I brought anything else inside. I also wanted to document the position of everything so that in the event that anything moved I would have a point of reference to check its location against. I walked back up to the porch and this time opened the door and stepped inside. As soon as you walk in and close the door behind you the atmosphere changes, it doesn't matter that across the street there are other houses or that you just a few blocks from the centre of town, all of that is instantly shut out. You are now inside a house where 8 people were killed with an axe within a few feet of where you are now standing and you probably just came in through the same door as the person that murdered them.  

There are no electric lights here to switch on; the only light when I am staying here tonight will be provided by kerosene lamps, and the flashlight I have brought with me. The floors throughout the house are wood and uncarpeted so they do tend to creak slightly when you walk on them. In the kitchen aside from the table and stove there is also what looks like a hand cranked clothes washer and on the wall there is one of those old fashioned telephones with the bell shaped earpiece. I started taking pictures of the downstairs rooms; even in daylight a flash is required. The only natural light is from the open door behind me, all the rest of the doors and windows are covered. I walked on through the kitchen to the adjacent living room. On the right hand side just before you enter is the narrow entrance behind which a stairway leads to the 2^nd floor of the building. Like most of the rooms in the house the living room is fairly small no bigger then about 12 foot by 10. There is a brown leather couch in the right hand corner beside which stands a piano. To the other side is a black funnel that extends from a wood burning stove which at one time heated the building, there is also an old black and white picture on the wall depicting some of the murdered members of the Moores family. To the left hand side is the front door, although it was believed the murdered entered through the rear of the house after taking the axe from the coal shed it was believed that he exited through the front, locking the door behind him and taking the key.  

On the opposite side of the living room is what was a downstairs guest room, it was here that 2 of the 6 children where murdered. They were overnight guests by the names of Lena and Ina Stillinger, Lena was 11 and Ina was 8 at the time of their deaths. Like every room in the house it is very small, there is a bed in there a side table and at one end a small built in closet. The walls of the room are a light blue and the curtains are drawn as they were on the night of the murder so no one can see in or out. I went back to the kitchen and proceeded up the stairs through the doorway on the left hand side. They are very narrow, but it's only about 10 or 11 steps to the upper level of the house. There is no hallway and as you get about half way up you get your first glimpse of the bedroom where Josia and Sarah Moore were murdered. There is a double bed on the right, on the left there is a dressing table. The rear of the ceiling slopes down slightly over the end of the room making it feel even more clastrophic. Between this room and the second bedroom there is just a few feet of hallway.

As you proceed down the passageway on your left there is a small wooden hatch that leads to the attic. You have to bend down to enter it. Behind, the attic is empty but you can see through the rear of the Amityville style glass windows.

There has been some speculation that the murderer may have hidden in the attic before the Moore's family got home, waited until they were asleep and then carried out the attack, although it has not been confirmed. But there must have been some element of surprise for someone to have been able to kill 8 people before they had time to alert anyone else or escape. One of the theory's was that the murderer may have waited until the whistle from a passing freight train sounded at around 2am in the morning and then committed the murders at a time when no one could hear their screams. But the 2am theory doesn't seem to tally with the opinions of the doctors that carried out the autopsy who thought that the victims died around 12 midnight, but an autopsy at that time wasn't the science that it is today.