American Murder Houses

by Steve Lehto

  Not in a hurry to make his escape, the killer then went around the first floor of the house and drew all the shades. For the windows that had no drapes, he found whatever loose cloth he could find and covered the windows so that no one could look in and see what had happened. Content that his work was done, the killer left the axe behind, locked the door behind him, and disappeared into the darkness. He took nothing of value from the home. It was one of the bloodiest crimes ever to occur in the United States, and it would never be solved. And the house where these killings took place serves to remind us of an era where axe murders seemingly dominated the national headlines.

  ^ ^ ^

  Josiah Moore was a “prominent businessman,” according to the news accounts, and lived in Villisca with his wife and four children. He owned and operated the local John Deere dealership and was by all measures an upstanding member of the community. As far as anyone knew, he had no enemies. Seemingly, his life was the prototype for the good American life: He had a wife and children, a farm, and a thriving business in town. Moore’s children were eleven, nine, seven, and six. The day before the killings, Lena and Ina Stillinger had come to town to attend a church event, and Moore allowed them to spend the night of June 9 with his family. Friends of the family, the Stillinger sisters were twelve and eight years old.

  On the morning of June 10, a neighbor thought it odd when no one appeared to be stirring at the Moore farm. After all, there were six people living there, and two guests, and the family maintained livestock that needed tending. The farmhouse wasn’t that large. It was typical of the era with several rooms on the ground floor and a couple of bedrooms upstairs. It must have seemed cramped with eight people spending the night. The neighbor stood on the porch and knocked on the front door. When the neighbor could not get anyone to answer, her husband also tried and failed. The couple went around the house to look for signs of the occupants but could not see inside; all the windows were completely covered from the inside. All the doors were locked as well. Sensing that something was very wrong, the neighbors went into town and sought help. The city marshal came out to the home and forced the front door when no one answered his knock. Inside, he encountered a horrific scene. Josiah and his wife were the first to be found, hacked to death in their first-floor bed. The Stillinger sisters had also been bludgeoned in their bed. The four Moore children, too, were all found dead, similarly killed. The marshal found the axe covered with blood and hair that was obviously the murder weapon. All eight victims were lying in their beds where they had been sleeping; all eight appeared to have been killed by the same axe.

  Investigators went through the house and could not fathom what would cause someone to commit such a vicious crime. They noted the damaged ceiling where the murderer had struck it with the axe while he was in the middle of his murder spree. The amount of blood on the scene was staggering. There was no indication that the victims had put up any struggle or even been aware of what happened to them.

  The local militia and the townsfolk headed out to scour the countryside, but who were they looking for? No one had seen anyone unusual near the house. It wasn’t even clear when during the night the crime had occurred. It seemed like the killer had simply appeared, killed the victims while they slept, and then vanished after locking the door behind him. As far as anyone could tell, nothing had been taken from the house. After investigators had ruled out robbery, the only possible motive seemed to be revenge. But the Moores didn’t have any enemies as far as anyone knew. The local paper noted that Mr. Moore was prominent in “business and social circles.” And certainly the churchgoing Stillinger sisters could not have been the target of a revenge killing. Was it simply the random act of a madman?

  The coroner, a Dr. Linquist, was called to the scene and arrived around 9:00 A.M. At the time, the law allowed him to convene a coroner’s inquest jury to call witnesses and examine the facts and circumstances of any death that had not occurred naturally. He quickly determined that a jury would be helpful, and he called in some men and swore them in to help him investigate. The district attorney was also summoned to the house. When everyone arrived, they all went inside and examined the wide-ranging crime scene. It was horrific. All the victims had been struck repeatedly with an axe. They noted how the killer had pulled up the sheets on the beds to cover the bodies. They saw how the killer had spent time after the murders covering the insides of the windows with cloth so that no one could look in and see the gruesome scene. After several hours of studying the crime scene, the coroner removed the bodies and took them to the local fire station, which acted as a makeshift morgue for the eight victims.

  The victims were Lena and Ina Stillinger; Josiah and Sarah Moore; and the Moores’ children—Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul.

  The next day, the coroner convened the jury and began his inquest, calling over a dozen witnesses. The story unfolded witness by witness. The next-door neighbor who had first noticed how quiet the Moore home had been hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary until she began to wonder about the lack of activity at the house. The next witness was Ed Selley, who worked for Josiah Moore. He had come out to the Moore home and tended to the livestock the morning of the murder but left before the bodies were discovered. The coroner asked him if he knew of any enemies that the Moores might have had. He testified that Josiah Moore had once told him, “I got a brother-in-law that don’t like me. Said he would get even with me some time.” Selley believed Moore was referring to a man named Sam Moyer but had no other details of the trouble. Even so, these murders seemed to be much more than getting “even” with someone. Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean you go and kill them and their family.

  A Dr. Cooper testified that the sheriff had come and gotten him, telling him that the Moores had been murdered. He had accompanied the sheriff and the others when they went into the house to conduct a thorough investigation. He gave graphic details that would later be repeated in the local papers and noted that, in his opinion, the murders had occurred five or six hours before he had arrived a little after 8:00 that morning. He also described how all of the bodies were bludgeoned with the axe and then covered with bedsheets. None of the bedsheets were cut or damaged, indicating that the killer had slain the victims and then covered them. There was also no sign of any struggle and all the victims were lying in their beds; presumably, all of the victims were killed in their sleep. He had found it remarkable that the killer had managed to go from room to room in the house, brutally chopping and killing his victims without waking anyone up.

  Another doctor, this one named Williams, said that he was also summoned to the Moore home that day and had met Dr. Cooper at the house. It was Williams who performed medical examinations of the victims at the scene. From his description, it sounded like the killer hadn’t just set out simply to kill the occupants of the house. He had set out to brutally slaughter his victims in a fit of evil rage. Some of the victims had their faces and heads so badly beaten they were not recognizable. Even the small children had been savagely mutilated, probably after they were already dead.

  Local papers carried in-depth coverage of the investigation, but most of what was printed read like gossip. Although they had more than enough detail about the killings, it became clear fairly quickly that the local authorities were clueless when it came to solving the crime. It was determined that the murder weapon belonged to the Moores and had been taken from their own woodshed. Bloodhounds had been brought into town and had followed a trail from the house to a nearby river, but lost the scent. They found a bloody handkerchief along the way, but authorities could make nothing of it. According to the local papers, authorities were investigating the suggestion that two relatives of Mr. Moore held “deep grudges” against him, but little else was known. Investigators also noted the similarities between this case and one in Ellsworth, Kansas. There, about three hundred miles away, someone had committed a murder by the light of a kerosene lamp. There had been a kerosene lamp in the Moore hous
e as well that appeared to have been used by the killer as he went from room to room. There had also been “two strange men” who had “left hurriedly” from Newmarket, a little over twenty miles away, shortly after someone questioned what they were doing in town. These clues—if they were indeed clues—were all disconnected and did not point the authorities in any particular direction.

  Local authorities also thought there might be a connection to a murder that had gained headlines the previous year in Colorado. In Colorado Springs, a “similar crime” had taken the lives of six people; it, too, had involved an axe as the murder weapon. Colorado Springs was over six hundred miles away, however, and no one could see how the two groups of victims might be related aside from the weapon of choice. And axe murders were not that uncommon around this time. There appeared to be nothing more to link the two crimes.

  When it came to suspects or motives, the local newspapers offered little more than gossip and speculation. The papers instead filled their reporting with specific and gory details of the murders. The Stillinger girls? “The heads were crushed and fearfully mutilated.” The Moores? They had their “heads crushed and almost severed from their necks.” Newspaper writers described each room of the house and the victims’ injuries graphically. But the death scenes were the only details the authorities understood. They couldn’t come up with any actual suspects. That would change, though. Eventually, Villisca authorities would have more than enough people to point at. They just wouldn’t be able to convict any of them.

  In 1912, the sheriff picked up a suspect named Andy Sawyer. A local railroad construction foreman said that Sawyer had shown up at a work site not far from Villisca on the morning after the murders and asked for a job. The foreman needed workers so badly the man was hired on the spot even though something about him seemed odd. He was wearing a suit, his shoes were muddy, and his pants were soaked up to the knees when he first arrived. And he liked to walk around the work site with an axe, even when an axe wasn’t needed. His co-workers got even more worried when they saw him sleeping with the axe in his hands. After his arrest, Sawyer provided an airtight alibi: He had been arrested for something else before the night of the murders and had been sitting in a jail cell more than seventy miles away when the Villisca crimes were committed. The sheriff of Osceola, Iowa, confirmed the story and Sawyer was released.

  Then, in 1913, a federal agent announced that he knew who the Villisca murderer was. A man named Henry Lee Moore, who was not related to Josiah Moore and his family, lived in Columbia, Missouri, a little less than three hundred miles from Villisca. His mother and grandmother had been brutally murdered by someone wielding an axe in 1911. Henry Lee Moore was brought to trial for the Columbia murders shortly after the Villisca murders occurred in 1912 and was convicted. He was imprisoned and would finally be paroled in 1956. In the murders for which he was convicted, it was said Moore had draped something over the windows of the house so people could not see inside; he had also used an axe and locked all the doors and windows before leaving.

  Amazingly, it appears that the Villisca authorities never investigated Moore even though the crimes for which he was convicted bore striking similarities to the Villisca murders. Instead, local authorities pursued other leads. The police may have been incompetent, or other details of the Columbia murders may not have matched up with those of the Villisca killings.

  In 1917, investigators got word of a preacher who had been in Villisca the night of the murders but had left early the next morning. Could he have been the murderer? In 1912, George Kelly had settled in a neighboring county, about forty miles from Villisca, where he had traveled in 1911 for a Presbyterian “Children’s Day” event. He was arrested and brought to Villisca. Shortly after, law enforcement announced that he had confessed. He was put on trial and people familiar with Kelly’s “confession” stated that it was so absurd that it was obviously the result of coercion. In fact, the prosecution chose to not even use it at the trial. The jury came back and told the court they were unable to reach a verdict. Kelly was tried a second time and this time the jury found him not guilty. Soon after, he and his wife fled the area and disappeared.

  The Villisca police weren’t the only people trying to solve the case. James Wilkerson, a private detective from the Burns agency, came to town and poked around a bit shortly after the case began to grow cold. One of the most prominent people to be brought into the investigation was a businessman-turned-senator named Frank Jones. Josiah Moore had worked for Jones at one point but then had split off to start his own business. Moore’s John Deere dealership competed directly with his former boss’s business, and some theorized that this was a motive for Jones to have Moore’s family killed. The Burns detective stated it was Jones and his son who were behind the slayings. He claimed they had hired a man named William “Blackie” Mansfield, whose parents and family had also been killed by an axe murderer in Blue Island, Illinois, a little more than four hundred miles to the east, in 1914. Wilkerson believed that Mansfield had committed the axe murders in Colorado Springs, Villisca, and then Blue Island.

  In 1916, a grand jury convened to hear Wilkerson’s case against Mansfield. Unfortunately for Wilkerson, Mansfield produced work records from Illinois proving his whereabouts at the time of the Villisca axe murders, and he was quickly dismissed as a suspect. After he was dismissed by the grand jury, the papers wrote: “The sheriff placed him in an automobile and drove into the country,” treating Mansfield the way one would treat a stray dog that had wandered into town. Mansfield was so upset at being branded a serial killer that he sued Wilkerson for slander and won. He was awarded $2,225 in damages.

  As more time passed and various suspects were cleared, the case seemed to be growing cold. Then, in 1931, activity on the case was rekindled. A man in Detroit named George Meyers confessed to the killings. It seemed plausible; he was in jail for burglary and a tipster had sent a letter to the Detroit officials saying he was linked to the killings. After a few hours of questioning, he claimed he had been hired to kill a family in Villisca. He said he was paid $2,000 and then fled the area after completing the job. He had no idea who the people were that he had killed or even why they had been targeted. It had just been another job to him. He was supposedly certain of the details: He had killed six people with an axe in Villisca. The problem was that his math was wrong. There had been eight victims in Villisca. Authorities from Detroit and Villisca compared notes and decided that Meyers’s story didn’t add up. It is unclear if this was the only reason that the authorities dismissed him as a suspect. It seems odd to discount his story simply because of a mathematical error. Did they really expect an axe-wielding killer to be counting his victims as he slaughtered them? Meyers wound up spending fifteen years in a Michigan prison for his burglary conviction, and as far as anyone knows, he was the last person on the radar of Villisca crime enforcement for the murder of the Moore family and their guests. The case remains officially unsolved.

  ^ ^ ^

  The house is easy to find today. Out front is a sign that reads: “Villisca Ax Murder House—June 10, 1912.” It was built in 1868 and Josiah Moore had bought it in 1903. Darwin and Martha Linn bought the house in 1994 and decided to remodel the house and return it to its condition and configuration on the night of the murders in 1912. This involved removing modern conveniences like running water and electricity and replacing the furniture with items that would be appropriate to the time of 1912 or earlier. Now, the home is open for tours. Overnight stays are also available but appeal mostly to those who are interested in the paranormal. Reports of spiritual activity in and around the house have been made since the home was restored.

  From March through November, tours of the house cost $10 per person; admission for children and seniors is $5. For $428, a group of six can stay overnight in the house unattended. The owners of the home will leave you alone in the house—remember, it has no running water or electricity—and ask you to simply lock up when you leave the next morning. Each addit
ional guest will cost $74.90. The story has also been the subject of several books and documentaries.

  *Villisca Ax Murder House, villiscaiowa.com

  *“Entire Family Wiped Out When Fiend Visits Home,” Muscatine Journal, June 10, 1912.

  Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterpiece—Turned into a Gruesome Crime Scene

  TALIESIN

  1914

  5607 County Road C

  Spring Green, Wisconsin 53588

  On August 15, 1914, Martha Borthwick and her two children sat down to lunch on an enclosed porch at Taliesin, the summer home Frank Lloyd Wright had built a few years earlier so he and Borthwick, his lover, could escape the gossip caused by their affair. Taliesin also housed offices for Wright’s architectural firm, and next to the porch was a dining room where many of Wright’s employees gathered to discuss work. According to legend, one of Wright’s groundskeepers, a man named Julian Carlton, quietly went around and locked the doors and windows to these rooms. He then poured gasoline under the door to the dining room and set the house on fire. He had already told his wife, another Wright employee, to leave the building. In his hands, he held an axe.

  As the dining room burst into flames, Julian ran into the porch and attacked Borthwick and her children with the axe. He then hacked at the others as they tried escaping from the burning dining room. Along with Borthwick and her two children, Julian killed four others: three employees and the son of an employee. Two men in the dining room managed to make it clear of the axe-wielding madman and the fire and found help nearby. Julian fled the burning building and hid. Neighbors rallied to put the fire out and then helped the police search the estate. They found Julian hiding underneath one of the other buildings on the property. Wright heard the news and raced back to Taliesin from Oak Park, Illinois; he arrived that evening to what he later called a “devastating scene of horror.” News reports of the murders and fire did not mention the doors and windows being locked shut, something that the Taliesin Preservation organization today refers to as a “myth.” It seems a minor detail added to such a gory crime, probably added just to make it seem even crueler. Either way, the fire and the murders were all too real.