June 10, 1912, started out like any other humid Monday in a small Midwestern town. But by the time the sun fully hit the horizon over the rolling hills of Montgomery County, the name Villisca was forever scarred. Eight people were dead. Six of them were children. They were all bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt end of an ax.
It's been over a century. People still talk about it. They still visit the "Murder House" on East 2nd Street. Most of them think they know the story. They think it's a simple ghost story or a neat little puzzle. Honestly? It's much messier than the documentaries make it seem. The Villisca Iowa ax murders weren't just a crime; they were a systemic failure of early 20th-century forensics and a masterclass in how small-town gossip can derail a murder investigation.
Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, and their four children—Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul—were prominent members of the community. They had two guests that night: Lena and Ina Stillinger. The girls were just staying over after a Children's Day program at the Presbyterian church. Nobody survived. The killer waited. He hid in the attic. He listened to the sounds of a family settling into bed, knowing exactly what he was about to do.
The Crime Scene Nobody Protected
When the neighbor, Mary Peckham, noticed the Moore house was eerily quiet that Monday morning, she called Josiah’s brother, Ross. He let himself in with a key. He came out white as a sheet. "There's someone dead in every bed," he supposedly said.
That was the start of the chaos.
Back in 1912, "crime scene preservation" basically didn't exist in rural Iowa. Before the coroner or a proper detective could get there, dozens of townspeople had already marched through the house. They touched things. They looked at the bodies. They probably trampled over every piece of physical evidence the killer left behind. It’s a miracle we know as much as we do.
The killer used Josiah’s own ax. He found it in the coal shed. After the slaughter, he took a four-pound piece of slab bacon, wrapped it in a towel, and left it on the floor. Why? Nobody knows. He also covered all the mirrors and the glass in the doors with cloths and clothing belonging to the Moores. This "shrouding" of the mirrors is often cited by criminologists as a sign of a killer who felt a strange sense of shame or a superstitious need to hide the souls of the dead. Or maybe he just didn't want to see his own reflection while he worked.
The Man with the "Little Ax"
If you mention the Villisca Iowa ax murders, one name usually pops up first: Reverend George Kelly.
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Kelly was a traveling preacher. He was also, by all accounts, a very strange man. He had a history of mental instability and a weird obsession with the occult. He was actually in Villisca the night of the murders and left on an early morning train.
Here’s where it gets wild. Kelly supposedly told people on the train that eight people had been murdered in Villisca before the bodies were even officially discovered. Later, he actually confessed to the crimes. He claimed God told him to "slay utterly."
Case closed, right? Not really.
Kelly's confession was likely coerced. He was a small, frail man. People who knew him doubted he could have carried out such a physically demanding, brutal attack on eight people without waking the whole neighborhood. He was tried twice. The first ended in a hung jury; the second ended in an acquittal. Most modern historians think Kelly was just a convenient scapegoat—a "weirdo" the town could blame to feel safe again.
The Senator and the Grudge
Then there's the Frank Jones theory. This is the one that gets local historians really fired up.
Frank Jones was a powerful Iowa State Senator. He was also a business rival of Josiah Moore. Josiah had worked for Jones for years before opening his own hardware store and taking a lucrative John Deere dealership with him. The two men hated each other.
The theory goes like this: Jones didn't swing the ax himself. He was too prominent for that. Instead, he hired a man named William "Blackie" Mansfield.
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Detective James Newton Wilkerson of the Burns Detective Agency was convinced Jones was the mastermind. Wilkerson spent years trying to prove it. He dug up records showing that Mansfield was a serial killer who had murdered his own wife and child in a similar fashion. He even linked Mansfield to other ax murders across the Midwest around the same time.
But there was never a "smoking gun." No fingerprints, no DNA, no paper trail. Jones eventually sued Wilkerson for slander and won. The town was split down the middle. You were either a "Jones man" or a "Wilkerson man." It tore Villisca apart more than the murders themselves.
Was it a Serial Killer?
Looking at the Villisca Iowa ax murders through a modern lens, many experts point toward a transient serial killer. This was the era of the "Man from the Train."
In the early 1910s, a series of similar ax murders happened along railroad lines across the United States. From Colorado to Louisiana, families were found slaughtered in their beds, mirrors covered, axes left behind.
Author Bill James and his daughter Rachel McCarthy James wrote a massive book on this called The Man from the Train. They make a compelling case that a man named Paul Mueller was responsible. Mueller was a German immigrant and a drifter. He fit the profile perfectly. He was a laborer, he was strong, and he was always near the tracks.
If it was Mueller, or someone like him, the Moores weren't targeted because of a business grudge or a preacher’s madness. They were targeted because their house was near the tracks and Josiah left his ax in the shed. It’s a much scarier thought—that it was just random.
The Forensics of 1912
We have to talk about what they didn't have back then.
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- No DNA. Obviously.
- Fingerprinting was in its infancy and wasn't used effectively in this case.
- Blood spatter analysis consisted of a doctor saying, "Yep, that's a lot of blood."
- Psychological profiling didn't exist.
Because of this, the investigation relied on "gut feelings" and local prejudices. They looked at the preacher because he was odd. They looked at the politician because he was mean. They didn't look at the stranger on the train because, well, he was gone.
The Lingering Shadows in Villisca
Today, the house is a museum. You can pay to stay the night.
Is it haunted? People claim to hear children's voices. They say they see shadows moving in the attic where the killer hid. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, the atmosphere in that house is heavy. It’s a preserved moment of trauma.
But beyond the ghost stories, the Villisca Iowa ax murders represent a pivot point in American history. It was the moment the "small-town safety" myth died. Before 1912, people in Villisca didn't lock their doors. After June 10, every hardware store in the state sold out of locks and bolts.
Why We Can't Let Go
Humans hate unsolved mysteries. We want a narrative. We want a "bad guy" to go to jail so the story can have a "The End."
With Villisca, we don't get that. We get a series of "maybes." Maybe it was the preacher. Maybe it was the hitman. Maybe it was a ghost.
The reality is likely that the killer died an old man in a different state, having never answered for what he did to the Moore and Stillinger children. That’s the real horror.
Actionable Insights for True Crime Enthusiasts
If you’re planning on diving deeper into this case or visiting the site, here’s how to do it with a bit of expert perspective.
- Read the Original Grand Jury Testimony. Don't just rely on blogs. The actual transcripts from the 1917 grand jury are available through various historical societies and give you the raw, unfiltered accounts of the people who were actually there.
- Visit the Villisca Cemetery. The Moore family is buried under a large monument, while the Stillinger girls have smaller headstones nearby. Seeing the ages on those stones—ages like 5, 7, and 11—changes your perspective from "spooky story" to "human tragedy."
- Compare the "Man from the Train" Cases. If you want to play detective, look at the 1911 murders in Colorado Springs or the 1912 murders in Monmouth, Illinois. The similarities in the "signature" are staggering.
- Support Small-Town Historical Societies. The Montgomery County Historical Society keeps these records alive. Without them, the names of these victims would eventually just fade into digital noise.
- Acknowledge the Victims. It’s easy to get caught up in the "who dunnit," but remember: Josiah, Sarah, Herman, Katherine, Boyd, Paul, Lena, and Ina. They weren't characters in a book. They were real people.
The case of the Villisca Iowa ax murders will probably never be solved by a DNA test or a deathbed confession. It’s a cold case frozen in time, a dark reminder of a night when a small town learned that the boogeyman doesn't just live in stories. He sometimes carries an ax and waits in the attic.