The 1912 Villisca Axe Murders Blog

Villisca Walking Tour Makes Strides Online

A portion of a scale model of Villisca, Iowa's town square.

Walking through Villisca's mobile History Tour

Written by Roxanna Sieber, Villisca Economic Development Director
Courtesy The Villisca Review

Villisca has a fascinating history, a blend of history and mystery.  We have a story to tell.  Our story expresses some of the endearing qualities that makes living in Villisca forever an adventure.  In many ways Villisca is typical of many of the small rural communities that dot the Iowa landscape.  While we have many similarities, like our name, there is only one Villisca.  We have a story to tell.  Chuck Offenberger, a renowned columnist for the Des Moines Register in the 1990s, once described Villisca as "A nice little town where something awful once happened."  Carolyn Gage, former publisher of the Villisca Review, wrote in 2000, "While it is not pleasant for Villisca to be remembered as the site of these murders, it is foolish to ignore what happened.  History, no matter how painful, should never be rewritten."  So, we tell the story.  While the events of that night in 1912 impacted life in Villisca even to this day, there is more to Villisca's history and we share some of that on the pages of a new addition to our Villisca website - m.villisca.com - where we have uploaded a Self-guided Villisca History Tour.

Nearly two years ago, I set out with what I thought would be the simple task of creating a website for mobile devices so that visitors to Villisca could have a self-guided history tour on their smart phones.  Little did I know what was going to be involved in getting the project done.  The site is now up and running.  There is still a lot of tweaking of the design of the site to be done.  And I feel confident that as people explore this History Tour of Villisca, there will be tweaking that needs to be done with the narratives and more pieces of history to be added.  (One thing still to be added are maps for each page.)

Our story is reflected in the unsolved 1912 axe murders, in patriotism illustrated by those who have stepped forward time and time again to answer the call of their country to serve in the military, which was memorialized in a Pulitzer Prize winning photo, to everyday people distinguishing themselves with academic, business and cultural accomplishments.  Historically, Villisca provides an environment in which people flourish.  It is a community of people with diverse interests and backgrounds; a community of individualists.  As Liz Murray noted in Homeless Harvard, "History - It is each of us - it is all of us.

 The "tour" is presented in two ways:  1. There is the complete tour which starts at the square and then visits a number of places in town; 2. There are also pages which focus on specific areas of interest - the 1912 Unsolved Axe Murders, the Pulitzer Prize winning photo "The Homecoming", Villisca's Military History, the place of Railroading in our history, Villisca's Cemetery and Villisca's Faith Community.  Did you know that at one time the Catholics held Mass in a "Chapel Car" on a railroad siding?  That Villisca once had an airport?  That there was a summer resort with cabins?

The self-guided Villisca History Tour is also available at www.villisca.com for those, like me, who do not have a smart phone or one of the pads or tablets.  It can be found at: http://www.villisca.com/HistoryTour.html 

Welcome to Villisca--past and present!  Enjoy your tour!

Thanks to:
There are many to thank in getting this project off the ground.  Thanks go to the many people who provided information that was used in the narrative.  I am not going to try to name them all for fear of leaving out someone.  Particular thanks does go to Susie and Tom Enarson who provided information, photos of old postcards, help in sorting out conflicting pieces of historical data and to identify locations.  Thanks also goes to Delbert Schroeder who helped with the information about the Company F Memorial Park and the memorials in the park.  The Villisca Chamber of Commerce and the City of Villisca, in their funding of the Villisca Economic Development Initiative, made this project possible.  Farmers Mutual Telephone Company is funding the monthly ISP costs for both villisca.com and m.villisca.com. CIPCO, through the VMPP, provided some funding to help in the initial stages of the site development.  And I need to give a shout out to my two nephews in Florida--Hal and Phil Paxton.  Phil gave me the initial idea for a mobile site.  And Hal has been a checker, looking at the site once it was loaded up on the Internet, critiquing the design aspecs and suggesting changes.  He has made some additional suggestions that will be implemented as time allows.

June 10, 1912 - Villisca, Iowa - Part Four

 
An evidence photo of the Villisca murder axe and a lamp, taken on June 10, 1912, was used as a background in the key art for the historical documentary feature film Villisca: Living with a Mystery.

A Timeline Detailing the Day the Villisca Axe Murders were Discovered - Part Four
By Tammy Rundle

8:55 am:
Fenwick Moore learns of the axe murder of his brother Joe, Joe's wife and children, and the visiting Stillinger girls.

9:00 am:
Charles N. Fessler (53), an undertaker in Villisca, arrives at the Moore house.  He sees a crowd standing around outside the house.  He enters the house around 10:30 am.

Dr. Hough sees axe marks in the ceiling above Katherine Moore's bed.

Bruce Stillians and several others obtain barbed wire and attempt to surround the Moore house with it to keep the growing crowd out of the crime scene.

Lindquist said that Stillians, a druggist, entered the house a couple times and took photos.  Lindquist testified that Stillians said, "he would make it right with me when he sold them."

9:30 am:
After touring the house with the doctors, Villisca Marshall Hank Horton walks to City Hall.  Frank F. Jones approaches Horton and asks him about Joe's brother-in-law VanGilder and suggests there were problems between them.  Horton knows nothing of VanGilder.  Jones also tells Horton that his wife Maude heard a noise around 2 am, and he got up, turned on a light, and looked around.  He found nothing.

Horton calls Omaha for a detective and also contacts Beatrice, Nebraska with a request for bloodhounds.

The large crowd gathered in City Hall agrees to chip in to cover the cost of the hounds.  Jones also volunteers a share and says the bank would guarantee money.

Bruce Stillians reenters the murder house to take pictures of the bodies.  He sees the axe, and the lamp, but does not notice the bacon.  He plans to sell the photographs to a reporter from the Omaha World-Herald.

10:00 am:
Victim Joe Moore's sister-in-law Jessie Moore poses for pictures in one of the rooms of the house.

Joe and Sarah Stillinger learn their daughters Lena and Ina are dead when his wife tries to phone the Moore home and the operator says a call can't be placed because everyone there has been murdered.

Posses form every hour searching for the killer in and around the city.

Victim Sara Moore's father John Montgomery learns of her murder and makes his way toward the house on foot.  A friend, Frank Cleary, meets him along the way and gives him a ride.  As Montgomery arrives and moves to enter the house, Methodist Reverend Taylor says, "John, don't go in.  Remember those people as you seen them, and it will be a great deal better for you than to see them butchered up as they are."  Montgomery decides not to enter the house.

10:30 am:
Ed Selley, his father and other employees lock-up the Moore Implement store and return to the murder house.  Selley sees that all the shades have been raised.

Undertaker Charles N. Fessler enters the Moore house.  He sees undertaker Smith and Mr. Glackmeyer. "We were told not to touch anything," he said.  He sees four or five other people in the house.

Fessler enters Joe and Sara's room and notes blood and tissue scattered over the bed and the wall.  He sees a lot of blood on the mattress at the head. There was no blood in the hall.  He notes that Mrs. Moore's head was not mashed, but it looked as if it had been hacked with the sharp edge of a dull axe from her forehead to below her chin.  None of victims were struck below the neck.

"Joe was the worst mutilated of them all," Fessler said.  "Mrs. Moore was in the second best condition. One of the Stillinger girls, I think the youngest, was in the best condition.  The children were all pretty badly mashed."  He said, "Herman was struck on top of the head, in what we call the Circle of Willis. The cranial cavity was knocked off and the brain had run out.  A large piece of his skull was detached, but held by skin.

11:00 am:
Bill Lunney, 42, learns of the murders and immediately recalls seeing Albert Jones and Bert McCaull early in the morning in Grant.

Noon:
Reverend Ewing sends a quick letter off to Reverend Lyn George Jacklin Kelly on the noon train to Macedonia telling him about the murders and asking if Kelly saw any suspicious characters in or near the depot as he departed earlier that morning.

Villisca Mayor F. L. Ingman returns to Villisca after a break in the country and finds the city in chaos.

Mrs. Mabel Hoover gets a call from Mrs. Freeland in Villisca informing her of the murders.  Her husband Arthur learns of the ax murders while at work at the Omaha National Bank.  Mabel boarded with the Moore family as a young teacher.  The Hoovers were still friendly with Joe and Sara.

A passenger train from Clarinda arrives in New Market a few minutes after 12 o'clock.  The people on the train are all abizz about the Villisca murders and they talk of nothing else as they empty out into the street.

Two men unshaven men ask every man they encounter if they have a morning newspaper. They are told to check at the Post Office.

Afternoon
Joe's brother Ross Moore and A. J. Seefeldt travel to Red Oak to interview local soothsayer "Aunty" Hamilton.  She reviews coffee grounds and describes the path the bloodhounds will take, and says the killer is a Villisca man with a beard.

Mike Overman stands guard at the murder house the entire day.  Noting that onlookers continue to enter and leave the murder scene, Page County Sheriff E. C. Gibbs enquires, "Why don't you keep those fellows back?"  Overman replies, "I can't do it alone."  "Get six or eight men and I will deputize them," Gibbs says.  Overman gets the men and he and the Coroner deputize them.  Once they are placed around the house, Lindquist says the act is useless.  "They would sneak around in the back and in the front, and get on the yard.  You could not hold the people back. They were hysterical and they insisted on going up there."

Lindquist said the axe was taken from the house by the Sheriff Whitmore to a photographer in the afternoon.  Lindquist takes possession of a key chain he found on the floor of the Stillinger girls room.

Sheriff Whitmore gets a report that a suspicious man was seen on a motorcycle on the "east side" road, and that the motorcycle stopped between a well and an old bayou.  Whitmore goes to investigate, thinking the rider may have changed clothes and dropped them down the well.  A three-hour investigation yields nothing.

A suspicious man is picked up by authorities in Essex, Iowa.  Horton is told the man, called Newkirk, will be brought to Villisca on Wednesday.

4:00 pm:
J. S. Harris, an implement dealer in New Market, sees two tramps leave on a freight train headed West. They had been sitting on the porch of his implement house.   "They whistled out of town, and it was two blocks to the railroad track.  They took a keen run as fast as most men can run and it was down hill and...when the train struck the sidewalk they just both went in on the floor of the box car on their bellies."  Harris thought he saw them holding a gun, or perhaps a bottle, as they ran for the train.

Residents in Villisca talked in the streets and watched from inside their homes as every building in the city was searched.  They were waiting for the bloodhounds to arrive from Nebraska.

June 10, 1912 - Villisca, Iowa - Part Three

Another closet, not shown in this diagram, is located under the stairs in the
sewing room.  Fourth Wall Films art from VilliscaMovie.com.

A Timeline Detailing the Day the Villisca Axe Murders were Discovered - Part Three

By Tammy Rundle

8:00 am:
Villisca, Iowa Marshall Hank Horton exits the Josiah B. Moore house and locks the door behind him.  He says to Joe Moore's brother Ross, "There's somebody dead in every bed," and leaves the scene for Doctor Clark Cooper's office downtown.

8:30 am:
The Presbyterian minister Reverend Ewing (the Moore family's pastor) meets Dr. Hough at Mary Peckham's home.  Ewing says that Mrs. Ewing overheard that Lena and Ina Stillinger planned to stay overnight at the Moore house.

On his way to get Dr. Cooper, Horton stops and tells city clerk George Sexton about the murders and tells him to phone the Montgomery County Sheriff, the coroner, the county attorney, and to "get busy" with the wire [telegraph].

Night watchman Mike Overman is passing in front of Means Hardware Store when Hank Horton approaches and says, "Joe Moore's murdered and I am after the doctor."  Overman walks over to the Moore home.

Marshall Horton arrives at Doctor Cooper's office and asks him to come to the Moore home.  They drive back to the house in Cooper's car.

Horton borrows Ross Moore's keys and Dr. Cooper, Dr. Hough, and Rev. Ewing follow the Marshall into the murder house.  They view the two strangers' bodies in the sewing room and then climb the stairs. Hank sees a lamp without a chimney sitting at the top of the stairs and moves it out of the way.  They observe the Moore family victims, all murdered as they slept.  The bloody bedding is stiff at the head and all curtains and blinds are down.

Cooper exits the house as G. L. Bloodgood approaches.  Cooper tells him he shouldn't go inside.

Mike Overman arrives at the house.  "Keep the crowd back," Cooper says to Overman.  People are pushing and trying to get into the house.  Cooper says, "Boys, my God, don't come in here!"

Ed Selley returns to the Moore implement store and calls the John Deere company to find out what to do about the store in Joe Moore's absence.

Dr. Williams meets Selley one block west of 1st National Bank and learns of the murders.

Mary Baker, a telephone operator in Nodaway, is contacted by an operator in Villisca regarding the murders.  "They told me not to tell anybody until they knew more about it," said Baker.

Between 8:30 am and 9:00 am:
Dr. Williams enters the Moore house with Horton.  He goes upstairs first and examines Joe and Sara.  He checked for rigor mortis and estimates they have been dead five or six hours.  Joe is lying on the south side of the bed and Sara on the north.  Then he examines the Moore children: Herman, Katherine, Paul, and Boyd.  Then he goes back downstairs to examine the two unknown victims.  The oldest girl was on the east side of the bed, one third of the way down, and mutilated above the shoulders.  The smaller girl was on the west side of the bed.  He checked the oldest victim but found no evidence of rape or intercourse.  He saw no footprints.

Ethel Landers is doing the wash on the back porch of her mother's home when she looks up and sees a crowd gathering at Joe Moore's house.

Back in the Moore house Horton observes a little blood on the inside of the oldest girl's leg, as if the killer had touched or moved her.  Her head was down toward the bottom of the pillow and her underwear had been removed.  Hank found the underwear under the bed.  Horton says that it appears she had been struck on the side of the head.  The younger girl is on her back.  He thinks they were struck with the poll [blunt side] of the axe.  The bloody bed clothing is dried and sticks to their faces.  Horton sees no blood on the poll or the sides of the axe blade.  It looks as if it has been wiped clean.  He also sees blood about halfway up the axe handle.

Joe and Sara's faces were covered, apparently by the killer, with a skirt.  Joe's eyebrows were left, but his teeth and the rest of his face is beaten in.  Sara is still recognizable.  Her arm hangs out from under the bed sheets and her wedding ring is still on her finger.  Both are laying flat on their backs, with legs straight.  Joe appears to have been struck with the back side of the axe while Sara was struck with both the back and the sharp side.

Bruce Stillians is picking up mail on the south side of the square when Tom Tice drives up in his automobile and says that Joe Moore and his family have been murdered.  Stillians hops in Tice's car and they drive to the crime scene.  Stillians and Tice enter the house as Dr. Cooper is leaving.

Montgomery County Coroner A. L. Lindquist, of Stanton, Iowa, arrives at the Moore house in his automobile.  He heard about the murders by telephone.  He did not take written notes as he examined the scene.  Undertaker J. L. Smith toured the house with Lindquist.  They entered through the south door and observed a number of other people going through the house, at least 25, and a lot of excitement.

J. L. Smith observes that the two glass doors on the front of the house were covered with a old black skirt.  He says the couch on the west side of the parlor looks like someone had slept on it.

They see children's toys and other things lying about.  The wash basin in the kitchen has dirty water in it, but no blood.  Lindquist sees a running watch on the dresser in the sewing room.  The chairs in the sewing room area are covered with the girls' clothing.  They also see clothing on the floor at the foot of the bed where the murder weapon is leaning up against the wall.

Near the axe Lindquist sees a 6" x 12" section of unsliced bacon wrapped in what he thought might have been flour sack cloth.  He finds another larger piece of bacon in the ice box in the kitchen and thinks the piece in the sewing room may have been cut from it.

Lindquist also notes that the dresser mirror on the east side of the sewing room is covered with a blue skirt.  He finds a 7" piece of key chain on the floor near the sewing room doorway.

Lindquist pushes a reddish curtain aside to peer in the closet under the stairs in the sewing room.  It's full of clothing, papers and piles of magazines.

He examines door knobs for blood, but finds none.  He also sees no trail of blood leading from one place to another.  He sees that the back door is locked with a skeleton key on the inside and the screen door on the porch fastened on the inside with a hook.

Smith, finds Joe's coin purse in trousers draped over a post at the foot of the Moore's bed.  It contains less than two dollars in coins.

Smith notes that the only blood they see away from any of the beds is one drop of blood on the floor in the childrens' room upstairs.  "Just a drop, about as big as the end of a finger," says Smith.  And, there is blood spattered on the walls around the beds.

Smith is called out of the house and informed that he and Mr. C. N. Fessler, another undertaker, are to take charge of the bodies, but not to remove them...yet.

June 10, 1912 - Villisca, Iowa - Part Two

Mary Peckham stands on her Villisca, Iowa porch observing an "odd stillness" at the Joe Moore family house next door.

A Timeline Detailing the Day the Villisca Axe Murders were Discovered - Part Two

By Tammy Rundle

7:00 am:
Mary Peckham notices that the Josiah B. Moore house, the home just east of hers in Villisca, is uncharacteristically quiet. No one answers when she knocks and calls. Mary tries to open the front door but it is locked. She hears the chickens behind the house and lets them out. Then she calls Joe's sister-in-law Jessie to find out whether the family was visiting Joe's parents.

Mrs. Glackmeyer sends her children to Joe Moore's to invite Paul and Boyd to a birthday party for their daughter who is 5 years old today.

7:30 am:
Joe Stillinger's wife tries calling the Moore house three different times during the morning to find out what was keeping their daughters Lena and Ina. They were supposed to be home for school.

Jessie Moore receives a call from Mary Peckham around 7:30 and Mary asks if Joe Moores' father C. C. was alright, and she notes that Joe and his family are not up and around their home as usual. Jessie calls Joe's hardward store employee Ed Selley to see if Joe is at work. Ed says no. He offers to call the family of Joe's wife Sara (Montgomery) to see if they are visiting there. Selley calls Jessie back and reports the Moores are not visiting the Montgomerys.

Mary Peckham calls Joe's brother Ross Moore at about 8:15. She asks if anything is wrong with Joe's parents.

Ed Selley receives a call from Ross Moore asking where Joe is. Selley then calls Joe's mother (on the Mutual phone) looking for Joe, but she says he is not there.

Selley receives a call from Mary Peckham asking for Joe. He tells her Joe is not at the store. Mary asks him to come down and feed Joe's horses at the house.

Villisca Marshall Hank Horton stops at the Villisca Post Office before going in to work at City Hall.

8:00 am:
Ed Selley leaves the Moore Implement Store and walks to Joe Moore's house. After feeding the horses, he goes back to the store and sends a fellow employee named Carl to milk Joe's cows.

Ross Moore arrives at his brother's house and looks in the barn. He notices that the horses have been fed. He and Mary Peckham walk to the north window of his brother's house (the sewing room), he raps on the glass, and hollers out for Joe. The blinds are drawn to the sill and they can't see into the house.

Mary calls Ed Selley again and tells him to get Marshall Hank Horton. She tells him that she and Ross are going to try to get into Joe's house.

Ed Selley looks out the storefront window and sees Horton standing outside City Hall. He walks over to Hank and asks him to accompany him to the Moore house. Ernie Peckham, Mary's son, tags along as does Joe's brother Harry Moore.

Ross Moore takes a set of keys from his pocket. He tries several skeleton keys in the lock until one opens the east front door of the Moore house [the Moore house has two front doors--the other faces south and enters the kitchen. Mary Peckham enters the house with Ross Moore. They step into the parlor and fasten the dining room door open. Ross pushes open the downstairs bedroom door and sees blood on the sheets. He immediately exits the house bringing Mary with him.

As Horton, Selley, Ernie, and Harry arrive they see Ross and Mary coming out the front door. Ross says he thinks, "something is terribly wrong in there." Selly and Horton enter the house through the open parlor door.

As they enter, Hank notes, "It's dark in here," and Selley lets up the blind on the south parlor window.

They enter the downstairs bedroom and Hank strikes a match before crossing the tiny room and lets up the shade on the north window. He sees a kerosene lamp at the foot of the bed with a missing chimney. They both see blood on the sheets of the bed that sits head to the north along the west wall. An axe is leaning head down against the west wall near the foot of the bed. Selley exits the house. Selley said, "I was scared there, I admit it." He said, "Hank, I'll get out of here. Those were the words I used. I remember them very well."

Horton enters the kitchen and turns to climb the stairs. He says, "it was as dark as night." At the top of the stairs, and the foot of Joe and Sara's bed he sees another lamp without a chimney. He lets up the shade on the north window and sees blood splashed up over the head of the bed and on the washstand beside the bed. Looking up he observes a two inch long slice in the ceiling over the bed. Hank sees a pair of women's shoes on the south side of the bed. One is lying on its side with blood visible on the sole and on the inside. Joe's shoes are also on south side of the bed.

Horton then turns south to enter the children's room. He lets the shade up and sees a bed in the southeast corner with a girl in it, a boy in another bed in the northeast corner, and two younger boys in a double bed in the northwest corner [he mistakes them for little girls]. He only pulled down the bed sheets and observed their remains.

Hank makes his way back down the steps and into the kitchen where he sees the children's shoes and a hat lying on the table.

Horton exits the house and locks the door behind him. He says to Ross Moore, "There is someone dead in every bed."

June 10, 1912 - Villisca, Iowa - Part One

A Timeline Detailing the Day the Villisca Axe Murders were Discovered - Part One

By Tammy Rundle

Sometime during the night, it sprinkled.

1:00-2:00 am:
Maude Jones hears a peculiar noise in the vicinity of her house. She wakes her husband, Frank F. and he goes downstairs to investigate. He doesn't see anything and figures she must have heard a window rattle.

Night watchman Mike Overman is sitting in a dark place on a bench among the trees. "If there was a man on the street he wouldn't have seen me before I could get the lights on him," Overman testified. After two hours he rises and returns to the jail to check on two men he allowed to spend the night in the jail. They were still asleep.

Glen Fisher says a neighbor's dog made an awful fuss after midnight.

Albert Jones said his dog seemed worried over something. The dog normally slept in a clothes basket at the foot of the bed and he said that the dog ran up and down the stairs and barked during the early morning hours.

2:10 am:
Operator Xenia Delaney lies awake on a cot in the telephone office in Villisca across from The Villisca Review office. She hears someone slip up the stairs to her door quietly. They try the door, and then slip back down the stairs. She gets up, walks to the west side of the room, looks at the clock sitting on a writing table, and notes the time on an illuminated dial. Then she goes back to bed. She says she always has her light out at night and the door locked.

2:30 am:
Dr. Hough arrives home after attending to a confinement case 12 miles southwest of Villisca.

3:00 am:
Mike Overman continues his rounds and checks the alleys. There are no unusual noises or activity. The city is quiet.

Frank Archer, Jr., 24, a farmer near Grant, arrives in Villisca on the train after having been in Creston since Saturday evening attending a horse sale. He goes to a restaurant for a meal. He sees no one else on the streets.

4:00 am:
Mike Overman returns to the square to continue his watch.

A man named Andy Sawyer arrives at a pile driver gang employed by the Burlington just outside of Villisca. He applies for a position stating that he is an expert on bridge and pile driving work. He states he is especially efficient in handling the pile driver engine. After eating breakfast (he hadn't eaten in 2 days) he is put to work. It is apparent he has no experience at running the machine. He then is given an axe and told to point some pilings. He begins to beat the pile, muttering he would beat their damned heads off. The men on the work team are afraid of him and he is dismissed. They note that his shoes and trousers are muddy to his knees.

5:00 am:
Mike Overman leaves the depot area before the No. 5 leaves town.

Patterson's Restaurant opens for business.

Orville Peckham, 65, rises to get ready to go to work at the cemetery in Villisca. His wife Mary begins doing her wash between 5:00 and 6:00 am

Bert McCaull comes into Mrs. Poston's Café for breakfast. Mr. Poston gets McCaull's breakfast.

5:19 am:
Reverend Kelly says he sees a suspicious individual who is acting very nervous get on the No. 5 train leaving Villisca at 5:19 am.

5:20 am:
George W. Baker, 51, a farmer living 4 miles north and 1 mile west of Villisca, steps out of his house 6-8 steps to head to the barn to feed his animals, when he sees Albert Jones and Bert McCaull driving about 25 miles per hour up the road past his house. He stands and watches it until it runs about 60 rods south of his house to the bridge. Baker is preparing to plow corn. Bert McCaull has a contract with Albert Jones to do all of his driving.

5:30 am:
Frank Archer, Jr. while on horseback meets an automobile driven by Bert McCaull and an occupant he does not recognize at Mayhew corner, 8 miles north of Villisca. They are traveing south. It is daylight by this time, and Archer gets off of his horse to hold his horse while the car goes by. The car is black, a two-seater, and going about 25 miles an hour. As the car passes by, Archer says, "Hello, Mr. McCaull." Bert answers, "Good morning."

Mike Overman goes off duty after a full night of work. He goes to his room on the south side of the square over the post office. He lays down to sleep for a few hours alongside his wife. He is due at the mayor's office early this morning.

Mrs. F. P. Tyler takes her cousin Holy Roller preacher Dean to the train station. The preacher spoke at the Methodist Church the previous night.

6:15 am:
Ed Selley arrives at J. B. Moore Implement Store for work.

6:30 am:
The Ewings rise for breakfast between 6:30 and 7:00 am. WJ Ewing notes that Reverend Kelly is gone, the door was unlocked and the key in the door.

7:00 am:
Mary Peckham notices that the Josiah Moore house next door is oddly quiet.

June 9, 1912 - Children's Day - Villisca, Iowa

A Timeline Leading up to the June 10, 1912 Villisca, Iowa axe murders

6:30 am:
Henry Enarson calls the Reverend Ewing home to ask if visiting minister, Reverend Lyn George Jacklin Kelly can stay with Reverend and Mrs. Ewing this evening.  Ewing agrees to host Kelly.

8:00 am-8:30am:
From his field, Joseph Stillinger sees Lena & Ina Stillinger walking toward Villisca for Sunday School.

9:30 am:
The Methodist Church bells are ringing and it is a bright, sunny day.  Alice Willard is sitting on her front porch.

Mrs. Glackmeyer prepares for the morning program at the Methodist Church. She and Miss Letha Jones have charge of the program.

The Peckham family are walking to their Christian Church. Unlike the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, it will not hold evening services.

10:00 am:
Sunday School at the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches.

Bruce Stillians opens his father's drugstore for business. He cleans up the store, opens the mail, then goes for lunch.

11:00 am:
Morning worship and sermon begin at the Presbyterian Church. Morning preaching service begins at the same time at the Methodist Church.

Sara Moore's friend, Mrs. Meyers, attends the Methodist Church in the morning.  The Moore family attends the Presbyterian Church.

1:00 pm:
Lee VanGilder is walking in front of the Stillians place when he sees one of the Stillians boys go over to talk to Joe Moore.

Bruce Stillians heads to K.P. Club Room after eating supper. He stays until 7 pm.

Ed Selley goes to work at the Joe Moore Implement Store, as usual (no five-day/40 hour week in those days).

Mrs. Meyers went out on her lawn and did not notice any strangers around. She notes the air is damp. Mrs. Sara Moore stops a while to visit before walking over to the Presbyterian Church to drill the children for Children's Day exercises. Mrs. Meyers is good friends with the Moores.

2:00 pm:
Mrs. Ewing, Sara Moore and Miss Hugis work with the children on the special service to be presented at the Presbyterian Church. Lena and Ina Stillinger are there rehearsing along with Herman, Katherine, Boyd and Paul Moore. They drill until 4:00 pm.

3:00 pm:
Reverend Kelly preaches at a school house in District 10 in nearby Arlington.

H. A. Glackmeyer, insurance/real estate loan agent, lies on a couch reading at home after a satisfying dinner. It is a pleasant day. His wife clears away the dishes and notices a man going past their house. She calls to her husband, "Get up and see what is the matter with that man." He was looking over all of the houses along the street. Glackmeyer gets up, but misses seeing the man. His wife said, "You are too late, he has just gone out of sight to the north." The Glackmeyers live next door to Albert Jones. Albert lives in the first house north of the alley behind Joe Moore's house.

He sees neighbor Albert Jones painting his home's windows yellow.

3:30pm:
Ed Selley sees Joe Moore on the south side of the square on the street near the Post Office.

4:00 pm:
Harry Himiller and his wife go to C. A. Moore's to visit.

Ed and Ethel Landers and their boys are in Villisca from Shenendoah visiting Ed's mother at her home. Ed is a Real Estate man. Mother Landers lives across from Joe Moore's home. There is a vacant lot west of her house where a pasture of rye grows.

4:30 pm:
Sara and Joe Moore and their four children go to visit his parents, as they do every Sunday.

Evening:
Ed Selley has dinner at his brother-in-law's home.

EJ Mann, manager of the Fisher Hotel in Villisca, is on duty this evening.

No time specified:
Ethel Landers helps Mrs. Posten, her sister in law, serve up the evening meal at the restaurant. Ed Landers joins in.

5:00 pm:
The supper hour begins at Mrs. Poston's Café.

6:00 pm:
Blanche Stillinger receives a call from Joe Moore asking if Lena & Ina can stay the night at their home. The girls are afraid to walk to their grandmother's in the dark. Blanche gives permission.

Katherine and the Stillinger girls bring milk to Mrs. Ewing. They are in a hurry due to other deliveries. The girls are excited and tell her that they are planning on staying over night at the Moore's home.

Mary Peckham says she sees the Stillinger girls at the Moore house and learns the girls are going to stay the night.

Lawrence Gridley, 17, drives his horse and buggy into the alley and begins to unhitch it with the help of Fred Fryer and Vern Robinson--they put the horse in the barn they rent in back of Churchhill's property. Joe Moore has pigs in a fenced in area in a vacant lot in back that he rents and he is doing chores. Gridley had just purchased the buggy 6 weeks prior from the Joneses. Albert Jones and Joe Moore walk up and look over the horse as Lawrence unhitches it. They take the horse to the barn to feed him. Albert Jones says to Gridley, "A pretty good looking rig you are driving." Joe and Albert chat back and forth while looking over the horse. Gridley had seen Albert and Joe out doing their chores at the same time, many times. Joe and Albert talked a bit about the buggy business. Joe said, "I came pretty near selling that fellow a buggy." Albert said, "Did you?" Joe says, "Yes, sir."

6:30 pm:
Mr. Enarson arrives at the Ewing house in his automobile with Reverend Kelly. Kelly wants to take the early morning train in order to get home to Macedonia.

William Lear escapes from the Clarinda asylum heading toward Creston.

One mile east of Villisca, dairyman Mr. Talbet sees a man come, "...out of the timber and went toward Villisca." His wife and their servant girl also saw him. The family were on their way into town for church and passed the man on the road a short distance east of the Moore home.

The first bell rings for the young people's services at the Presbyterian church.

Dan Stillians and his friend Goldie Mitchell sit in his parents' front room and look at a postcard album together.

6:52 pm:
Joe Moore's brother Fenrik Moore arrives at the Villisca Depot on the No. 2 and goes to visit his parents.

Rev. Ewing and Reverend Kelly head to the church for the "Young People's Meeting" service.

7:00 pm:
The "Young People's Meeting" begins in the rear room of the church.

The "Young People's Meeting" begins at the Methodist Church.

The Advent Church gets ready for the Holy Roller Preacher in town to come and preach at their church. The church is lit up and waiting. He never shows.

Henry (Mike) Overman, night watchman, comes on duty. He meets Hank Horton on the street and they proceed to the jail where they talk a while. They walk back down through the park. Horton is to meet his wife on the corner after church. Overman continues on his rounds, checking doors and the alleys. He goes from the Bank to the Depot and then to the square to the stores ensuring the doors are locked.

Bruce Stillians leaves the K. P. Club Room and walks to his girlfriend's house. He stays until around midnight.

7:30 pm:
Mary Peckham sees the Moore's walking to church. The Moore house had been quarantined for small pox until just prior to this. It was the second time the house had been quarantined.

Mrs. Ewing sees the Moores & the Stillinger girls head up the street to church.

Evening:
Joe's brother Ross Moore and his wife Jessie stay home for the evening with guests who are visiting their home.

Mrs. F. F. Jones and her daughter, Letha, call on Mrs. Glackmeyer to ask if she would like to go to the Presbyterian service with them. A holy roller minister was scheduled at the Methodist Church, so they opted to see the Children's Day program in the Presbyterian Church. Letha went to ask if her sister-in-law Dona would join them, but she and Albert had just returned from Clarinda on the train and decided not to go. The three women head on to the church.

8:00 pm:
The church bells ring signaling the beginning of the services.

Reverend Ewing seats Reverend Kelly on the south side of the church in the south section of seats, either the first or second seat from the rear door--the rear seats were short seats, enough for one or two people to set in them.

Children's Day Service at the Presbyterian Church was to begins a bit late.

Rev. Wesley Ewing sits behind Sara Moore, on the north side of the church about the second seat from the front. He recalls Joe sitting on the north side of the church along the north aisle two or three seats from the rear. Ewing notes that the church is full.

A son is born to Mr. & Mrs. Fred Fishor, 7 miles southwest of Villisca.

After 8:00 pm:
Mary Peckham retires for the evening a little after 8. Her bedroom is upstairs in the south room (facing the street). Her son's, Ernest, is in the east room. Ernest kept late hours, so no one knows when he went to bed.

Mrs. Poston, calls supper off at her restaurant. After cleaning up, the Postons and the Landers visit about the Landers California vacation news in which they had just returned for days ago. The Postons lock up the restaurant, and walk with Ethel and Ed Landers. They walk together as far as the Poston's home, then they make their way past the show on the east side of the square and then past the school house, then turn down the street to his mother's home where they are staying. Ethel Landers does not see anybody on the street, nor on the porch of the Moore's house.

Next door neighbor H.A. Glackmeyer sees Albert Jones in the yard with his chickens, and then sees him go into his house. Glackmeyer is playing with the children in the yard and can see the Jones' parlor. He can see Dona and Albert Jones working at the dining room table.

9:00 pm:
Mrs. M. A. Landers said that she and her son's family retired for the evening at 9pm. She had no electric lights in her home, only lamp light. When she was alone, it was her custom to leave her lamp burning down a little bit. "The clock struck nine after Ed and his wife went upstairs."

9:30 pm:
The Children's Day program at the Presbyterian Church ends. Ewing noted that the Stillinger girls walked in to church on Sunday mornings from their country home 2 1/2 miles away.

An unidentifiable man passes by Horton and nightwatchman Overman by the west side of the park. He is a small-sized "fellow" with "heavy shoulders", and wears a bell-top cap. Horton says it was "very dark", no street lights on, no moon shining, cloudy. Hank Horton tries to speak to the fellow. He tells Overman "Why don't you throw your light on that fellow?" Overman replied "I don't think it is necessary." Horton said, "I always make them speak to me."

The Moore's stay after the service while flower bouquets for the sick are prepared. Later, Sara takes one to give to a family across the street from their home.

Rev. Kelly waits around the church for the Ewings to finish up. Kelly speaks to no one and Ewing introduces him to no one. Ewing felt "a little bit guilty that I had not asked Kelly to take part in the services."

Albert Himiller, 14, and his girl Hazel Winters leave the service and go buggy-riding.

Mrs. F. F. Jones, Letha Jones and Mrs. Glackmeyer leave the service on foot for home. The walk Mrs. Glackmeyer to her door, "It was a very dark night and I said at the corner that I would be on one side and they on the other and that I wouldn't be afraid, but they said they wouldn't, and they took me to my door going home."  The street lights fail to come on at dusk.

Ed Selley leaves his brother-in-law's house for home. Once he arrives home, he turns in for the evening.

10:00 pm:
Mr. and Mrs. John Montgomery and their two sons (one 16, the other 10) retire after an entire evening at home. Mr. Montgomery is a miller. They reside on the SW corner of Fourth and Fifth Streets.

Ed Landers said he positively did not see anybody around the Moore house that evening.

Young Floyd & Orville Watt walk the Moores and Stillinger girls home to the Moore's house. The house was dark. They boys see Joe take a key from his pocket, as the door was locked.  One of the little girls says she sees a man behind a tree.

Time not specified:
Dan Stillians, 18, goes to VanCamp's restaurant for a meal. He talks with several other boys there, as he usually does. He is joined by "Franky Robinson", 16. About half an hour later they leave the restaurant together and start goofing off and playfully arguing. Then they run a foot race from the southwest to the NW corner of the square.

Mr. and Mrs. Glackmeyer are up with their two year old son much of the night, as he has whooping cough. They hear no strange noises.

Andy Sawyer buys a nickels worth of meat at a market in Osceola and cooks his supper around some ties, where two other hobos join him. They are told to leave town by a marshal. They get on a train heading to Creston.

10:15 pm:
The Ewings, with Mr. Kelly, are the last to leave the church. They have two children: a girl, 2, a boy, 9. Rev. Ewing lights the house and he, Mrs. Ewing and Rev. Kelly sit and converse about the exercises of the evening, Kelly's ministerial work, and English customs.

Mr. and Mrs. Poston turn in for the night after a busy day at the Café.

11:00 pm:
After chatting with Rev. Kelly, the Ewings hold a devotional prayer and then retire for the evening. Ewing says Kelly did not betray any signs of nervousness this night. They show Kelly (with his one grip in hand) to his room with the balcony, and get him an alarm clock which they set for 4:30 am.

The Ewings go to their tent outside where their children are already sleeping. The night is cloudy and chilly.

Albert Himiller, 14, drops his girlfriend, Hazel Winters, off at her home after finishing their buggy riding. He heads into Villisca passing the cemetery north of Villisca, and then down the street along the east side of the city park. As he drives his rig south on Fourth Avenue, he sees two men standing on the intersection of the sidewalk on the corner Southwest of F. F. Jones home. His pony is acting shy at something. He throws his flashlight on the men's backs, they are about 40-45 feet from him. There were no street lights on. The street is not paved. Himiller continues down town to find a restaurant. They are all closed, so he goes home.

Sometime before midnight:
Dan Stillians arrives home after having a bite to eat at VanCamps Restaurant, and goofing of with Frankie Robinson. An electric light is lit in the sitting room of his house. He turns it off and goes up to the north room of his parents' home where he and his older brother Bruce, 22, share a room.

The Ewings have a restless night of sleep, as their little girl is somewhat sick during the night, which keeps them awake.

Midnight:
Lee VanGilder leaves Villisca from Porter Marsh's restaurant at midnight. He & Joe Beason ride their horses out of town, down to the corner of the First National Bank, heading east out of town to the first road north to Farmer Peter House where he works.

Kelly stands on the Ewing porch balcony outside his room. He thinks he hears something that later he describes as the thud of an axe.

Bruce Stillians leaves his girlfriend's house and walks to Billy VanCamp's to sleep in the tent--it was customary during the summer months--this would change after the murders.

Mike Overman, after making his rounds, goes to Miller's restaurant down by the depot. He sees two young fellows there that have no place to sleep for the night. Overman takes them up to the jail on the north side of the square to the beds. Each man had his own cell. Overman leaves the jail and walks to the park and sits on the corner where he can watch everyone. It was a very dark night. There were no street lights. "We didn't have any burning at that time; it was trouble [with] the council." He sits there until 2:00 am.

Eight members of the Josiah B. Moore family and two visiting Stillinger girls are murdered with an axe while they slept between midnight and 2:00 am.

June 8, 1912 - Villisca, Iowa

 

A Timeline Leading up to the June 10, 1912 Villisca, Iowa axe murders

Early morning:
Joe and Sara Moore's neighbor, Mr. O. Peckham, rises as he does every morning (Monday - Saturday) to go to work in the Villisca cemetery.

While at her mother-in-law's home (just across the street from the Moore's home), Ethel Lander's sees two men come to the door. They ask to clean the wallpaper in the house. One of the men is short, the other stout. She notes that there were a large number of peddlers in town. Her husband Ed Landers takes them out to the porch and talks to them.

8:00 am:
Joe Moore arrives at the store for work. Moore's employee Ed Selley is already at the store beginning the day's work.

9:00 am:
Alice Willard is at Gertrude Lott's property picking roses when she sees two men passing Joe Moore's house.

10:00 am:
Bruce Stillians walks downtown to open his father's drugstore up for business.

10:30 am:
Mrs. Ethel Landers goes to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Posten's restaurant to help out. Mrs. Posten runs a restaurant on the southside of the square, near the post office.

11:30 am:
Ed Selley leaves the Joe Moore Implement store to take his lunch break.

Fay VanGilder (Sara Moore's sister) is accosted by a stranger near the high school and asked a peculiar question. She tells Sara, and Sara said the same man passed her home a couple times.

5:30 pm:
Three-year-old Carlton Harris is nearly devoured by a herd of pigs when he trips and falls.

7:30 pm:
Miss Mable Freeman and Ed MacCrae (a traveling salesman for a novelty company in Chicago) arrive by automobile at Alice Willard's in Villisca. Alice was at the post office when they drove in on the south side of the square. Ed joins Alice at the post office to buy stamps.

8:00 pm:
Ed Selley and Joe Moore close the Joe Moore Implement Store. Joe pays Selley with a check.

8:30 pm:
Mrs. M.A. Landers has spends most of the day watching her grandchildren. Her son Ed and his wife Ethel arrive home after working all day at Mrs. Posten's restaurant downtown. Mrs. M. A. Landers did not see anyone or hear anyone around her place, or around the Moore house this particular evening. Ed and Ethel head to bed for the evening.

J.W. Konly registers at the Fisher Hotel. He eats dinner at the south side restaurant. Some think they saw this same man at the school house near Joe Moore's earlier in the day.

A dark complected man with a foreign accent asks Mr. B. C. Hullinger about directions to surrounding towns near Villisca.

Joe's brother, Harry E. Moore, has worked all day at the clothing store down town.

After 9:00 pm:
Joe Moore leaves his store for the night.

10:00 pm:
Ed Landers hears rustling in the high grass back of the old building near his mother's home where he and his family are visiting.

Between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm:
Ed MacCrae and Mabel Freeman bid Alice Willard goodbye after their brief visit with her. They drop her off at the gate of her home. They head to Creston to stay with friends of Mabel's.

June 5, 1912 - Paola, Kansas Murders

Fourth Wall Films photo.  All Rights Reserved.

On June 5, 1912 during the week leading up to the Villisca, Iowa axe murders a similar multiple murder was discovered in Paola, Kansas.  It was the latest crime in what newspapers speculated was a series of killings by a single roving suspect.  Before the term "serial killer" was coined by former F.B.I. Special Agent Robert K. Ressler, such crimes were referred to as "stranger murders": the murder wherein the victim and killer do not know each other.

In the wake of Iowa's worst mass homicide, The Villisca Review printed its own story that focused on similarities between the Paola and Villisca crimes:

A theory carrying considerable weight is that the [Villisca] crime was committed by the same man who murdered Rolland Hudson and wife Anna, at Paola, Kansas on the night of Wednesday, June 5, four days previous to the Villisca murders, the circumstances being almost identically similar.

At Paola, as at Villisca, a lamp, without a globe, was found sitting on the floor.  At Paola a pickax is thought to be the instrument of death.  There, as at Villisca, the motive was not robbery, for the murdered woman's diamond rings were unmolested on her fingers; and the murderer covered his retreat so carefully that not a vestige of a clew [sic] was found.

The man and wife were murdered as they lay sleeping, and showed no signs of a struggle.  W. J. Hobin, a newspaper man representing the Kansas City Post, who was assigned to cover the Paola tragedy, came directly from that city to Villisca, and he told The Review that to all appearances the crime at Villisca was done by the same man, as that at Paola, and, upon receiving a special permit to enter the Moore home here, found the missing globe from the lamp which sat on the floor in the downstairs bedroom.

Fingerprints on the globe will be used as a means of identification, as will those on the ax found leaning against the wall close to the lamp. (The Villisca Review, June 13, 1912)

Some scholars of the Villisca case now exclude the Paola crime from the apparent 1911-1912 series of murders, while others still regard it as the work of a serial mass murderer.

June 2, 1912

John Montgomery (Fourth Wall Films photo).

When Villisca, Iowa axe murder victim Sara Moore's father John Montgomery testified before the 1917 Grand Jury investigating the murder of her entire family and two Stillinger girls, he spoke about a visit with his daughter and son-in-law on June 2, 1912, the Sunday before the tragedy.  Joe and Sara Moore and their four children took their team and wagon a mile out of town to visit Sara's parents.  They did this at least once a month, said Montgomery, on Sunday afternoons.

"Joe and Sara always seemed affectionate to one another--if there ever was any problem, they kept it under cover."

Montgomery said that he liked his son-in-law and got along with him fine.  The Montgomerys were proud of their daughter and her family.  Sara, he said, was in good health, and did her own housework and washing.

"She was a very neat housekeeper," he said.  "And she kept her children tidy."

He also told how Sara saw to it that the children went to Sunday school every Sunday morning.

"That is why they never came out to our place Sunday forenoon," said Montgomery.  "Joe and Sara "always seemed to be happy and cheerful when they were around…just as cheerful as any people could be."

During her Grand Jury testimony, Mrs. Glackmeyer noted that a large number of peddlers were present in Villisca during the days leading up to the murder.  She recalled a man coming by who offered to clean wall paper.  She also remembered a tall dignified gentleman, nicely dressed, who walked up and down the street.  Some thought he was a foreigner.  With more than two dozen scheduled Burlington line trains a day stopping in Villisca, strangers in town drew no particular notice from locals--until later.

Within one week of Joe and Sara's family visit with the Montgomerys, the Moores were dead along with their four children, and two visiting children, murdered in their sleep by a killer or killer(s) unknown.

June 1, 1912

Image courtesy the Villisca Review.

When H. E. Ralston, Sr. , 48, a John Deere Plow Company salesman testified before the Montgomery County 1917 Grand Jury, he spoke about his meeting with victim Josiah "Joe" Moore on June 1 of the week leading up to the axe murders of eight in Villisca, Iowa.

Ralston used Joe's J. B. Moore Implement company, a John Deere "dealer," as his headquarters when he was selling in the territory.  On Saturday, June 1, 1912 he accompanied Joe, and a friend of Joe's, into the country north and east of Villisca where they sold a man a grain elevator for a corn crib among other items.  These team-and-buggy trips were typical during his visits and he noted that he and Joe were able to make some sales that the competing Jones Store in Villisca had counted on fulfilling.

They returned to town and Joe gave Ralston an order for John Deere equipment.  Ralston noted that there was a strong competition between Moore's and Frank Jones' implement stores.

"They worked it very hard, but it seemed to be a kind of, to my mind, it was friendly in a way, yet as Mr. Moore had quit the employ of Mr. Jones and gone into business for himself, I laid the spirited competition to that fact, that Jones worked as hard as we did and Moore would work as hard as he could, and we would call it very hard competition," testified Ralston.

After Joe, his wife and children, and two visiting children were discovered murdered with an axe on Monday, June 10, 1912, much was made of this strong competition.  Some said Jones had Moore and family killed because of this fierce business rivalry and because Jones believed Joe was having an embarrassing affair with Jones' daugher-in-law.

Does bad blood in business and alleged infidelity constitute grounds for the mass murder of primarily children?  Allegations against Frank Jones were thorougly investigated by the 1917 Grand Jury, and no evidence of any kind was found to implicate Jones in the tragedy.