Photo courtesy of the Villisca Review
From the June 11, 1912 edition of the Kansas City Journal (our notes in brackets):
MAN WHO HAD KEY MURDERS 8 IOWANS
JUNE 11, 1912
Ax Used in Killing Found,
but No Trace of Slayer.
Militia on Guard.
TWO VICTIMS GUESTS
Others Are Four Children
and Parents--Dogs Go
to River Bank.
FOOTPRINTS ARE SEEN
Sister of Dead Man Not in House as Was Thought.
She is Divorced.
VILLISCA, IA., June 10.--Twenty-four hours after the murder of the entire Joseph Moore [Josiah Moore] family and two young women guests, eight in all, which occurred Sunday night, the authorities have been unable to get a single trace of the murderer and have little or no clue to his identity. The murderer killed every person in the house with an ax and escaped without discovery. It is apparent he had a key to a door of the Moore home, because all doors and windows were found locked [grand jury testimony indicates that the Moores usually left a key on the inside of the front door--they also likely left their back door unlocked--not uncommon in those days, or even now in small communities].
A revised list of the victims follows:
JOSEPH B. MOORE [Josiah B. Moore]
MRS. JOSEPH B. MOORE [Mrs. Josiah B. Moore, or Sara Moore]
HERMAN MOORE, aged 11.
CATHERINE MOORE, aged 9. [Katherine Moore, aged 10]
BOYD MOORE, aged 7.
PAUL MOORE, aged 6. [aged 5]
LENA STILLINGS, aged 15. [Lena Stillinger, aged 11]
INA STILLINGS, aged 9. [Ina Stillinger, aged 8]
The Misses Stillings [Stillingers] were over-night guests at the Moore home.
Photo courtesy of the Villisca Review
DOGS TAKE TRAIL
Bloodhounds [from Beatrice, Nebraska] arrived here on a late evening train and were immediately taken to the Moore home. Within ten minutes they found a scent which took them over a circuitous route to the edge of the town and thence to the banks of the Nodaway river. They were followed closely by their keepers [Elmer Noffsinger].
Entering a deep woods along the river, the hounds led their followers over several miles of rough timber land in the Nodaway bottoms.
After an hour the hounds returned to the river where those following the dogs found fresh foot prints in the soft muddy bank and leading to the river. Those following the trail took the hounds across the river, but were unable to find any trace of the fugitive on the other side. At midnight the posse returned to town and will start afresh in the morning [the dogs followed the same trail the next morning with identical results].
The bodies of the eight murdered persons were viewed late tonight by a coroner's jury and turned over to an undertaker. They were removed to the city hall to be prepared for burial. A detailed [detail] of militia guarded both the Moore home and city hall all night.
The first intimation of the crime was given when a clerk in the implement house of Mr. Moore went to the Moore home to ascertain the cause of the employer's delay in reaching business [the first to notice an "odd stillness" in the Moore house was next-door neighbor Mary Peckham--she subsequently called Joe Moore's John Deere farm Implement dealership and spoke with his helper Ed Selley]. Finding the house locked, the window shades all down and no one about, he notified the neighbors and, with assistance, forced entrance to the house [Joe's brother Ross arrived later and used a skeleton key to open the door--it was not forced open by anyone].
The dead, with one exception, were found in their beds in natural attires of sleeping and until the crushed condition of their heads and the soaked pillows were discovered, it was impossible for the searchers to believe that anything was wrong.
An ax showing without doubt it was the weapon used, was found in an upstairs room where it was left by the assassin after he had completed his deadly work [the axe, according to all who viewed the crime scene was left by the killer in the downstairs bedroom occupied by the Stillinger girls].
BEDS NOT DISTURBED
Mr. and Mrs. Moore were in one bed, the clothing of which was not the least disturbed. In another bed were two of the boys [the youngest boys Boyd and Paul Moore]. The sister [Katherine] occupied a third bed and the youngest boy [Herman was the oldest boy] was alone in a smaller bed. In neither instance was the bedding of the children disarranged [the face of each victim was covered with articles of clothing and the bedclothes were drawn up over their heads].
The Misses Stillings [Stillingers] occupied a room in another part of the house. One of the girls has a cut on an arm and was in such a position as to indicate she had awakened before the attack, and that there was a short struggle [according to witnesses and our forensic experts, Lena Stillinger's arm was raised up but not wounded--she may have raised it in defense or more likely as an involuntary response to the axe blows].
The tragedy is one of the most mysterious the officials of Iowa have ever had to deal with. There is absolutely no clue upon which to warrant an arrest and the utter absence of a possible motive has left the authorities in a maze of perplexity and doubt [an understatement].
Early identification of the two young women who were slain, owing to the terrible condition of their faces, led to a report that they were Mrs. Van Gilder and her daughter. Mrs. Van Gilder is a sister of Mrs. Moore. It was understood they were to be the guests of the Moores last night [some newspaper accounts indicated that older sisters Blanche and Edith Stillinger].
Blood stains, which will require the work of experts to handle in relation with the crime, including finger prints of the murderer, are absolutely the only clew the officers have to work upon. Blood stains were found on the front door near the knob and finger prints were found in the house [no discernible fingerprints were found by an expert from Leavenworth Penitentiary and there were no bloodstains near the front door].
LIGHTED LAMP FOUND
A feature of the tragedy which indicates that possibly the murderer left the house quickly, was the finding of a lighted lamp upon the floor of the Moore bed room [two lamps with chimneys removed were found--neither was lit when witnesses entered the house]. All the blinds of the house were closely drawn, the doors were all locked and all the windows locked but two opening from the room which the Spillinger [Stillinger] girls occupied.
As one of the posses were hunting in the railroad yards this evening, a tramp, becoming alarmed, gave himself up to the leaders for protection, fearing he might be a victim of the wrath of the people before they had had time to examine into his identity. He later was identified by the railroad men and released, badly scared and quickly left town.
Feeling is high and few persons slept in Villisca tonight. News of the crime traveled fast and there are hundreds of country people who soon came to the village.
Photo courtesy Muschamp.
MURDER DELIBERATE
One puzzling feature of the crime which serves to heighten the mystery surrounding it, is the apparent deliberation which the murderer went about committing the crime. All indications are that he entered the house by the front door and with a key, that he left by the same way and locked the door behind him. Dust upon the sills of the two windows left unlocked shows he did not enter that way.
After pulling down all the blinds in the house, a thing which the Moores never did, the murderer hung dress skirts, which he took from the closets, over each of the doors leading to the south side and also over windows where a flash of light might have penetrated.
VICTIM'S SISTER TALKS
OMAHA, NEB., June 10.--Miss Minnie Moore, sister of Joseph B. Moore [Josiah B. Moore], who, with his wife and four children and two young women, were murdered in the Moore home in Villisca, Ia., last night, is employed in a local woman's wear establishment. She said today that John Van Gilder, who several years ago married a sister of Moore and herself, had left the city after trouble with his wife. She said he had been gone for years.
MANY CRIMES SIMILAR
Colorado Springs Authorities Will
Investigate--Other Murders
Committed With Axes.
COLORADO SPRINGS, COL., June 10.--Colorado Springs police authorities are not inclined to think that there is any connection between the murder of the Moore family at Villisca, Ia., and the Burnham-Wayne murder mystery of September 17 last in this city, in which six persons lost their lives.
It is admitted, however, that there is a striking similarity in the crimes. In both cases the victims were killed with an ax while asleep and no apparent motive for the deed was found. Local authorities will make a careful investigation of the Villisca mystery in the hope of finding some clew to the crime here.
The slayer of Rolin [Rollin] Hudson and wife at Paola, Kas., on the night of June 5, used as his weapon a pick [pick axe]. Tha Barnhart [Burnham] tragedy had for its central figures four victims of a mysterious axman. At Ellsworth, Kas., an ax was used to slay the Showman family, the crime of which Marzck [Charles Marzyck], recently apprehended in Canada, now is charged [like Villisca, the Ellsworth crime remains unsolved].
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