The 1912 Villisca Axe Murders Blog

Dona Jones: Villisca Murder Mystery Femme Fatale

Dona Jones: An Enigmatic Dark Beauty

By Dr. Edgar V. Epperly, author of Fiend Incarnate: Villisca Axe Murders of 1912

D. H. Meyerhoff, a Corning, Iowa attorney found himself on a passenger train between Red Oak and Villisca, Iowa at mid-morning June 10. 1912.  Since news of a mass murder had already reached Red Oak, he found the car jammed with curiosity seekers headed for the crime scene.  From the excited babble it was obvious that his fellow passengers suspected Frank Fernando Jones was mixed up in the murder.  Minutes after Meyerhoff left the train, he, by chance, met his friend F. F. on the street and jokingly said, “I see you’re still running at large.”

Dona Jones, F. F.’s daughter-in-law, was the reason that Jones was an immediate suspect in the minds of many local citizens.  She had arrived in Villisca some four years earlier accepting a position as a country school teacher.  It was not long before her dark beauty and vivacious manner attracted Albert Jones' attention.  Its not so clear what made the slow, portly, ineffectual son of F. F. Jones attractive to her.  Still he was the only son and heir of a wealthy and powerful man.  Whatever the reason, Dona and Albert were married in February of 1910 at her home in Hawleyville, a tiny village southeast of Villisca.

The two and one-half years between Dona’s marriage and the 1912 Villisca axe murders proved to be a strange interlude in her life.  She moved quickly into Villisca’s upper social class, sponsoring parties and entertainment in her home.  She was social and popular but set some tongues wagging by her flirtations and joshing with men.  In the parlance of the time, she was thought to be a “high stepper”, “snappy,” and indifferent to public opinion.

By 1911 her behavior was a scandal in Villisca.  Had it not been for her social position, she would have experienced public censure.  Thanks to the young telephone operators, it was common knowledge that she was frequently receiving calls from at least two Villisca gentlemen.  Albert Davies, a young insurance agent called most often, but Josiah B. Moore ran a close second.  In fact, judged by the frequency that Dona said, “it is all right to come over now,” Joe was the clear front runner.  His last visit was just a few days before his untimely murder.

Most people might have difficulty believing Albert or F. F. would have hired a killer over their business conflicts with Joe Moore, but to punish Joe for besmirching the family name seemed more reasonable.  Some speculated that Albert hatched the plot, but being ineffectual as usual, turned to his father to pull his "chestnuts" out of the fire.  Most doubted dull Albert would even know he was being cuckolded.  Consequently, they suspected the moving force behind the murders was Frank Fernando Jones.  This is why Dona was a central figure in Detective Wilkerson’s case against F. F. Jones.  She, with her flippant and disreputable behavior provided a motive for the Villisca ax murders.

No one knows what actually transpired between Dona and her swains during their tête-à-têtes, but just receiving private telephone calls from men other than her husband was a breach of community mores.  To invite them to her home when people knew Albert was out of town was scandalous.  To practice such outlandish behavior with at least two men (Wilkerson, never one to soft peddle a good thing suggested six different men had called her) was incomprehensible and, in the minds of many, put her beyond redemption.

Public gossip regarding Dona’s reckless behavior reached a climax some four months after the murder.  Again it was the telephone operators who spread the tale.  It seems a night operator saw the switchboard light for Albert Jones’ telephone flash.  When she connected the line, she found no one waiting to make a call, but instead the phone had been knocked from it’s cradle and she overheard a fight.

Albert had apparently come home unexpectedly and caught Dona and Albert Davies in a compromising situation.  The telephone operator’s ringside seat allowed her to identify the participants by their voices.  The fight between the two Alberts ended abruptly when a pistol shot rang out.  The next morning Davies sported a bandaged thumb which the local newspaper attributed to an errant harness ring and a “fractious horse,” but the whole town twittered because everyone had heard what really happened from the telephone girls.

Dona Jones to this day remains an enigma.  It is hard to understand or explain her wanton behavior as a youth which seems an incongruous interlude in a rather conventional life.  She was born in 1890 in Hawleyville, Iowa, a tiny village, to John and Minnie Bentley.  As the name suggests, they were English through and through.  In fact, Dona’s somewhat unusual given name comes directly from Queen Victoria’s extended family.  Dona took normal training, became an elementary school teacher, and married well as befitted her good looks and sprightly manner.

Then, after two years of outrageous behavior culminating with a tenuous connection to the Villisca axe murders, she slipped back into a conventional life.  She remained married to Albert until his death in 1935.  He, not she, carried on an affair in later life.  Unless she had learned sufficient discretion to avoid prying eyes and ears.  She and Albert remained childless, but she served as a surrogate mother for at least two young girls.  After Albert’s death, she managed the family farm and finally sold out in 1943.  A year later she married for a second time.

Wilbur T. Kelley, a retired contractor, married Dona shortly after his invalid wife died.  Apparently they had lived together discreetly for some time while awaiting her demise.  Wilbur and Dona remained married without public incident until Wilbur died in 1961.  She lived on until 1984 when she died in a Clarinda, Iowa nursing home.  Her final years were marred by Alzheimer’s Disease. 

Dona’s unusual behavior and unique relationship to the Villisca murders of the six-member Moore family and two Stillinger girls cries out for the vision of a novelist.  The historian with his dependence on documents and verifiable information is inadequate to the task of explaining her scandalous behavior.  The flamboyant detective Wilkerson and the mentally unbalanced Reverend Kelly might also lend themselves to novelistic treatment, but it is the enigmatic Dona who sits dark and alluring in Villisca’s tangled web, who beckons the creative writer.

Dona Jones, 1890-1984

Dona Jones is buried in Clarinda, Iowa with her second husband, and not, as intended, to the right of her first husband's grave in the Villisca cemetery. The space next to Albert remains empty.

The award-winning Villisca: Living with a Mystery can now be streamed via Vimeo Video-on-Demand at:

https://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/http://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/

To purchase Villisca Living with a Mystery on an extra-feature-packed DVD click here:  https://fourthwallfilms.com/dvds.htm.

To order Dr. Ed Epperly's new true crime book "Fiend Incarnate: Villisca Axe Murders of 1912" on Amazon, click HERE!

 

Villisca Axe Murder Witness Heard Suspects Plan Crime

In an interview I did long ago with Oscar Wendstrand, 1912 Villisca, Iowa Axe Murder suspect Reverend George Lyn Jacklin Kelly’s prosecuting attorney, said, “If Alice Willard was telling the truth then F. F. Jones was guilty.”

He said that because Alice was the only witness who would testify under oath that she overheard suspect William Mansfield and Iowa State Senator Frank Fernando Jones plotting the murder.  The rest of Kansas City Burns Agency Detective James Newton Wilkerson’s case consisted of snippets of conversations, suspicious movements, and tortured inferences.  Only Alice was willing to stand in the witness box and swear lives away.

Everyone in Villisca knew Alice had seen strangers in her neighborhood, a block south of Joe Moore’s house, on Saturday and Sunday before the murder.  But no one suspected she would surface as  Wilkerson’s star witness in his slander suit defense, a civil case filed by  F. F. Jones.  In that testimony she claimed to have crouched in a plum thicket with a traveling salesman named Ed MacCrae on the Saturday night before the Sunday murder.

She and Ed had been on a late evening drive when their car broke down leaving them stranded directly behind Joe Moore’s house (photo below).  When they saw the three strangers she had seen outside her house that morning, she became frightened and pulled Ed behind the bushes for safety. The three strangers were met by F. F. Jones and Bert McCaull just a few feet in front of the plum thicket.  Close enough that Alice testified she had heard one man say, “Get Joe first and the rest will be easy."

On testimony such as this, Wilkerson prevailed in the slander suit.  He also won the allegiances of a majority of Montgomery County citizens who were convinced the wealthy politician Jones was behind the Villisca axe murders.  Making good on a campaign promise, newly elected Montgomery County Attorney Oscar Wendstrand convened a grand jury in 1917 to finally settle the murder question. Alice was again the star witness, although she now told a more lurid tale.

Apparently she had withheld information in the 1916 slander suit which she now revealed to the 1917 grand jury.  Alice claimed to have heard the plotters planning to catch Joe and Dona together so that they could sexually assault her and castrate him.

Obviously if either of these overheard-conversations were true, Jones and his four co-conspirators were guilty.  But Iowa’s Attorney General Horace Havner was convinced Alice was lying.  That conviction was based on several factors.  First, authorities were suspicious because she had not come forward sooner with this horrific allegation.  After all she held the key to the entire case, the most notorious unsolved murder mystery in Iowa history, and had kept the incriminating secret for nearly five years.

Jim Atkinson, a long time friend of Alice, also reported she had told him that Wilkerson had offered her $400 for her testimony, but she was holding out for $1000.  In addition, the state fretted over the fact that no one could corroborate Alice’s testimony.  Her salesman friend, Ed MacCrae, was nowhere to be found.  Search as they might, he had left no footprints.  Neither could they ask her girlfriend, May Freeman, who was with her that fateful night, for May had died shortly after the murder.

Frank Robinson, another old friend, had listened as Alice told the story in September of 1916, but unfortunately, he slipped into a coma a week later and died from Bright’s disease that fall.  Finally, the most telling objection Havner had to Alice’s story was when she first told it she had Albert Jones, not F. F. Jones,  meeting the hired killers.  Later, when it became known Albert had an iron clad alibi for the night in question, Wilkerson offered a convoluted explanation why Alice had inadvertently substituted Albert for Frank Jones.

Lying or not, Alice proved a tough witness, as she and Attorney General Havner had some monumental battles in the grand jury room.  It got so heated that Havner himself was indicted and had to fight the charge of oppressing Alice as a witness.  The case was thrown out of court, but it showed what conflicts her testimony provoked.

Undoubtedly, the low point in this clash came when she expressed a need to go to the bathroom.  Havner, himself a hard-bitten prosecutor, kicked a spittoon in her direction and said, “Use that.” When Wilkerson’s case collapsed before the 1917 grand jury, Alice’s days as star witness were finished.  Reverend Kelly’s defense lawyers tried to introduce the Wilkerson case against Jones as their defense, but the judge ruled it not germane to the question of Kelly’s guilt.

Alice herself was an obscure woman who would be completely forgotten today had it not been for her role as an alleged conspiracy witness in the Villisca axe murder mystery.  In 1912, she was living with her father Henry Holland a block south of the murder house.  She had been married to Lewis (Lou) Willard, a brakeman on the C, B, & Q (Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad), but because of domestic violence she had left him some years earlier and moved back to her father’s house.

In 1912 she enjoyed a very poor reputation in Villisca.  Years later it was said that, “She found her entertainment in a ditch.”  During the slander suit Mitchell, Wilkerson’s attorney, made the mistake of asking George Winters on the witness stand.  Winters testified that Alice had a bad reputation.  Winters proceeded to rattle off a long list of alleged paramours.

After the trials Alice traded notoriety for obscurity but she had little time left.  In 1921 after an illness of a month, she died at home.  The funeral was  held in her house, just two blocks south of the plum thicket where she claimed to have spent a fearful and eventful Saturday night in June of 1912. 

The award-winning Villisca: Living with a Mystery can now be streamed via Vimeo Video-on-Demand at:

https://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/http://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/

To purchase Villisca Living with a Mystery on an extra-feature-packed DVD click here:  https://fourthwallfilms.com/dvds.htm.

AUTHOR:

Dr. Edgar V. Epperly.

Dr. Edgar Epperly began researching the 1912 Villisca, Iowa axe murders as a college student. In 1955, he traveled to Villisca for the first time with two friends where they interviewed Dr. Cooper, the first physician to examine the victims and the crime scene. Dr. Epperly is a retired Professor of Education at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. His research into the crime is ongoing. He is considered the foremost authority on the Villisca axe murder case.  Dr. Epperly's book Fiend Incarnate: Villisca Axe Murders of 1912 is slated for release in June. He was the primary consultant on Fourth Wall Films' award-winning documentary "Villisca: Living With a Mystery."  He is also the subject of the Rundles' award-winning short documentary AXMAN.

Did He Harbor the Villisca Ax Murderer?

By Edgar V. Epperly

Lewis Enarson pulled his buggy to a stop outside Villisca’s Presbyterian parsonage at 6:30 p.m. Sunday evening, June 9, 1912.  It was some 6 hours before the Villisca, Iowa axe murder, so he and his passenger were still living in the simple, innocent world of Villisca before the tragedy.  Lewis' rider was Reverend Lyn George Jacklin Kelly who was to be an overnight guest of Presbyterian minister Wesley J. Ewing.

Reverend Kelly, a tiny 5’2” tall man with red hair and blue eyes, had been preaching in  Methodist churches across the Midwest since his arrival from England in 1904.  Now, in the summer of 1912, he had left the Methodist denomination and enrolled in the Omaha Presbyterian Seminary for the fall term.  That school had arranged for him to serve the Macedonia, Iowa, Cumberland Presbyterian Church that summer.

As an additional charge, he was to serve the Arlington and Pilot Grove rural churches northwest of Villisca.  This meant a trip to Villisca, every other weekend that summer and explained why Kelly was staying the night with Presbyterian Pastor W. J. Ewing and family (see photo below).

The Ewings and their guest shared a hurried supper for they had to be at the church before 8:00 o’clock for the Children's Day service that night.  This program, presented by the Sunday School children, was among the church year highlights. Even though Rev. Ewing had no direct involvement in the service, his wife shared director responsibilities with Sara Moore so it was doubly important they be on time.

The service was a great success.  Children sang, recited, and performed to the delight of parents and friends.  Joe Moore beamed from the back of the church when his youngest, Paul lisped out his little recitation which ended, “…and Jesus loved even me.”   Taking it all in was Reverend Ewing and the visiting Lyn Kelly, both sitting  just across the aisle from Joe Moore.

The service ended about 10:00 p.m. with family groups chatting as they walked out into a cloudy, damp June night. Joe and Sara Moore, their four children and the two Stillinger girls who were to spend the night with them paused on the church steps to exchange greetings with the Curtis family completely unaware that they had only two hours to live.

Reverend Ewing and his family, accompanied by their English guest, also went home where Ewing and Kelly sat talking until nearly 11:00 p.m.  Kelly was then shown to his upstairs bedroom while the entire Ewing family retired to a tent in the back yard.  That somewhat strange sleeping arrangement was necessitated by Reverend Ewing’s severe and persistent nasal and throat infections which he hoped would be relieved by the night air.

Reverend Kelly returned to Macedonia on westbound No. 5 Monday morning at 5:19 a.m. so he was out of town long before the Ewings awoke.  By 9:00 a.m. Rev. Kelly was forgotten by both the Ewing family and everybody else at the Children’s Day service because the Villisca axe murder had been discovered.

As pastor for the slain family, Ewing was at the center of the terrible week that followed the murder.  His primary role was that of preacher at the mass funeral on Wednesday (see photo above).  His sermon has not been preserved, but newspapers highlighted his demand for justice coupled with a plea for citizens to control their passions if and when the killer was caught.

Two weeks after the murder Reverend Kelly reprised his first visit to Villisca.  Again he preached at the country churches, stayed with the Ewings, but rather than leave early Monday morning he elected to wait for a later train.  That was because he had asked Reverend Ewing to arrange a visit to the murder house.  Consequently he and Ewing found themselves outside Joe Moore’s house at midmorning when, as luck would have it, a group of Investigators arrived.

These official visitors were Henry Sampson, Assistant Attorney General for the state of Iowa; Montgomery County Attorney Ratcliff; Ross Moore, Joe’s brother, and detective Tom O’Leary from the  John Hayes Detective Agency of Kansas City.  In a measure of the informality of the time, these investigating officials were perfectly happy to have two local ministers join them on their foray into the house.  Kelly was delighted, nosing in every nook and cranny, even turning up a small vial he said he found under the bed in the downstairs bedroom.  He also noted what he thought was a thumb print on a door frame and placed his own thumb against it to see how well they matched.

This house tour ended Reverend Ewing’s direct involvement in the case.  Kelly never stayed in his house again, but during that summer of 1912, Ewing was perhaps the only Villisca lay person to know Kelly had become a suspect in the investigation. That knowledge came from a stream of investigators who had talked with Marshall Horton and passed the information along to during visits to Reverend Ewing.  What could he tell them about Preacher Kelly?  Was he sure Kelly stayed in the house after they retired to the back yard?  Had his bed been slept in that night?

Though definitive evidence is not in the record, we can be sure Ewing did not believe in Kelly’s guilt.  In fact, Ewing became such a strong supporter of Detective Wilkerson and his case against Iowa State Senator F. F. Jones that he was named along with eight other locals and Wilkerson (see photo below) in the original slander suit Jones filed in the fall of 1916.  Ewing and his eight compatriots all expressed the hope that Jones’ suit would finally lead to the truth being revealed and expressed a perfect willingness to stand trial for that end.

   

F. F.’s lawyers were not so happy with his rash decision to expand his case against Wilkerson by including eight local citizens, all of whom were respected and several of whom were related to the murder victims.  Forget local citizens and concentrate on Wilkerson, the outsider.  Strike the head and the snake will die.  Following this wise counsel, F. F. dropped the Villisca eight from his suit and entered into a legal duel with Wilkerson in November of 1916.

Ewing’s interest in the murder and Villisca itself was nearly over.  Perhaps because of his involvement in the controversies surrounding the murder, he left Villisca in the late summer of 1917 to accept a pastorate at the Presbyterian Church in Deep River, Iowa. Both he and his wife (see photo below) were called back to Villisca to testify in the 1917 Kelly trial regarding whether Kelly’s bed had been slept in during the murder night.  Both he and his wife said it had been.

Reverend Ewing who had been born in Glenwood, Minnesota in 1872, educated at Alma College in Michigan and received his ministerial training at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago had very little time left after he testified at the Kelly trial in September of 1917.  Still plagued with upper respiratory problems, he received an examination at the University of Iowa hospital in March of 1918, when his son was having his appendix removed.  Based on this examination, doctors removed his tonsils and found a nasal polyp which should also come out.

A few days later, Reverend Ewing had the nasal surgery but complications followed.  First, there was excessive bleeding which was followed by pneumonia resulting in his unexpected death in March of 1918.

That Villisca had a profound impact on his life is proven by his being returned to Villisca for burial.  At 2:30 p.m. on the 27th of March 1918, Reverend Wesley Ewing was the subject, not the preacher of a funeral sermon, followed by his burial in the Villisca Cemetery.

Rev. W. J. Ewing, 1872-1918

The award-winning "Villisca: Living with a Mystery" can now be streamed via Vimeo Video-on-Demand at:

https://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/http://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/

To purchase Villisca Living with a Mystery on an extra-feature-packed DVD click here:  https://fourthwallfilms.com/dvds.htm.

 

AUTHOR:

Dr. Edgar V. Epperly.

Dr. Edgar Epperly began researching the 1912 Villisca, Iowa axe murders as a college student. In 1955, he traveled to Villisca for the first time with two friends where they interviewed Dr. Cooper, the first physician to examine the victims and the crime scene. Dr. Epperly is a retired Professor of Education at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. His research into the crime is ongoing. He is considered the foremost authority on the Villisca axe murder case.  Dr. Epperly's book Fiend Incarnate: Villisca Axe Murders of 1912 is slated for release in June. He was the primary consultant on Fourth Wall Films' award-winning documentary "Villisca: Living With a Mystery."  He is also the subject of the Rundles' award-winning short documentary AXMAN.

 

Margaret Landers Hears a Hoot

Ed Lander's (center) mother testified she heard screams from her neighbors the Moore home the night of the murders, June 10, 1912.

By Dr. Edgar V. Epperly

Margaret Landers was a minor player in the Villisca Murder drama, but she was on stage from the opening scene until the final curtain fell.

Margaret had been a widow since 1894 and in June of 1912 was living alone less than a block from Joe Moore’s house.  On Monday June 10, she and her daughter-in-law were doing the weekly wash when they saw a crowd forming in Joe’s yard.  The crowd was in response to the murder’s discovery and Margaret’s life would never be the same.

Later that day, Margaret told her visiting children, Ed, Ethel and his 3 boys who had been staying with her for nearly a month, about hearing Sara Moore screaming during the night.  She retold that tale a thousand times over the years.

By 1917 when she was called before the grand jury, it flowed from her lips with confidence and precision.  Late in the night, she had been awakened by Sara screaming in terror, “Oh, dear, oh, dear, don’t, don’t.”  This litany was repeated several times in rapid succession. Margaret left her bed thrusting her head out the window to listen, but by then all was still at the Moore house.

By 1917 she also recalled an incident related to the murder that occurred on Sunday afternoon, June 9, 1912.  After dinner she had left her grandchildren playing and walked downtown to the post office.  As she returned she passed Joe Moore’s house, turned north and continued up the street towards her house.  As she approached Joe’s barn, she noticed two strangers standing in his back yard.  She saw one of them walk over to the wood pile, pick up an axe and run his fingers along the blade.  She thought little about this strange scene at the time, but now five years after the murder, she was convinced these strangers were testing the murder weapon’s blade for sharpness.

Not surprisingly, no official or grand jury member took Margaret’s testimony at face value.  That two thugs hired to kill Joe Moore would saunter around his back yard, testing the sharpness of his axe just hours before killing him, seemed incredible.  It was easier to believe her reports reflected the excited imagination of an old crone rather than eyewitness testimony.  Grand jury members also wondered how Margaret could have clearly heard Sara Moore’s shouts from nearly a block away when no one in the houses next door reported hearing a sound during the night.  Finally, since those first on the scene all agreed that all victims appeared to have been sleeping when struck how could Sara repeatedly cry out "Oh! dear; oh! dear; don’t , don’t?"

Whatever the reason officials and investigators clearly ignored Margaret Lander’s testimony.  Even her daughter-in-law said she was “flighty” and “not always responsible.”  Because she was old, a bit dotty and obsessed with the murder, she never enjoyed the credibility given to Alice Willard and and her son Ed Landers for their sensational eyewitness testimony.

Margaret was poor throughout her life and suffered from the loneliness that is often the widow’s lot. She died in 1921.

The search for visual material related to the Villisca murders turned up a photograph of Margaret as an old woman.  Scribbled on the back of this picture was the legend, “Driven insane by the Villisca Murders.”  While it seems doubtful the murders caused Margaret’s mental instability, it seems clear that this instability contributed to her vivid, but implausible memories.  The Villisca unsolved mystery lives on.

The award-winning "Villisca: Living with a Mystery" by Emmy-nomiated Fourth Wall Films can now be streamed via Vimeo video-on-demand at:

http://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/villisca/

Click above to view an excerpt or use the link above and select "View the Trailer" to view the excerpt.

View the entire feature-length film for just $2.99!

Purchase the award-winning feature-length Villisca Living with a Mystery on an extra-feature-packed DVD here: http://fourthwallfilms.com/dvds.htm

Ask Ed: Focus on Albert Davie of Villisca, Iowa

Dr. Edgar V. Epperly has researched the 1912 Villisca, Iowa axe murders of the six-member Joe Moore family and two overnight guests, Lena and Ina Stillinger, for over 55 years.  He is considered the authority on the unsolved murder mystery. He was the primary historical consultant on Kelly and Tammy Rundle's award-winning documentary VILLISCA: LIVING WITH A MYSTERY, and is currently finishing a book on the case. 

A Villisca case fan submitted the following question to ASK ED:

Who was Albert Davie and what was his connection to the Villisca axe murder story?

In the late fall of 1911, you would often find Albert F. Davie in Honeyman's Drug Store.  He did not leave the hot Indian summer street for the cool soda fountain, but instead had been attracted by Honeyman's public telephone.  As an up and coming young real estate and insurance salesman, it evoked no suspicions for him to use the telephone.  Neither would the druggist be surprised if Albert spoke in a low and conspiratorial tone; business no doubt.   Business sometimes, but often not!  Instead many of his calls were to Albert Jones' house and directed to Dona, Albert's wife.  Made during the afternoon, these calls were to see if "the coast was clear" for an evening visit.  Made when husband Albert was known to be out of town or working late, they constituted a grave breach of community mores.

Secret though they may have been intended, everyone in Villisca overheard those telephone conversations.  That was because the telephone system was not automated in 1911.  Instead, each call was routed by an operator.  This young woman could listen to any and all conversations.   When she connected Albert Davie to Albert Jones' house curiosity compelled her to listen to that conversation.  Just as curiosity compelled her to listen, human nature compelled her to share such juicy gossip with friends.  Consequently in a few hours virtually everyone in Villisca knew that Albert Davie had arranged a visit with Dona Jones when her husband Albert wasn't at home.

Had Albert Davie been Dona's only caller, their trysts would have been lost to history.  But he was only the first of her callers.  A few weeks after Albert discovered Dona to be a willing conversationalist, Joe Moore, twenty years her senior started to call.  Through the winter of 1911-12 up to a few days before his murder, Joe called with great success.  Davie continued to call, but Joe's overtures most often met with Dona's blessing.   He called in the evening around eight o'clock, always with a request to come to her house.  Occasionally Albert, her husband would answer and Joe would hurriedly say he had the wrong number.

These secret meetings with their strong sexual overtones were a "smoking gun" motive in the eyes of the community.  Dona's father-in-law F.F. Jones was an irascible fellow and everyone in town knew he resented Joe Moore for opening a competing implement store, but no one thought he would kill for such a motive.  Having his son cuckolded and the family name besmirched by a promiscuous daughter-in-law was a different matter.  So proud and arrogant a man as F. F. Jones might well decide that Joe should be taught a lesson for participating in such a sordid affair.  Such reasoning does little to explain the need for murdering the entire family including the visiting Stillinger girls.  Nor does it address the sexual and ritual aspects of the murder scene, but to those citizens desperate to find the killer, a vengeful F. F. Jones seemed a logical suspect.

Albert Davie apparently was too daft to realize that his shenanigans with Dona might put him at risk.  Perhaps he did not share the widely held local suspicion that the Jones family was behind the murder.  For whatever reason, he continued to find the seductive Dona irresistible.  Friday, October 18, 1912, some four months after the murder found Albert again visiting Dona Jones when he thought her husband was not at home.  Unfortunately, the cuckolded husband appeared unexpectedly.  No one knows what Albert Jones discovered but the scene was sufficiently compromising that a fight broke out.  Albert and Albert's tussle was vigorous enough to knock the telephone off its hook.  This caused a light to appear on the telephone exchange board and the alert operator made the connection.  That connection gave her a ring-side seat to the "Friday night fights."  Both Alberts were somewhat overweight and not used to hard manual labor; but probably evenly matched.   As often happens, the fight escalated until Albert Jones drew a pistol.  The telephone operator heard a shot and the fight ended.  Happily, the portly Jones was no better with a pistol than he was at manual labor so his shot only lacerated Davie's thumb.

Needless to say, this story made the gossip hit parade.  The central girls were all abuzz the next day and their gossip was confirmed by Albert Davie's elaborately bandaged thumb, which was supported by a sling.   Not that Albert didn't have a cover story.   The next issue of the Villisca Review carried an explanation that Albert's thumb had been injured by a horse.  While visiting his brother Will's farm, he had tried to handle a team and a young saddle horse at the same time.   Albert had wrapped it's harness  around his thumb. When the horse reared Albert's thumb had been nearly torn off.

Consequently both sling and bandaged thumb was explained by a fractious horse.

No one in town believed so mundane an explanation when everyone knew someone who knew a central girl.  The gossip got so bad that Albert confronted the telephone operators directly.  He came to the exchange and "was about to take our heads off because he said he wasn't there (Albert Jones' house); it wasn't anybody's business if he had been there, and he wasn't there."

Since the shooting incident took place four months after the murder, Dona seemingly had not seen her promiscuous behavior as a motive for murder.    Apparently the Albert vs. Albert fight convinced her to change her ways.  No more telephone calls between Dona and men in the community were reported by the central girls.  No more visits took place when husband Albert was out of town.  In fact, between October, 1912, and Albert Jones' death in 1935, not a hint of scandal touched Dona, or Albert Davie for that matter.

Albert married a local school teacher in 1914 and apparently lived happily ever after.  He continued to sell real estate and insurance, raised a family and prospered.  He was a good singer, being a charter member of the Villisca male chorus which was formed in 1930.

Nether did there seem to be any lasting animosity between Davie and the Jones family.  Like the Two Gentlemen from Verona, neither of the two Alberts apparently felt a woman, even as alluring a woman as Dona, should come between a good friendship.  Consequently, when Albert Jones died in 1935, his friend Albert Davie sang at his funeral.  As further evidence that the Joneses were a forgiving lot when the patriarch Frank F. Jones died in 1941, Albert F. Davie was one of his pallbearers.

To purchase Villisca: Living with a Mystery, click HERE or visit www.VilliscaMovie.com.

Sickened by the Sight: Crime Scene Clean-up at the Villisca Ax Murder House

Carl A. Peterson: Immortality and Iowa's Most Infamous True Crime
By Edgar V. Epperly, historian

In 1912 Villisca, Iowa if you wanted a foundation dug, a shed roofed, or a barn painted, Carl Peterson was your man.  Like dozens, if not hundreds, of other Montgomery County men, Carl was a day laborer.

He didn't work on the railroad, clerk in a store, or hire out to a farmer.  Instead, each day would find him at the Green Bay lumber yard or Bert McCaull's pool hall or Nelson's garage waiting for anyone who needed unskilled labor that day.

Then, one day in June, 1912, fate reached down and plucked Carl from the anonymous crowd, bestowing on him the tiniest bit of immortality.  Montgomery County sheriff Owen Jackson was charged with the onerous duty of seeing that little house was cleaned and fumigated after the 1912 Villisca axe murders of eight victims that included Joe and Sara Moore, their four children and two Stillinger sisters.

Such an assignment was beneath a sheriff's dignity so he directed Villisca's Marshall Hank Horton to see that the task was done.  Marshall Horton hired Sylvester (Ves) Cooney for the job who in turn hired Carl Peterson as his helper.

On Wednesday following the Sunday night murder, Ves and Carl went down to the Moore house to inspect the scene.   The printed record is unclear whether they did the actual cleaning that day or returned on Thursday to complete the job.

Whatever the day, it proved too much for Carl.  Shortly after he and Ves entered the Stillinger girls' bedroom downstairs, Carl got sick.  Protesting, "I can't stand it," he fled to the front yard where he lost his breakfast and was hors de combat for the day.

Ves, made of sterner stuff, set about the grisly business of removing stained bedding.  He found a "...double handful of clotted blood and brains on every pillow in the house."  There were bits of bone in each bed with by far the largest number of bone fragments in the parents' room upstairs.

Ves also found a pool of dried blood under every bed.

This bloody residue prevented Cooney from picking up the soiled bedding and carrying it outdoors.  Instead he decided to roll each mattress with its bed clothing inside.  The Bible's King David had his five smooth stones and Ves Cooney had his five pieces of wire.  He cut them from the wire that surrounded the house with each being some eight feet in length.

He then dragged the rolled bedding out to "Kettle" Overman's dray wagon in front of the house.  The crooked stairway leading down from the upstairs proved too narrow to accommodate the rolled mattresses so he was forced to remove the south windows upstairs and push the bloody bundles through the opening.

One of the bloody bundles stained the house siding as it slid to the ground.

Carl who had remained in the yard throughout Ves' efforts now felt sufficiently recovered to lend a hand.  While Ves and "Kettle" took the bedding to the city dump where they burned it, Carl went to fetch some whitewash.  Brush in hand, he mounted a ladder and painted over the bloody stain the mattress had left on the house.

The next day, Ves and Carl mopped the floor and Carl helped Dr. Loomis fumigate the house.  Finally, Carl papered and painted the upstairs rooms.

Now, after only two days, fate was through with Carl and returned him to his anonymous life.  This is not to say he didn't enjoy a happy productive life, but next to nothing is known about him. He lived until 1959 and we may assume his years were filled with the joys and pains that come to everyone.

But happy or sad, Carl is only remembered for two days in June 1912 when he had the human decency to be sickened by the sight of the Villisca Axe Murder crime scene.  Throughout all the years of his life it is only those two days spent cleaning a house that left a trace of him in the historical record.

Carl A. Peterson, 1870-1959

Collateral Damage: Another Victim of the 1912 Villisca Axe Murders

Villisca, Iowa Cemetery.

Frank Robinson: The Wronged Man
By Edgar V. Epperly, historian

We do not know who destroyed the lives of the eight victims of the 1912 Villisca axe murder, but we do know who destroyed Frank Robinson's life.

Burns detective James Newton Wilkerson proved quite willing to ignore the truth, bend the truth, and break the truth in his quest for power, prestige, and money.  The Villisca murder meant nothing but personal gain to Wilkerson.  This was clearly demonstrated by his treatment of Frank Robinson.

As his witch hunt developed, Wilkerson had only to look accusingly in your direction to convict you in the eyes of his supporters.  When Wilkerson pointed his boney finger at Frank Robinson, he branded him a co-conspirator with the Joneses, even though a casual look at the evidence demolishes the charges Wilkerson's leveled against Frank.

Before the murder Frank was a small town entrepreneur.  Born in 1868, 15 miles south of Villisca in Page County, he qualified as an early settler.  In the 1890s he moved to Galveston, Texas where he met his wife Lillie. They had the good sense to return to Iowa just months before Galveston was flattened by the 1900 hurricane.

Photo courtesy Dan Smith. 

Back in Iowa he bought a farm some 10 miles south of Villisca, but he proved too restless to stay down on the farm.   In the years before the 1912 murder he moved to Villisca where he opened a cigar factory.  Perhaps a cigar factory in a small Iowa town seems incongruous, but in those years before 1920 cigars were the dominant smoke.

Cigars are not machine-made at the turn of the 20th century, so many small towns had their own factory with their own brands.  Robinson in partnership with a young fellow E. N. Myers marketed four 5-cent varieties:  Black Squirrels; Golden Dreams; Mooses; and Father George, and a top of the line 10-cent cigar, Don Cassio.

By June of 1912 the ever restless Robinson had closed his cigar factory and was trying his hand at selling cars.  That enterprise led him to a fateful mistake.  In an attempt to collect some old bills left over from the cigar venture and to twist the arm of a potential car buyer, he and his wife drove to Hawleyville, Iowa on Monday morning June 10, 1912.

Hawleyville, a tiny village 15 miles Southeast of Villisca, was the childhood home of Dona Jones, Albert's indiscreet wife.  Her trysts with local men were the hottest gossip around Villisca during the months leading up to the murder.  Consequently anyone who traveled to Hawleyville that tragic morning inevitably attracted Detective Wilkerson's attention.

Dona Bentley Jones.

Frank complicated his life further by being one of the several men about town to have had telephone conversations with Dona during the months preceding the murder.  Finally, during the years between the murder and the grand jury investigation of 1916, Frank and his wife became personal friends of Albert and Dona Jones.

For Wilkerson these three missteps constituted a damning indictment of Frank Robinson as a co-conspirator in the axe murders of the entire Josiah B. Moore family and two Stillinger girls.  The tale Wilkerson spun labeled Frank as another of Dona's lovers who had been chosen to carry the news of the murder to her family.

Wilkerson further speculated that Albert and Dona had been on the verge of separation during the days preceding the murder and Frank was sent to Hawleyville to insure that the Bentleys didn't reveal the schism to any murder investigators.  The telephone calls were self explanatory, as everyone in town knew why the local Lotharios were calling Dona.

Finally, the Robinsons were a full generation older than Albert and Dona and Wilkerson thought it most peculiar that two families so distant in age would form so close a friendship.  Consequently, Frank Robinson was, by 1916 a prime suspect in the eyes of the anti-Jones crowd.

Detective James Newton Wilkerson.

Such is the way conspiracy theories grow.  Wilkerson's statements and speculation regarding Frank Robinson's behavior was taken as fact when even a cursory investigation would prove them false.  It is true Frank telephoned Albert and Dona's home before the murder, but the telephone operators were clear in their testimony that his calls differed from the others Dona received.

He never arranged a private meeting and was happy to talk to Albert if he should answer.  The content of their calls also differed.  He phrased his conversations more as a friend with a bit of "Dutch uncle" advice thrown in from time to time.

Regarding the friendship that grew between the two families, their age difference was mildly unusual but in no way sinister.  They were quite open in their relationship with absolutely no evidence that it was more than an occasional meeting of friends for social contact.   Had it not been for Wilkerson's innuendos, not an eyebrow would have been raised in Villisca.

Finally, Frank was able to clearly show by eyewitness testimony that his trip to Hawleyville on Monday, June 10, 1912, was entirely business in nature.  He and his wife left Villisca around 7:00 a.m. driving south to their farm where they stopped for a talk with their son and hired man.  From there they completed the 16 mile drive to Hawleyville.

While in town they tried to collect debts left over from the cigar factory days.  While on the street, Ben Kendall shouted from his general store that a call had just come in announcing a big murder in Villisca.  Ben thought it was about 10:00 a.m. when he received the news.  Frank and Lillie debated returning to Villisca straight away, but decided to continue with the morning's plans.

They drove north of town to Ernest Strong's farm where Frank tried to sell him a Ford car.  Ernest wouldn't buy so the Robinsons left for Clarinda, Iowa  a few miles further south to have dinner with Frank's mother.  They tried to telephone Villisca but found the lines jammed.  Too excited to eat, they bid a hurried good-bye and returned to Villisca.

There is absolutely no evidence they spoke to any member of the Bentley family while in Hawleyville and, if Wilkerson was even an average investigator, he knew that.  But since it suited his case to picture Frank Robinson as a go-between to keep Dona's family informed and under control, he was perfectly willing to defame Frank's character to strengthen his case against F. F. Jones.  Such was Wilkerson's method.

There is one last element to the Frank Robinson story that needs to be told.  Frank was the first of Wilkerson's suspects to die so he became the first victim of death bed confession rumors.  As it became less and less likely that the court system would ever indict, let alone convict F. F. Jones of the murder, a death bed confessions became the great hope of many Wilkerson supporters.

Surely someone among the substantial body of conspirators Wilkerson had identified would confess on their death bed rather than face God unrepentant.  As death came near each of those individuals, Villisca would quiet down waiting to hear any whispered confession that might drift out of the death chamber.

All ears strained when Albert and F. F. died as they had earlier when Harry Whipple, who Wilkerson claimed was in the house during the murder, succumbed to cancer.  Frank Robinson was the first suspect to garner such attention when he died in October of 1916.

Rumors spread among Wilkerson's supporters that he had made such a confession to Dr. Lomas.   Testifying before the 1917 grand jury, Dr. Lomas quashed such rumors.  Frank, Dr. Lomas said, died of Bright's Disease, slipping into a coma nearly a month before he finally died and was unable to speak even if he had anything to say.  Earlier Robinson and Lomas had talked about the murder, but Lomas testified Frank only protested the methods being used against him and expressed his belief that Jones was innocent.

Frank Robinson is one of many innocent Villisca citizens who were badly damaged not by the murder but by Detective Wilkerson's exploiting the anguish of the victims' friends and relatives for personal gain.

Wilkerson lived a long life so justice was not served in this world, but if there is another, I am confident his soul is barking in hell this very day for what he did to Frank Robinson and several other innocent citizens of Villisca.

Frank L. Robinson, 1868-1916

Small Town Marshal in 1912 Villisca, Iowa was the First to View Murder Scene

Henry "Hank" Horton: Unprepared for Murder
By Dr. Edgar V. Epperly

When Hank Horton accepted a skeleton key from Ross Moore on the steps of Joe Moore’s front porch, he was the tip of the law enforcement spear for Villisca, Montgomery County and the state of Iowa.

As the day marshal he headed Villisca’s two-man police force, and now stood just seconds away from exploring Iowa’s most heinous crime scene.  There was nothing in Hank’s background to prepare him for this moment.

Born in 1861 he had farmed and worked as a carpenter until 1905, when he accepted the position of night marshal for the town of Villisca.  In 1911 he was promoted to day marshal.

 
Hank Horton (Villisca Review photo)

Iowa in 1905 was not a wild frontier.  More settlers arrived by train than ever came by covered wagon.  Small town Iowa police officers were very distant cousins to the storied lawmen of the West.  They bore little resemblance to Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the others who dueled with gamblers and wild drovers on the lawless frontier.

Hank, rattled doors in the evening to make sure local merchants hadn’t forgotten to lock up for the night.  He collared rowdies and drunks, of which there weren’t many since Montgomery County was legally dry in those years just before national prohibition.  Hank also kept a watchful eye on strangers and shooed tramps and hobos out of town.  Crime in Villisca was rare and murder unheard of--that is until June 10, 1912.

 
Josiah B. Moore house on June 10, 1912.

As Hank contemplated the sight of two victims in the grisly scene in the downstairs bedroom, he must have wondered how life had led him to such a place.  He continued his lonely inspection.

No one knows what Hank thought as he slowly mounted the creaky stairs to Joe and Sara Moore’s bedroom.  Perhaps he feared a maniacal killer awaited him, or even Joe himself driven to bloody murder by inner demons.  What he found were six more pathetic victims, murdered as they slept.

Stepping out onto the front porch, he announced to Ross Moore and the world, “My God, Ross, there is someone murdered in every bed.”  Thus far Marshal Horton had done his duty.  He had explored the house insuring all victims were beyond help and that no killer remained.  He had been content with a visual inspection of the carnage within, leaving the scene untouched.

During the next two hours Hank would not perform so well.  Locking the murder house he headed uptown both to fetch a doctor and to telephone for aid.

During the doctor’s subsequent investigation, Hank acting somewhat as a tour guide, moved objects within the house, thus commencing the contamination that was to pollute the murder scene.  Later that morning, with night marshal “Mike” Overman in charge, police control broke down completely.  Dozens if not hundreds of curiosity seekers pushed in through the house's three doors.

Villisca, Iowa c.1910

Today such lax control of a crime scene seems unbelievable, but it should be remembered that in 1912 there wasn’t an inch of yellow crime scene tape in the nation, let alone in a small village like Villisca. Hank had no formal education in police science, and none was required in those days.

It was also true that forensic science was nonexistant.  Only the most obvious forms of physical evidence were collected by police.  Blood typing was still in the future.  Fingerprinting was very new and depended on the skills of an imported specialist who arrived later in the week.  Hair and fiber analysis was also unheard of in 1912 Iowa.  If the criminal failed to drop a cap or step in a mud puddle, Hank and his ilk had little physical evidence to guide them.

By 10:00 a.m. that Monday, the biggest event in Hank’s police career was largely over.  The county coroner had arrived and taken jurisdiction of the eight victims.  George Whitmore, sheriff of neighboring Page County arrived at midmorning.  Observing the crowd invading the murder house Whitmore took control of the scene.

Later that afternoon as the sensation seekers poured into town, it became obvious Hank and his one deputy could do little to control the crowd if a suspect was caught.  Consequently, Company F of the state militia, based in Villisca, was called out and martial law superceded Hank’s authority.

 
Hank Horton (far left) poses with other investigators and newspapermen.

Although Hank played a minor role after he discovered the crime he remained a bit player throughout its investigation and trials.  Every outside detective, and there were many, began their search by interviewing Hank.  The grand jury investigations, slander suit and Kelly trials also called Hank as a witness.

In the years after the murder he met and talked with hundreds of local citizens who told him “incriminating” stories, wild rumors, and tortured theories as to motive and killer.

Horton testified to the 1917 grand jury that indicted Reverend Lyn George Jacklin Kelly and in September of 1917 he testified at the preacher’s trial.  As he had over the years, he retold the story of opening the Moore house and discovering the murder victims.  He continued in his role as town marshal until 1920.

After leaving that post, he lived in Villisca as he had for all of his life.  Hank died in February 1923.

Henry Horton 1861-1923

 

 

Ves Cooney Plays an Odd Role in the Villisca Axe Murder Case

Ves Cooney: A House Stained by Murder
By Dr. Edgar V. Epperly

Sylvester (Ves) Cooney played a small, but interesting role in the drama surrounding the Villisca murders.  After crowds of gawkers had passed through the house on Monday morning, authorities regained control of the chaotic murder scene.

Onlookers were pushed into the street leaving the bodies to lie in relative peace until County Coroner A. L. Linquist released them to the morticians after the bloodhounds finished their night run.  Consequently, it was nearly midnight when the undertakers removed the victims and the Moore house was locked.

Montgomery County Sheriff Oren Jackson, who was in charge of the house, gave Villisca City Marshal Henry (Hank) Horton a key and instructed him to have it cleaned and fumigated.  Hank hired Ves to do this onerous job.  Ves in turn hired a young helper, Carl Petersen, and contracted with “Kettle” Overman to bring his dray wagon down to the Moore house.

Ves and Hank inspected the premises Wednesday morning June 12 and it was a grisly scene they surveyed.  There were pools of dried blood under every bed and on each pillow rested a double handful of clotted blood and brain matter.  Joe and Sara’s bed also contained chunks and slivers of skull bones with the largest piece being “about 2-3 inches long.”

As an aside, the 1917 grand jury was particularly interested in Ves’ testimony regarding bone in the bed since Bert McCaull’s flashing a piece of Joe’s skull around his pool hall was a key point in Detective J. N. Wilkerson’s case against Senator Frank Jones.

After the initial inspection, Hank left Ves and his helper Carl to the task.  They first cleaned the downstairs bedroom where the Stillinger girls were found.  The mattress with its soiled bed clothing inside were rolled up and taken out the front door.  The floor and walls were then scrubbed.  By this time young Carl had had enough.  Saying, “I cannot stand it,” he left for the front yard while Ves went upstairs to finish the job.

Cooney found the twisting stairs too narrow to accept the mattresses and bedding so he pushed each piece out the south windows.  As one bloody article slipped to the ground it stained the house siding.  Carl had by this time recovered sufficiently to fetch some white wash and painted out the bloody
stain.

The distinctive three-window set in the second floor children's bedroom was removed to allow the mattresses to be pushed out to the ground.

Ves had cut several pieces of wire found on the premises and now bound the upstairs bedding into bundles which he stacked in the dray wagon.  He and “Kettle” than rode to the town dump where he spent half a day burning these pathetic mementos of the Villisca axe murder.

This finished Ves’ contribution to the murder story.  Certainly his life contained days more pleasant than this bloody one in June 1912, but it is doubtful he experienced a more memorable day.  Born on a farm outside of Villisca in 1879, he married in 1905 and left Villisca in 1918.

He and his wife lived in various western Iowa towns ending up in Glenwood where he was a deputy sheriff for 16 years.  He died on June 16, 1945, at the age of 65.  In death he was returned to Villisca.  In the cemetery, his simple tombstone reads, “Ves Cooney” revealing, one suspects, a lifelong resentment of his given name "Sylvester".

Indulge me as I include a short final aside.  I have always envisioned the Villisca tragedy as a vehicle for a narrative film.  The story contains dozens of visual elements that cry out for a visual treatment.  Among these scenes none would be more compelling than Ves Cooney’s cleaning of the murder house.

Any director worth his or her salt would combine scenes from the funeral with Ves’ house cleaning.  Shots of the caskets being loaded in the town square, cutting to Ves heaving bloody bedclothes onto the dray wagon would be very compelling.  Finally, seeing the sad funeral cortege dissolve into Ves and “Kettle” atop the dray wagon as it plods to the burning dump would make a great cinematic sequence.

Unfortunately, Hollywood is obsessed with Batman and special effects, so I must content myself with books and lectures.

Virtual Villisca Cemetery - New Feature on Villisca Axe Murder Mystery Blog

This post will inaugurate a new feature on the 1912 Villisca Axe Murder Mystery Blog.

The Virtual Villisca Cemetery will provide readers with an opportunity to visit this beautiful spot in Southwest Iowa from afar, and a chance to read the fascinating stories behind people directly and indirectly involved in the Villisca Axe murder mystery.

We offer a special thank you to Dr Edgar V. Epperly for penning these articles and for sharing a small portion of his prodigious knowledge on this topic.  Having studied the crime since 1955, Ed is the foremost historical authority on the notorious and still-unsolved Villisca crime.

To view only the entries on this topic, select Virtual Villisca Cemetery from the "Categories" list on the right.

We look forward to receiving your comments and questions regarding this fascinating new addition to our blog.