The Unsolved Iowa Murders That Turned a Farmhouse Into One of America’s Most-Studied Crime Scenes

In the small farming town of Villisca, Iowa, where the population never exceeded 2,000 even at the height of its prosperity, this one-and-a-half-story frame house on Second Street is notable for being the scene of one of America’s most infamous unsolved crimes. Most people who know anything about the Villisca Axe Murder House are aware that eight people were found dead in their beds onefateful night in June 1912, a case that consumed countless hours of detectives, reporters, and the curious residents of this small town. Fewer people are aware that this case played a role in the creation of Iowa’s very first state investigative police force, or that the current owner still apologizes profusely to guests who arrive to spend the night in this haunted domicile, informing them that they will not be given a bed to sleep in, but instead a sleeping bag on the floor, because, despite being the site of one of the most chilling homicides in America, the house does not have electricity.

A Farmhouse on Second Street, and a Family Nobody Suspected

Josiah B. Moore, 43 years old, was one of the town’s most prosperous residents, a farmer’s implement dealer respected by his townspeople and confident in his position. His wife, Sarah, 39, and their four children, aged between 5 and 11, lived peacefully in theSecond Street house. However, the calm atmosphere was short-lived as on the evening of June 9, 1912, the Moores attended theChildren’s Day program at the local Presbyterian church, where their two smallest children had participated in the pageant. They tooktheir two children’s friends, sisters Lena and Ina Stillinger, to spend the night at their house. This was an ordinary occasion in the life of the prosperous farmer, but it would change everything for the Moore family, as the killer would arrive at the house with two additional victims.

Eight Blows in the Dark, and a Crime Scene Nobody Secured

One night, when the household was asleep, someone broke intothe house, took an axe from Josiah Moore’s yard, and killed all eight sleeping people with it, hitting each of them over the head, so that none of them woke up to see the murderer. The neighbor noticed that the Moore children did not come out to do the work the next morning and went upstairs to check. It was she who foundthe dead bodies of all eight people. The murderer had been lying in wait in the house as the family returned from church on Sunday, as indicated by the cigarette butts in the attic, which he had been smoking while watching the house. All mirrors in the house were covered, and a piece of bacon was left next to the axe, and all these things remain unexplained about the murder.

Whatever little chance there was of speeding up the investigationprocess disappeared within a few hours. The news of the cruel murders got into the village so fast that a group of residentsmanaged to reach the house before any security detail arrived and looted the place. Even when the local National Guard company arrived at the crime scene, some people had already takenpieces of the victims’ bones away as souvenirs. Later, Cedar Rapids Police Chief James M. Carl cited the Villisca killings as anexample of why the state needed better law enforcement practices. “Iowa does not have a unified criminal investigation system,” he said. “When such a serious crime occurs, the state attorneys are left alone to handle it. All the legislature could do was offer a reward of $300 for information leading to the arrest of the murderer or murderers.”

The Preacher, the Hitman, and the Serial Killer Theory

The list of suspects who were investigated during the following years reads like a series of true-crime archetypes. The Reverend George Kelly, an English-born itinerant preacher who had attended the same Children’s Day program and left Villisca on an early train the morningafter the murders, was suspected for years before being arrested in 1917, five years after the killings. Kelly wrote long, strange letters to the investigators, pretended to be a Scotland Yard detective to get access to the crime scene, and turned in a bloodstained shirt for cleaning at a local drugstore days after the murders; he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a history of arson. He confessed to the murders in 1917, then retracted his statement attrial. His first trial ended in a hung jury, and he was acquitted at his second.

Separately, a private investigator hired by the Moore family’s business rivals claimed that a local businessman by the name of Frank Jones had paid a violent career criminal known as “Blackie” Mansfield to kill Josiah Moore over a business dispute; payroll records placed Mansfield in Illinois on the night of the murders and a grand jury refused to indict Jones in 1916. A third theory points to Henry Lee Moore (no relation to any of the victims), a man who was later convicted of axing his own mother and grandmother to death mere months after the Villisca killings, whose crimes bear enough similarityto the Villisca case that some modern true-crime researchers, including the authors of the book The Man from the Train, have suggested that the murders were part of a much larger, unrecognized serial-killing spree which traveled the rails of the rural Midwest and South in the early twentieth century. Over a century later, noone theory has ever been proven to the satisfaction of history and the case remains officially unsolved.

A House Nearly Lost, and a Restoration That Went Backward on Purpose

For decades after the murders, the Moore house passed through a string of private owners, acquiring the usual trappings of twentieth-century life: vinyl siding over the original wood, enclosed porches, indoor plumbing and electrical wiring. By the early 1990s it was, by most accounts, in real danger of being torn down altogether. Darwin Linn bought the property in 1994 on what he later admitted was something close to an impulse. He and his wife spent the following years doing something most historic-home restorations do not: stripping the house of its modern conveniences rather than adding them. Working from old photographs and testimony taken at the original 1912 inquest and grand jury proceedings, the Linns tore out the vinyl siding, removed the enclosed porches, rebuilt the original pantry, and pulled out the electrical and plumbing systems entirely, deliberately returning the house to something close to its condition on the night of the murders. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, a year after the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance recognized the restoration with a preservation award. A donated barn built beside the house in the mid-2000s now holds the modern restrooms, small museum, and gift shop that keep the site running as a business, while the house itself remains, by design, stuck in 1912.

Why the Villisca Axe Murder House Is Considered Haunted

The Dark Room, and the Children Who Talk to Something Under the Bed

The current owners of the house, who have refurbished it back to its 1912 appearance and turned it into a museum, speak of a small room where the Stillinger sisters were killed as the place where the most reports of activity seem to happen. The first is an overwhelming sense of dread upon entering the room, which visitors report feeling over and over again. Second is that children on field trips have reported seeing something under the bed that their parents didn’t, and third, visitors and paranormal investigators have reported seeing wisps of fog linger between therooms and captured on camera. Finally, spikes in electromagnetic fields, which are what ghost-hunting equipment is designed to pick up, have been reported.

EVPs, Orbs, and the Investigator Who Woke Up in the Hospital

Villisca has become a hotbed for amateur and professional paranormal investigators, many of whom have claimed to recordelectronic voice phenomena within the house, snippets of sound,interpreted by the house’s own operators, as attempts by the victims, possibly the killer, to communicate. The house’s own operators recount one particularly harrowing tale from 2014, in which a visitor, having entered the house alone at night, carrying a hunting knife in violation of the property’s rules, after apparently attempting to summon a response from the house’s spirits, was later found unconscious with a self-inflicted stab wound he could not explain or recall causing; he is said to have returned afterwards to apologize. Whatever did actually occur, the story has taken on life as its own myth to the house’s visitors, told as a lesson in the dangers to those who would seek what they do not truly understand.

The 2 A.M. Train, and a House Built for “Dark Tourism”

Some of the house’s most consistent reports occur at an oddly specific time, around 2 a.m., when, according to overnight guests, disturbances peak. The hours around this time also happen to be roughly when freight trains still pass through the town, and some visitors believe the wail of their whistles somehow imprints on the house’s very bones, recalling the crime’s echo. Skeptics or not, the house has joined the short list of a growing few in the UnitedStates who are considered “dark tourism” or “thanatourism” attractions, sites where, as one academic definition puts it, touristsgo to experience death and tragedy. A 2016 magazine profile of the owner of the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts, listed the Villisca house as “crucial” alongside Borden’s home on any tour of American crime-scene tourism, noting matter-of-factly that overnight visitors could sleep there, but had to bring their own sleeping bag, since the house still has no electricity and does not offer a guided tour after dark.

Visiting the Villisca Axe Murder House Today

The Villisca axe murder house is located at 508 E 2nd Street,Villisca, Iowa, in the south-western part of the state. The house offers day and overnight tours. It is important to note that day visitor tours, hours, and availability change throughout the year and should be booked by phone or text at (712) 250-5122 or through the online booking system at the house’s website.

Day tours of the house are self-guided, with EMF detectors to rent for those who want to investigate if the house is genuinely haunted or just a trick. It is possible to book a private tour for a smallparty of up to 16 people for $300 for up to ten people, with additional guests welcome at $20. It is also possible to have a GPS walking tour of the Villisca cemetery, where several of the murder victims are buried, either with a smartphone app or a private guide.

Overnight accommodation is the main feature of this location, with prices for the whole house and a maximum of 5 people setat $199 per night for one of three individual rooms, the Stillinger Room, the Moores’ Room, or the Children’s Room, or $599 per night. Fromthe end of February to the end of November, the price is discounted by about 20 percent. As expected, the house does notprovide any electric appliances, water, or electricity. Visitors are asked to bring a sleeping bag and a cot if they wish to spend the night. However, those who prefer more comfortable but still period-appropriate conditions may use toilets and fridges in the next building, the restored barn. The house rules forbid using candles, smoking, vaping, or incense. In addition, visitors may not touch any of the window blinds or the covered mirrors in the house.

Would you spend a night in the Stillinger Room, or is a daytime tour more your speed? Let us know in the comments below.

Sources consulted for the historical details in this post include Tom Chorneau, “Shootout at the Carbarn Café,” in Mrs. Cook and the Klan: Booze, Bloodshed, and Bigotry in America’s Heartland (Bison Books, 2024), pp. 152–158; Jack Hitt, “Forty Whacks, Forty Winks: Lee-ann Wilber’s Crime-Scene Bed and Breakfast,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Winter 2016): 14–19; the Wikipedia entry on the Villisca axe murders; and the Villisca Axe Murder House’s official website for its renovation history, reported hauntings, and current visitor information.