The Year of the Ax

Between June of 1911 and June of 1912, America’s heartland lived in fear. From Oregon to Iowa, entire families were slaughtered in their beds — curtains drawn, lamps dimmed, the blunt edge of an axe left behind. The trail of terror ran through Ardenwald, Rainier, Colorado Springs, Monmouth, Ellsworth, and Paola, before ending with the infamous Villisca murders.

Was it the work of one shadowy figure riding the rails, or a series of eerie coincidences? Detectives of the day struggled with poor science, conflicting rumors, and too many suspects — men like Henry Lee Moore, William Mansfield, Rev. George Kelly, Charles Marzyck, Nathan B. Harvey, and George Wilson. None were ever proven guilty.

In this episode of Curator135, we retrace that chilling year of violence, the communities shattered in silence, and the questions that remain more than a century later.

Transcript

In the summer of 1911, lawmen faced a battlefield they weren’t fully equipped for. Modern forensic methods—DNA, ballistic matching, blood typing—were still decades away. Fingerprinting was just crossing the threshold of legitimacy, and few jurisdictions had reliable procedures to lift or compare prints. Rural sheriffs and small-city detectives generally collected evidence with their eyes, their instincts, and their notebooks.

One of the first major legal validations of fingerprint evidence in the United States came in People v. Jennings in Illinois, in December 1911. There, four latent prints lifted from a railing were linked to Thomas Jennings, which helped convict him of burglary and murder. In affirming the verdict, the Illinois Supreme Court wrote that fingerprint identification “is in such general and common use that the courts cannot refuse to take judicial cognizance of it.” 

 But that legal turn came after many of the ax murders you’ll hear about in this episode. Before then, prints were often treated skeptically, or excluded entirely by defense lawyers as an unproven novelty. 

Even when local detectives tried to use fingerprints, the infrastructure simply was not in place. If an investigator in Kansas lifted a print, he had no database to compare it against outside his county. He couldn’t send it to an FBI fingerprint bureau—because no national bureau yet existed. Interstate cooperation was informal and slow. Police departments in 1911 relied mainly on telegraphs, dispatch riders, or letters to communicate. A sheriff might send a message to a neighboring county about a suspect, but by the time it arrived, the suspect might already be many miles away.

Meanwhile, crime scenes were fragile. The idea of preserving a scene—keeping neighbors and curious onlookers away—was often overlooked or impossible to enforce. In towns where everyone knew everyone, it was normal for neighbors, sightseers, children, and even local reporters to walk freely across crime scenes, disturb footprints, touch weapons, and move furniture. Evidence was lost before any detective arrived. In Villisca, for example, by the time the sheriff’s office cordoned off the Moore home, it had already been invaded by townsfolk hoping to glimpse the horror inside. 

Then there was gossip. Small towns were abundant with whisper networks. A local preacher saw someone leaving town at night. A drifter passed through, unaccounted for. A neighbor had threatened the family. These stories circulated fast—often faster than the sheriff’s report. A detective had to filter rumor from fact, chasing leads that frequently dead-ended. In many of these ax murder cases, dozens of “suspects” were named—not because investigators had real evidence, but because someone in town believed they saw or heard something suspicious.

To get a sense of how this played out in real time, let’s turn to Ardenwald, Oregon, June 1911—where the first of these slaughters shattered a quiet community and set the tone for fear to come.

Excerpt from the Morning Oregonian, December 21, 1911

As the local press recounted, when Nathan Harvey was arrested in connection with the Ardenwald murders, he “did not show the least alarm.” Harvey denied involvement in the crime and published a long statement:

“I do not deserve to be here. I am no more guilty of the crime than any man within the reach of my voice. … I started for Portland from my home at 3 o’clock in the afternoon of June 8 … arriving at Ardenwald station at 11:15 or 11:30 o’clock, walked straight home. I did not notice a light in the Hill cabin, nor did I see an ax at the Delk cabin. … I went home and went to bed … I knew nothing about the murder until the officers told me of it.” 

The Oregon Daily Journal also reported on those remarks, noting that Harvey “admitted passing the Hill home on the morning of the murder,” but denied seeing any sign of violence or involvement. 

In December 1911, a land meeting of more than 500 citizens gathered to sign a petition calling for the charges against Harvey to be dropped—but some locals were less forgiving. As quoted in The Oregonian, an anonymous landowner declared:

“Except by his friends, Harvey is feared … There are those possessed of evidence in the case that could incriminate Harvey. If fears of possible retribution from the man are allayed I think they can be induced to tell what they know.” 

These tension-filled lines show the heat of small-town suspicion, the clamor of public pressure, and the difficulty for any detective to sift true threat from speculation.

Welcome to year five of the Curator135 podcast. My name is Nathan Olli and this, is Episode 94 The Year of the Ax.

THE ARDENWALD MURDERS – JUNE 9, 1911

On the morning of June 9, 1911, the quiet district of Ardenwald—just outside Portland, Oregon—woke to a sight that seemed ripped from a nightmare. Ardenwald was a small, growing neighborhood, straddling the line between Portland and the farming communities further south. Its residents were mostly working families. The Hills had only recently moved there, hoping for a fresh start in a modest cottage. They didn’t have much, but like many Americans at the time, they had their health, their children, and the promise of new beginnings.

William Hill was a contractor by trade, a man who’d worked hard to build a life for his wife, Ruth, and their small children. Ruth was known to be kind and sociable, someone who welcomed neighbors and looked after her children with quiet dedication. Living with them were two children from Ruth’s first marriage—five-year-old Dorothy Rintoul and her older brother, Philip, just eight. Dorothy was remembered as cheerful and lively, while Philip, a sturdy boy, was said to resemble his father’s steady, serious nature.

That summer evening, the Hill family went to bed in their little home, pulling the curtains closed against the outside world. Nothing about the day suggested the horror to come. But in the small hours of the night, someone slipped inside the cottage, carrying a lantern or striking matches, and set to work with an ax.

The next morning, the Hills’ absence was noticed by neighbors. When someone peered inside, they saw Dorothy’s body first—crumpled on the floor near the bed. When authorities entered the house, the full scene emerged. William and Ruth lay in bed, their skulls crushed. Philip’s small body was found near his mother’s. The weapon—an ax—was left behind. Windows were covered, curtains drawn tight. It was a slaughter that seemed both random and ritual.

Newspapers described the scene with shock and awe. The Oregonian wrote:

“The ghastly spectacle was one to unnerve the strongest, the victims lying in pools of blood where they had been struck down as they slept.”

To the community, it seemed unimaginable. A whole family murdered in their beds, without warning, without robbery, without apparent reason.

Multnomah County Sheriff E.C. Mass and his deputies quickly descended on the scene. But 1911 detectives lacked the tools modern investigators would take for granted. Blood evidence was useless. No one thought to dust for prints. Instead, they relied on hounds—bloodhounds brought to the scene in hopes of trailing the killer’s scent.

For a time, the dogs seemed to catch a trail, following it toward nearby properties. But like so many manhunts of the era, the trail went cold, and the dogs were left wandering. Detectives interviewed neighbors, asked about strange men seen passing through, and tried to piece together who might have wanted the Hill family dead.

The strongest suspicion fell on Nathan B. Harvey, a local landowner. Harvey had a dispute with William Hill over property rights, and when murders happen in small towns, investigators often start with personal feuds. In December 1911, Harvey was arrested, and the local press splashed the story across headlines.

Harvey himself insisted on his innocence. In a lengthy statement published in the papers, he said:

“I do not deserve to be here. I am no more guilty of the crime than any man within the reach of my voice … I went home and went to bed … I knew nothing about the murder until the officers told me of it.”

The arrest divided the community. Some 500 citizens signed a petition calling for his release, arguing there was no real evidence. Others whispered that Harvey was a dangerous man, feared by many in Ardenwald, and that witnesses were too intimidated to speak openly against him. One resident told the Oregonian:

“Except by his friends, Harvey is feared … There are those possessed of evidence in the case that could incriminate Harvey. If fears of possible retribution from the man are allayed I think they can be induced to tell what they know.”

Ultimately, there wasn’t enough to hold him. Harvey was freed within a week of his arrest. By February 1912, a judge dismissed the case entirely. The murders of the Hill family, and little Dorothy and Philip Rintoul, remained unsolved.

The Ardenwald killings didn’t just shake a neighborhood—they planted seeds of fear up and down the Pacific Northwest. Here was a family annihilated in the night, a weapon left behind, no robbery, and no clear motive. Within a month, another family would be found dead in Washington, killed in a strikingly similar way.

Detectives in Oregon wondered: was Harvey guilty and now free to kill again? Or was Ardenwald only the first step in something larger, something more terrifying than a neighbor’s grudge?

Looking back, Ardenwald feels like the prologue to a grim story. A house full of sleeping innocents. A killer who moved like a shadow. And police who were left with nothing but questions.

Rainier, Washington, was a railroad town of just a few hundred souls in 1911. Life revolved around the tracks—trains carrying timber, farm goods, and passengers between Portland and Seattle. It was here that Archie Coble, just 25 years old, lived with his young wife Nettie, only 17. The couple had married only months earlier, beginning life together in a rented home near the rails.

By all accounts, they were ordinary people. Archie was a section laborer, known for steady work and steady habits. Nettie was little more than a girl, remembered as bright-eyed and gentle, still more teenager than woman. They were just starting their married life when death struck in the cruelest fashion.

On the night of July 9, 1911, someone entered the Coble home as the couple slept. By morning, neighbors discovered a scene of shocking violence. Archie and Nettie were found in their bed, their skulls crushed by repeated blows. Nettie’s body bore evidence of sexual assault. In a chair near the bed sat a cigarette, left by the intruder.

The crime rocked Rainier. To kill a young couple in their own home was horrific enough; to defile Nettie in death and linger long enough to smoke a cigarette in the same room added a dimension of cruelty that townsfolk struggled to comprehend.

Sheriff Mathews of Thurston County led the inquiry. He had little to work with: a broken lamp, a bloody ax handle, the cigarette stub. As in Ardenwald a month earlier, there was no theft and no obvious motive. The Cobles had no known enemies.

Detectives and townsfolk immediately suspected outsiders—railroad tramps, drifters, and laborers who came and went with the trains. Within days, names began to surface: John McQueen, a logger; Arthur Pierce, a transient worker; Swan Peterson, a laborer known to wander. All were questioned, some jailed briefly, and then released when evidence failed to hold.

The investigation eventually focused on George H. Wilson, a section hand who had been drinking heavily around the time of the murders. Wilson gave contradictory statements under questioning, raising suspicions. Reports claimed that he even confessed at one point, though he later retracted the admission. Another man, E. G. Smith, was also pulled in for questioning, adding yet another name to the growing list of suspects.

In the end, it was George Wilson who faced trial. Prosecutors built their case on circumstantial evidence: his proximity to the Cobles, his inconsistent stories, and alleged remarks that hinted at guilt. On October 18, 1911, a jury found Wilson guilty—not of first-degree murder, but of second-degree. The verdict suggested doubt lingered in the minds of jurors, but not enough to set him free. He was sentenced to prison.

Was Justice Served?

With Wilson behind bars, the people of Rainier could breathe a little easier. But even then, questions remained. Did Wilson truly kill Archie and Nettie Coble? Or had he simply been the most convenient target for a crime that horrified the state? His conviction meant Rainier was sometimes written off as an isolated case, not part of the wider “year of the ax.” Yet the similarities were plain to anyone who looked closely.

The victims were killed in their bed, skulls crushed. The weapon was blunt, wielded with terrible force. There was no robbery. The house stood near the railroad, a common feature in these cases. And then there was the peculiar cigarette left behind—an image that haunted newspaper readers as much as it did the sheriff.

For Rainier, the murders left scars. Families began locking their doors at night, leaving lamps burning until dawn. Strangers were watched with suspicion, especially men who rode the rails. Some saw Wilson’s conviction as justice done; others whispered that the real killer had gotten away, free to strike again.

And strike again someone did. Within two months, in Colorado Springs, another family—or two—would be found slaughtered in their beds. Whether the same hand held the ax, or whether Rainier was simply a grim coincidence, remains a question that lingers more than a century later.

Colorado Springs woke to an awful arithmetic in late September: six dead in two neighboring houses just west of the downtown tracks—one man, two women, and three children. The murders were carried out in the dark, with the blunt end of an ax, and went undiscovered for days, until the smell of death forced a door. The victims were the Wayne and Burnham families, living only steps apart at 743 Harrison Place and 321 West Dale Street.

In the Harrison Place cottage lay Henry F. Wayne, 30, his wife Blanche McGinnis Wayne, 26, and their 2-year-old daughter (also listed in the paper as “Blanch”). A few steps away, in the Dale Street cottage, officers found Mrs. Alice May Burnham, 25, and her children, Alice, 6, and John, 3. Alice’s husband, Arthur J. (“A. J.”) Burnham, worked as a yardman at the Modern Woodmen of America’s tuberculosis sanatorium outside town and was the only adult to survive—because he wasn’t at home. 

The houses were close enough that neighbors could stand in the lane and see both front rooms. The families’ ties to the Modern Woodmen sanatorium—Colorado Springs’ prominent TB facility—were part of why they were here; A. J. Burnham lived and worked there, a dozen miles away, when the killings happened.

On Wednesday, September 20, 1911, Mrs. Nettie Ruth (Alice Burnham’s sister) and friend Miss Anna Merritt used a key to enter the Burnham home after not seeing the family for several days. They found blood on the wall and the small body of a child on the bed. Police were called; officers then forced entry at the Waynes’ house and found the second scene. The Gazette’s account specifies the blinds were down, the rooms dim, and that all six victims had their skulls smashed with a heavy instrument. 

Details fixed an unmistakable pattern. Robbery wasn’t the motive—jewelry and a gold watch were untouched. Entry and exit appeared to be through windows in both houses; in one, a skeleton key may have sprung a door latch, and in the other, a window ink bottle was tipped, leaving a stain someone tried to wipe away. There are signs the killer tried to set a fire in the Burnham home—charred curtain and burned newspaper—a clumsy attempt to erase the crime. The murder weapon at the Wayne house was identified as an ax Wayne had borrowed from a neighbor, Mrs. J. R. Evans, days earlier; the killer left it behind. 

Police fetched A. J. Burnham from the Modern Woodmen sanatorium and “held him” while they worked their leads. The press noted his flat affect when confronted with the bodies; papers leaned on it hard, and gossip made him a ready suspect. But the timeline didn’t fit: workers at the sanatorium accounted for his whereabouts, and officials noted he hadn’t been to town since mid-week. He was not charged; no one ever was. 

What mattered to detectives then—and matters to us now—are a handful of consistent, physical choices that echo through the other cases in this series:

Whole families killed as they slept, with a household tool used on the blunt side.

Weapon abandoned at or near the scene.

Rooms darkened—in Colorado Springs, window blinds were drawn—and no real theft.

Rail adjacency: the cottages stood just a few houses from the railway line.

Even the timing fits the broader pattern investigators would spot that fall: a Sunday-night attack (the Gazette’s reconstruction places the killings late Sunday, September 17, or in the early hours of Monday), followed by days of silence until someone came knocking. 

Monmouth, Illinois, was a prairie town of about 10,000 people in 1911, proud of its churches and colleges. On the morning of Sunday, October 1, 1911, worshippers gathered at the First Presbyterian Church on East Broadway, expecting the sexton to open the doors and ring the bell. But William E. Dawson, 56, never arrived. That absence was unusual enough to spark concern: Dawson had been sexton for years, and he lived just a short walk from the church with his family.

Parishioners went to the Dawsons’ small house at 307 South Fifth Street. The curtains were drawn. Knocks went unanswered. A neighbor fetched the police. What they found inside turned Monmouth upside down.

On the bed lay William Dawson, his wife Charity Dawson, 45, and their daughter Georgia Dawson, 14. All three had been bludgeoned to death as they slept. Their skulls were crushed by a heavy piece of iron pipe that had been left at the scene. There were no signs of robbery. The Dawsons were an unassuming family, with no known enemies. William’s reputation as a church sexton made the crime feel especially sacrilegious to townsfolk: a family tied to faith, wiped out in silence.

Reporters were quick to note details that felt disturbingly familiar. The curtains were closed tight. A lamp chimney had been removed and set aside so the wick could burn dim. The murder weapon came from the home itself—an iron pipe taken from Dawson’s property. Like Ardenwald, like Rainier, like Colorado Springs, the weapon was abandoned at the scene.

Neighbors insisted they had heard nothing during the night. No screams. No breaking glass. Whoever entered the Dawson home had done so with stealth, carried out the murders with speed, and slipped away without raising an alarm.

With the community in shock, Monmouth authorities began grasping for suspects. At first, suspicion fell on John and William Heffernan, two brothers who lived nearby. Rumors tied them to the Dawsons through old grudges, but no evidence materialized. Another man, a tramp seen loitering by the depot, was arrested briefly and released.

The pattern of the crime soon drew attention beyond Illinois. Reporters and detectives began noting similarities with the murders in Colorado Springs only two weeks earlier: whole families killed in bed, blinds drawn, lamps dimmed, blunt household tools used, weapons left behind. In Monmouth, the eerie idea took hold that a single killer might be traveling by train, annihilating families at random.

The Chicago Tribune ran headlines comparing Monmouth to Colorado Springs. The Monmouth Review Atlas reprinted wire stories about the “ax fiend” loose in the West. The word “fiend” became a fixture in coverage—a way for small-town papers to capture the sense of something inhuman moving along the rails.

Local gossip filled in the rest. Some insisted the Dawsons must have been targeted for a reason—perhaps a family secret, a financial dispute, or revenge. Others feared the opposite: that there was no reason at all, and that the killer could strike any family, in any town, without warning.

Monmouth responded the way other towns had: with fear and vigilance. Families began sleeping with lamps on. Men patrolled the depot at night, watching for strangers stepping off the trains. The Dawsons were buried in a somber service attended by nearly the entire congregation of First Presbyterian, the very church William had served.

The murders were never solved. No one was convicted. To this day, the Dawsons’ case is remembered not for its resolution but for how it deepened the sense that a serial hand was at work in America’s heartland.

Ellsworth, Kansas, was a classic rail town — a settlement that had grown up along the Kansas Pacific line, with cattle pens, freight sidings, and modest frame houses clustered near the tracks. By the fall of 1911, towns across the Midwest were already on edge. News of the Dawson family murders in Monmouth had reached Kansas by telegraph and press wires. When the Showman family was found dead in their beds in Ellsworth on Monday morning, October 16, 1911, the echoes were unmistakable.

The victims were William Showman, 36, his wife Pauline, 30, and their three children: Lulu, 9; Fern, 6; and Willie, just 3. Neighbors described the Showmans as a respectable family. William worked as a farm laborer and odd-job man, known around town for his willingness to help neighbors. Pauline was spoken of as quiet and devoted to her children.

On that Monday morning, a neighbor grew concerned when the house remained silent. Curtains were drawn tight. The front door was locked. When entry was forced, the full horror was revealed: all five Showmans had been murdered in their beds, their skulls crushed by the blunt end of an ax.

The details could have been copied from Colorado Springs or Monmouth:

Windows covered and blinds pulled.

Lamp chimney removed, the wick turned down so the flame would glow dimly.

Weapon left behind — William’s own ax, stained with blood, leaned against a wall.

Even the telephone in the house was covered with cloth, as if the killer wished to stifle any sound or symbol of connection to the outside world.

Neighbors insisted they had heard nothing. No screams, no breaking glass, no struggle. The family had simply vanished into silence overnight.

Suspicion quickly fell on Charles Marzyck, Pauline’s former brother-in-law. Reports claimed Marzyck had threatened the Showmans in the past and held bitter grudges. He had also disappeared from the area around the time of the murders. Authorities pursued him across state lines and eventually tracked him to Kamloops, British Columbia, where he was arrested and extradited back to Kansas.

For weeks, Marzyck’s name dominated headlines. But the case against him fell apart when he produced an alibi, corroborated by witnesses. By the spring of 1912, charges were dropped. Despite the dramatic chase, there was no conviction, and Ellsworth remained unsolved.

For detectives and journalists, Ellsworth added fuel to the theory of a traveling killer. The parallels were impossible to ignore: the blinds drawn, the lamp darkened, the ax left behind, and the proximity to the railroad. It was almost as though the killer had a script he was following town to town.

At the same time, local authorities were reluctant to believe an unknown drifter could have slipped in, killed an entire family, and disappeared without leaving a trace. It was easier to pin suspicion on someone tied to the family, like Marzyck. In the absence of hard evidence, suspicion simply shifted back and forth, with no resolution.

The murder of the Showman family spread panic across Kansas. In Ellsworth, townsfolk formed vigilance committees. Farmers began sleeping with shotguns by their beds. Strangers who stepped off the trains were eyed with suspicion.

And yet, the murders stopped as suddenly as they had come — at least for the moment. For the next several months, the ax fell silent. But by June 1912, in nearby Paola, Kansas, and then just days later in Villisca, Iowa, the terror would erupt again.

After the Showman murders in Ellsworth, Kansas, in October 1911, the killings seemed to stop. For more than seven months, there were no new reports of entire families bludgeoned in their beds. Some detectives allowed themselves to hope the nightmare was over. Perhaps the fiend had been jailed on another charge. Perhaps he had moved on to a distant state, never to return.

But in early June 1912, the silence broke.

In the quiet town of Paola, Kansas, about 40 miles south of Kansas City, lived newlyweds Rollin Hudson and his wife Anna. Rollin was in his early 30s, a hardworking man employed in the local mills. Anna was just 21, remembered as lively and devoted to her new home. The couple had been married less than a year.

On the night of Wednesday, June 5, 1912, Rollin and Anna went to bed in their small cottage. By the following morning, neighbors noticed that the Hudson home was strangely silent. A friend, concerned, looked in through a window. What they saw inside brought the horror of Ardenwald, Rainier, Colorado Springs, Monmouth, and Ellsworth back to life.

Rollin and Anna Hudson lay in their bed, skulls crushed by repeated blows from a blunt tool. Some reports identified the weapon as a pickax or heavy ax head. Once again, the killer had followed the familiar script:

Blinds drawn tight. Lamp chimney removed, the wick turned down so the flame would burn low. 

Weapon abandoned in the house. No theft or robbery to explain the crime.

The house stood near the railroad tracks. And, as in Ellsworth, the attack came on a quiet night when neighbors heard nothing.

Even more disturbing, the Hudsons weren’t the only target that night. Just a few blocks away, another Paola family was startled awake by the sound of breaking glass. A lamp chimney had been knocked over, and someone was moving inside their home. The family shouted, and the intruder fled into the darkness. They were left shaken but alive.

This attempted second strike, on the same night, is one of the most haunting details of Paola. Whoever the killer was, he seemed intent on murdering more than one household before the night was through.

Sheriff J. J. McDonald and his deputies scoured Paola for clues. Bloodhounds were brought in, following a scent from the Hudson house toward the railroad depot before losing the trail. As in every other case, there was no robbery, no obvious motive, and no clear suspect.

Reporters immediately connected Paola to the earlier cases. The Miami Republican ran with the headline “Fiendish Double Murder,” describing the Hudsons’ cottage as “a chamber of death” and drawing parallels to the Monmouth and Ellsworth crimes.

Suspicion fell briefly on local men — drifters, laborers, even acquaintances of Rollin Hudson — but nothing stuck. In the absence of a clear suspect, the case quickly joined the growing list of unsolved family slaughters.

The Paola murders would be shocking enough on their own. But what makes them chilling in hindsight is their timing. Only four days later, on the night of June 9, 1912, the Moore family and two Stillinger girls would be murdered in Villisca, Iowa. The parallels between Paola and Villisca — the drawn blinds, the darkened lamps, the abandoned weapon, the nearness to the rails, the Sunday-night timing in Villisca — are so strong that many historians believe Paola and Villisca were carried out by the same hand.

Whether that hand belonged to one man or several, the terror that had seemed to fade after Ellsworth returned in full force in Kansas — and it was about to explode into national headlines in Iowa.

On Sunday, June 9, 1912, the town of Villisca, Iowa, hummed with small-town ritual. Located in Montgomery County, Villisca had fewer than 2,000 residents at the time — farmers, merchants, railroad workers, and their families. The biggest event of the day was the Children’s Day program at the Presbyterian Church. It was an annual affair, a mix of hymns and recitations by the youth of the congregation. Nearly the entire town turned out to watch.

Among the performers were the Moore children — Herman, 11; Katherine, 10; Boyd, 7; and Paul, just 5. Their parents, Josiah “Joe” Moore, 43, a successful businessman who sold farm equipment, and Sarah Montgomery Moore, 39, were well-known and respected in Villisca. Joe had been in business with the town’s powerful state senator, Frank F. Jones, but their partnership had ended bitterly, leaving a trail of bad blood. Sarah was a devoted churchwoman, often helping with Sunday programs.

That evening, after the service ended around 9:30 p.m., the Moore children invited their friends Lena Stillinger, 12, and her sister Ina, 8, to spend the night. The Stillinger girls lived just outside town, but after the program, they were happy to stay with friends rather than make the late walk home.

The Moore house at 508 East Second Street filled with the noise of children settling in after a long day. By 11 p.m., the house was dark. Eight people slept inside.

Sometime after midnight, a killer entered. Whether he slipped in during the church service and hid in the attic, or crept in later, remains debated. What’s certain is that he moved from room to room with methodical brutality.

In the upstairs bedroom, Joe and Sarah Moore were struck first. Joe received the most blows — his face battered beyond recognition, his skull split. Sarah was next.

Then the killer moved to the room where the Moore children slept. Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul were each bludgeoned in their beds.

Finally, he went downstairs to the guest room, where Lena and Ina Stillinger lay. Both girls were struck fatally. Lena, according to later reports, was found in a pose suggesting she may have awakened and struggled; some evidence suggested she had been sexually assaulted.

When it was done, eight lives were gone. The killer left the Moore family’s ax leaning against a wall. He draped cloths over mirrors and windows, as if to stifle the gaze of the dead or block the dawn’s light. A lamp sat on the floor, its chimney removed, the wick turned low to cast only the faintest glow. A slab of bacon, inexplicably, was found on the floor beside the ax, wrapped in a dish towel. Another piece of bacon was discovered in the icebox.

No neighbors heard screams. No one saw the intruder slip away into the night.

On Monday morning, June 10, neighbor Mary Peckham noticed the Moore house was unusually still. Joe Moore was a man of punctual habits. By 7:30 a.m., the family should have been up and about, tending to chores. Peckham knocked, then tried the door — locked. She let the Moore chickens out of their coop, then called Joe’s brother, Ross Moore.

Ross arrived with a key, entered the house, and within moments came staggering back outside. The first body he saw was one of the Stillinger girls in the guest bed. Ross shouted for Mary Peckham to summon the marshal.

Town marshal Hank Horton arrived quickly. Inside, he confirmed what Ross had seen: the entire household was dead. Horton ordered the house sealed. But word spread fast. Before long, dozens — then hundreds — of curious townsfolk tramped through the Moore house, disturbing evidence, even taking small items as morbid souvenirs. By the end of the day, the crime scene was irreparably contaminated.

The Villisca murders drew national attention. Telegraph wires carried the story coast to coast. Headlines called it “The Ax Murders of Villisca” and described the killer as a “human fiend.” The press connected the crime almost immediately to the string of family slayings of 1911 and 1912.

Detectives and local authorities struggled. Bloodhounds were brought in and allegedly tracked a scent toward the railroad depot, but the trail vanished. Trains were searched as far away as Clarinda and Red Oak, but no suspect was found.

Over the years, Villisca produced more suspects than perhaps any other small-town murder in American history. A few names stand out:

Rev. George Kelly: A peculiar, itinerant preacher from England who had attended the Children’s Day program. Kelly was described as unstable, obsessed with sex, and prone to bizarre behavior. He left Villisca on an early-morning train hours after the murders. Years later, in 1917, Kelly was arrested, interrogated, and coerced into a confession, which he quickly recanted. He was tried twice; the first jury hung, and the second acquitted him. Kelly walked free, but many historians still consider him a prime suspect.

William “Blackie” Mansfield: A man later tied to ax murders in other states. Detective James Wilkerson accused him of being a hired killer sent by Villisca’s state senator Frank Jones, Joe Moore’s business rival. Mansfield had an alibi and later sued successfully for wrongful arrest.

Henry Lee Moore: A convicted ax murderer who killed his mother and grandmother in Missouri in December 1912. A Justice Department agent linked him to Villisca and the 1911–1912 murders, but most modern scholars doubt the connection.

Frank F. Jones: Joe Moore’s former partner and bitter rival. Some locals whispered that Jones had ordered the murders to end Moore’s competition in farm equipment sales. No evidence ever proved the claim.

Others — drifters, ex-employees, even traveling ministers — were arrested and released. No one was ever convicted.

Villisca lived under a cloud for years. Families began sleeping with lamps on, doors locked, shotguns by their beds. Children were told not to speak to strangers. Farmers formed watch patrols. For small-town America, the idea that a killer could annihilate a family in their own home — and get away with it — was a shattering blow.

The national press compared Villisca to Colorado Springs, Monmouth, and Ellsworth. Detectives from multiple states wondered if a single hand had traveled the rail lines, killing families as he went. Or had Villisca simply drawn the short straw in a grim season of coincidences?

More than a century later, Villisca remains the most infamous of the 1911–1912 murders. Its details are retold in books, documentaries, and ghost-tour folklore. The Moore home still stands, restored to its 1912 appearance, and is now a site for history buffs and paranormal investigators alike.

But beneath the lore, the horror remains plain: eight people — six of them children — slaughtered in their beds, in a town that never truly recovered.

The ax murderer of Villisca was never caught. Whether he was the same figure who killed in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Illinois, and Kansas — or whether multiple killers happened to follow the same terrible script — is a question that still hangs in the air.

A century has passed since the summer of 1911 and that bloody night in Villisca in June of 1912. And yet, the questions remain.

Was it one man who traveled the rails, slipping from Oregon to Washington, Colorado to Illinois, Kansas to Iowa — carrying an ax and a terrible ritual? Or were these crimes the work of multiple killers, connected only by coincidence and method? Detectives at the time couldn’t decide. Historians today still argue both sides.

The suspects were many. Ministers, drifters, jealous rivals, hired killers, even family members. Some were arrested, others tried, all eventually walked free. The lack of science, the contaminated crime scenes, and the slow pace of communication meant that vital evidence was lost before anyone knew how to use it. In the end, no jury ever convicted a single man for the year of the ax.

Over the decades, countless writers and investigators have tried to solve the mystery. Roy Marshall’s book Villisca: The True Account of the Unsolved 1912 Mass Murder That Stunned the Nation was one of the first to gather every available fact. Dr. Edgar V. Epperly, who spent more than sixty years researching the case, produced Fiend Incarnate: Villisca ax Murders of 1912, widely considered the definitive work. More recently, Beth Klingensmith’s Murder in the Heartland and documentaries like Villisca: Living with a Mystery have kept the story alive for new generations. Each adds perspective. None can provide a final answer.

And then there is the house itself. The modest white frame home at 508 East Second Street in Villisca still stands. Restored to its 1912 appearance, it is now a museum and a strange kind of shrine. For a fee, visitors can tour the rooms by day or even spend the night, bedding down in the same rooms where the Moore children and the Stillinger sisters once slept. Paranormal investigators flock there, reporting whispers, moving objects, and the feeling of being watched. For others, it is history made real — the closest they will ever come to understanding the fear that gripped Villisca in June of 1912.

What is certain is that the Villisca murders, and the wave of killings that preceded them, left a scar on the American heartland. They shattered the illusion of safety in small towns where doors were once left unlocked and neighbors trusted one another without question. They revealed the limits of early 20th-century detective work. And they created a mystery that still lingers in every covered mirror, every drawn curtain, every quiet railroad town that wonders if the ax man passed through one night long ago.

The questions remain. And maybe that’s why the story still grips us — because we know there was a killer out there, or perhaps more than one, who walked away into the night and was never found.

What do you think? Let me know. I’ll have photos and news articles up on the website soon. Curator 135 dot com. 

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