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MASS MURDER: Villisca Axe Murders

 How can an entire household get brutalised overnight and nobody for the next 110 years has solved it?

At the end of a quiet street in Villisca, Ohio stood a white-panelled family home. During the daytime it sounded like the usual young family household, kids would be laughing and screaming as their parents watched them with loving gazes. It was one of those days when the kids were running wild with a couple of their friends, enjoying the promise of a sleepover. The night came, as it did every other day, and the house went silent as the inhabitants settled into their respective beds.

Josiah (43) and Sarah Moore (39) were upstairs in their room whilst their four children slept down the hall from them. Herman Montgomery (11), Mary Katherine (10), Arthur Boyd (7) and Paul Vernon (5) all shared the room barely able to hold their eyes open from a day of excitement. Downstairs the pair of friends had settled into the guest room, Ina May (8) and Lena Stillinger (12) were alone on the ground floor.

Shortly after midnight, the front door was opened, and it was left unlocked which was a common sight in the quaint area. The stranger that entered the home grabbed an oil lamp, setting it to burn low holding it with one hand whilst carrying an axe in the other.

The stranger or possibly strangers went upstairs first, bypassing all the sleeping kids and going straight to the sleeping adults. The blade of the axe was raised high in the air over Josiah’s head, taking a chip out of the ceiling. After they had killed Josiah, they moved on to Sarah but rather than using the blade of the weapon they used the blunt side. With the adults or the biggest threats to the murderer(s) gone, they went over to where the Moore kids were sleeping and what they did to Sarah they did to all four sleeping children. Then they went downstairs and repeated that to Ina. Sadly, Lena had woken up at some point in the attack and tried to fight back, gaining a defensive wound on her arm. When her body was found she was lying horizontal on the bed with her nightdress pushed up to her waist without undergarments on leading the police to believe she had been assaulted during the attack.

The killer(s) with the bodies in the beds around the home, covered each of their heads with blankets and cloths before doing the same with all the windows and mirrors. They took a 2lb — 4lb piece of uncooked bacon and put it in the living room with the axe laid at its side. There was a bowl of water not too far away, the normally clear liquid was murky with blood where it is believed the killer(s) washed clean before leaving.

They left the home at some point before sunrise, taking the keys with them and locking the door behind them.

It was the next morning when someone noticed the lively home was still unnaturally silent. Neighbours went over, attempting to go inside the home after multiple failed attempts, someone was sent to collect Josiah’s brother to open the door as he had a spare set of keys. What he would find were the unrecognisable bodies of everyone inside the home.

Word spread like a wildfire around town and a crowd formed outside the home. Before the crime scene was opened up, officials cautioned anyone from going inside as it was so horrific for anyone to witness. Despite it, almost one hundred people went running inside, one even taking a fragment of Josiah’s skull before they left.

The police searched around town and throughout the countryside but they weren’t entirely faithful that they would be successful in finding any evidence, especially since they believed the killer(s) had at least five hours prior. They did attempt to bring in bloodhounds but the crime scene had been completely destroyed by the on-lookers.

To this day there isn’t a solid lead on who killed the household, some believe it was connected to a string of murders with the same two signatures at the scene being an oil lamp left in the home burning low and the murder weapon an axe from the home.


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Location: Villisca, IA 50864, USA

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