Who committed the Villisca ax murders in 1912 Villisca, Iowa? This unsolved case involves the bloody murder of two adults and six children while in their beds. Was it a local senator? A cocaine addict? A reverend? The main from the train? We speculate in this entry.
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Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.
Magazine, S. (2012, June 8). The AX murderer who got away. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ax-murderer-who-got-away-117037374/
The suspects in the villisca axe murders. The Suspects in the Villisca Axe House Murders. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.villiscaiowa.com/the-suspects.php
Who committed the Villisca ax murders in 1912 Villisca, Iowa? This unsolved case involves the bloody murder of two adults and six children while in their beds. Was it a local senator? A cocaine addict? A reverend? The main from the train? We speculate in this entry.
Twitter & Facebook: @macabrepedia
Instagram: @macabrepediapod
Email us at: macabrepediapod@gmail.com
Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.
Magazine, S. (2012, June 8). The AX murderer who got away. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ax-murderer-who-got-away-117037374/
The suspects in the villisca axe murders. The Suspects in the Villisca Axe House Murders. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.villiscaiowa.com/the-suspects.php
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matter that may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised.
Matthew:In 2017, Bill James and his daughter Rachel McCarthy, James released a book titled The Man from the train. This book puts forth a hypothesis that more than a dozen murders stretching across the US and possibly even into Germany between the years of 1889 and 1912. Were committed by one man, a man who traveled the railway systems of the US finding work as a lumberjack mine worker carpenter or Farmhand before picking a family, taking well in most cases and acts from the property and killing the family while they slept. He would then hop a passing train and disappear until his dark desires to cold again Kalista Iowa 1912 A Sunday in June would be amongst the most notorious and well covered murderers, the authors attributed to the man from the train. Though it was possibly amongst his last it swept the community up in a frenzy investigators drummed up bounties businessman and would be politicians had their lives and reputations forever tainted by accusations. The community of Valeska has preserved the house and it can still be visited today, more or less in a setup says if the incident had just happened, or maybe is about to happen. The axe used in the crime was on public display until 2004. Was the murder assault over 100 years later, was this an isolated incident? Did one of the accused get away with murder, we will never know for sure. But you can join us as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia. Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true crime and the truly bizarre, we are doing something a little different. With this and some of the next entries we are doing a bit of a series. In the following weeks we will be covering some of the murders that Bill and Rachel James linked to a mass murdering serial killer by the name of Paul Muller, which if you read the book is not revealed until towards the end. But spoilers. Mueller was a an Australian or German immigrant who travelled across maybe the entire world killing households. Now as far as linking all of these murders to PAUL MULLER well, we'll let you get the book and decide if their theories pose they're in are strong enough to persuade you into believing them. As for the series, we will be presenting the case as completely as we can utilizing, you know, the sources that we would normally kind of use and kind of piecing it together as if it's an individual episode. The events of Valeska have been covered by every true crime presenter ever. There are movies, documentaries, there's no shortage of information, but it's just one of the big ones. Yeah, but there are also Valeska has really taken this on in their identity. They're like there they get calls there. What is it their tourist stuff is all just around this murder?
Marissa:If you Google Valeska it isn't the axe murderers take up like the top spot. Yeah, it's horrible. Yeah, it's not to interrupt you. But Google ranks how popular these things are? And how the most what it thinks you'll most likely want to click on at the top and those are the axe murderer. Yeah, you can't
Matthew:find anything about Valeska the town until you until you get through all four or five. Yeah. So there are some things that have been covered. You're gonna you would have heard before, but hopefully we can bring a little bit something extra into the story that may be new to you, even if you've heard other coverage of the Villisca murders, or even if you've read the book, a man from the train, but before Marissa gets like rolling in on the story here, I do want to kind of let you know how we got interested in this story and then decided to kind of make a little bit of a series out of it. A few entries ago You may recall that we did a story on the the elderly couple the divorce in Georgia, and they were brutally killed while they slept with An axe. It's blunt side primarily used in the slang the Axe was left at the scene food was left out, there were signs of entry through a window, the house was mostly locked up, there was a, an oil lamp left burning, nothing of real worth was stolen, even items that were left in plain sight, etc, etc, etc. These are all things you're going to hear in this story. Also, after bringing that story to you, I started reading up on other axe murderers. And I found Valeska. And while researching, I started to think that I get some of these details mixed up because these the sounds like almost the same, the same thing, right. And there were a lot of similarities. That's when I kind of that's when I found the man from the train. And which is the book that was linking all of these axe murders. And not just access, there's some variation in the book that are that are across the country. And I thought, oh, okay, well, I guess I'm not the only person who saw how similar these murders were, and then linked them all together. So I get the book, audio form, because that's what I do. So I get the book, and, you know, out I get through the whole book, and the author's never connect those two particular crimes. Crimes stretching from Maine, to Texas, to Canada, to Florida, I think is even in there. And it's like it's all over the place, Germany, everything but not the deform murders now.
Marissa:And then for murders take place where again,
Matthew:Georgia, where there are murders that happen in that area, too. And it fits all the characteristics of the man from the train with things that the things I've already just listed there. But on top of that, it's not terribly far from from railroads and everything that's in there. Anyways, I spoiler alert, don't think that those are connected, necessarily. They could be because they still did fours were 1879, this is 1912, the person would have been pretty old. And I think the divorce, if that was connected, it would have probably been his first of them. It doesn't there are some differences that with there not being a family, yada, yada, cetera, et cetera. But anyways, I do think that a lot of the murders or some of the murders that are attributed to the man from the train are connected to one some of them one of which will be the payola Kansas murders that that we'll kind of touch on here. But we're kind of doing this whole story in somewhat reverse order. We could have started with hinter chi Feck, which is the German murders, but that's here nor there. What we're going to do is we're kind of going to start with Valeska, because it's also like the big one, the one that's super well known. And then kind of work our way back through Colorado. It
Marissa:was even one that's close to where I grew up, which is a very interesting, yeah.
Matthew:Yeah, there was one that was it was in Hurley, Virginia. And then there was some reason that it was in Bluefield, specifically to
Marissa:ice or something so swept with it and Beckley also Yeah,
Matthew:right. So, again, we're kind of working our way backwards through through some of the some of the more, some of them, the more important or the, I don't want to make it seem like any murder is more important than another. But some of the ones that have more, you know, stuff to report on. This one is huge. Obviously, there's books and movies and all that stuff on there. But anyways, so I do highly recommend getting the book, The Man from the train has a lot of great insights. It has a very conversational tone, particularly if you're doing it on audio, I do recommend it. Also, we are not connected to the book or the authors or anything like that at all. We're simply covering a series of murders that may or may not be connected as posed by that book. But we do encourage you to keep in mind as we kind of go our way through the story. And through the series that all these may be connected, even if we present them as Yeah. Because it's kind of fun to do it that way. But anyways, I'm rambling. Marissa, take it away.
Marissa:All right, so June 10 1912. starts out as a normal day for Miss Mary peck on time period wise, this has been a few months since the Titanic sank, and still a couple years away from World War One. So sleepy time the gossips probably that Titanic This is the world we're in right now. But it's sleepy, I would tell. Mary goes out started chores this day. But around 7am She notices that the neighbors she normally sees who are usually up and about around the same time. They're not everything is very silent night. store, except for their animals. They have two cows who are moving in the field, they probably want to be milked. There's two horses who are anxiously waiting for breakfast. The chickens are still in their coop too, which is very odd, because normally they would let them out for the day by that point. And Mary starts to get a little worried. There's actually two adults who live there Josiah are Joe Sarah and Sarah Moore. And four kids. Their kids are Herman who is 11, Catherine 10. Boyd, who is seven and Paul, who was five, these are four fairly young children in this house, you would expect it to be a bit bustling.
Matthew:So yeah. So I mean, these kids being 1112 years old, they would be doing these chores, these these would be the kids running around, probably letting the chickens out and feed your horses and all that stuff. So you'd see a lot of activity around this. And Mary gets obviously very, you know, gets very, gets a little I don't want to say very worried but she gets a little bit where's everyone? Yeah, a little odd. So she goes up there starts knocking on the doors in the windows and kind of seeing what's what if the if anybody's home because nobody said anything to her. And that doesn't look like there's anybody if they are out of town or whatever, even though she probably would have just seen them the night before. You know, there doesn't seem to be any activity at all. There's nobody who seems to be taking care of the animals in their stead or anything. So she kind of does the neighborly thing goes around and lets chickens out starts kind of doing their their stuff as well.
Marissa:Yeah, but she doesn't see anyone she knocks on the door. Nobody comes to the door. So she ends up contacting Ross, who is Joe's is or Joe's brother. And Ross goes into check on them. So there was some dispute about whether or not the door was locked, or if it was like barricade not barricaded, but like jammed
Matthew:or if he had a key?
Marissa:Yes. The source that I've mostly read says that it was locked in that Ross had a spare key. So we use this key to get into the house. And when he goes in, he goes back to one of the bedrooms that's on the lower level. And he immediately sees blood. At this point. He sees what looks like two figures covered with sheets or some kind of a bed clothing with very bloody head. Right. So Ross at this point is really kind of freaking out. He goes back out onto the porch, and he tells Mary to go to Villisca. And to get the town Marshal
Matthew:stating something terrible has happened. He
Marissa:does Yes. Which you may recognize from many horror films.
Matthew:Yes. Seems like that's what everybody says. But he didn't actually know what had happened at this point. He walked in there saw that first thing and was just like, wow,
Marissa:he didn't go upstairs. No,
Matthew:he didn't even uncover the bodies. I don't take downstairs
Marissa:now. Once the marshal gets there, things start to progress pretty quickly. He's really taken aback he calls the scene a bloodbath with quote, somebody murdered in every bed.
Matthew:Now keep in mind this is this is small town, Iowa. There's like 2000 people who live here something. So this kind of stuff is not anything that he is prepared to see right now. This is and this is even like, some I believe that this is a dry town or a dry county at the time. So like, he's not even like, there's not even like, you know, people getting drunk in bar fights or anything like that. Like this seems to be like a super quiet like perfect little town. Yeah,
Marissa:there's certainly no procedure for this. You know,
Matthew:if there Yeah, if there is.
Marissa:Yeah, so inside the house, there was actually somebody in every bed murdered the entire more family, husband and wife Joe and Sarah and their four kids, but also two additional children. They were neighbors but they didn't stay super close. They were actually kind of far away. They were Lena 11 and aina eight Allina and ins still under they had all been kept slept are killed while they slept. Brutally. Lena and ina had actually only been there because that the night before it had been deemed safer for them to stay there rather than walk home.
Matthew:Right because they were all coming from like a like a pageant or something some kind of get together children's children's choir, I think it was Yes, I believe so at their, at their church. And this was even put on by Sarah Moore. Like she was one of the people who kind of was one of the leaders of their church and everything. One
Marissa:of the suspect suspects actually attended it, but correct.
Matthew:But yeah, so they were only there because, you know, they they were supposed to stay with their grandmother who lived in town, but then they figured it was safer. Yeah, the Moors reached out to lean on as parents giving them a phone call, gave them a call. And they didn't talk to the parents. At this time. They had just said they talked to the eldest daughter who was at the home and she okayed it with with the understanding that in the morning to Have the girls call and then they they figure out a way to come pick them and Sara
Marissa:and Joe seemed like they really were like upstanding members of the community it was even said that their children were very clean. And they had very young children. So that's that's kind of a big deal
Matthew:on a farm well with some animals that we did,
Marissa:and you know, they were also Joe was a success successful merchant and all that. So this is the people who are in the community.
Unknown:Now he he sold like, like John Deere equipment.
Marissa:Yeah, which had a business
Matthew:which is also something that comes into play with suspects later,
Marissa:yes. Their faces had all been bashed in with an axe. Nobody was actually identifiable, like they were, it was just there were messages, there was nothing there that they could really tell Joe's that Joe's Joe's face rather had been sliced. Or the only one who would actually been sliced, he'd actually use the sharp end of an axe for Joe the rest of the victims were killed with the blunt end of the axe.
Matthew:And reason for that most likely this is just my theory. blunt force trauma dazes you more than you can take a cut to the face or to whatever part of your body and if it's if it's a nice clean cut or something like that it does damage it could still kill you but you're you're not as likely to to be disorientated by it so the blunt force trauma would also stun the person if it didn't kill them outright in one shot and the back end of a of an axe is still likely going to kill you and a single a single blow Yes, but also if you turn the axe around you and you're you're using the blunt side it's less likely to get stuck and stuff so if you
Marissa:Yeah, this is important when they were there are people in the same bed sleeping
Matthew:Yeah, you need to be able to Up Up Down up down real quick and just just take them both out as quick or as many as there are in the room as quickly as possible so that they don't have time to really react so you want to not be able you don't want to get stuck in something and this could even just be a missed shot hitting the bed and then all of a sudden it's tangled in the in the
Unknown:the covers or whatever the person has time to get up and bite you Right yeah.
Matthew:And also Yeah, you try to take out the try to take people out as quickly as possible.
Marissa:This is important because the medical examiner's of the time really I mean think about it they would not have really known what this looks like it was a very as we said sleepy area. So they think that or they thought that these were multiple blows, but it may have in fact only been one maybe two blows to the head it was just that the damage done was far more than they would have thought
Matthew:Yeah, I mean there's some some accounts say there's like 20 or 30 on some of the bodies but that seems Joe taken the most of
Marissa:it and Joe definitely did have the most of it. It's it was noted that he had the most damage, so most likely the most blows, right he was also the only one it was sliced but he was sliced so much that his eyes were missing. So if the murderer had then covered everybody's faces with either bed clothes or clothing the victim's face had been so thoroughly destroyed that the two children who were visiting or miss identified at first Joe had received the most blows by everybody was disfigured.
Matthew:Yeah, and obviously again, I mean, he was the eldest adult He's 43 at this time Yes.
Marissa:If it were me I would want to take him first because he's the biggest threat listen
Matthew:to her getting letting you letting you know how she's gonna murder people. But ya know, the you want to take out the person who's the biggest threat. So you go and there's some discrepancies between who was killed first or the order and where it started and everything. If this is connected to any other killings, or if it's premeditated at all. Anybody who's going to try to kill kill a family of people, you're gonna take out the person who's most likely to be able to defend themselves and cause the biggest biggest part of trouble right so yeah, but we'll cover that in a moment.
Marissa:Yeah, one one theory that I saw said that the first victims were actually Lina and ina but I don't think that's very likely simply because as we just said Joe was the biggest threat and then after that it would have been Sarah his wife and then from there. I mean, they're all children at that point but you want the adults gone
Matthew:right? And the other children upstairs are upstairs. So if you're killing the parents make sense to go to go take care of them.
Marissa:Exactly. The so how it was set up was upstairs was the attic and then beside that was the parents bedroom and beside that was the children's bedroom are all four of the children who live there. were sleeping. Downstairs were the two visiting children.
Matthew:And when you say attic, it's not like the way that you would probably the The attic is adjacent to the other rooms it's like you there's like a door that walks into it's on the same level it's not like climbing upstairs and someone dropping in or anything like this is important
Marissa:because investigators thought at some point that the the culprit may have actually been in the attic waiting for the family because they found a couple of cigarette butts there. So they think they think he might have been there waiting for the family to go to sleep.
Matthew:Right. Also, which I don't think we touched on with this part if the reason it axes are very readily available, so this axe murderer is not walking around with the axe is my buddy and it's nothing like that. Like he he's picking these up off of this is every house has an axe because most houses wood burning fire wood burning fireplace now that this is 1912. So just to kind of give everybody a little bit of an idea here, the town had already had like electricity, which happened to be off, because like at night because of a dispute between the the electric company and the town council or whatever. That minor speculation that it was connected but just finally, night that it was right.
Marissa:It is suspicious at least Yeah,
Matthew:they had turned the power off. But this had come this the town had already had electricity for a year. So we're not don't this isn't just to kind of give people an idea. Like when you say like early 1900s People are not. They're not necessarily thinking that there's telephone systems and electricity and stuff like that. But there is
Marissa:no they had a telephone in the house. Yours did
Matthew:yeah. But this was this was the time where there was like switchboard, like operators, like you call the operator, the operator goes One moment while I connect you and then connects you to another household generally just sits there and listens. And knows all town gossip.
Marissa:That's what you want to know.
Matthew:Yeah. But anyway, so yeah, so just to kind of give an idea with that. So the the Axe was readily available at every house, because you're cutting wood for, you know, heating cooking most of the time, right. So the person, there's also a belief that the culprit had been sitting in the woodshed or an adjacent outbuilding. And there was like, an investigation later, there was like, some like, depressed Hey. And if you lay down just right, you could see through a hole in one of the boards in the wall that would let you see the house and that person may have been sitting there waiting the whole time until the the family left for this event at church and then utilize that to sneak into the house.
Marissa:But there's also another another detail here that the house was very loud. I mean, well, we'll talk about that. But like the house was so loud, like the stairs creaked it was like you step anywhere in that house and it's going to make it creak. Basically, it's going to be loud. So it is possible, I guess that they would have thought it was a child going up the steps if they did hear anything, or if they just tuned it out. Because you know, you do tune out noises like that if it's your own house after a while for sure. But so either he was outside or he was in the attic for me thinking that if he was in the attic, it would have been easier for him to just go outside the attic into the bedroom where the parents were sleeping. Yeah. So that makes more sense to me. Absolutely. I mean, I mean, like one of the theories was that the children were visiting were killed forced, but first, but I don't believe so. I think that was the parents it makes just way more sense to me. There was some, it's also it's possible that Sarah actually woke up during the attack. Because the neighbors they woke up to hear Sarah screaming. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Don't Don't don't. And then Lina,
Matthew:I do not think that that happened. I mean, there was no other evidence that says, I've seen that nowhere else. And I believe that's probably just a concoction of Wilkinson, which we'll cover later as
Marissa:I'm putting it in there because it's right but
Matthew:more people would have woken up. Yeah, if she was screaming so loud that neighbors would have heard it in the neighborhood was close enough to in the beginning to take a look and see that nobody's she didn't hear nothing. But yeah, as far as like moving through your house if there's if they're if you're familiar with the sounds of your house, it doesn't trigger anything like if you're gonna wake up Yeah, it's it doesn't it doesn't have that. What was that sound? So
Marissa:yeah, so when I read that I was like, I am and I guess but they've been there. They've been living there a while they would just tune it out. Yeah.
Matthew:With four kids running. Drink or something. Yeah, anything could be could be any number thing, but like just your house settling or whatever. I mean, we have, we have four rabbits, and they click their plates together. So just yeah, if you if you hear that here, and you hear quicklink nothing. If you're sitting in a cabin in the woods, and you hear a click link, you go to die. Yeah. It's a very different feel like it's, it's the sound of your house. When you hear the boards creaking. You go. That's the board's creaking, you know, and that's that's just the end of it. Anyway, sorry.
Marissa:So also, they also determined that Lina may have actually been awakened during the attack, because she had a wound on her arm. or that may have been a defensive wound caused by throwing up her arm toward off the attacker. She was the only one who wasn't just in a sleeping position.
Matthew:Right? And also was a theory that she was also the last to die.
Marissa:Yes, it does. It does. Because how loud was it that it woke her up? I don't know. She might have been a light sleeper. But yeah,
Matthew:yeah, but I mean, like, she's in the unusual environment. Somebody's coming down the stairs and you hear it wakes you up? You know, it's so that that could that very much could have been that plus, if this guy's running around in the the upstairs, killing six other people before he comes downstairs. It's highly likely that there's enough noise or enough enough continual noise to make
Marissa:a good amount of noise because like there's an X mark in the wall, you can still see pictures.
Matthew:Clunk sound out there for sure. There had
Unknown:to been something No,
Matthew:to kind of paint that picture for a little bit too. So the house has has the sloping the upstairs has the sloping roofs ceilings. So the person is also believed to be short in stature because of the height of the of the ceiling person couldn't have swung he wouldn't have been it Yeah, what clicked right into the to the ceiling, like we're like into the ceiling ceiling. And you you'll hear some accounts that say there's marks in the ceiling. There may be but like as far as if you go to the house now you can see an X mark in the wall as if he was standing on the long side of the bed and bringing the x down on people. So but yeah, so it clicked it hit full full on in the in the end of the wall behind the guy when he was swinging.
Marissa:The murder weapon had also been left propped up against the wall downstairs. The blinds had all been drawn close, or some kind of bedclothes had been put over every bit of glass in the house. So all of the windows if there was glass and the doors that was put over that the mirrors also had been covered up.
Matthew:Because there's there's some superstitions that believe that when somebody dies, I think it's Greek is it Greek or Irish or something like that, I don't know, there's there's some kind of there's there are some people's belief that that if when somebody dies, the tradition is to cover all the mirrors because if not, the the spirit can get confused trying to leave the house and get trapped in a mirror or become imprisoned in the house. So that is a strange thing for someone to do. There's also speculation that I think the first one I just said was probably the reason for doing it. You know, it's putting coins over and is kind of a traditional business. It's very, it's a superstitious thing. But there is also a belief that like the person didn't want to see themselves that they that like they were disgusted with themselves. I throw that out the window this dude, we'll cover this in a second. He's He's like going downstairs eating food and stuff. I mean, like this guy is not he's not super worried about it, but that also having the X in the room with Lena downstairs obviously makes it so that's the last room unless he's running up and down the stairs which maybe he could have you know, gone up and down but I think he would have made one full pass ending in the bedroom of downstairs then gone again because you want to make sure that everyone's dispatched and that's probably when he's throwing the blankets over the head. Another thing too is that I think you would have woke up if you if not you but I think a person would have woken up if you put the sheath over over the head first. But there is also a belief that you put the sheath over the head so that it captures the blood splatter as it's come back up but I don't think he was worried about that at all. I don't think so either because one the X is covered in blood which we'll touch
Marissa:on that he was left handed because of the blood spatter so
Matthew:yeah Also interesting little thing spatter not splat it is
Marissa:my uncle was a forensic investigator and he definitely would say something if I said splatter
Matthew:but anyway so the the X is left in the in Yeah,
Marissa:well also serves also he covered the mirrors as with that superstition, we assume the house is still said to be haunted now, so you know. But yeah, there were some other strange details of the scene in addition to covering up like all the all of you know, glass and house basically, investigators found a slab of bacon near the x. So let you know this. This bacon was an uncut two pound slab of bacon, like fat back, like fat back, it was wrapped in a towel, and it may have been used as a masturbatory aid. It was yeah, in the room where Lena and I were right. Yeah, a second.
Matthew:There's more belief on that too, because of how lean his body is.
Marissa:Yes, a second slab of bacon was also found on the piano in the parlor. So Lina. her nightgown had also been pushed up which left her exposed accounts very about this with some saying that she was not sexually assaulted. Other saying that the medical examiner said off the books that she had been after she died. The axe had also been partially cleaned within his underwear. It's possible that her nightgown might have been pushed up by him like grabbing her and pulling her especially if she was fighting. We don't know there is some speculation there though that she was sexually assaulted.
Matthew:Yeah, but he she also had like a bloody mark on like her inner leg or
Marissa:her inner the back of her knee I believe, you know,
Matthew:as if like, like a hand. Yeah, if as if somebody who had blood on their hand grabbed, grabbed hold on, pull them down. That also could be why the night down was up as well as because they she got slid down and one of her arms was like still underneath the pillow as if she had been reaching.
Marissa:It was the only thing that wasn't covered by something when they walked in like it was her arm was the only thing not covered up of any of the victims. So unfortunately, investigators did not secure the scene very fast, and dozens of people traipse through it with one guy even taking a part of Josiah or Joe's skull. Before investigators got it back. They accepted this guy's explanation that he picked it up when he was just there gawking partly because there were up to 100 people who had just gone through the house gawking while the bodies were still in the bed. Yeah, it
Matthew:wasn't until like noon, that the National Guard had actually arrived to kind of get things under control because there's only a few a handful of like, police officers in here. So there's like there's like two nightwatchman and and like one of them was left there to watch while the they went and, you know, got all these other investigators and then they sent from bloodhounds to come from like Nebraska, which took hours to get them there too.
Marissa:And they lead them out of town. The bloodhounds lead that trail out of town, and it just like went dead. The while
Matthew:they went, they went past one of the suspects houses first before heading out of town, which is
Unknown:Yeah, me.
Matthew:Yeah, it's yeah, whatever. bloodhounds are not super reliable for stuff like they're not perfect.
Marissa:No, they're not perfect. The investigators determined that they thought the killer was probably a relative of the Moors. Sure, the townspeople wrack their brain to try to come up with this. I mean, that is normally where you're going to go now to, you're going to look at the relatives and the close friends, lovers, who had a motive, but also they also wanted to know about any and all strange persons. Lots of tips came in most proved fruitless. But the tip, the case really didn't make a lot of headway. So detective named James Wilkerson came in as a private detective from the burns agency to try to solve the case where the police had not been able to. Lots of theories though, one theory was that the the niece of Joe and Sarah said that she had seen a guy who was hanging around and asking about where did the mores live. But when investigators arrested somebody, she said that it wasn't the right guy. So that didn't go anywhere. Another tip came from a guy named CEM Brown, who claimed that he could take the retina of the dead girl Lena and see the image of the last thing that she saw, which in theory would be her murderer. So I'm going to do a little bit of a side tangent here, because this is pretty interesting. This was still like early days of photography, a lot of it was still unknown, it kind of seemed like it was magic. I mean, it was
Matthew:it was claiming to do with it is fucking stupid. It is.
Marissa:Yeah, it's not real at all. But at the time, you know, it seemed like maybe Anything could happen, right? So seemed plausible that they could use this new technology to extract an image, you know, the eye has a lens, the camera has a lens, okay?
Matthew:This is still this is still kind of spiritualism kind of era too. So,
Marissa:and this was called off tog Rafi photography. So there were some experiments done on animals in the early days of photography, including on a rabbit, who just quick trigger warning, once it was dead. Its eyeball was slice from top to bottom, and it was placed in a solution which resulted in the image of a barred window, which was in fact, the final image of the rabbit would have seen because I had it stuck there to where it couldn't move. They actually did try to use this on humans, but too much less success. At one point being used as evidence to help put away a German merchant he was named was France, France No. Fritz ainger. Stein, who was charged with killing eight members of his household and staff, the professor who photographed the retinas of two of the victims claimed that the images of Fritz's face and an axe that was used to kill the gardener was found in these images. And this was actually entered into evidence and use to convict him and he was executed for his crime. So this was actually I think, the only time that it was actually used as evidence though, to convict somebody. But that's kind of interesting. There was other evidence in the trial wasn't
Matthew:it's another guy who killed with his family with an axe Yes,
Marissa:it was. Yes, it was apparently very common.
Matthew:But he's also German it could have been Muller. I don't know what. Yeah, that was that trigger warning, because you didn't tell me that you're going to talk about killing bunnies in this episode. It
Marissa:was I know, I'm sorry.
Matthew:That's what we we tried to minimize animal animal cruelty and experimentation.
Marissa:We love buttons here. We have four of them. So it is sad, you know, but that is what happens. And it is kind of cool in a scientific way that they've were able to find that I mean, at this still think it's crap, but
Matthew:it's not in a scientific way.
Marissa:It's no, I mean, they could see something that looked like the image that the bunny would have seen last. I mean, I don't really know how there is a picture of it online. You can see but I don't know. Whatever. Whatever. Obviously, it's crap. And those were perfect conditions on sauces.
Matthew:Yeah, when you see the when you see the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, and it's whatever you want it to be. It's hogwash.
Marissa:Oh, yeah, like they. I'll get back to the story, I promise. But this was in the movie Wild Wild West that terrible movie with with Will Smith back in the day, your movie reference? Oh, yeah. movie reference.
Matthew:You're gonna say The Men Who Stare at Goats?
Marissa:No. ever watched that much times? George
Matthew:Clooney. It's gotta be good.
Marissa:Yeah. So brown claimed that he did find an image when he tested lean his eye, he said that he found an image that quote indicates a man of stout build very broad shoulders and extraordinary length between the shoulders and the hips,
Matthew:which would also need to have incredibly short legs in order to be able to swing,
Marissa:you would have been really short with a really long torso.
Unknown:And very wide shoulders. Yeah. So which, I mean, that's possible. It's
Marissa:possible. And nothing really came from this though. Although Joe's brother in law, Samuel was arrested. Maybe he kind of fit the criteria. But later, he was let go, because he was able to provide a solid alibi. Also, he was the brother in law, so they're gonna think about it.
Matthew:Yeah. Like, there was like, no real leads for towards this, like, it was just like they had no and of course, you know, the kind of like you already said, I believe that. It was like 30 to 100 people walk into this house messing with all this evidence and stuff. So there's not really much you can really do with it. It wasn't until going and kind of going back to Wilkinson. That was years later before the ball really started rolling on this again to also like, are we gonna get into Wilkinson? About the hole? You're gonna go? Are you about to go into someone who done it? Yeah. Okay. So to kind of set it up the the burns, investigative group, this is like, this is like the era of like, the Pinkertons kind of thing where there's like these private investigator kind of detectives, kind of they're like, they get called in and there's there at this time, there are also like competing investigative groups that are that are trying to do this case, and Wilkinson is a total shit scumbag for the most part. Spoiler alert, but go ahead, he but the way, the way that it kind of works is, the longer he can stay on a case, the larger the bill he can provide to the community.
Marissa:Well, perhaps that's why in 1916, four years after the murder, four years, four years, James Wilkerson announced that he had solved the murders.
Matthew:Oh god him.
Marissa:So yeah, so a neighbor had said that they saw two strangers walking in a couple blocks from the Morehouse the day before the murders. One happened to look like a man named William Mansfield, who was supposedly an army deserter and cocaine fiend. So like the cocaine, Mansfield was later arrested of being I'm sorry. Mansfield would later suspected of being involved in other acts murder of his wife, daughter, father in law and mother in law. This hasn't happened yet. This is later. Yeah, but it's important.
Matthew:Yeah. And it's also I don't believe he actually actually gets convicted of it suspected. Yeah, he's just suspected of it, which maybe we'll cover that on layer two.
Marissa:Several witnesses claimed that they saw a state senator named Frank J. Frank F. Jones and his son Albert in town that day. I believe they may have lived there. But this
Matthew:Well, they did because Jones Jones owns the place that more useable workers there.
Marissa:Yeah, yeah. So at first glance, it seems unimportant that they were just seemed talking but actually, there may be some motive here because Joe had worked for the senator a while back for his farm equipment business, which I believe you might have touched on before. Yeah, before Joe decided to leave and start his own competing business. He actually got this like big lucrative John Deere contract and he used that to take it. He was like the top salesman for the senator his business, right? But he got this John Deere contract. I just said, he got this and he took it with him. And he started his own business using that. And it was a competitor for the State Senator.
Matthew:That alone is not not grounds for murder in most cases. In any case, yeah. Well, I'm just saying I mean, like, it's not, I don't
Marissa:motive, but also, there was a rumor that Joe was having an affair with the Senator's daughter in law,
Matthew:which is Albert's wife. Yes. Yeah.
Marissa:So bad blood.
Matthew:Right. And Albert's wife had already been known as being pretty.
Marissa:Oh, yeah. She was not secretive about her. Like,
Unknown:her freedoms. Yeah. Like, and
Marissa:they know this, because, again, the operator was she just kind of talked to people and the operator would listen in and hear all about it. So.
Matthew:So but there's not necessarily anything that says that. That Joe and her were together, although Joe is a good looking guy. Yeah, I think Joe was a pretty handsome man. It's just a rumor. Yeah. But, and she was she was beautiful, too. So he's a good looking girl. She's a good looking girl. Maybe? And also, I mean, she might have come into the store a little bit. You never know. You never know. But there were that's that's, that is great. I mean, a lot of times, if someone's getting killed, there's there's a dame involved. Now there's Jen, generally, some kind of sexual something or another often Yeah, it's either sex or money. And then the Joneses. Have a little bit of both going on, they do this. But this is something that this whole story is because Wilkinson kind of put it together that this he solved it. It was it was Jones hired Mansfield, this, you know, cocaine fiend, to go take care of Joe. And the rest of them are just wrong place at the wrong time. Particularly the soldiers. But
Marissa:yeah, they poor girls just
Matthew:sleep over. But Wilkinson, so as as stated before, he's a bit of a scumbag. And the guy is he's just in it for the money. So he even has this, there's a lot of information and a man from the train that that is dedicated to what a shit person Wilkinson is. He's an investigator, he's the investigator from the burns agency. And he starts again, he's trying to he's trying to drum up money for this. And there's even times where there's other murders, that he finds out that there's not like a reward for solving. And then he tries to get that person off, so that he can find somebody else so that he can try to get a reward to be put on there. Because this is still the time where if you're an investigator, and you solve it, the community pools together resources prior to when when you see one of those things, where it's like $5,000 reward, you know, that it's, it's the community that's putting up this reward, or somebody that's putting up this reward point here, which are so sure, so he, he is there. And if he can solve, quote, unquote, solve the case, he gets the reward and whatever, whatever other stuff he decides to build. So he is very interested in trying to get somebody in trouble for this. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, you know, kind of laid out Jones has a couple of different avenues for motive with this. But he's also in a strange situation, because of the fact that he's about to run for senator for a second time. So he's in a place where having a solid clean reputation is very important. So Wilkinson, teamed up with a reporter and then they kind of tried to blackmail effectively. But it's not it's not even really blackmail because he extort extort, yeah, they tried to extort some some something for money from from Jones by being like, if you you know, we'll give you the file on all the information we have on you if you pay us what the equivalent of like
Unknown:$600,000 He sued for that any well
Matthew:eventually, but Jones is like, I'm not gonna pay you because you don't have any evidence because I didn't do anything you know, but But yeah, so he can't he tries to do this and, and they they have like the they try to back up and be like, well, there's nothing illegal with doing this kind of extortion. This is kind of the way that we do things blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, Jones is not budging, and then he does what you say he does like this countersuit kind of a thing where he's like, if he's like, if people keep saying this junk, I'm going to sue anybody who says something slanderous. He did not. He well, he. He did Sue. Sue didn't
Marissa:win it. Well,
Matthew:he didn't win the election either. But even though Valeska had, like, come out in droves to to actually vote for him, the people who actually knew him but all the other people that are in the surrounding areas, they they didn't because a lot of
Marissa:people I mean, the town was kind of torn apart and a lot of ways. A lot of people thought he did it or thought he at least hired Mansfield. So there were some eyewitnesses who actually said that they saw Albert talking to this pool hall owner named Gall, who had been later seen acting suspiciously and possibly even showing a part of a skull that he said belong to Joe around
Matthew:apparently you could just pick up off the floor. When he if he got there soon enough.
Marissa:Yeah, there was speculation that McCall Albert, the senator and William Mansfield had all worked together to commit the murders, as you said. So they thought that the senator had hired William Mansfield to murder Josiah because or Joe because his new business was cutting into the bottom line of the senators business. And this theory was backed up by some local people. A woman said that she had seen the senator talking about get Joe first the rest will be easy. Near the house that night, the night before the murders, right. So lots of stuff like that. This is huge. The newspapers run with it as a solved crime. We finally got us off crime here.
Matthew:Good. Sure. But Wilkinson is drumming up all these, all of these people that are that are laying these claims and none of them can really be substantiated.
Marissa:The stories claim that Mansfield have not only been hired to kill the Moors, but had also been responsible for a similar acts murder that had happened four days prior in peyote, Kansas. And that one, a husband and wife named Roland and Anna Hudson were murdered while they slept with an axe. Very similar. Yeah, nobody was actually charged ever and that one either, which. Neither but yeah,
Matthew:well, this, this one that is most likely that is associated with the man from the train as well. So we will be kind of like I said, we will be backtracking. So that's for day prior to the Valeska murder. So what we're gonna basically be doing is that'll be our next episode most likely. can't promise but we'll see. Well, you know, we'll see how much we can actually drum up on it. But yeah,
Marissa:so this one so far is to be brought before a grand jury. However Mansfield in Mansfield employer was able to provide records that show that he was in Illinois at the time of the murders. So Mansfield was never charged because he couldn't have done it.
Matthew:And Mansfield even goes as far as to put up a countersuit about about this whole thing to one, that one and he wins that and he gets $2,200, which is
Marissa:1914 money or whatever. Yeah,
Matthew:which is like 50,000 hours. It doesn't matter. It's a lot of money. He gets a lot of money, but also keeping in mind. He This is the same guy who was blamed for an Axe Murderer with his of his in laws. Yeah. But clearly being that that was in between Valeska and his daughter and wife awesome. Sure. But he obviously isn't actually convicted of that because he gets this settlement two years after that. Supposed to be like, I think 1914 is when that happened. And this is all happening in 1916. So
Marissa:but there was a suspect that was tried. So a reverend named George Jacqueline Kelly, he had actually left Valeska by train around 520. The morning the bodies were found. And Allegedly, he told travelers on the train, that there were eight dead souls back in town who had been killed in their beds.
Matthew:And this is prior to the bodies being found. Yeah, I mean, come on. Well, they were reported at the very least, yes,
Marissa:for sure. Well, he left before they were found he left at 520. And they weren't found until what six or 7am 730
Matthew:ish. While Ross got there at roughly 8am.
Marissa:Well, Mary Peckham was up around seven. So it would have been at least I would at least like an hour, I would guess before the the actual guy got Ross had later. And then later the guy had to get there. So so once investigators heard about this, they looked into it a bit more. Kelly actually returned to Valeska, two weeks after the murders and posed as an investigator on a tour of the Murder House. The balls on this one,
Matthew:yeah, he was able to talk his way into getting getting the police to walk him through the through. Yes,
Marissa:yeah. Well, he claimed he was an investigator and he was just looking into it. But he also claimed that he had heard the thought of the accident killed them all around 1am
Matthew:That's a weird thing to say is worthiness I'm investigator I happen to be here
Marissa:happened to her the whole thing. But Kelly had a history of mental illness. He was probably schizophrenic. He'd also been charged twice in the past for sending obscene materials in the mail to young girls asking them to pose nude and pose nude for him and like running some not great classified ads along the same lines.
Matthew:Yeah, he was requesting like a secretary who has been an art thing had to be young and pose new or posed nude for his book, though you can actually find that the the ad like it's still out there but I'll post a picture of it or something. But he Yeah, he specifically is like you have to be willing to work in the nude and then that you got an answer from the 16 year old girl and then he sends her like a lengthy letter about the expectations of being being in the nude and being prepared to be alone with him where nobody knows where they are and stuff and she was like, nope, and then she wanted a job. Then she turns him in and then he gets in trouble for it. And also he's considered a reverend but he's kind of like going around like to different parishes or whatever and kind of like sitting in on these. That's because he was the one who was at the at the Church of God that
Unknown:we touched on earlier night prior right?
Matthew:Yeah, the Sunday night where this all happens. He was the he was in town. They know that he was at the he was invited to be at the church as kind of like a you know, as a reverend and training or whatever. And then he so he wasn't like he didn't really have his own ministry or anything like that. But wherever he was, he was sometimes seen walking late at night by himself, possibly. peeping into other people's homes.
Marissa:He was known as a bit of a paper peeping tom peeper. So the grand jury heard evidence and indicted him for them more murders. Kelly even signed a confession saying God told him to do it.
Matthew:This comes after long, lengthy interrogation, and he is described as being a pretty spineless little, little guy. Yeah, he is actually he is actually pretty small, too. He does fit the idea of being a very, very small, and I
Marissa:think that was actually part of because they realized that he would have been a shorter guy and he fit that bill,
Matthew:but he's also too scrawny to possibly wield an axe effectively to do this. And he was and then there's he's, yeah, he's he's, he's not shown in a very good light. Even, even not as a murderer. He just seems like another little shit
Marissa:for sure. He didn't have great reputation. But after I guess he got some sleep. And he felt a little bit better. He recanted his confession at trial and the jury deadlocked. Without that confession, there were 11 for acquittal, there was only one for conviction. So they had to call a second jury were all of them voted to acquit. So that he was off, he was gone. He was free. This was nice, easy on Valeska, a small town with a big crime. People had all kinds of theories, and they were kind of stuck to them, some of them thinking it was the Senator. So I'm still believed that it was Kelly. And yeah, that there was
Matthew:there was also a man named Henry Lee Moore. Who is he is he is a serial axe murderer, who also could be the man from the train as well.
Marissa:A lot of killings and killings in the Midwest around this time attributed to him. Yeah.
Matthew:And he was convicted of the murders of like his mother and grandmother. Yeah, in Missouri.
Marissa:And that was in December of 1912. So about six months after the Alaska murders,
Matthew:yes. And he is like, he was also in Colorado. He he he could have easily been the guy who is stringing all these murders together, as well. But yeah, he was never really be to be clear, Henry Lee Moore is not related to the the more of this of this thing. But he, he could have he could have done it. There's not really a reason why he was never really brought in on it. He just just wasn't.
Marissa:I mean, the US Department of Justice actually theorized that he could be responsible for as many as 23 more deaths, including Valeska. So
Matthew:and his mom and grandma in addition to his mother and
Marissa:grandmother, yeah,
Matthew:but yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like he does he was in a lot of the places and associated to a lot of the men on the train. So I don't know if maybe that's there's there's another book that I didn't actually read called murdered in their beds, which may pose that he was the actual killer. Maybe that could be one of the reasons to but there was also a man by the name of Andy Sawyer, who kind of showed up around this time as well. And he was clean shaven guy wearing a suit but he was like it When he came up to he was at he came, he was trying to get a job at the railroad and came in. He was dressed up pretty nice and all this stuff, but he had like, mud on his shoes. And his pants were like soaked to the knee as what I saw on some of these, and he tries to get a job with the railroad. He's hired because, you know, he, it's not that it's not terribly difficult if you know what you're doing to get a job, I guess, the railroad. So he gets hired by a guy named Mr. Dyer. And Dyer kind of gets a little bit starts to get a little suspicious of Sawyer because Sawyer, he ends up taking a great interest in the Valeska murders. And he's like, he's reading the newspaper that has the front page of the newspaper has the Valeska murders on it. And he
Marissa:had
Matthew:the, he had kind of no Alibaug. While I'm sorry, not no alibi, he had, he had an interest that was just a peculiar amount of interest in this. Now, again, this isn't a time where there's hundreds of people walking through the house during the murder, when before the scenes cleaned up. But he had he would stay like by himself as much as possible. And he would be, he was very jumpy. And one time he got scared when like somebody came up behind him when he wasn't paying attention. And he turned around to cut your head off or something like that. So he, but again, all speculation, but he had he had the best alibi of anybody at the time, which was he was he was in. He was in a different part of Iowa. And on the night of the murders, and he had actually been arrested for vagrancy by the sheriff and the sheriff had recalled putting him on a train by 11pm That evening, so he couldn't have possibly have have gotten trained for Lesko
Marissa:galleries, for sure. And then Paul Muller,
Matthew:and then there's PAUL MULLER or Miller, depending on where you're reading that. But he is
Marissa:he's the one that the people from the man on the from the train your eyes, right, he's responsible for all of these
Matthew:going from Maine all the way down. And once again, we'll kind of backtrack along hit that storyline, but he disappeared. Pretty much right after the murders, the first murders that he was accused of, and was pretty much never seen again. And he may have ended up in Germany. But right after the the Valeska murders, these other murders, these chain of murders just die out. So the person either retired, or may have been put in jail may have died. Because if you take the stretch of time here, he was, you know, a bit older at the time jumping on and off of trains, because that's the theory is that he would kill these people than jump on a train at a point where it's like slowing down, or you know, whatever. He's not like buying tickets. He's like, you know, train hopping. But yeah, so this the Valeska murders have a bunch of theories. Obviously, it's never been solved. Lots of people would later come forth and claim to have knowledge of it. Again, with like people like that Wilkinson was putting forth they all recanted a lot of their stuff. Wilkins was eventually fired from burns, the burns investigation organization, but still continued to try to drum up funds to keep the Valeska murders going there was even like legislation to kick them out of Iowa. So he had to go try to drum up funds in neighboring states because he wasn't allowed to hold hold his like, meetings where he would enrage people in Iowa to this stuff.
Marissa:You know, I just thought I think I might have left out some important parts. Dad talk about the table.
Unknown:The table? Yeah. Which washing his hands? I don't think so. Dang it all.
Marissa:Okay, so real quick, a couple of things.
Matthew:And we also didn't talk about the lantern or anything that
Marissa:was bad to talk about that. Yeah. So importantly, also at the scene, and let's rewind the scene. I apologize. But it was it was just it was interesting, because after it seems after the murderer had done what he did, he went downstairs and he made himself some food. And he ate dinner. And he also there was also a bowl of water on the table that he apparently washed his hands in because it was bloody. So that's what they theorize for that
Matthew:also happened at the divorce. Yeah,
Marissa:I mean, that's there's a lot of connection here. Also the thing with the lamps, so these are oil lanterns. And if you're if you've never seen one lamp, oil lamps a lantern is they look different, okay? Yes, they do. oil lamp. So if you've never seen one, it's got like this, this base that has a well oil in it. And then it has this thing Quick that comes up between the slit in the metal bit. And there's like this glass chimney on it that comes up to just kind of, you know, keep the, the, I don't know air away from the flame. I mean, you know, yeah, so but at this scene, this one of these lanterns are when these lamps had been lit, but then like it had been turned down really low and the the wick had been bent at an angle. And the chimney the glass chimney had been removed. So it appeared that the, the light had just been very barely there to allow the killer to see. But it wasn't bright enough to wake anybody up or anything.
Matthew:Yeah, and also not to be seen through the windows, but obviously he had had them covered or whatever again, this is something that was also seen at the divorce where there was a what there was a lamp left burning at the foot of the of the bed there too. So that's why that's why I thought for sure this was the same one but it seems like there's every axe murderer follows suit with this. It's It's pretty. It's pretty crazy how similar a lot of these murders end up. But yeah, the thing with the with the lamp, if you take the theory of the man from the train, part of his MO was to burn the place down, according to the the James's. And that could have maybe been a part of this
Marissa:lamp could do it if you leave it without the chimney on it and writing or something.
Matthew:Yeah. And this the that one was found there. I think that in some some cases, it said that there was two of them, there were but there was one that was left like either under the bed of somebody, or under a dresser or a chair, which all could have could have possibly a burn. Also turning it way down or just having just a little bit of light. Also, if you don't know where they keep their oil for their lamps, you only have so much before you're just stuck. And I know. You don't know, you know what I mean? Like it could have been anything. But yeah, but so yeah, so he could have also just been trying to conserve, serve as light source. There has never been solved.
Marissa:Yeah, it's never been solved. You can still visit the house. Yep. You can also
Matthew:go on YouTube and watch people visit the house, you
Unknown:can all kinds of
Marissa:Yeah. And as we said earlier, Valeska is very much known for this. It's a very small town still, and they lean heavily on this.
Matthew:Yeah, that's like their big, big Taurus thing. Yeah. But But yeah, so yeah, so stay tuned for will not stay tuned. But join us. Now, can't say that, because that's kind of our ending. Where we are ending. Thank you. As always, for joining us. We didn't really do a commercial in this one, because this one's real long as is. So we do want to throw out a thank you to our patrons who throw a couple of coppers into the skull every month to keep our lights on. Well, on the podcast light on I guess the studio light the recording light on, we don't have that. But anyways, we thank all of our patrons, you can go over to patreon.com/macabrepedia join there five bucks, you get access to some of the little extras that we do a couple of extra episodes, or episode lights and mini murder newspaper clippings that I've gone through and a couple of our writings and
Marissa:stuff like that so many episode on vultures coming up. Sure,
Matthew:if you want to put that together, but thank you all for your support. If you're not supporting there, that is perfectly fine. It is not for everyone. It's not a requirement. If you would though, it would be awesome. If you would give us a rating or review comments, share our information, get the we just want we want to be more ears,
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Unknown:oh, that's me. And you say it every time
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Matthew:And join us next week as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia Macabrepedia Oh, that was weird.