179. Murder House (Halloween Special)

Debra, Diana, and Jesi talk about a killer bass line, a disturbingly random act of murder, and a haunted murder house in Iowa...and a woman who bakes recipes from tombstones...and some weird history behind the Starbucks logo. Happy Halloween!
Tell us what sparks your interest on twitter (@interest_spark), facebook, instagram, and TikTok! (@sparkmyinterestpodcast) Send a crazy story or interesting article to [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail through our website sparkmyinterestpodcast.com and we might just share it on the show!
Articles and other sources:
https://www.instagram.com/shanehobleystyling/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jenniferadams2/gravestone-recipe-tiktok
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CgVecoJtu2c/
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220816-00/?p=106994
https://youtu.be/-y3RGeaxksY
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/greyhound-beheading-10th-anniversary-1.4760074
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ax-murderer-who-got-away-117037374/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2022/06/09/1912-villisca-ax-murders-what-to-know-iowa-cold-case/7567590001/
https://www.villiscaiowa.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
A spark my interest Halloween, Diane. I love that music for our Halloween

(00:28):
episodes. It is. It's alwaysgood to you know, dust it off
the shelf and bringing out during theHalloween season, and today's episode lands on
all Halloween. I know, couldnot be planned any better. I'm getting
ready for the tricker treaders. It'sgonna be some fun stuff. I know.
I love all this stuff, andit's just it's kind of perfect weather

(00:49):
for it too. It's just I'minto it, man, I am into
it. Jesse, what are whatare the kids going as? Oh a,
Leandra is going as Outlet little superherofrom PJ Masks. It's a TV
show. I am so disconnected.I'm like, I have no idea what
you're talking about. I don't knowhow that is. Yeah. Yeah,
And my son is going as theGhost Bride animatronic from Home Depot. He

(01:15):
saw it last year and he decidedhe wanted to do that for Halloween this
year. Sold Oh, so he'sknown for a whole year when his costume
is gonna be Yeah, he's gonnamove all mechanically. He has like a
whole He thought she was the creepiest. She is creepy I know, I
know exactly what you're talking about.She's like, oh yeah, like the

(01:36):
glowing red eyes and everything. Ohmy god, he's going to scare the
shit out of people. It's gonnabe amazing. It's gonna be great.
I want to see pictures. Speakingof pictures, I think we're gonna be
posting some of our own social mediaare we are? Diana threw a party
which Jesse normally attends, but nowJesse lives clear across the country and she
wasn't there, and it was weird. It was weird, but it was
still fun without you, and wefelt bad about that. Yeah, and

(02:00):
we did feel bad. I knewwere to a different party. Two.
Oh no, Yeah, my sisterhosts one every year, so that's the
one we went to. Likely storyis this Megan? Yes, of course
she loves my best friend. Didn'tinvite me. She didn't invite me to
her party. Of course you're invitedevery year and have to fly out to
De Moine. But yeah, ifyou guys out there in the listener sphere

(02:23):
want to see what our costumes were, go to our Instagram at Yahyah spark
my interest podcast. Yeah, andif you just want to stick around and
listen to us. We are theLadies of spark My Interest podcast. My
name is Diana, I'm Deborah,I'm Jesse. And every week we get
together. We gather articles that wefound online, we're in books, are
in magazines, and we share themwith one another and at the end of

(02:43):
every episode, we vote to seewho had the most spark worthy article.
Prize remains DBD. At this point, we don't care. We don't give
two fucking shits. We're just init for the glory of that one and
I believe we are all vying forit today and that's why we're listened as
an explicit podcast. There. Youknow, Diana did that real well,
Sometimes you just gotta say fuck.Sometimes you do. Sometimes you do.

(03:04):
I want to get some things started. I believe, Jesse, you were
going to spark us up. Iwas, and I am. So.
This actually comes to us as resultsof something one of our listeners sent in
Shane from our Instagram. She sentthis a while back, and I'm glad
we saved it because it is kindof spooky halloween ish. And this is
from BuzzFeed and it was by JenSheori Adams. There is a woman out

(03:30):
there who has been going around andmaking TikTok videos about how she recreates recipes
that have been left on people's gravestones. I've seen that before. Were you
like walking through a cemetery and you'relike, what's this chocolate chip cookie recipe
on the gravestone? But I kindof love it, right, It's sort

(03:51):
of you know, giving new lifeto these recipes. Yeah, especially if
they were like known for that.Their whole lies there you go, which
makes me think, like, youknow, I don't want to be two
more bid, but like people inmy family have these kind of cool recipes
almost want to like put it ontheir graves, you know, like,
let's not lose that recipe. Idon't think it's morbid at all. I
think it's really cool. So I'mjust saying thinking about it while they're still

(04:13):
alive, planning ahead. True,now that's more like when you dine exactly
which recipes going on your gravestone.But just to give you an idea some
of the things she's done, She'svisited three graves, which include the spritz
cookie recipe from Brooklyn. Then therewas a Dayton nutbread from a stone in
Erie County, New York. Andthen she's also made a fudge recipe from

(04:36):
Logan Utah. That's amazing. Thearticle about this one Rosie who makes these
recipes that Shane sent us the articlefor she goes by at Ghostly Archive on
TikTok and she's welcoming people to sendher locations of other tombstones that have recipes

(04:56):
so that she can continue this seriesof TikTok's. That's awesome. And I
know I've seen him in the past. I wish I would have known,
because I would have taken some picturesand I too. Yeah, that's really
cool. And you know what,I love that you brought something that Shane
sent us because Shane is our Sparklerspot this week. Oh that's awesome.
Okay, I'm excited to hear aboutShane. All right, our Sparklers spot

(05:23):
is Shane Hobby. She came tous from Instagram. Her handle is at
Shane Hobby Styling. She is astylist and she's a vintage lover on her
Instagram. Cut her on there.She's really interesting. She's got some really
cool pictures she has been sending usreally fun tibbits, like Jesse covered about

(05:43):
the gravestone recipes, And she sentus one just this week about Starbucks that
was really freaking cool, and itwas all about their logo. Do you
guys know anything about their logo?Everyone's like, it's a mermaid, Like
that's all everybody everyone talks about.No, not really what is a mermaid?
But it is a siren, anda siren has always been something that's

(06:04):
like it's female, part female andthen part like animal. Was like a
horse, it was a bird,and then it really kind of became this
this mermaid that has a split tail. So I think of like what Ulysses,
you know, the story of Ulyssesand the Sirens exactly. So this

(06:25):
little video that she sent us waswas totally messed up and very informative.
But the first thing it says isthis is how it would look if you
saw the Starbucks logo from behind.And it's like the mermaid that's like she's
kind of got like her hands uplike looking into the frame of the logo,
and then her tail behind her issplit. It's almost like almost like

(06:46):
her legs are like open wide andthen around her. Yeah, and have
never given it much thought, butI'm like, oh, yeah, if
you really look at that you wouldbe thinking she's just two tails. Yeah,
okay, Yeah, the original logowas actually bare breasted and had the
whole thing exposed. And the reasonthat they used this logo and they tamed

(07:10):
it down obviously to be more likefamily friendly, but the reason that they
used it was because sirens have alwaysbeen known to be over sexualized women and
have been possessed of like this uncontrollabledesire for what they offer. I mean,
they're going to kill you basically.So it was used for like,
oh, these are the creatures ofthe sea and they would like entice sailors

(07:33):
to just like like come to thewater exactly. So I was like,
oh my god, that is soweird. But she said, get about
the pumpkin spice exactly in the mostessential way. Yeah. But yeah,
so Shane sent us sent us thislittle tidbit this week, and she just

(07:54):
said, I love sending you galsstuff almost as much as I love learning
from you. So I just thoughtI shout her out again. Her handle
is at Shane hobby Styling. Sheis a really cool checker out. We
appreciate her listening and yeah, justappreciate these little tidbits that she's sending us
it's been really interesting. Yeah,that's awesome. Thank you so much,
Shane. I'll never look at thisStarbucks love got the same again. Oh

(08:18):
me either. I walked over therethe other day and I was like,
oh god, now I can thinkof hers from behind with her like tail
split wide open. It's just eriesall hell but cool, Thanks so much,
Shane. So with that, wehave been properly sparked, and we
have heard from a listener that canonly mean it is story time. So

(08:52):
this one's kind of a technology weirdspooky thing. Okay. Are you guys
familiar with Janet Jackson's song Rhythm Nation? Absolutely? Yes, Okay, the
great song. This comes to usfrom dev blogs dot Microsoft dot com by
Raymond Chen, published August sixteenth,twenty twenty two, and a YouTuber named

(09:13):
Adam Neely published a video on thistopic on August thirty first, twenty twenty
two. Rhythm Nation was famous formore than just Janet Jackson's album that it
was also called Rhythm Nation. Okay, I know what it's famous for.
Oh the term. Yeah, youwas famous for doing something to technology.
Do you guys know this story atall? Yeah? Okay, So this

(09:35):
song. If you played it ona laptop and that laptop was of a
certain brand, it would crash yourhard drive. Okay, I don't understand.
So imagine you had a laptop andyou're like, let's listen to some
Janet Jackson. We'll put on RhythmNation, and it would kill your laptop.
How do you mean just a particularbrand, not all laptops. That's
true. Yes, it was alaptop made by a particular manufacturer. And

(09:56):
they found out They're like, well, what's the deal here, Like why
this song? Why wouldn't any othersong do it? And it was because
this song was in the key ofE, which is not unusual because it
was based on some kind of blueschords. But there was this thing called
Varius speed when it was recorded.They actually had this method of kind of
speeding up songs to give them alittle bit of a brighter, more like

(10:18):
dancy feel. There are certain songsthat are kind of famous for having they
used varius be to give it alittle bit more punch, and this was
one of those songs. So thekey of E, which is a certain
frequency, that frequency was raised upa little bit to a level of eighty
four point two hurts, and thathappened to be the resonant frequency of the
hard drive, and when that basslinewas hitting boom boom boom, it killed

(10:41):
the hard drive. The hard drivejust like like the VERIZONO bridge, you
know the way it just like youknow, it basically did that to the
hard drive. And if you heldthis laptop up to this song long enough,
it would literally kill the hard drive. And you could have it on
a speaker in your room with yourlaptop working and it would kill it that
way too. Are you going totell with the manufacturer? Yeah, I
want to know. They never saidin the thing what no way? Yea?

(11:05):
Why they don't want to like badadvertising or something. Are you kidding
me? It doesn't tell you who'sYeah, they kind of kept that kind
of low key because they actually solvedThey solved the problem. But you know
what they did to solve it.They put a filter and the audio pipeline
that detected that frequency and removed itfrom the audio. So there are certain
laptops that would never play eighty fourpoint two hurts. It would just be

(11:28):
missing from your audio to prevent yourlaptop from crashing. Okay, so they
essentially fixed the problem, and somepeople are wondering, like, is that
filter still in place even though wedon't need it anymore? You know,
I wonder if there's like this vestigialthing more laptop audio is missing this frequency.
But there's also a history, kindof fun fact history of raising the

(11:50):
pitch of a song to give itmore. Yeah, Like back in the
eighteen hundreds, when orchestras were likekind of like the place to go see
live music, they would kind ofcompete with other talents by pumping up there.
They're tuning just the higher to giveit a little bit brighter, more
powerful sound, And they called thatpitch inflation. And there was this agreed

(12:11):
upon level of like frequency of thekey of A, and none of them
adhered to it. And even todayin Europe it's still a little higher than
the original agreed upon a weird.So I think that's kind of funny.
How like if you go from oneorchestra to another, they'll actually be tuned
differently. Oh man, that's verynew. And it's funny because like when
you listen to Rhythm Nation at theoriginal speed, it's not a sposi.

(12:35):
Okay, that's crazy. It remindsme of this this, uh man.
I think I mentioned TikTok in ourlast episode, but it reminds you of
this little thing that I watched theother day where it's like her TikTok.
I know, but this one wasI was like, what the hell?
It was like, Yeah, sometimesthe music industry finds somebody who can sing
really well, like Adele. Adeleis one of them. They were like,

(12:56):
yeah, everyone loves her voice,it's so great. Well, wouldn't
it be great if we had somebodywho sang like that but as a man
and so then they're like Sam Smith. Sam Smith has a great look,
but maybe he didn't have a greatvoice. If you slow Adele down,
oh god, it sounds like SamSmith. Like that's a spot on its

(13:16):
weird several Yeah, I know,it's like Rihanna and jay Z. I
think, where's another combination. Iwas like, I would not know,
I would not know the difference.But I don't know if it's real or
what. But I was like,Wow, that's what're reminding me of right
now. That's funny. Yeah,that's cool. Though I had no idea
shutting down laptops at Janet Jackson.Yeah, And it was just because that

(13:37):
particular song had been very speeded tothat particular e baseline frequency that was the
resident frequency for the hard drives,because every other thing that had been very
speeded hadn't been put to that particularfrequency, hadn't been sped up at one.
Yeah, so like you think,like other songs that had been very
speeded, maybe they would cause thesame problem, but no, it was

(13:58):
just for them nation and had areally powerful baseline. That's album. Yeah,
that is I like it. Imean, talk about great advertising for
your albums. Such a base itkills Look, it literally kills certain laptop
when people buy it, and they'llbe like, well, I'm not gonna
play do you played on yours?I want to hear the song? Will
you play? You played that whilemy laptop was in the room. That's

(14:20):
awesome, Well, awesome, Ican go ahead and go next. Yeah,
that's okay. My articles come fromthe CDC dot caa by Karen Paul's
in July of twenty eighteen. Ialso used Wikipedia. On the evening of
July thirtieth, two thousand and eight, a twenty two year old man named

(14:41):
Tim McLean boarded the Greyhound bus inEdmonton, Canada, heading back towards his
home in Winnipeg. He sat inthe rear of the bus, and when
the bus made a planned stop inManitoba, more passengers were we're loading on
and a man named Vince Lee boardedthis bus. He was tall, he

(15:05):
was in his forties. He hada shaved head, and although it was
night, it was around seven pm. He wore sunglasses. Lee sat at
the front of the bus, butaccording to passengers, he moved minutes later
to the back and sat directly nextto McLean. Now this is just the
difference between men and women. Ifsomebody did that, I would have been

(15:26):
like, huhuh check please, andI would have moved. But this guy
was just like, he didn't reallyreact. He put his headphones in and
he quickly leaned his head up againstthe window and fell asleep again. According
to witnesses, McLean was asleep whensuddenly Vince Lee produced a large knife and
began stabbing him in the neck andthe chest unprovoked. People started screaming and

(15:50):
trying to get off the bus.The driver immediately pulled over and passengers exited
the bus, and the driver likehe like locked. He was like,
oh my gosh, and then waslike, fuck, I need to try
to get back into this bus becausethis guy is still on there. More
than likely he was already dead.He had been stabbed and it was not

(16:11):
good. But the bus driver andtwo other passengers were trying to get back
into the bus and it was lockedand Lee was on there, and anytime
somebody would like get a hand totry to open the door, he would
slash the knife at them. Sothey were basically just stuck like that.
So from there, Lee returned overto McLean's dead body and decapitated him.

(16:37):
The police were called, and thebus travelers were basically preventing him to leave
the bus, so he was tryingto like break windows and jump out,
but they would always try to getin his way. That like, he
still had this knife, but theywere really trying their hardest to keep him
on the bus. The police andLee had a standoff for hours hours.

(16:59):
This was around seven o'clock at night, and they basically got him through one
of the windows and tased him twiceat one am, then they handcuffed him
and they took him to the policestation. So this was quite the battle.
They collected all the parts that hadbeen removed McLean's body in the hours
that he was on that bus withhis body, but they never found his

(17:23):
eyes or pieces of his heart.These were presumed to be eaten by Lee,
who had McLean's nose, ears,and tongue in his pockets. This
is horrifying. Yeah, so alot went down with this. There were
a lot of lawsuits, you know, just for mental anguish and whatnot.
His family obviously had lawsuits in twothousand and nine. In two ten,

(17:49):
Lee was granted supervised outdoor walks athis mental health facility. So he's been
there for like two years. InMay of twenty eleven, he was found
responding to a psychiatric treatments well.So in May of twenty twelve, he
was receiving more and more freedoms.He was able to go into town like

(18:11):
a normal person. He had tohave a like a supervising nurse or doctor
with him. In twenty fourteen,yeah, in twenty fourteen, he was
allowed unsupervised visits out. I don'tlike this. July of twenty fourteen,
the first officer that arrived on thescene, his name was Ken Barker.

(18:33):
He committed suicide due to post traumaticstress from this event. Later that year.
More freedoms were granted to Lee intwenty fifteen. In February, he
was allowed unsupervised trips to Winnipeg.He was allowed access to a cell phone.
In May of twenty fifteen, hestarted living in a group home off
site of these mental health facilities,and then in February twenty sixteen is able

(19:00):
to legally change his name to WillBaker and he seekd permission to live independently.
So one year later, in Februaryof twenty seventeen, he by the
Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board. Theyallowed him to be formally discharged. He
had schizophrenia and so he was foundto not be criminally responsible for McLean's death.

(19:25):
Not suitable for being out, yes, but not Yeah, I agree
with you, and that was thequestion that I was going to propose to
you. He has been living independentlysince February of twenty seventeen. No incidences
at this time, and he andI looked up for any updates taking place
in twenty twenty twenty two. Nothingis there. McLean has a son that

(19:45):
was born five months after he haddied. He's like eleven years old now,
I think it is. And hisfamily is still very concerned that this
guy is on the loose beca ashe is. Yes, he's taking his
meds, and I guess he hasremorse for what he did. But I
don't know. Man, It's likethis weird line that you cross. You.

(20:07):
I get that this person has mentalhealth issues, for sure, but
should he be out and about livingas a free person. What if he
stops taking those because he had beenon medication before and stopped taking them and
that's what caused his episode on thisbus. On my opinion is no,
because of his past. You know, I agree with you. I think

(20:29):
he should be in a in astable facility that he's able to go outside
but is still monitored. Yeah,I mean, yeah, that's a tough
one. I'm no expert in mentalhealth, so I owed me either,
but it would it would concern metoo if I were his family. It
is really messed up his family,and it has messed up so many of
the passengers and the police that wereon site that it seems like more than

(20:53):
just an episode. I mean,this was brutal, beyond belief and one
of the most horrifying things I've everreally heard about somebody doing to another person.
A perfect stranger who was just sleepingon the bus twenty two years old,
has his whole life in front ofhim. Do they know anything about
this league's past? The only thingfrom his past is that he was suffering

(21:15):
from schizophrenia. He should have beenon medication. He had been on medication,
which was successful, and then hestopped taking it for unknown reasons,
which caused the episode to take placeon the bus. Yeah, I don't
know. I mean, yeah,I would have an issue with him being
out and out and free for that. If he did it once, he

(21:36):
could do it again. Yeah.Yeah, because of the past, I
personally think it's too risky. Ihave to believe in the specialists that they
know what they're doing. But I'lltell you this, like if I were
his neighbor, I would move.I would not want to be anywhere near
this person. And it's spooky.Yeah, it's incredibly disturbing. So he's

(21:56):
out there now, he's out there. Yeah, under the name Will Baker,
pretty generic name for a reason.I think, Yeah, a downer,
Diana, what do you have adowner? Unfortunately, it's Halloween,
so I brought a downer. Butis it spooky? Yeah? It is.
There's a there's a twist at theend, or I don't want to

(22:17):
say a real twist, but there'sthere's definitely some more to it, okay.
So I brought three articles. Thefirst one is from the smithsonianmag dot
com June eighth, twenty twelve byMike Dash. Then I used the Des
Moines Register dot com by Virginia Bredafrom June ninth, twenty twenty two and

(22:41):
June tenth, twenty twenty two.And then lastly I used a website called
Veliska Iowa dot com. Oh no, this is gonna be a scary thing
in Iowa. Oh yeah, butit's Jesse scary. Yeah. So Jesse,
as some as you or most ofyou must know if you've been listening
to us for quite some time,Jesse moved to Des Moines, what was

(23:03):
it five six months ago, March, and Deborah and I are actually from
Omaha. So I did a littlemap questing here and the area that I'm
talking about is Valiska, Iowa,which is one hundred and eight miles southwest
of Des Moines, or about anhour and forty eight minutes driving. And

(23:26):
for Omaha, we're actually a littlebit closer. We are seventy miles northeast
of Vealiska, or one hour fifteenminutes. All right, so here we
go, after midnight on June tenth, nineteen twelve. So we're talking about
one hundred, one hundred and tenyears ago. Okay, this is encouraging.

(23:49):
It wasn't like last week. No, no, no, this is
definitely a while ago. There isa family living in Valiska, the More
family. They are Josiah and SarahMoore. They had four children, and
on this night they also had twogirls staying with them. They were friends

(24:11):
of the family. They ages weretwelve and nine, and they had spent
the evening of the ninth out ata church function. They were Presbyterians,
and they were at the nearby Presbyterianchurch and had a nice evening and then
they all came home and went tobed. The next day, neighbors were
alerted because again this is nineteen twelve, and like people kind of knew everyone's

(24:34):
business. This was a small townof about two thousand people, and none
of the members of this household wereup and doing like the household chores outside,
and so the neighbors were like,oh, that's strange, and so
authorities were called. The police showup, and they walked through the house

(24:56):
and the second they step in,they step out. Oh god, yeah,
the smell or something, just thehorrific scene that they saw. We
believe the quote is not one singlebed without a murdered person in it.
So the six children and the twoadults were all bludgeoned to death. Yeah,

(25:19):
the idea was and I'll try andjust paraphrase it. But the detective
who went in said that he believedthat the back door was not locked again
nineteen twelve. It wasn't something thatpeople were like, lock your doors.
And he walks through the house.He steps by the ground floor room where

(25:40):
the two girls that did not belongto the family or lying and skips over
them. He had pulled an axefrom the backyard. And he walked past
the bedroom, up the stairs wherethe four children were sleeping, and walked
straight into the bedroom where mom anddad were and he takes one acts to

(26:00):
the dad, and they believe thathe died immediately. And Sarah, they
said, may have awoken seconds before, but probably did not. Again,
acts to the face. He leavesthe room, does the same thing to
the four children across the hall.Then goes downstairs and does the same thing
to to the Stillinger girls. Itwas Lena and Aina. How do they

(26:22):
know that's the order he went It'sinteresting. Yeah, so he had used
an oil lamp, and so theyknew by the way that the oil lamp
was lit. He had lowered thewick significantly so that it barely shone any
light. I don't know necessarily whythey know it went in this order.
I'm guessing bloody footprints. Oh yeah, that would make sense, but I

(26:47):
could be wrong. They do believethe only person that woke up was the
oldest of the Stillinger girls. AndI don't know why that they don't go
into detail. I'm sure she therewas like movement from her bed maybe,
or it showed signs of a strugglelaying in the original position or something.
Yeah, So after everyone's been killed, then the assailant went back upstairs kind

(27:10):
of in the order that he hadoriginally killed everyone, and smashed everyone's faces
to oblivion, like overkill, andhe leaves, and so the cops show
up and they see this and everyone'sjust like, we have no idea who
would have done this. And theweird thing is that all doors were locked
at that point because that point.Yeah, So when the neighbors came over,

(27:33):
they were like, oh, like, we can't get into the house,
and that's why they called authorities.So they're like, the keys must
have been taken from the house andthe killer whomever it maybe had locked it
behind him before he left. Healso took a two pound slab of bacon
out of their ice box, wrappedit in a towel and left it on

(27:56):
the floor by the downstairs bedroom.And then he also there was a bloody
like bowl of water left on thekitchen counter, and they think that maybe
he had like washed his hands init, but they don't know for sure,
and you know, DNA and everythinglike that didn't exist at that time,
so there's no way of determining whoit was. The children's names were

(28:19):
Herman he was eleven, Katherine wasten, Boyd was seven, and Paul
was five. And then the twofriends of Katherine's were Lena and Ena Stillinger,
and then we also have Joe andSarah. And the worst part about
this is the cops came out andthey said, don't go in there.

(28:40):
These are sites that you will neverget out of your head until you're dying.
Day, so just don't go inthere. But like it's a bunch
of neighbors and they were like,well, we gotta see it. And
so tons of neighbors walked through thishouse and putting footsteps, fingerprints, messing
with the bodies. You know,I guess a fluck it off. I

(29:00):
mean it is in nineteen twelve.They just didn't know about They didn't know
about the call from managing a crimescene. Yeah, yeah, so,
I mean so much of this crimescene was like tainted with wonderful of the
people that came back through it wasthe killer. Oh isn't that the norm?
Like the killer always comes back tothe scene of the crime. For
sure, Yeah, for sure,And so gossip starts. Bloodhounds were released

(29:22):
to see if they could track anybodydown, but honestly, it's like who
are we looking for? You know? Right? So there were a few
theories on who it could have been. There was a rumor that there was
a woman named Dona Jones. Shewas the daughter in law of an Iowa
state senator named Frank Jones, andit says that there were big rumors that
she was having an affair with thedad, Joe Moore. She's kind of

(29:47):
known as a bit promiscuous. Andthis was the time where when you would
call somebody it went directly through anoperator, and so so many of the
calls were monitored, and so allthe operators would be like, oh,
guess who Dona's with this time,And one of them was Joe Moore.
And by the time that they hadbeen murdered, some bad blood happened between
them. I don't know if itwas because it was rumors or if it

(30:07):
was just a fight between that relationshipthat they had, but they were walking
on separate size in the street bythat time, and so people were like,
oh, she hated them enough togo in and kill the whole family.
That didn't really have a lot ofweight to it, but it was
a theory. I mean, thinkhow hard it would have been to too
cheat and get around things when you'relike you have to physically connect through a

(30:29):
person like oh hey, yeah,yeah, and only is that you.
I mean Also, women at thetime, I mean this is sort of
sexist, I guess to say this, but women at the time, I
just don't picture them wielding an axeand doing that, like they're more of
like, I agree, she useda gun or something something that doesn't require
a lot of physical strength to achieve. I mean, you hear Lizzie Borden,

(30:52):
and that's true. You make agreat point, you know, you
think of yeah, axe building andkiller. However, however, I do
listen to Crime and Keep podcasts,and she does a special on her and
I was like, I don't knowif she actually Jenny, but I don't
think so any right neither here arethere women have it in him? Some
women do? And then the mostthey say, the most obvious suspect was
this man named Frank Jones. Itsays he's a local businessman and the state

(31:15):
senator. Her dad Donah Jones's dad, and he went into business with Joe
Moore and that ended poorly when Joewas like, I don't want to work
for you anymore. You have abusiness mindset that says work from seven am
to eleven pm, six days aweek, and I'm done. I don't
want to do it. So I'mpicking up and going to our arrival.

(31:36):
And he had the John Deer account. I mean, we all know what
John Deere is, so and sothat was like big money. So Frank
Jones was clearly pissed and also clearlyhad a motive with rumors with his daughter
and be just with the business relationshipthat he had had with mister Moore.

(31:56):
The person that I think is themost likely who have killed them is Reverend
Lynn Kelly. He was a Presbyterianpreacher. He had attended the service that
the whole family had attended at thePresbyterian church earlier that day, and he
had at one point confessed to murderingthe family. What he recanted that and

(32:20):
he claims it was police brutality.But there's also rumors that he had been
on a train out of town themorning that the bodies were discovered, but
before the bodies were discovered, andhe was like, oh, yeah,
there was a slaughter of a familyin town. So then people were like,
what was his motive? Got I'ma serial killer? Maybe he thought
he could yeah, maybe they weren'tclean or something. I don't know.
But he did end up going tosome court hearings about this, but no

(32:45):
one was ever fully tried, andI don't really understand why they didn't press
This is unsolved. This is unsolved. I know what led me to this
was my article from the Des MoinesRegister, and it is regarding this Vliska
House. But in nineteen ninety foura woman named Martha Lynn restored it back

(33:08):
to its nineteen twelve self and itis now open to the public. It's
called the Valiska Axe Murder House andyou can have an overnight stay there.
I think it's a four hundred andtwenty eight dollars fee. They have their
own website they do the Axe MurderHome. It says they do daylight tours

(33:29):
if you want to go through,or you can do overnight tours. They
are opened on day tours Tuesday throughSunday one to four at ten dollars for
an adult or five for seniors,and then day tours will end October thirtieth,
and they resume in the spring,so they are not actually open on
Halloween itself. I'm sure it's insanemadness, lots of interests, Christmas time,

(33:52):
guys becoming Omaha meat there. It'sa bomber though, because it's like
cashing in on this horrifying thing thattook place. Yeah, I think so
too, and that's why I don'tthink I'd want to attend this. It's
just too much. But what's interestingto me is this article from Esquire dot

(34:12):
Com in November of twenty fourteen.The house has been open for a lot
of people to come in and alreadylook and there is a man that went
in with a group of friends.His name is Robert Stephen Laursen. He
was thirty seven years old and hewas from ryan Lander at Wisconsin. His
friends were like, everything was fine, we are all just there to have

(34:34):
a good time. And it saysLaursen had suffered self inflicted injury about the
same time that the people were murderedin the house in nineteen twelve, he
had stabbed himself in the house.In that house like on the tour.
He's on the tour and he's juststabbed himself and he was helicopter to Creton
University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and he recovered from his injuries.

(34:59):
But he is never spoken publicly aboutwhat occurred. And then it says that
Martha Lynne, the woman who boughtthe house and runs it now, she
said it's publicity, but it's notexactly the kind of publicity you desire to
have. I don't want people thinkingthat when they come to Bliska Axe murder
house, something's going to happen that'sgoing to make them do something like that,

(35:19):
and then it just insane. Thehouse remains open for tourists visits an
overnight stays today. But when peopletore this house, they said that,
you know, you see like hauntingsor hear sounds and other people roaming the
halls with an axe and screams ofchildren. I feel like it's risky,
you know, like I'm not gonnado it. I don't want to take
the risk of being a sensitive toit and snap myself and my neck like

(35:43):
that's I just yeah, but that'sI read that initially first and I was
like, what is this axe murder? And then I was like, oh
my god, it's Iowa, Nebraska'sinvolved. I have to share it to
It's a it's a terrible story,a terrible fate from this whole family.
Hate it when children are killed,especially you know, oh my god,
it's never good when anybody's mind.When it's children, You're just like,

(36:05):
what the fuck is wrong with people? Unsolved? But I really, I
really lean towards that reverend. That'sso funny because I feel like there's no
evidence saying that. The weird thingabout him is that he would confess.
So, yeah, that is suspicious. But the guy who lost all the
business with like the John Deer stuff, that seems like so much more like
than Dick. For sure, themotive is there. But the Reverend got

(36:30):
on the train and said it beforenews broke out about the family, and
that that's like guaranteed he definitely didthat, and it was before anybody knew
ship. I mean, it's nineteentwelve, so who knows. But from
what I'm gonna need his time stamp, Diana. Yeah, there's no time
stamp on this. So happy Halloweeneverybody. I know. Man, we

(36:52):
brought some bullshit, dang, Okay, so it's voting time. Yeah.
So we had my killer bassline thatkilled laptop hard drive yeah back in the
day. And we have my murderof Tim McLean on the Greyhound bus in
Canada, and I have the ValiskaAxe murder house. They're all interesting,

(37:15):
But Diana and I brought Doom andGloom. I'm going to vote for Jesse's
I've never heard that. I've neverfreaking heard that everyone knows that song.
I can't believe that there is somemagic frequency of that song that will bust
up some laptops. That's fucking intriguing. For Killer Baseline, man Killer,
bas Killer, Basseline. Yeah,uncle, that way too. I thought

(37:37):
it was fascinating, Like I neverheard of something that you could literally just
play on your laptop and it wouldkill your laptop. No. Yeah,
it's totally weird. It's really weird. It's really weird. I loved it.
I thought it was bizarre. ButI gotta go Valiska murders Ax Murder
House Jesse for the Wino. Yeah, you know, honestly, it was
just too much doom and gloom.I had to go with something a little

(37:57):
more lighthearted. And it's weird.It's totally weird, and I gotta be
honest. If spark my interest soyeah, you know, Rhythm Nation that
well amazing. Again, still nostreak going for us here on the pod.
If you think you have something thatcan help us, we want to
hear from you. Please reach outto us at our gmail that has Sparked

(38:19):
My Interest Podcast at gmail dot com. You can also reach us at our
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It can rate and review us onjust about any platform. It can
also like subscribe, follow it allhelps the pod, and you can leave
us a voicemail and if it's somethingthat fits our podcast, we'll play it

(38:43):
on the next episode. Amazing,Well from all of us here spark my
interest. We hope you have awonderful, happy Halloween. It is a
safe and uneventful time, but afun time regardless. Thank you so much
for listening to our doom and gloomtonight. We appreciate you immensely, and

(39:05):
until next week, we hope youall gets spooked. But according to passengers
moved minutes later, what the fuck? Oh my god, she like jumped
and I saw her in my vision. I was supposed to walk by my
fucking head. Jesus, Lila,it's Halloween, Debra, you're meant to
having to scare I know, thelittle cat