August 3, 2017 • 45 mins
In a small town in Iowa in 1912 eight people were murdered in the grisliest of ways while they slept. Local reputations were ruined when accusations flew, but could a drifting serial killer working across the Midwest have been behind it?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works
dot com. Pane, Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Sherry put The three
of us together had a little mystery, a lot of mayhem,
(00:22):
you got stuff you should and one ax, Yeah, how
many is this three? We've got Louzie Borden ye and
then this one. I couldn't think of it anymore. Well,
I looked. It's funny because I looked out, was like,
I wonder if we could do a spinoff show just
on X murders UM, and Wikipedia had thirty listed. I'm surprised.
(00:47):
That's if there's like ten mentioned in this this article alone.
M M, well, we'll see why there are so many
X murders. This this UM. This whole researching the Viliska
X murder kind of solved a question I've had that
I didn't realize I knew had how to pronounce Vliska.
(01:07):
We just settled that by calling the Valiska town hall.
That was a pretty great moment. Right before we recorded,
I was like, are you sure there's a Valissa? Josh
called the town hall and lied. Well, it was kind
of a bet that's just settled. We just never put
money on it. So if you are whoever answers the
phone at the Vliska Town Hall, um, first of all,
(01:30):
thank you. You got a call today, so congratulations. And
second of all, you just spoke to an internet celebrity.
I don't know, man. I think Valisca is on the
map and it is a d percent because of this
this murder. Well, if you just type in Valisca, almost
all you see is stuff about the Sacks murder. Well, yeah,
(01:53):
the site of Valiska, Iowa dot com is entirely dedicated
to the Sacs murder. It's it's a it's a pretty
big deal. Yeah, no, it's just it doesn't mention it
at all. But all the copy is just in the
outline of the shape of an x. They just talk
about like their boys club and stuff that they're doing
their Fourth of July prade, But it's in the shape
(02:13):
of an X. The population and elevation is in a
drop of blood coming off of the axe. It's his population,
not as much as it was on June nine. That's
morbid nineteen twelve. Did you did you hear about this before? Well,
I think after hint k effect. We had some emails
from probably local Iowans Iowan's, Iowan's, Iowania Nights, uh saying, hey,
(02:41):
you guys should if you're into the not into X murders,
but if you're into reporting on grizzly crimes, you should
check out the one we had in nineteen twelve. Yeah,
they were right, man, this is so before we get
into it, I think it goes without saying, listeners that
this is a very horrific grizzly crime. They we're going
to talk about in some detail, right listen at your
(03:04):
own discretion. X murder is in the title, everybody. I
just want to make sure we cover ourselves there. This
is one of the most brutal crimes in American history,
and a lot of people don't know about it. Man.
Well let's let's let's stop jabbering and get this criming. Okay,
all right? Where where was Where was this from? By
(03:24):
the way? Uh Well, one of the articles we researched
was from Mike dash the Smithsonian Magazine. They do great work,
great work. Um. There's another guy named and named Ed
Epperley who we have to give a shout at to,
who has like a whole site called asked Ed that's
dedicated to this murder. Guys research to for like fifty
(03:48):
five years or something like that, write one of the
two books. Probably Sure. He's widely known as the expert
on the Veliska X murder. He knows everything there is
to know, and he's got a really fascinating So if
you're even remotely into true cry him in this thing
floats your boat. Go check out eds site and you
will just spend days pouring over. Yeah. One thing I
realized in researching this was it was way easier to
(04:10):
get away with murder in nineteen twelve. Um. Yeah, there's
there's a lot of um agreement that had this been
done today, they would have caught the guy very quickly.
But yeah, nineteen twelve it was like you wear gloves
and you just confounded. There are only means of detection. Basically,
it's not from an eyewitness pretty much. Yeah, so we
(04:33):
keep saying nineteen twelve specifically, Like you said, June nine,
twelve in a little town, Well, it was one of
those things where it crossed over into midnight. So je
depends on if you're still at party in Potato Potato,
Aliska Melissa right, but at five ohway East Second Street
in Valiska, Iowa, which is in the county of Montgomery
(04:57):
in the south east of the state. I believe not
as far from here as I thought. No. I just
looked on a map and I was like, wait, I
was there. I thought. I was like, basically in Canada,
where is it this more in the middle of the country.
I did not realize that, like, it doesn't look further
west than like Dallas. I I can believe that. But
(05:20):
it was the north that gets you, the northern, the
northern ward direction, that's what gets your share. So on
this night j and this little house, there were eight
people sleeping. You were a mom and a dad, Joe
and Sarah Moore, and then there four kids, um what
(05:45):
were their names, Charles I believe Herman, Catherine, Boyd and Paul.
And then downstairs there were two additional people sleeping in
the house, little Lena and Iina Stillinger and they were
just having to sleep over. Yeah, they were friends of Catherine,
the oldest daughter for the only daughter I guess, of
the moors Um and the whole group had been at
(06:09):
church their Presbyterians, and they had been at church Um
that day it was Sunday for a special children's day
Mass that Mrs Moore had helped put on and the
kids had all participated in. And at that mass, Catherine
had asked her two friends Lena and Ana the sisters,
to spend the night, And so they came back home
(06:31):
with the Moors from the children's day Mass, and by
I think ten or ten thirty, they were all at
home in bed and the lights were out and the
house was settled and dark. Yeah. Man, the Stillinger girls.
I mean, this is all very sad. But anytime I
hear of a faithful turn like oh yeah, we just
spent the night there that night and things go bad,
(06:53):
it always I don't know, bothers me more. Yeah, for sure,
twists of fate are terrible, especially when they resulting terror deaths.
So uh, very late at night, like you said, after midnight, Um,
someone crept in to the back of the house which
was not locked. That's stuff for debate. Oh yeah, all right,
(07:14):
locked or unlocked. They got in without raising suspicion. Two
story house. And this is a small town, this is um.
There were I don't even think two thousand people living
there then, and I think even less now and there
we're back then. Yeah, one of those places. Um, so
this person and I think ball accounts, we can safely
(07:34):
say it was a man creeps in this house with
an ax from the property. Yeah, it was Joe Moore's
own ax. Yeah. And as we will see, apparently, Um,
they called these weapons of convenience because back in the day,
every single house in the US had an ax, like
(07:55):
in the front or backyard. That just explained it. That
was the question I didn't realize i'd had. Why were
there's so many axe murderers at a certain period of
time in American history? Is because everybody had an ax. Yeah,
and you would leave it just you know, like chopped
into the stump that you use as the chopping block
or whatever. It'd be like a weapon of convenience. Yeah,
(08:16):
these days you would have to kill people with like
a mailbox, just some something that everyone has, so like
a silicon spatula or a high speed internet cable. There
you choke somebody with that. Yeah, Okay, all joking aside.
So this this dude creeps in there, He's got this axe.
He gets and this is very key here, he gets
(08:38):
the lamp, an oil lamp from the dresser inside the house.
He takes off the chimney the glass, you know, and
it takes it off, bends the wick and half so
the flame is smaller, lights the lamp and then turns
it down really low, and then commences creeping. Yeah, with
an axe in hand and this low light um oil
(09:02):
lamp and the other chimney lest lamp, which will see
is a big clue. Yeah, So he goes up the stairs, apparently,
so he passes the stillinger girls. First goes up the stairs.
He passes the children's bedroom, and then opposite I believe
the landing from the children's bedroom are Joe and Sarah's room,
(09:23):
or is Joe and Sarah's room, and they're sleeping, and
he sets the oil lamp down I believe at the
foot of the bed, and he raises the axe over
his head and using the flat the flat end flat
side of the axe, not the sharp blade side, but
the other side, he delivers a blow to Joe's head. Joe,
(09:47):
I believe was lying on his back, even though Smithsonian
article says something different. Yeah, raise it so high he
even gouged the ceiling correct, Yeah, brought it down hard
on Joe's head. Probably killed him instantly from that one blow.
Then apparently he didn't disturb Sarah at all because he
did the same thing to her. And both of them
were found in a position that they would have been sleeping,
(10:09):
and there wasn't like the beg clothes weren't ruffled, There
wasn't their arm was enough to defend themselves. They died
in their sleep, it appeared, right. Yes, So he kills
the parents, um, either immediately or they they died, probably
pretty quickly, leaves the room and goes next door. And
this is really just almost too awful to talk about.
(10:31):
But he kills all the children in their sleep, one
by one, but again without waking any of them. Yeah,
by the time he got to the Stillinger girls downstairs, um,
it seemed evidence points to the fact that they may
have awakened. Finally one of them, the older one Linna
I believe is the older one, and then he dispatches
(10:54):
with both of them in the same manner. Yeah, grizzly, awful,
awful murder. So that's enough, right, This guy just went
around and murdered eight people, six of them children under
the age of twelve or twelve are under um with
the blunt end of an ax. That's bad enough, but
then it just gets a million times worse. And this
(11:14):
is probably why this ax murder is is just part
of American history, whether we like it or not. So
what the guy does next is, um, well, he took
the axe and he flips it over, and he takes
them the sharp side, and he goes around and he
starts bashing everybody's head in one by one. Um. Apparently
(11:38):
Joe was later found to have been struck as many
as thirty times in the head with the ax. Um,
just one by one. He went around and completely caved
in the head and face of all of his victims
methodically throughout the house after they were dead. Which is
a bizarre, horrible thing to do. Yeah, so then it
(12:01):
gets a little bit strange. He Um. He goes around
to the rooms and all over the house really and
does different things in each one. He covers windows with
sheets and things. He covers mirrors. All the mirrors in
the house are covered. He covered the faces of I
believe all the victims, right, yeah, one way or another. Um,
(12:23):
I believe all of their faces were covered with either
sheets or pillow cases, or I think in the case
of the girls, he pulled their dresses up over their faces. Yeah,
we'll talk about that in a second. Uh. Yeah, it's
very um, I think in the serial killer or psychopath mode,
though I've heard of stuff like that before. Though right like, um,
(12:45):
you get the idea that they don't the murderer doesn't
want the victim looking at him. Yeah, which may also
explain why you bashed their faces in here, know. Um.
So the guy apparently hang out for a little while. Um.
He does other weird things though. The bacon, he grabbed
a two pound slab of bacon, and I saw elsewhere
(13:07):
that there was another slab of bacon found in the house.
But there was at least one two pounds slab of
bacon that he wrapped in a dish towel and then
left on the floor of one of the bedrooms. There
was a bowl of bloody water that was later found
he washed himself off. He washed off the axe, um,
although he left it behind. Um. And he apparently hung
(13:30):
out for a little while in the house before leaving
sometime before five am. So the murders took place around
midnight and then come five am the house is dark
still it's five am, so that's not the weirdest thing.
Although we're talking about Iowa, so plenty of people were
(13:51):
up at five, including the neighbor, a woman named Mary Peckham,
and she noticed that, um, there wasn't anybody up at
the house, which was a little odd. It was a
Monday morning now, and um, by seven she thought it
was just downright eerie that there was no sign of
life at the house. She went over and let the
Moore's chickens out so that they could pick around and feed. Um.
(14:14):
She called Joe Moore's um store and said, hey, has
Joe showed up and found from the employee that he hadn't.
And finally one of those two gets in touch with
a guy named Ross Moore, Joe Moore's brother, and Ross
comes over and unlocks the door. The front door is locked,
and um, he goes inside and he comes almost immediately
(14:38):
rushing back out, calling for the local marshal to be called. Yeah,
basically he gets Hank Horton is the marshall's name. He
gets him on the scene, and this this is where
things just kind of go berserk. It's it's such a
small town, such a grizzly crime. Um, any chances of
(14:58):
preserving a crime scene. And this is nineteen twelve. I
don't even know how much a small town like this
knows about preserving a crime scene at the time. Um,
but any hopes were lost within those first few hours
after the discovery, because by all accounts, there were a
hundred or more people that went through that house, from
(15:19):
doctors to corners to investigators who just townspeople, right that
were allowed to just go in there and check things out. Yeah.
So the the first group that comes with the the uh,
the Marshal Hank Horton, right, was to two doctors and
a minister, Jay Clark Cooper, right, great doctor name j
(15:41):
Clark Cooper and Edgar Huff and Wesley Ewing who was
the minister of the church. They were the first contingent
to make it into the house after Rossmore came running out. Yeah.
So they go in and uh they know enough to
not disturb things too much. Another guy gets brought in,
um l A Linquist. He's the coroner. Uh. He tries
(16:04):
to take some notes about the crime scene. But the
person who um got the most information was another doctor.
His name was um Yeah F. S. Williams was the
one who examined the body and at a later in quest.
Um he had the most details to offer about the bodies,
of positions, all that stuff, So when those guys walked in,
(16:25):
they were at least well versed enough to know not
disturbed things as much as possible, or at least more
than the towns people knew. And f S. Williams allegedly
came out of the house pretty shaken and said, don't
go in there, boys, well you'll regretted to your last day.
And the townspeople said, nuts to you. We're going inside.
(16:46):
We want to see some dead bodies. And it probably
till their last day, yeah, because they not only messed
with the crimes and they poked around there was supposedly
the town drunk took fragments of Joe Moore's skull as
mementos like the The crime scene was toast, like you said,
if if it could have ever been preserved, it was toast.
And even the local druggist showed up with his camera
(17:08):
to help preserve the crime scene because he heard that
the townspeople were were tramping all over it. Um and
Ross Moore, not understanding what he was doing through the
guy out thought he was just being a ghoul. Trying
to get pictures. So the crime scene is utterly and
completely lost. Yeah, and uh, one of the things about Valesca,
(17:29):
almost said Vassila, is that it was a train town.
There were about thirty trains every day that went through there.
And so by this time, unless this person was local
and maybe hiding out locally, by all accounts, the murderer
had probably hopped the train was out of there at
that time, but they didn't They didn't realize this until
(17:49):
they had already released some bloodhounds. They searched the countryside. Um,
there was like a pretty pretty big search to find
whoever did this, and they didn't find any. And so
the town was just terrified. Town of two thousand people,
eight including six children, had just been murdered with an
ax in your town. And now the sun is starting
(18:09):
to go down and nobody's been caught. All right, So
let's take a break and we'll come back and talk
about suspect number one right after this. Okay, So suspect
(18:43):
number one, UM might be a little surprising when you
first hear that he was a state senator, very um
well well well respected by some as a local businessman,
and um a very prominent Methodist. It seems the town
was pretty sharply divided between Methodist and Presbyterian. You know
(19:06):
those days, and that stuff mattered to those people. Um,
and his name was Frank Jones, and uh, Methodists immediately said, no, uh,
he's he's got to be innocent. This is a fine
upstanding member of our church. Presbyterians are like, now, it's
got to be him. Uh. And at first I was like, well,
(19:27):
why would it be the state centator? None of this
makes sense. There were a couple of big things that
made people believe that he could be the guy. Joe
Moore worked for him for seven years and was one
of his best salesman on his farm equipment team, and
apparently he left in nineteen o seven uh and was
(19:48):
not too happy with the work hours, which were sixteen
hour days, six days a week. Who would be it's
like us um, and then set up a rival business
and even took one of the clients, the John Deer Company.
Yeah that was a big one. I'm sure so big
that UM. When Sarah Peckham called, Uh, Joe Moore's UM
(20:09):
employee to tell him the news, Joe Moore's employee called
the John Deer people in Omaha to let them know
they were like the third people called after the bodies
were discovered. So he takes John Deer with him. Um.
So this set up an obvious rivalry and uh, worse
than that apparently, um. And I don't know if this
(20:29):
is super confirmed, but at least the rumor was that
Joe Moore had slept with Jones's daughter in law. From
what I understand, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's
been that's understood is true. That's true. So sleuch with
his daughter in law who apparently kind of had several
affairs in town and was not very discreet. Yeah, apparently,
(20:50):
according to Mike Dash at Smithsony and she used to
set up her um, her meet and greets over the phone.
It's called ason. Oh that's right, um over the phone.
And this was at a time when there was a
switchboard operator running the phones in the town, sat there
and listen. Yeah, and this lady obviously didn't care. So um.
(21:13):
Apparently it was pretty well known that that Joe Moore
had had an affair with F F. Jones daughter in
law was huge. You put those two things together and friends,
the fact that apparently they used to cross to the
other side of the street to keep from from from
encountering one another. Um that that's that's a big deal
in that town. You small town, right, So suspicion fell
(21:36):
on to f apparently from what I understand, within a
couple hours of the bodies being discovered. Yeah, And and
suspicion not that he may have done it, that Jones
was actually the killer. But maybe Jones because he was
fifty seven years old and probably had some pretty good money. Clearly,
Oh yeah, he was wealthy. He was building a bank,
overseeing his new bank being built when he got the
(21:57):
news of the bodies. When you're building the bank, you're
you're rolling in. Yeah. So everyone thought that he probably
hired somebody out to kill him. Uh. And there was
a very Burns detective agency. Um that was a detective
named James Wilkerson who said, you know what, I think,
you're right. I think he hired someone. I think that
man's name was William Mansfield, William Blackie Mansfield. It was already,
(22:19):
Um no, he wasn't already. He would later be I believe,
convicted of an axe murder himself. Yeah, which is probably
one of the chief reasons he was suspect. Well, no,
that that came a couple of years after. I believe
that was fourteen or fifteen that he murdered his wife,
her parents, and their child, their child, his childet with
(22:41):
an ax right to see. I was a bad dude.
But there was one problem with James Wilkerson's theory. Blackie
Mansfield had um an air tight alibi. He was in Illinois,
hundreds of miles away when the crimes occurred. Not only
did the foreman vouch for him, but the payroll chords
showed very clearly that he had not been in Viliska
(23:04):
that day, um, and couldn't have done it. Yeah, so
he was exonerated, but um, a lot of townspeople still
thought that that. You know how it was back then
and still is today to a certain degree, sure, especially
in a small town. Yeah, people were convinced that he
was a guy, and a lot of people probably went
to their graves thinking that. So even though Chuck that
Mansfield was exonerated, and and like you said, a lot
(23:26):
of people thought that um Jones F Jones apparently went
by f um did have something to do with it.
That still in your girls, father and Ross Moore, Joe
Moore's brother both thought F. Jones was behind this, um
and and Wilkinson made it like his personal mission to
take Jones down and apparently ruined his his political career,
(23:49):
cost him re election to the state Senate. I would
think that probably happened anyway, just from suspicion. But maybe.
But I think like there's something between townspeople suspecting you
and a detective like bringing evidence against you and getting
a grand jury to indict you. It was like the
good old days when you could be suspected of an
x murder and still win a Senate seat, right exactly,
(24:11):
Um the uh the But Jones he didn't win re
election and uh yeah, apparently to their dying day, some
people assumed that it was him behind it. Another candidate,
candidate suspect candidates not the right word, Uh Lynn George
(24:33):
Jacqueline Kelly, Uh, the man with four names. He went
by George Kelly though. He was an Englishman, um, which
is probably a little weird at the time, be living there,
no one had ever seen an Englishman in Iowa. Maybe Uh.
He was a preacher though, and it says uh in
this Smithsonian article a known sexual deviant. Um. He definitely
(24:55):
had some mental health problems. But um, there are some
things in his case where it's sort of we're suspicious,
and others that made him not a great suspect, one
of which he was a little guy. He was five
to one hundred nineteen pounds, so maybe not the best
um suspect for swinging and ax like that. Yeah, although
(25:17):
you know he could have been strong as an ox.
You never know. Sure, thumbs of little guys, you know, Yeah,
but they're usually good with like jiu jitsu sleeper holds
rather than axe swinging. You know, they just scramble up
on top of them before you know what. Their legs
are around your neck and you're losing contoe, their thumbs
are in your eyeballs, that kind of thing. Uh, yeah,
so fair enough. But he was left handed, and the
(25:40):
corner Linquist did say that, you know, from their analysis
his rudimentry is that might be in nineteen twelve, that
could probably at least determine that it was a left
handed assailant from the blood spatter, I believe on the
walls it's good good for them for being that advanced.
So there were some other things that um that implicated
George Kelly one. He was in Valiska. He was a
(26:02):
traveling preacher. He and his wife toured around Um and
they were in Valiska than the day of the murder Um.
They were actually at the children's service that the that
the moors and the still injured girls were at Um. Again,
this guy was a sex maniac, is what he was
known as. Yeah, I kind of wonder about that, and
(26:24):
I guess if there were. He placed an ad and
this is in the nineteen tens. He placed an ad
in the Omaha World Harald looking for a a stenographer
who would be willing to pose as a model. And
when one, one woman named Justumine Hodgson, replied to his ad,
(26:44):
he sent her a letter. Apparently he's quite lude, so
much so that the court that that heard the case
against him um said that it was so obscene, lewd, lascivious,
and filthy as to be offensive to this honorable court
and improper to be spread upon the record thereof. I
(27:04):
really want to know what was in that. Last One
of the things was that the lady would be required
to type in the nude. This is the nineteenth ten. No,
That's what I'm saying. I wonder how it would be
judged by today's standard, although I mean by today's standard.
If you sent a potential job candidate a letter that
said going to require you to be typing in the nude, yeah,
(27:26):
you would get in some trouble for that. Sure, I
just don't know that you would say it was obscene
luden Lecity, I'm with you. They'd say that's kin, But
I think the it's okay. George Kelly was a kinky
traveling preacher who had his wife in toil and he
was in Viliska at the time of the murders, and
he left that next morning on a train, right, But
(27:47):
there was supposedly a witness that said that he had
a very incriminating um statement when he got off of
that train that very morning. Yeah, he apparently referenced the murders,
but he had left town before they found out about
the murders. But then later on those people recanted those statements. Correct.
(28:08):
So when when Frank Jones F F. Jones had a
grand jury brought to hear evidence against him, he was exonerated. Um.
Same thing. Not with George Kelly. Actually, I should say
he was actually the only person to ever go to
trial for these murders, and he was tried twice. The
first time the jury found eleven to one in his favor.
(28:31):
The second jury acquitted him entirely. Um, the evidence against
him was just too flimsy, and uh, it probably wasn't him. Yeah,
I mean, the the the idea was there, like he
was at that church service, he's a pervert. He saw
these kids in the service, he went back and peeked
into their house and camped out in their barn. And
(28:53):
the evidence there was there was some hay bales in
the barn that had depressions, as if someone had been
laying on them, and if you'd laid down and one
of them that was a people right there in the
barn where you could see the house. This is all
pretty flimsy. There was also, though, I think one of
the reasons why the case was brought against him. He
was specifically tried for the murder of Lena Stillinger, and
(29:15):
that's Um. That's noteworthy because although they don't say in
the official court record directly that she may have been
sexually assaulted or that some sort of sex crime had
been committed against her, Um, supposedly she had been found
with her nightclothes hiked up over her waist, like above
(29:36):
her waist, her undergarments have been taken off and stuffed
under the bed, and then her her legs had been
arranged so that her genitalia was prominent. Right. Um, that
was done after she had been murdered. And I think
that's one of the reasons why they suspected George Kelly.
Um because to add a sexual dimension to this brutal murder.
(30:00):
Or they said, well, this guy's just just enough of
a sex maniac for that to be possible. Yeah, Oh,
I forgot about this fact though. He actually returned a
week later and post this the Scotland Yard detective so
he could get a tour of the house. That is
so George Kelly. Well, it's definitely one of those things
that makes you go, wait a minute, uh, return to
the scene of the crime. You lied to get in
(30:21):
there and look at the house, but apparently everyone wanted
to go look at the house. So it's plus what's posing?
You know, We've seen so many like cartoony movies that
like somebody gets like the deer Stalker hat and a
pipe and says they're from Scotland Yard. Posing could be
like somebody saying like, oh, you must be from Scotland.
Yard like, am I grunting in the affirmative? Yeah, that's true.
(30:43):
I guess that technically constitutes posing in the real world.
Apparently signed a confession. Um, oh yeah, that was a
big one too. Yeah, but I mean the confession literally said,
I killed the children upstairs first and the children downstairs last.
I knew God wanted me to do it this way.
Lay utterly came to mind, and I picked up the axe,
went into the house and killed them. Um. But you
(31:07):
know he took it back later. I was like, you know,
all that very specific stuff I said about killing his family,
I didn't really do it. So he was exonerated. Um. So,
so far, the little town of Aliska has looked around
and said, we couldn't find any tramps. So who's the
person that hated Joe more the most ff Jones? While
it wasn't him, Who's the weirdest pervert we can find?
(31:28):
Who was in town of the time, George Kelly? It
wasn't him, So they didn't know a lot of people
went to their graves dying not knowing what happened. And
we still don't know what happened. But with the hindsight
of UM, I guess, modern forensic techniques, modern profiling, and
the work of dedicated historians like Ed Epperley, we have
(31:51):
something of a clearer picture emerging, and that picture seems
to be centering on the serial killer. We'll talk about
that theory more right after this. All right, so we've
(32:25):
ruled out these local suspects local ish I guess in
Kelly's case. UM. And now the modern take on this
is that this was a serial killer because, uh, in
nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve, there were a lot of
axe murders uh in the Midwest, at least ten UM
(32:49):
everywhere from Colorado Springs to Ellsworth, Kansas, UM, and many
of them had uh similar traits. Yeah, like some very
startlingly similar traits, right, but not all of them. And
some of them are like and we'll go through these,
but some were like, well, in five of them, these
(33:12):
same things happened, and two of them these same things happen.
So it makes me wonder if it wasn't if they're
kind of grouping too many of these together. This does
Ed Epperly actually whittles it down to five, including Vliska.
I thought five so there's three that happened in nineteen eleven.
There was one that happened in Colorado Springs, Colorado that
(33:35):
supposedly kicked the whole thing off, followed by Momoth in Illinois,
I forgot the s is silent, right yeah, and then Ellsworth, Kansas.
Then there was one in Paola, Kansas, and then the
last one in Valiska. And those five crimes have some
similarities that make them really really suspicious. That the idea
(34:00):
of just like five different people or even a couple
of different people um separately committing these crimes, and as
ed Epper's Lee puts it, kind of dismissively the idea
that these were local vendettas or you know, um that
that people were like argument farming or something. Yeah, that's
(34:21):
not what these these crimes reflect at all. They reflect
the work of a like just a straight up nut
job psychopath who um are few and far between. So
that the fact that these things occurred between October of
nineteen eleven in June of nineteen twelve um suggests strongly
that that there was one person doing them. Yeah. Well
(34:44):
that was the final one in Columbia, Missouri in December
nineteen twelve. Um, and one of the theories is that
a man named Henry Lee Moore uh killed Georgia Moore
in Columbia, Missouri, who was his mother Mary Wilson. Um,
so is that the guy. It would be weird to
(35:09):
commit a series of murders and then finish up with
your own family, right, Usually it's the other way around. Yeah, right, So, like,
if you're gonna go off on a killing spree, usually
start you practice on your family first, you get a
feel for it. Right. Um, this guy, Henry Lee Moore,
aside from having three names, is not a good suspect
(35:29):
for the serial killer, right. Um. He apparently wanted the
deeds to his family house. And um, like you said that,
it's very rare for a serial killer to go back,
you know, to deal with the three names. They don't
all have three names, no, I know, but so many
of them do. It's well, no, the news reports it
that way to distinguish them every other Henry Moore in
(35:50):
the world. So like everyone's always like serial killers have
three names. Now they're just reported that way. That's awesome. Yeah,
I love him when things are just explained. Yeah, I
wrapped up in a nice little bow. Thanks for that.
Like Lee Harvey Oswald, he I think went by Lee Oswald.
I think you're right. Yeah. So if anyone ever write
(36:12):
a story about Charles Wayne Bryant, we're in trouble. Um.
Oh yeah, I'm in trouble. I would kill you. Thanks man.
I wouldn't kill you either. Hey, you want to shake
on it? Jerry witnessed. Um, So the Henry Lee Moore thing,
he's almost like a red herring. Like a lot of
people say, well, he was the one, he was a
(36:34):
serial killer behind it, because the serial the serial murders
started um right after he got out of prison in Kansas,
and then they ended right after he got caught in Columbia,
Missouri with his family. Yeah, I mean kind of makes sense,
it does, but that's where the whole thing really begins
in it. And so a lot of people say, well,
it wasn't hand really more so, it wasn't a serial killing.
(36:55):
Well plus uh sorry, but his his killing his own
family was about obtaining the deeds to his family house. Yeah,
that's what I was saying. So that was greed motivated,
not not a serious psychopathic, sex based serial killer spree. Right,
This guy was just a jerk Um, so, since Henry
(37:15):
Lee Moore is associated with the serial murder theory, once
somebody then finds out that it wasn't Henry ly more,
they stopped thinking it was a serial murderer. And Epperly says,
not so fast. Wait, wait, wait, just because Henry Lee
Moore's out of the equation doesn't mean there's not a
serial killer involved. He's like, consider the similarities between these
five cases, and they're they're they're pretty thick. Right. In
(37:40):
a couple of the cases, Um, there were oil lamps
found where chimney. The chimneys were removed and set aside,
and the wicks were bent in half to keep the
light low. That's a big one. Axes were used in
four of the five, but he says that's just probably
a matter of convenience. A pipe, I think was used
(38:01):
in the Mamouth, Illinois case, which is again an implement
of convenience to right, don't have an axe, handy, go
for a lead pipe. Yeah, he probably didn't bring that
with you. Um, there were tell them about the tell
them about the mirrors, Chuck, Well, I mean it's several
of these places the mirrors were covered up. I mean,
that's a big one mirrors and windows, and in one
(38:23):
of the places the telephone was covered. And the thought
there is is that, uh, like you said earlier, like
they don't want the victims to be watching them even
after death, or to be seen in the mirrors and
windows being covered. But the phone appearently it was one
of those old box phones on the wall that you
that you crank, and it has the two it sort
(38:46):
of looks like a face when you look at it.
It has like looks like two eyes and a nose.
And so the thought was that that even looks like
a face to the Drange serial killer, so they'll cover
that up as well, because nothing else makes much sense.
You know, you're not gonna in nineteen twelve, you're not
getting phone calls after midnight. You probably probably don't get
(39:06):
more than a couple of phone calls a week in
nineteen twelve. Most people I have phones, Yeah, And throwing
a sheet over it wouldn't like disable it anyway. No. Um.
There was another female victim, a young female victim in
Mammouth who was found basically the same way that Um.
Lena Still Injury was found Um with her her nightgown
(39:30):
thrown up over waist and her undergarments removed. UM And
apparently there was a similarity in I believe Mammoth and
Veliska where and one other town to where the killer
was went on to try to kill again. Yeah, this
was the most interesting to me. Either successfully did kill again.
(39:51):
There was one where he went to an adjacent house
whose backyard connected the first murderhouse and then went in
and killed another family right afterwards. That was Colorado Spring.
And then in Vliska there the telephone operator who was
like sleeping in the telephone switchboard headquarters because no calls
were coming through. She reported the UM the door knob
(40:12):
being tried about two hours after the more house UM
members were murdered. Yeah, like heard footsteps come up to
the door, try to open it, and then heard the
footsteps leave. That's a little shaky, But this, the last
one was the one that kind of sent the chill
up my spine. It was the one in Kansas specifically,
(40:32):
you said, Paola, I bet you there are people they're
laughing because it's probably pronounced Paula or something probably, but
who knows p a l a Kansas, there was a
second family UM Mrs uh Longmire, the Longmire family. Um,
they were awakened. She and her daughter at about midnight
to the sound of broken glass, went downstairs and saw
(40:55):
a dude in their dining room who had just broken
uh oil lamp chimney and then got the heck out
of there through a window. So they actually saw a guy.
So think about that, Chuck, think about that they saw
they woke up and I saw the man who was
about to probably bludgeon them all to death with an axe. Um,
(41:16):
this is probably. And these were all trained towns, so
they were all linked by train depots. So by all accounts,
there was a train going serial killer uh for a
couple of years in the Midwest, killing people hopping trains,
never ever caught in the nuts. It is nuts, and
that the Valiska axe murders were probably one of his
(41:40):
crazy But we'll never know, you know. When you say
stuff like that, or when you see stuff like that
in print to like will never know who it was,
it makes you wonder, like what kind of technology are
we going to have in the future, Like will we
never know? Or are we gonna come up with something
one day where we're like, oh, it was this guy,
(42:00):
Like now we know, you know, um, who who knows
the future knows? That's who knows. We should do one
on ed Geen. That's like kind of one of the
big big ones we haven't covered. I got a couple
more too. I don't want to I don't want to
even tease him yet. Okay, okay, true crime. Maybe we'll
(42:21):
do one and uh like this October. We used to
do multiple kind of creepy episodes. I think we did
last time too. Looks October. You all right, we'll look
forward to another ghoulish serial killer type thing. Okay, yeah,
we did hinder Kfec I think. Okay. Uh. If you
(42:43):
want to know more about the Valista X murders, well
again strongly recommend you go look up Ed Epperley. You
can read the Smithsonian article, um, the X Murderer Who
Got Away, which was great. Uh, and there were plenty
of other articles that we relied on that we love.
Thank you for those. UM. In the meantime, you can
also hang out with us on how stuff works dot
(43:04):
com and our famous search bars. It's as a search bar.
Got it in there. It's sort for the listener mail. Hey, guys,
love the show, and now I have even more reason
to promote your podcast. Everyone. I know. I work in
a small family business with my cousin. In this previous January,
started experiencing severe gastro intestinal issues. Yeah, I remember this one. Uh,
(43:26):
it was like from yesterday. I won't go into detail,
but for months afterward, he saw specialists after specialists hoping
to find out the route, tested for Crohn's ulcers, ibs,
everything under the sun, none of which had a positive
result or diagnosis. Couldn't focus on anything, no energy, took
a ton of time away from work. He felt totally
lost and even sought the help of a psychologist because
(43:47):
of his diminished work ethic deteriorating quality of life. Do
you see where this is going? People? I think listeners
might know. And he was souther one day last month. Uh,
he was Southern. Actually. He came in after a doctor's
appointment and said he developed an iron deficient anemia to
add to his list of issues. At first, it sounded
(44:08):
disconnected until and I kid you, this isn't all caps.
I kid you not, Josh and Chuck. I was listening
to your Hookworm episode that day. Man. When he got
to the part about the aggressive iron deficient anemia, I
lost my mind. I looked up hookworm infection symptoms immediately
brought it to my cousin and he had every last symptom.
(44:31):
His doctor prescribed a medication and he is currently being
de wormed. From the first day he started his treatment,
he had a noticeable increase in both mood and energy.
I don't know how these symptoms could have slipped by
a half dozen GPS and specialists, but I truly can't
thank you both enough of your podcast and his wide
range of topics that is James and St. Pete, Florida.
That is so awesome. Man, dude had hookworm? Can you
(44:53):
believe it? And man, thank you James, and good luck
to you cousin. Way to go for being so smart
to connect the dots too. I think your cousin knows
you pizza or a beer or whatever you may be both. Yeah,
trip to Chuck E cheese drunk Uh. If you want
to get in touch with us to tell us an
(45:14):
amazing story like James did, you can tweet to us.
I'm at Joshum Clark and s Y s K podcast,
Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant and stuff you should
know on Facebook and you can send us all an email,
including Jerry at Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
and has always joined us at at Home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
(45:39):
and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works
dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works
dot com. Pane, Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Sherry put The three
of us together had a little mystery, a lot of mayhem,
(00:22):
you got stuff you should and one ax, Yeah, how
many is this three? We've got Louzie Borden ye and
then this one. I couldn't think of it anymore. Well,
I looked. It's funny because I looked out, was like,
I wonder if we could do a spinoff show just
on X murders UM, and Wikipedia had thirty listed. I'm surprised.
(00:47):
That's if there's like ten mentioned in this this article alone.
M M, well, we'll see why there are so many
X murders. This this UM. This whole researching the Viliska
X murder kind of solved a question I've had that
I didn't realize I knew had how to pronounce Vliska.
(01:07):
We just settled that by calling the Valiska town hall.
That was a pretty great moment. Right before we recorded,
I was like, are you sure there's a Valissa? Josh
called the town hall and lied. Well, it was kind
of a bet that's just settled. We just never put
money on it. So if you are whoever answers the
phone at the Vliska Town Hall, um, first of all,
(01:30):
thank you. You got a call today, so congratulations. And
second of all, you just spoke to an internet celebrity.
I don't know, man. I think Valisca is on the
map and it is a d percent because of this
this murder. Well, if you just type in Valisca, almost
all you see is stuff about the Sacks murder. Well, yeah,
(01:53):
the site of Valiska, Iowa dot com is entirely dedicated
to the Sacs murder. It's it's a it's a pretty
big deal. Yeah, no, it's just it doesn't mention it
at all. But all the copy is just in the
outline of the shape of an x. They just talk
about like their boys club and stuff that they're doing
their Fourth of July prade, But it's in the shape
(02:13):
of an X. The population and elevation is in a
drop of blood coming off of the axe. It's his population,
not as much as it was on June nine. That's
morbid nineteen twelve. Did you did you hear about this before? Well,
I think after hint k effect. We had some emails
from probably local Iowans Iowan's, Iowan's, Iowania Nights, uh saying, hey,
(02:41):
you guys should if you're into the not into X murders,
but if you're into reporting on grizzly crimes, you should
check out the one we had in nineteen twelve. Yeah,
they were right, man, this is so before we get
into it, I think it goes without saying, listeners that
this is a very horrific grizzly crime. They we're going
to talk about in some detail, right listen at your
(03:04):
own discretion. X murder is in the title, everybody. I
just want to make sure we cover ourselves there. This
is one of the most brutal crimes in American history,
and a lot of people don't know about it. Man.
Well let's let's let's stop jabbering and get this criming. Okay,
all right? Where where was Where was this from? By
(03:24):
the way? Uh Well, one of the articles we researched
was from Mike dash the Smithsonian Magazine. They do great work,
great work. Um. There's another guy named and named Ed
Epperley who we have to give a shout at to,
who has like a whole site called asked Ed that's
dedicated to this murder. Guys research to for like fifty
(03:48):
five years or something like that, write one of the
two books. Probably Sure. He's widely known as the expert
on the Veliska X murder. He knows everything there is
to know, and he's got a really fascinating So if
you're even remotely into true cry him in this thing
floats your boat. Go check out eds site and you
will just spend days pouring over. Yeah. One thing I
realized in researching this was it was way easier to
(04:10):
get away with murder in nineteen twelve. Um. Yeah, there's
there's a lot of um agreement that had this been
done today, they would have caught the guy very quickly.
But yeah, nineteen twelve it was like you wear gloves
and you just confounded. There are only means of detection. Basically,
it's not from an eyewitness pretty much. Yeah, so we
(04:33):
keep saying nineteen twelve specifically, Like you said, June nine,
twelve in a little town, Well, it was one of
those things where it crossed over into midnight. So je
depends on if you're still at party in Potato Potato,
Aliska Melissa right, but at five ohway East Second Street
in Valiska, Iowa, which is in the county of Montgomery
(04:57):
in the south east of the state. I believe not
as far from here as I thought. No. I just
looked on a map and I was like, wait, I
was there. I thought. I was like, basically in Canada,
where is it this more in the middle of the country.
I did not realize that, like, it doesn't look further
west than like Dallas. I I can believe that. But
(05:20):
it was the north that gets you, the northern, the
northern ward direction, that's what gets your share. So on
this night j and this little house, there were eight
people sleeping. You were a mom and a dad, Joe
and Sarah Moore, and then there four kids, um what
(05:45):
were their names, Charles I believe Herman, Catherine, Boyd and Paul.
And then downstairs there were two additional people sleeping in
the house, little Lena and Iina Stillinger and they were
just having to sleep over. Yeah, they were friends of Catherine,
the oldest daughter for the only daughter I guess, of
the moors Um and the whole group had been at
(06:09):
church their Presbyterians, and they had been at church Um
that day it was Sunday for a special children's day
Mass that Mrs Moore had helped put on and the
kids had all participated in. And at that mass, Catherine
had asked her two friends Lena and Ana the sisters,
to spend the night, And so they came back home
(06:31):
with the Moors from the children's day Mass, and by
I think ten or ten thirty, they were all at
home in bed and the lights were out and the
house was settled and dark. Yeah. Man, the Stillinger girls.
I mean, this is all very sad. But anytime I
hear of a faithful turn like oh yeah, we just
spent the night there that night and things go bad,
(06:53):
it always I don't know, bothers me more. Yeah, for sure,
twists of fate are terrible, especially when they resulting terror deaths.
So uh, very late at night, like you said, after midnight, Um,
someone crept in to the back of the house which
was not locked. That's stuff for debate. Oh yeah, all right,
(07:14):
locked or unlocked. They got in without raising suspicion. Two
story house. And this is a small town, this is um.
There were I don't even think two thousand people living
there then, and I think even less now and there
we're back then. Yeah, one of those places. Um, so
this person and I think ball accounts, we can safely
(07:34):
say it was a man creeps in this house with
an ax from the property. Yeah, it was Joe Moore's
own ax. Yeah. And as we will see, apparently, Um,
they called these weapons of convenience because back in the day,
every single house in the US had an ax, like
(07:55):
in the front or backyard. That just explained it. That
was the question I didn't realize i'd had. Why were
there's so many axe murderers at a certain period of
time in American history? Is because everybody had an ax. Yeah,
and you would leave it just you know, like chopped
into the stump that you use as the chopping block
or whatever. It'd be like a weapon of convenience. Yeah,
(08:16):
these days you would have to kill people with like
a mailbox, just some something that everyone has, so like
a silicon spatula or a high speed internet cable. There
you choke somebody with that. Yeah, Okay, all joking aside.
So this this dude creeps in there, He's got this axe.
He gets and this is very key here, he gets
(08:38):
the lamp, an oil lamp from the dresser inside the house.
He takes off the chimney the glass, you know, and
it takes it off, bends the wick and half so
the flame is smaller, lights the lamp and then turns
it down really low, and then commences creeping. Yeah, with
an axe in hand and this low light um oil
(09:02):
lamp and the other chimney lest lamp, which will see
is a big clue. Yeah, So he goes up the stairs, apparently,
so he passes the stillinger girls. First goes up the stairs.
He passes the children's bedroom, and then opposite I believe
the landing from the children's bedroom are Joe and Sarah's room,
(09:23):
or is Joe and Sarah's room, and they're sleeping, and
he sets the oil lamp down I believe at the
foot of the bed, and he raises the axe over
his head and using the flat the flat end flat
side of the axe, not the sharp blade side, but
the other side, he delivers a blow to Joe's head. Joe,
(09:47):
I believe was lying on his back, even though Smithsonian
article says something different. Yeah, raise it so high he
even gouged the ceiling correct, Yeah, brought it down hard
on Joe's head. Probably killed him instantly from that one blow.
Then apparently he didn't disturb Sarah at all because he
did the same thing to her. And both of them
were found in a position that they would have been sleeping,
(10:09):
and there wasn't like the beg clothes weren't ruffled, There
wasn't their arm was enough to defend themselves. They died
in their sleep, it appeared, right. Yes, So he kills
the parents, um, either immediately or they they died, probably
pretty quickly, leaves the room and goes next door. And
this is really just almost too awful to talk about.
(10:31):
But he kills all the children in their sleep, one
by one, but again without waking any of them. Yeah,
by the time he got to the Stillinger girls downstairs, um,
it seemed evidence points to the fact that they may
have awakened. Finally one of them, the older one Linna
I believe is the older one, and then he dispatches
(10:54):
with both of them in the same manner. Yeah, grizzly, awful,
awful murder. So that's enough, right, This guy just went
around and murdered eight people, six of them children under
the age of twelve or twelve are under um with
the blunt end of an ax. That's bad enough, but
then it just gets a million times worse. And this
(11:14):
is probably why this ax murder is is just part
of American history, whether we like it or not. So
what the guy does next is, um, well, he took
the axe and he flips it over, and he takes
them the sharp side, and he goes around and he
starts bashing everybody's head in one by one. Um. Apparently
(11:38):
Joe was later found to have been struck as many
as thirty times in the head with the ax. Um,
just one by one. He went around and completely caved
in the head and face of all of his victims
methodically throughout the house after they were dead. Which is
a bizarre, horrible thing to do. Yeah, so then it
(12:01):
gets a little bit strange. He Um. He goes around
to the rooms and all over the house really and
does different things in each one. He covers windows with
sheets and things. He covers mirrors. All the mirrors in
the house are covered. He covered the faces of I
believe all the victims, right, yeah, one way or another. Um,
(12:23):
I believe all of their faces were covered with either
sheets or pillow cases, or I think in the case
of the girls, he pulled their dresses up over their faces. Yeah,
we'll talk about that in a second. Uh. Yeah, it's
very um, I think in the serial killer or psychopath mode,
though I've heard of stuff like that before. Though right like, um,
(12:45):
you get the idea that they don't the murderer doesn't
want the victim looking at him. Yeah, which may also
explain why you bashed their faces in here, know. Um.
So the guy apparently hang out for a little while. Um.
He does other weird things though. The bacon, he grabbed
a two pound slab of bacon, and I saw elsewhere
(13:07):
that there was another slab of bacon found in the house.
But there was at least one two pounds slab of
bacon that he wrapped in a dish towel and then
left on the floor of one of the bedrooms. There
was a bowl of bloody water that was later found
he washed himself off. He washed off the axe, um,
although he left it behind. Um. And he apparently hung
(13:30):
out for a little while in the house before leaving
sometime before five am. So the murders took place around
midnight and then come five am the house is dark
still it's five am, so that's not the weirdest thing.
Although we're talking about Iowa, so plenty of people were
(13:51):
up at five, including the neighbor, a woman named Mary Peckham,
and she noticed that, um, there wasn't anybody up at
the house, which was a little odd. It was a
Monday morning now, and um, by seven she thought it
was just downright eerie that there was no sign of
life at the house. She went over and let the
Moore's chickens out so that they could pick around and feed. Um.
(14:14):
She called Joe Moore's um store and said, hey, has
Joe showed up and found from the employee that he hadn't.
And finally one of those two gets in touch with
a guy named Ross Moore, Joe Moore's brother, and Ross
comes over and unlocks the door. The front door is locked,
and um, he goes inside and he comes almost immediately
(14:38):
rushing back out, calling for the local marshal to be called. Yeah,
basically he gets Hank Horton is the marshall's name. He
gets him on the scene, and this this is where
things just kind of go berserk. It's it's such a
small town, such a grizzly crime. Um, any chances of
(14:58):
preserving a crime scene. And this is nineteen twelve. I
don't even know how much a small town like this
knows about preserving a crime scene at the time. Um,
but any hopes were lost within those first few hours
after the discovery, because by all accounts, there were a
hundred or more people that went through that house, from
(15:19):
doctors to corners to investigators who just townspeople, right that
were allowed to just go in there and check things out. Yeah.
So the the first group that comes with the the uh,
the Marshal Hank Horton, right, was to two doctors and
a minister, Jay Clark Cooper, right, great doctor name j
(15:41):
Clark Cooper and Edgar Huff and Wesley Ewing who was
the minister of the church. They were the first contingent
to make it into the house after Rossmore came running out. Yeah.
So they go in and uh they know enough to
not disturb things too much. Another guy gets brought in,
um l A Linquist. He's the coroner. Uh. He tries
(16:04):
to take some notes about the crime scene. But the
person who um got the most information was another doctor.
His name was um Yeah F. S. Williams was the
one who examined the body and at a later in quest.
Um he had the most details to offer about the bodies,
of positions, all that stuff, So when those guys walked in,
(16:25):
they were at least well versed enough to know not
disturbed things as much as possible, or at least more
than the towns people knew. And f S. Williams allegedly
came out of the house pretty shaken and said, don't
go in there, boys, well you'll regretted to your last day.
And the townspeople said, nuts to you. We're going inside.
(16:46):
We want to see some dead bodies. And it probably
till their last day, yeah, because they not only messed
with the crimes and they poked around there was supposedly
the town drunk took fragments of Joe Moore's skull as
mementos like the The crime scene was toast, like you said,
if if it could have ever been preserved, it was toast.
And even the local druggist showed up with his camera
(17:08):
to help preserve the crime scene because he heard that
the townspeople were were tramping all over it. Um and
Ross Moore, not understanding what he was doing through the
guy out thought he was just being a ghoul. Trying
to get pictures. So the crime scene is utterly and
completely lost. Yeah, and uh, one of the things about Valesca,
(17:29):
almost said Vassila, is that it was a train town.
There were about thirty trains every day that went through there.
And so by this time, unless this person was local
and maybe hiding out locally, by all accounts, the murderer
had probably hopped the train was out of there at
that time, but they didn't They didn't realize this until
(17:49):
they had already released some bloodhounds. They searched the countryside. Um,
there was like a pretty pretty big search to find
whoever did this, and they didn't find any. And so
the town was just terrified. Town of two thousand people,
eight including six children, had just been murdered with an
ax in your town. And now the sun is starting
(18:09):
to go down and nobody's been caught. All right, So
let's take a break and we'll come back and talk
about suspect number one right after this. Okay, So suspect
(18:43):
number one, UM might be a little surprising when you
first hear that he was a state senator, very um
well well well respected by some as a local businessman,
and um a very prominent Methodist. It seems the town
was pretty sharply divided between Methodist and Presbyterian. You know
(19:06):
those days, and that stuff mattered to those people. Um,
and his name was Frank Jones, and uh, Methodists immediately said, no, uh,
he's he's got to be innocent. This is a fine
upstanding member of our church. Presbyterians are like, now, it's
got to be him. Uh. And at first I was like, well,
(19:27):
why would it be the state centator? None of this
makes sense. There were a couple of big things that
made people believe that he could be the guy. Joe
Moore worked for him for seven years and was one
of his best salesman on his farm equipment team, and
apparently he left in nineteen o seven uh and was
(19:48):
not too happy with the work hours, which were sixteen
hour days, six days a week. Who would be it's
like us um, and then set up a rival business
and even took one of the clients, the John Deer Company.
Yeah that was a big one. I'm sure so big
that UM. When Sarah Peckham called, Uh, Joe Moore's UM
(20:09):
employee to tell him the news, Joe Moore's employee called
the John Deer people in Omaha to let them know
they were like the third people called after the bodies
were discovered. So he takes John Deer with him. Um.
So this set up an obvious rivalry and uh, worse
than that apparently, um. And I don't know if this
(20:29):
is super confirmed, but at least the rumor was that
Joe Moore had slept with Jones's daughter in law. From
what I understand, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's
been that's understood is true. That's true. So sleuch with
his daughter in law who apparently kind of had several
affairs in town and was not very discreet. Yeah, apparently,
(20:50):
according to Mike Dash at Smithsony and she used to
set up her um, her meet and greets over the phone.
It's called ason. Oh that's right, um over the phone.
And this was at a time when there was a
switchboard operator running the phones in the town, sat there
and listen. Yeah, and this lady obviously didn't care. So um.
(21:13):
Apparently it was pretty well known that that Joe Moore
had had an affair with F F. Jones daughter in
law was huge. You put those two things together and friends,
the fact that apparently they used to cross to the
other side of the street to keep from from from
encountering one another. Um that that's that's a big deal
in that town. You small town, right, So suspicion fell
(21:36):
on to f apparently from what I understand, within a
couple hours of the bodies being discovered. Yeah, And and
suspicion not that he may have done it, that Jones
was actually the killer. But maybe Jones because he was
fifty seven years old and probably had some pretty good money. Clearly,
Oh yeah, he was wealthy. He was building a bank,
overseeing his new bank being built when he got the
(21:57):
news of the bodies. When you're building the bank, you're
you're rolling in. Yeah. So everyone thought that he probably
hired somebody out to kill him. Uh. And there was
a very Burns detective agency. Um that was a detective
named James Wilkerson who said, you know what, I think,
you're right. I think he hired someone. I think that
man's name was William Mansfield, William Blackie Mansfield. It was already,
(22:19):
Um no, he wasn't already. He would later be I believe,
convicted of an axe murder himself. Yeah, which is probably
one of the chief reasons he was suspect. Well, no,
that that came a couple of years after. I believe
that was fourteen or fifteen that he murdered his wife,
her parents, and their child, their child, his childet with
(22:41):
an ax right to see. I was a bad dude.
But there was one problem with James Wilkerson's theory. Blackie
Mansfield had um an air tight alibi. He was in Illinois,
hundreds of miles away when the crimes occurred. Not only
did the foreman vouch for him, but the payroll chords
showed very clearly that he had not been in Viliska
(23:04):
that day, um, and couldn't have done it. Yeah, so
he was exonerated, but um, a lot of townspeople still
thought that that. You know how it was back then
and still is today to a certain degree, sure, especially
in a small town. Yeah, people were convinced that he
was a guy, and a lot of people probably went
to their graves thinking that. So even though Chuck that
Mansfield was exonerated, and and like you said, a lot
(23:26):
of people thought that um Jones F Jones apparently went
by f um did have something to do with it.
That still in your girls, father and Ross Moore, Joe
Moore's brother both thought F. Jones was behind this, um
and and Wilkinson made it like his personal mission to
take Jones down and apparently ruined his his political career,
(23:49):
cost him re election to the state Senate. I would
think that probably happened anyway, just from suspicion. But maybe.
But I think like there's something between townspeople suspecting you
and a detective like bringing evidence against you and getting
a grand jury to indict you. It was like the
good old days when you could be suspected of an
x murder and still win a Senate seat, right exactly,
(24:11):
Um the uh the But Jones he didn't win re
election and uh yeah, apparently to their dying day, some
people assumed that it was him behind it. Another candidate,
candidate suspect candidates not the right word, Uh Lynn George
(24:33):
Jacqueline Kelly, Uh, the man with four names. He went
by George Kelly though. He was an Englishman, um, which
is probably a little weird at the time, be living there,
no one had ever seen an Englishman in Iowa. Maybe Uh.
He was a preacher though, and it says uh in
this Smithsonian article a known sexual deviant. Um. He definitely
(24:55):
had some mental health problems. But um, there are some
things in his case where it's sort of we're suspicious,
and others that made him not a great suspect, one
of which he was a little guy. He was five
to one hundred nineteen pounds, so maybe not the best
um suspect for swinging and ax like that. Yeah, although
(25:17):
you know he could have been strong as an ox.
You never know. Sure, thumbs of little guys, you know, Yeah,
but they're usually good with like jiu jitsu sleeper holds
rather than axe swinging. You know, they just scramble up
on top of them before you know what. Their legs
are around your neck and you're losing contoe, their thumbs
are in your eyeballs, that kind of thing. Uh, yeah,
so fair enough. But he was left handed, and the
(25:40):
corner Linquist did say that, you know, from their analysis
his rudimentry is that might be in nineteen twelve, that
could probably at least determine that it was a left
handed assailant from the blood spatter, I believe on the
walls it's good good for them for being that advanced.
So there were some other things that um that implicated
George Kelly one. He was in Valiska. He was a
(26:02):
traveling preacher. He and his wife toured around Um and
they were in Valiska than the day of the murder Um.
They were actually at the children's service that the that
the moors and the still injured girls were at Um. Again,
this guy was a sex maniac, is what he was
known as. Yeah, I kind of wonder about that, and
(26:24):
I guess if there were. He placed an ad and
this is in the nineteen tens. He placed an ad
in the Omaha World Harald looking for a a stenographer
who would be willing to pose as a model. And
when one, one woman named Justumine Hodgson, replied to his ad,
(26:44):
he sent her a letter. Apparently he's quite lude, so
much so that the court that that heard the case
against him um said that it was so obscene, lewd, lascivious,
and filthy as to be offensive to this honorable court
and improper to be spread upon the record thereof. I
(27:04):
really want to know what was in that. Last One
of the things was that the lady would be required
to type in the nude. This is the nineteenth ten. No,
That's what I'm saying. I wonder how it would be
judged by today's standard, although I mean by today's standard.
If you sent a potential job candidate a letter that
said going to require you to be typing in the nude, yeah,
(27:26):
you would get in some trouble for that. Sure, I
just don't know that you would say it was obscene
luden Lecity, I'm with you. They'd say that's kin, But
I think the it's okay. George Kelly was a kinky
traveling preacher who had his wife in toil and he
was in Viliska at the time of the murders, and
he left that next morning on a train, right, But
(27:47):
there was supposedly a witness that said that he had
a very incriminating um statement when he got off of
that train that very morning. Yeah, he apparently referenced the murders,
but he had left town before they found out about
the murders. But then later on those people recanted those statements. Correct.
(28:08):
So when when Frank Jones F F. Jones had a
grand jury brought to hear evidence against him, he was exonerated. Um.
Same thing. Not with George Kelly. Actually, I should say
he was actually the only person to ever go to
trial for these murders, and he was tried twice. The
first time the jury found eleven to one in his favor.
(28:31):
The second jury acquitted him entirely. Um, the evidence against
him was just too flimsy, and uh, it probably wasn't him. Yeah,
I mean, the the the idea was there, like he
was at that church service, he's a pervert. He saw
these kids in the service, he went back and peeked
into their house and camped out in their barn. And
(28:53):
the evidence there was there was some hay bales in
the barn that had depressions, as if someone had been
laying on them, and if you'd laid down and one
of them that was a people right there in the
barn where you could see the house. This is all
pretty flimsy. There was also, though, I think one of
the reasons why the case was brought against him. He
was specifically tried for the murder of Lena Stillinger, and
(29:15):
that's Um. That's noteworthy because although they don't say in
the official court record directly that she may have been
sexually assaulted or that some sort of sex crime had
been committed against her, Um, supposedly she had been found
with her nightclothes hiked up over her waist, like above
(29:36):
her waist, her undergarments have been taken off and stuffed
under the bed, and then her her legs had been
arranged so that her genitalia was prominent. Right. Um, that
was done after she had been murdered. And I think
that's one of the reasons why they suspected George Kelly.
Um because to add a sexual dimension to this brutal murder.
(30:00):
Or they said, well, this guy's just just enough of
a sex maniac for that to be possible. Yeah, Oh,
I forgot about this fact though. He actually returned a
week later and post this the Scotland Yard detective so
he could get a tour of the house. That is
so George Kelly. Well, it's definitely one of those things
that makes you go, wait a minute, uh, return to
the scene of the crime. You lied to get in
(30:21):
there and look at the house, but apparently everyone wanted
to go look at the house. So it's plus what's posing?
You know, We've seen so many like cartoony movies that
like somebody gets like the deer Stalker hat and a
pipe and says they're from Scotland Yard. Posing could be
like somebody saying like, oh, you must be from Scotland.
Yard like, am I grunting in the affirmative? Yeah, that's true.
(30:43):
I guess that technically constitutes posing in the real world.
Apparently signed a confession. Um, oh yeah, that was a
big one too. Yeah, but I mean the confession literally said,
I killed the children upstairs first and the children downstairs last.
I knew God wanted me to do it this way.
Lay utterly came to mind, and I picked up the axe,
went into the house and killed them. Um. But you
(31:07):
know he took it back later. I was like, you know,
all that very specific stuff I said about killing his family,
I didn't really do it. So he was exonerated. Um. So,
so far, the little town of Aliska has looked around
and said, we couldn't find any tramps. So who's the
person that hated Joe more the most ff Jones? While
it wasn't him, Who's the weirdest pervert we can find?
(31:28):
Who was in town of the time, George Kelly? It
wasn't him, So they didn't know a lot of people
went to their graves dying not knowing what happened. And
we still don't know what happened. But with the hindsight
of UM, I guess, modern forensic techniques, modern profiling, and
the work of dedicated historians like Ed Epperley, we have
(31:51):
something of a clearer picture emerging, and that picture seems
to be centering on the serial killer. We'll talk about
that theory more right after this. All right, so we've
(32:25):
ruled out these local suspects local ish I guess in
Kelly's case. UM. And now the modern take on this
is that this was a serial killer because, uh, in
nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve, there were a lot of
axe murders uh in the Midwest, at least ten UM
(32:49):
everywhere from Colorado Springs to Ellsworth, Kansas, UM, and many
of them had uh similar traits. Yeah, like some very
startlingly similar traits, right, but not all of them. And
some of them are like and we'll go through these,
but some were like, well, in five of them, these
(33:12):
same things happened, and two of them these same things happen.
So it makes me wonder if it wasn't if they're
kind of grouping too many of these together. This does
Ed Epperly actually whittles it down to five, including Vliska.
I thought five so there's three that happened in nineteen eleven.
There was one that happened in Colorado Springs, Colorado that
(33:35):
supposedly kicked the whole thing off, followed by Momoth in Illinois,
I forgot the s is silent, right yeah, and then Ellsworth, Kansas.
Then there was one in Paola, Kansas, and then the
last one in Valiska. And those five crimes have some
similarities that make them really really suspicious. That the idea
(34:00):
of just like five different people or even a couple
of different people um separately committing these crimes, and as
ed Epper's Lee puts it, kind of dismissively the idea
that these were local vendettas or you know, um that
that people were like argument farming or something. Yeah, that's
(34:21):
not what these these crimes reflect at all. They reflect
the work of a like just a straight up nut
job psychopath who um are few and far between. So
that the fact that these things occurred between October of
nineteen eleven in June of nineteen twelve um suggests strongly
that that there was one person doing them. Yeah. Well
(34:44):
that was the final one in Columbia, Missouri in December
nineteen twelve. Um, and one of the theories is that
a man named Henry Lee Moore uh killed Georgia Moore
in Columbia, Missouri, who was his mother Mary Wilson. Um,
so is that the guy. It would be weird to
(35:09):
commit a series of murders and then finish up with
your own family, right, Usually it's the other way around. Yeah, right, So, like,
if you're gonna go off on a killing spree, usually
start you practice on your family first, you get a
feel for it. Right. Um, this guy, Henry Lee Moore,
aside from having three names, is not a good suspect
(35:29):
for the serial killer, right. Um. He apparently wanted the
deeds to his family house. And um, like you said that,
it's very rare for a serial killer to go back,
you know, to deal with the three names. They don't
all have three names, no, I know, but so many
of them do. It's well, no, the news reports it
that way to distinguish them every other Henry Moore in
(35:50):
the world. So like everyone's always like serial killers have
three names. Now they're just reported that way. That's awesome. Yeah,
I love him when things are just explained. Yeah, I
wrapped up in a nice little bow. Thanks for that.
Like Lee Harvey Oswald, he I think went by Lee Oswald.
I think you're right. Yeah. So if anyone ever write
(36:12):
a story about Charles Wayne Bryant, we're in trouble. Um.
Oh yeah, I'm in trouble. I would kill you. Thanks man.
I wouldn't kill you either. Hey, you want to shake
on it? Jerry witnessed. Um, So the Henry Lee Moore thing,
he's almost like a red herring. Like a lot of
people say, well, he was the one, he was a
(36:34):
serial killer behind it, because the serial the serial murders
started um right after he got out of prison in Kansas,
and then they ended right after he got caught in Columbia,
Missouri with his family. Yeah, I mean kind of makes sense,
it does, but that's where the whole thing really begins
in it. And so a lot of people say, well,
it wasn't hand really more so, it wasn't a serial killing.
(36:55):
Well plus uh sorry, but his his killing his own
family was about obtaining the deeds to his family house. Yeah,
that's what I was saying. So that was greed motivated,
not not a serious psychopathic, sex based serial killer spree. Right,
This guy was just a jerk Um, so, since Henry
(37:15):
Lee Moore is associated with the serial murder theory, once
somebody then finds out that it wasn't Henry ly more,
they stopped thinking it was a serial murderer. And Epperly says,
not so fast. Wait, wait, wait, just because Henry Lee
Moore's out of the equation doesn't mean there's not a
serial killer involved. He's like, consider the similarities between these
five cases, and they're they're they're pretty thick. Right. In
(37:40):
a couple of the cases, Um, there were oil lamps
found where chimney. The chimneys were removed and set aside,
and the wicks were bent in half to keep the
light low. That's a big one. Axes were used in
four of the five, but he says that's just probably
a matter of convenience. A pipe, I think was used
(38:01):
in the Mamouth, Illinois case, which is again an implement
of convenience to right, don't have an axe, handy, go
for a lead pipe. Yeah, he probably didn't bring that
with you. Um, there were tell them about the tell
them about the mirrors, Chuck, Well, I mean it's several
of these places the mirrors were covered up. I mean,
that's a big one mirrors and windows, and in one
(38:23):
of the places the telephone was covered. And the thought
there is is that, uh, like you said earlier, like
they don't want the victims to be watching them even
after death, or to be seen in the mirrors and
windows being covered. But the phone appearently it was one
of those old box phones on the wall that you
that you crank, and it has the two it sort
(38:46):
of looks like a face when you look at it.
It has like looks like two eyes and a nose.
And so the thought was that that even looks like
a face to the Drange serial killer, so they'll cover
that up as well, because nothing else makes much sense.
You know, you're not gonna in nineteen twelve, you're not
getting phone calls after midnight. You probably probably don't get
(39:06):
more than a couple of phone calls a week in
nineteen twelve. Most people I have phones, Yeah, And throwing
a sheet over it wouldn't like disable it anyway. No. Um.
There was another female victim, a young female victim in
Mammouth who was found basically the same way that Um.
Lena Still Injury was found Um with her her nightgown
(39:30):
thrown up over waist and her undergarments removed. UM And
apparently there was a similarity in I believe Mammoth and
Veliska where and one other town to where the killer
was went on to try to kill again. Yeah, this
was the most interesting to me. Either successfully did kill again.
(39:51):
There was one where he went to an adjacent house
whose backyard connected the first murderhouse and then went in
and killed another family right afterwards. That was Colorado Spring.
And then in Vliska there the telephone operator who was
like sleeping in the telephone switchboard headquarters because no calls
were coming through. She reported the UM the door knob
(40:12):
being tried about two hours after the more house UM
members were murdered. Yeah, like heard footsteps come up to
the door, try to open it, and then heard the
footsteps leave. That's a little shaky, But this, the last
one was the one that kind of sent the chill
up my spine. It was the one in Kansas specifically,
(40:32):
you said, Paola, I bet you there are people they're
laughing because it's probably pronounced Paula or something probably, but
who knows p a l a Kansas, there was a
second family UM Mrs uh Longmire, the Longmire family. Um,
they were awakened. She and her daughter at about midnight
to the sound of broken glass, went downstairs and saw
(40:55):
a dude in their dining room who had just broken
uh oil lamp chimney and then got the heck out
of there through a window. So they actually saw a guy.
So think about that, Chuck, think about that they saw
they woke up and I saw the man who was
about to probably bludgeon them all to death with an axe. Um,
(41:16):
this is probably. And these were all trained towns, so
they were all linked by train depots. So by all accounts,
there was a train going serial killer uh for a
couple of years in the Midwest, killing people hopping trains,
never ever caught in the nuts. It is nuts, and
that the Valiska axe murders were probably one of his
(41:40):
crazy But we'll never know, you know. When you say
stuff like that, or when you see stuff like that
in print to like will never know who it was,
it makes you wonder, like what kind of technology are
we going to have in the future, Like will we
never know? Or are we gonna come up with something
one day where we're like, oh, it was this guy,
(42:00):
Like now we know, you know, um, who who knows
the future knows? That's who knows. We should do one
on ed Geen. That's like kind of one of the
big big ones we haven't covered. I got a couple
more too. I don't want to I don't want to
even tease him yet. Okay, okay, true crime. Maybe we'll
(42:21):
do one and uh like this October. We used to
do multiple kind of creepy episodes. I think we did
last time too. Looks October. You all right, we'll look
forward to another ghoulish serial killer type thing. Okay, yeah,
we did hinder Kfec I think. Okay. Uh. If you
(42:43):
want to know more about the Valista X murders, well
again strongly recommend you go look up Ed Epperley. You
can read the Smithsonian article, um, the X Murderer Who
Got Away, which was great. Uh, and there were plenty
of other articles that we relied on that we love.
Thank you for those. UM. In the meantime, you can
also hang out with us on how stuff works dot
(43:04):
com and our famous search bars. It's as a search bar.
Got it in there. It's sort for the listener mail. Hey, guys,
love the show, and now I have even more reason
to promote your podcast. Everyone. I know. I work in
a small family business with my cousin. In this previous January,
started experiencing severe gastro intestinal issues. Yeah, I remember this one. Uh,
(43:26):
it was like from yesterday. I won't go into detail,
but for months afterward, he saw specialists after specialists hoping
to find out the route, tested for Crohn's ulcers, ibs,
everything under the sun, none of which had a positive
result or diagnosis. Couldn't focus on anything, no energy, took
a ton of time away from work. He felt totally
lost and even sought the help of a psychologist because
(43:47):
of his diminished work ethic deteriorating quality of life. Do
you see where this is going? People? I think listeners
might know. And he was souther one day last month. Uh,
he was Southern. Actually. He came in after a doctor's
appointment and said he developed an iron deficient anemia to
add to his list of issues. At first, it sounded
(44:08):
disconnected until and I kid you, this isn't all caps.
I kid you not, Josh and Chuck. I was listening
to your Hookworm episode that day. Man. When he got
to the part about the aggressive iron deficient anemia, I
lost my mind. I looked up hookworm infection symptoms immediately
brought it to my cousin and he had every last symptom.
(44:31):
His doctor prescribed a medication and he is currently being
de wormed. From the first day he started his treatment,
he had a noticeable increase in both mood and energy.
I don't know how these symptoms could have slipped by
a half dozen GPS and specialists, but I truly can't
thank you both enough of your podcast and his wide
range of topics that is James and St. Pete, Florida.
That is so awesome. Man, dude had hookworm? Can you
(44:53):
believe it? And man, thank you James, and good luck
to you cousin. Way to go for being so smart
to connect the dots too. I think your cousin knows
you pizza or a beer or whatever you may be both. Yeah,
trip to Chuck E cheese drunk Uh. If you want
to get in touch with us to tell us an
(45:14):
amazing story like James did, you can tweet to us.
I'm at Joshum Clark and s Y s K podcast,
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including Jerry at Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
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(45:39):
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