THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE TO THE PARANORMAL

Reader discretion advised.Disturbing account depicted.

From the pen of Richard Estep

He came into town on the train, just one more anonymous face among the hundreds that came through Villisca, Iowa, each year. The drifter traveled from state to state, riding the rails, going wherever the mood took him. He left a trail of carnage in his wake. After scouting the town, he soon found the ideal house. A simple two-story affair in a quiet neighbourhood, the property belonged to Josiah (J.B.) Moore and his wife, Sara. The Moores’ had four children of their own, and after returning from a late church function on the evening on June 9, 1912, two of their daughter’s friends accompanied them for an impromptu sleepover. Some believe that the man was watching them from the barn, through a hole in the wood that would be discovered later. Others think that he was already concealed in the house, having broken in earlier that evening, and was hiding in the attic, waiting for the family to go to bed. Josiah and Sara slept in the master bedroom at the top of the stairs, while their children slept in a single room at the opposite end of the house. Downstairs, in a bedroom that belonged to their daughter, Katherine, 8-year old Ina Stillinger and her 11-year-old sister Lena were sleeping.

Shortly after midnight, now that the lamps had been doused and everybody was asleep, the man emerged from hiding. He carried J.B. Moore’s own axe into the master bedroom and, seeking to eliminate the greatest threat first, bludgeoned Josiah and his wife to death in the bed they shared. So, frenzied and savage was the attack that the backswing of the axe head left a series of gouges in the bedroom ceiling.

With the adults now dead, the killer turned his attention to the kids. All four of the Moore children met the same fate as their parents, their skulls crushed as they lay in bed. Downstairs, Lena, and Ina Stillinger were the last to die.

Once they were dead, the murderer subjected Lena to one last, awful indignity. He posed her semi-naked body in a sexually provocative position, exposing her genitalia, and then used some bacon he found in the kitchen as a masturbatory aid. Every glass surface in the house, from windows to mirrors, was deliberately covered up. Not only would this keep prying eyes from looking in, but it also prevented the killer from seeing his own reflection.

With his grisly work now done, he washed the blood off his hands, covered up the bodies of his victims with bed sheets and clothing, and left the axe leaning nonchalantly against one of the walls, almost as an afterthought.

Then he quietly slipped out, locking the door behind him, disappearing into the darkness and the pages of history. The Moores’ were typically early risers. When the sun came up and the animals in their yard hadn’t been taken care of, one of the neighbours became suspicious. The first people to enter the house were horrified at what they saw. The bedroom walls and floorboards were covered with blood, which also saturated the beds in which all eight members of the household had been murdered. Bloodhounds were brought in to trace the path of the killer. After leading their handlers through the streets of Villisca, the trail went cold on the outskirts of town. There was no shortage of suspects. A local businessman and politician found himself in the spotlight; his daughter-in-law was said to have had “inappropriate contact” with Josiah Moore. A local hobo was briefly in the frame, as was a convicted criminal and an English priest by the name of Reverend George Kelly. Kelly was a known Peeping Tom, who had also gotten into trouble for trying to lure underage girls into sending him nude pictures by post. He had been in Villisca on 9/10 June, the night of the murders, and had even been present at the same Presbyterian church at which the Moores’ were attending the evening service. After spending some time in jail awaiting trial, Kelly underwent a marathon interrogation session, which may have included something in the way of “physical encouragement.” Finally, Kelly confessed, offering up a variation of “God’s voice told me to do it.” In Kelly’s own words, he had been told to “slay, and slay utterly,” and yet the jury was not convinced, and Kelly ultimately walked away without a conviction. To this day, there are Villisca experts, such as author Roy Marshall, who remain convinced that Kelly was the guilty man.

Others (and I am one of them) subscribe to the serial killer theory. Around the same time period, a string of very similar axe murders took place across the American Midwest. All of them took place in close proximity to a railway line; none of the murdered families had dogs that might have barked a warning; an axe belonging to the homeowner was always employed as a murder weapon; any adult male in the house was always killed first; a female of (or close to) reproductive age was molested or positioned in a sexual way; and all of the mirrors in the house were covered up. The list goes on and on. If you look at the 30,000-foot view, it seems obvious that a lone killer was riding the rails, hopping off in small towns in order to murder whole families. Police forces in 1912 did not communicate with one another in the same way that they do today, particularly in rural areas. Nor was the concept of a serial killer as well-known. The people of Villisca believed that the killer was one of their own, and after the whole town was turned upside down in a search of every possible hiding place, were convinced that he would soon come back to strike again. Neighbouring families moved in with one another each evening, and the men of the house took turns standing watch, sitting with a shotgun or rifle in their laps, waiting for the sound of an axe murderer stealthily trying to break into their homes and murder everybody in their beds. Until June 10, 1912, the front-page headlines had been dominated by the story of the RMS Titanic sinking with tremendous loss of life. Now, the Villisca Axe Murders suddenly became the lead story. The American public

developed a macabre fascination for the events which took place that night. In many ways, Villisca represents the quintessential unsolved murder mystery. Even 108 years after the murders took place, fierce debate as to the identity of the killer still rages. There is something visceral about the notion of an entire family being killed while they sleep. When we lay in bed at night, we are supposed to be safe and secure. The idea of a homicidal stranger violating our inner sanctum (with an axe, no less) is understandably horrifying, sickening...and fascinating.

Along with several of my trusted colleagues, I spent four days and nights at the house, trying to gather some answers of my own. I was conducting research for my book, A NIGHTMARE

HAUNTED AXE MURDER HOUSE. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.

Stepping inside the Villisca Axe Murder House is like going back in time one hundred years. The place has been kitted out with fixtures and fittings that date back to the turn of the last century. Monochrome photographs of the Moore family and the Stillinger sisters can be found in many of the rooms, lending a very human face to the tragic events which took place inside the house.

On more than one occasion, I found myself just standing in front of the picture frames, gazing at the unsmiling faces of the poor souls who lost their lives in the very place I was now investigating.

There is no electrical power or running water inside the house, other than a single extension cord coming in from outside. There is also no lighting, so Coleman lanterns provide the only means of seeing once darkness falls.

Several people warned me in advance that the house had a very dark and negative side, though if that is indeed the case, it did not make itself apparent to us. Yet several things happened which I still have difficulty explaining.

While sitting down in the parlor (which would once have been the Moore family’s living room) I mistakenly started a video running on my tablet. “Whoops, sorry!” I said. When I played the audio recording of that happy little accident back, the sound of a child giggling can clearly be heard. Yet there were no children present in the house, just three middleaged men looking for ghosts. Also in the parlor, flashlights began switching themselves on and off — and we’re not talking about the so-called “flashlight trick/technique” which involves unscrewing the head of a Maglite, until temperature variations cause the metal contacts to randomly expand and contract. This was an electronic LED flashlight, and would turn itself off and back on upon request.

Electronic devices such as the Paramid went haywire inside the house. Wind chimes located in the closets of both children’s’ bedroom sounded by themselves when there was absolutely no airflow. We heard loud knocks on the wall of the Stillinger girls’ bedroom, in response to our request for communication. Footsteps sounded on the floor of the empty attic when just one female investigator was alone in the house. When “Mr. Villisca” himself, Johnny Houser, came over to pay us a visit, a loud bang sounded from somewhere upstairs that shook the whole house to its foundations. We searched the place high and low, but nothing had fallen over or hit the ground. Johnny’s the guy that had heard footsteps climbing up the staircase one night, which then came walking along the second-floor hallway toward him. He was armed and had no hesitation of pulling his pistol...but of course, there was nobody there. Nobody he would have been able to shoot, at least... One of the stranger phenomena we encountered was hearing a barking dog while we were standing in the parlor. Although a couple of friendly stray cats hang around the house, begging (and usually receiving) free food from whoever has rented the place for the night, there were no dogs wandering around during our stay. I even went so far as to have Johnny check the security cameras on the outside of the building and confirm that we hadn’t gotten any canine visitors that night. We had not. As for what haunts the house, opinions are strongly divided. Some believe that the ghosts of the victims are still earthbound there, which would add

another level of tragedy to what has already taken place at the house. Others say that the killer himself is responsible for the paranormal activity, which seems rather strange considering the fact that he did not die inside the house, or even return after committing the murders, as far as we know. Still others come down on the side of a dark, inhuman entity being to blame. Perhaps most intriguing of all, however, is Johnny Houser’s theory that the house may well be haunting itself. He believes that the coming and going of so many paranormal enthusiasts through its doors may have kept (or perhaps even created) a haunting going on, where otherwise there might not have been one. It is an intriguing thought, and one not without its merits. No trip to Villisca would be complete without a visit to the town cemetery. All six members of the Moore family are buried side-by-side in a row. No matter the time of year, the long gravestone is covered with coins, children’s’ toys, and other tokens of affection and respect. A few rows behind them, sisters Lena and Ina Stillinger are also buried alongside one another, and their graves receive a similar amount of attention. The Moore gravestone was paid for with the money offered up as a reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer — money that was never successfully claimed.

As for the Villisca Axe Murderer, it is almost certain that we will never know his true identity. It takes eeriness to a whole new level when you enter the house in which he committed the Villisca Axe Murders, knowing that you are walking in the footsteps of a monster. That knowledge alone is far more frightening than any ghost could ever be.