Villisca

With Halloween coming up, you'll see this case everywhere.

But the fear in Villisca... was real before it became entertainment.

And that's the story I want to tell.

Today, I'll introduce you to the Moore family and the Stillinger sisters.

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In the summer of 1912, Villisca, Iowa was the kind of town that believed in its future.

It sat in the southwest corner of the state in Montgomery County, right on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroad line.

Yeah.

So Matt McClary, special agent of the Department of Justice Bureau of Criminal Identification, this is a pre-FBI, was the first person to be like, hey, I think Colorado Springs, Monmouth, Ellsworth, Paola, Villisca, and Columbia, Missouri are all part of a chain, which he attributed to this guy, Henry Lee Moore.

following Moore's release in 1911 from some other prison-type situation, Kansas Reformatory, the theory being he got out and then just went wild and started killing people.

In 2006, a researcher named Beth Klingensman And you can read this paper.

That'd be appropriate, though.

Puss dies that way, right? Oh, my sweet Villisca.

Pay for your city's sins there,

Puss.

Yep.

That's the way most people from Villisca die.

Well,

that's scary.

But what we are best in is actually being in court.

So today we're We're talking about some of the possibilities of the Villisca axe murders.

And I am not the expert on this by any stretch of the imagination.

But there are some experts on this, or at least purported experts.

So what we're talking about today are some of the other possibilities and what else happened, and then we're going to get through the court cases.

So here we go.

Now, we've talked a lot about Villisca, but this is why I brought up Troy Taylor, because he talks about this pretty in-depth, because now we have to kind of pull ourselves back and look beyond Villisca, because the Moore family was not the only family attacked with an axe early in the 20th century in the Midwest.

actually much broader than just the Midwest.

Wow.

This reminds me, just even hearing about it in the other axe murders, our first episode of this month was the Villisca axe murders.

Yeah.

And how we talked about, like, you know, you almost are led to believe, like, getting murdered by an axe is like... common yeah and actually i think back then it probably was more common like i mean that was a weapon that was around and available for people like everyone had it you know and you know not me i mean guns were around of course but very different yeah than today

Sure.

All right.

Last one is just the overall house is a bit of a prankster house, right? So this is very similar to the Villisca house where there's just like stuff happening in the house.

So Martha McGinn, again, we've got a couple different sources talking about what she saw.

That'd be appropriate, though.

Puss dies that way, right? Oh, my sweet Villisca.

Pay for your city's sins

there, Puss.

Yep.

That's the way most people from Villisca die.

Well,

that's scary.

Mm-hmm.

And I got her dirt from Aldern Manor and Villisca, uh, Ax Murder House.

So little shit like that, you know, I would take little trinkets, stuff like that.

But I'm not, you know, I'm not stealing chairs and, you know, [laughs] and shit like that.