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Speaker 1: The following episode contains deeply disturbing scenes of violence, murder,
Speaker 1: and sexual violence toward children. Parental discretion is advised. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode twelve, A Darkness on
Speaker 1: the Edge of Town, Part three. Early in the autumn
Speaker 1: of nineteen eleven, just south of Olyska, a young barefoot
Speaker 1: girl picks her way through a patch of scrubland beside
Speaker 1: a disused and decaying slaughterhouse. Spotting an old wooden crate
Speaker 1: before her, the young girl hurries forward to retrieve it,
Speaker 1: only to yelp out suddenly in pain and collapse to
Speaker 1: the ground. Grabbing her foot, the girl winces at the
Speaker 1: sy to the large hazel colored thorn, now deeply embedded
Speaker 1: in the soul of it. She pulls it out. Bright
Speaker 1: red blood oozes to the surface, and the girl cries
Speaker 1: out for her mother. Edith runs forward to help, pressing
Speaker 1: her handkerchief to her daughter's foot, who then begins to cry.
Speaker 1: Edith's friend, Vina, rushes to join them. It's no use,
Speaker 1: says Edith. They have to go back to patch it up.
Speaker 1: Vina would have to carry on without them. Edith and
Speaker 1: Vina had recently arrived in the county, having moved down
Speaker 1: with their husbands and children. The two couples were camped
Speaker 1: a little further downstream, and with the men having both
Speaker 1: found work laying pavements in town, it was left to
Speaker 1: the women to tend the camp. The sight of the
Speaker 1: old slaughterhouse had proved fertile ground for finding good scraps
Speaker 1: to dismantle for firewood. After waving Edith and to order off,
Speaker 1: Vena grabs what she can and then veers toward the
Speaker 1: river on her way back to the camp, when suddenly
Speaker 1: she hears voices talking in hushed and ominous tones. Thinking
Speaker 1: it was probably a conversation that the men having it
Speaker 1: didn't want overheard, Vena ducks behind a nearby bush, torn
Speaker 1: between staying hidden or trying to get away unseen as
Speaker 1: all the while, the men continue to talk. He's got
Speaker 1: to be killed, says one of them angrily. If it
Speaker 1: can't be done any other way, it's got to be
Speaker 1: done while he's asleep. The man talking was in his
Speaker 1: fifties with graying dark hair. Beside him stood another man
Speaker 1: about half his age that looked noticeably similar. Then the
Speaker 1: third man spoke up, who Vena couldn't see so well.
Speaker 1: He seemed rougher somehow not like the other men. The
Speaker 1: man mentions the name Levi Wood and possibly someone called Whipple,
Speaker 1: the names of men that Vina knew all too well.
Speaker 1: And these men talking, said Texan detective James Wilkerson, puncturing
Speaker 1: the story. You believe you know who they are, well,
Speaker 1: if you'd let me finish, detective, said Vina Tomkins, taking
Speaker 1: another drag on her cigarette. It was June nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: and Wilkerson was sat in Vienna's living room in Marshalltown,
Speaker 1: about one hundred and sixty miles northeast of Veliska, listening
Speaker 1: with all the restraint he could muster as she regaled
Speaker 1: him finally with her story. The detective had made a
Speaker 1: number of attempts to extract it from her, only for
Speaker 1: Vena to change her mind at the last moment. Until now,
Speaker 1: Wilkerson waited with bated breath. I couldn't very well see
Speaker 1: the third man, said Vena, but I believe the other
Speaker 1: two were called Stone or Jones. Viena was later shown
Speaker 1: a picture of the lisk And banker and current Iowan
Speaker 1: Senator Frank Fernando Jones, and asked to confirm if he
Speaker 1: was one of the men that she saw, Vina nodded yes,
Speaker 1: she said it was him. Born Viena Whipple and raised
Speaker 1: in Guthrie County, near the town of Fansler in Iowa,
Speaker 1: Viena Tompkins was a smart, thirty six year old with
Speaker 1: no formal education who grew up surrounded by career criminals,
Speaker 1: from her father to her brothers and most of the
Speaker 1: men she dated, including her ex husband and father of
Speaker 1: her children, Dave Clark. The lifestyle had dominated every aspect
Speaker 1: of her life, and she was desperate to escape it.
Speaker 1: The only problem was she wanted to save her children too,
Speaker 1: one of whom was currently living with Clark. With Detective
Speaker 1: Wilkerson's promise that he could help, Fiena agreed to write
Speaker 1: everything down in a statement, having also gone on to
Speaker 1: explain that Levi Wood, who was apparently mentioned by the
Speaker 1: men she claimed to see by the river, was well
Speaker 1: known as a man who could be trusted to carry
Speaker 1: out dirty work. The man named Whipple, who they also
Speaker 1: apparently mentioned, she suspected was a reference to her own brother,
Speaker 1: Harry Whipple. With Tompkins's explosive statement, Wilkerson began steadily to
Speaker 1: formulate his theory that the three men by the river
Speaker 1: were Frank Jones, his son Albert, and one other, possibly
Speaker 1: Jake Weems, another member of the crime community that Fiena
Speaker 1: was part of, and together these men conspired with Levi
Speaker 1: Wood to murder Joe Moore, take his entire family and
Speaker 1: the Stillinger girls with him. Any concrete evidence linking Jones
Speaker 1: to the crime, however, was nonexistent, and he'd need far
Speaker 1: more than Veena Tompkins's testimony to convince the jury. Then
Speaker 1: in July, another horrific murder hit the headlines, this time
Speaker 1: twenty one year old Margaret Mansfield and her seven month
Speaker 1: old daughter Maisie, along with her parents, Mary and Jacob Mislich,
Speaker 1: all slaughtered horrifically in Blue Island, Illinois. Just like the
Speaker 1: Veliska murders, all the victims were attacked solely in the
Speaker 1: head with an axe that was casually left behind at
Speaker 1: the scene. After traveling to Blue Island to investigate, Wilkerson
Speaker 1: quickly picked up the trail of William Mansfield, a two
Speaker 1: time military deserter who'd spent time in jail for other
Speaker 1: offenses too. William had also just eloped with another woman
Speaker 1: a few months after he left town, Margaret and her
Speaker 1: family were murdered. After digging deeper into Mansfield's backstory, Wilkerson
Speaker 1: soon became convinced that he was not only responsible for
Speaker 1: killing his family, but for the Veliska murders too, if
Speaker 1: he was right, Frank Jones had employed him to do it.
Speaker 1: Wilkerson insisted also that Mansfield was in fact the third
Speaker 1: man that Fena Tompkins had seen talking to Frank and
Speaker 1: Albert Jones by the river, and though he didn't have
Speaker 1: enough evidence to get Frank Jones indicted, if he could
Speaker 1: at least get Mansfield on the stand, it would be
Speaker 1: all he needed to expose the Joneses too. For the
Speaker 1: next few years, Wilkerson continued building his case against William
Speaker 1: Mansfield as the man directly responsible for the murders of
Speaker 1: the Moore family and the two Stillinger girls. For the while,
Speaker 1: Frank Jones did his best to ignore the now open
Speaker 1: secret that one of the William Byrne's detective agencies top
Speaker 1: investigators suspected he was involved. Two In July nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: a man was arrested in Buffalo, New York. His name
Speaker 1: was Casimir Ariyazevski, a lodger who'd been staying with Margaret
Speaker 1: Mansfield and her family when they were murdered. After his arrest,
Speaker 1: Ariyazevski confessed to the crime, but it was all too
Speaker 1: late for William Mansfield. Thanks to Wilkerson's efforts, he was
Speaker 1: promptly arrested some time later and successfully indicted for the
Speaker 1: Valiska murders, with a trial set for July nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: As the trial approached, on June third, nineteen sixteen, two
Speaker 1: days before Frank Jones was due to stand in the
Speaker 1: Iowa Senate primary elections, a letter arrived on his desk.
Speaker 1: Opening it, he found a large mug shot of William
Speaker 1: Mansfield below the words this is the axe murderer he
Speaker 1: murdered the more family at Veliska, the hypocrite whose dirty
Speaker 1: money paid for the hellish job. Once your support for
Speaker 1: the state Senate will he get it? As Frank furiously
Speaker 1: rang round for any information about where it had come from,
Speaker 1: he soon discovered he wasn't the only one to receive
Speaker 1: the letter. Over the next few days, the letters damning
Speaker 1: contents spilled steadily out into the wider community. Frank's campaign
Speaker 1: was completely sunk, though no one admitted responsibility for the letter,
Speaker 1: Jones was in little doubt that Wilkerson was behind it.
Speaker 1: The following month, William Mansfield's trial began. The bulk of
Speaker 1: wilkerson case hinged on the testimony of Veena Tompkins, which
Speaker 1: by now he'd adapted to suit the new narrative that
Speaker 1: Mansfield had in fact been the man who wielded the
Speaker 1: acts at the behest of Frank Jones. Especially damning for
Speaker 1: Mansfield was the testimony given by a man named W. R. Tilson,
Speaker 1: a county treasurer in Maryville, Missouri. Tilson claimed that on
Speaker 1: May thirty first, nineteen sixteen, a man came into his
Speaker 1: office asking for some money. The man apparently gave his
Speaker 1: name as Bill Mansfield and explained that someone from Veliska
Speaker 1: was supposed to leave it with Tilson for him to
Speaker 1: pick up later. This money, Detective Wilkerson insisted, was part
Speaker 1: of Mansfield's payment from Jones for committing the crime. When
Speaker 1: Tilson came to take the stand, however, Mansfield's lawyer, Jacob Dettweiler,
Speaker 1: made the counterclaim that it couldn't possibly have been his
Speaker 1: client because he was in Kansas City that day and
Speaker 1: he had the evidence to prove it. Furthermore, when Tilson
Speaker 1: was asked to look again at William Mansfield in court,
Speaker 1: he was forced to admit that he wasn't, in fact
Speaker 1: the man who'd come to see him. Fena Tompkins's testimony
Speaker 1: too fell flat when she was also forced to admit
Speaker 1: that she couldn't be sure that Mansfield was one of
Speaker 1: the men she'd apparently seen by the river. As a
Speaker 1: last throw of the dice, Wilkerson had a young woman
Speaker 1: called Alice Willard brought to the stand. Willard had apparently
Speaker 1: been out with friends on the Saturday night before the
Speaker 1: murders back in nineteen twelve, when she walked past the
Speaker 1: Moor's house and overheard some men in conversation saying that
Speaker 1: if they got Joe first, the rest would be easy.
Speaker 1: Willard then pointed confidently toward Mansfield, drawing gasps from many
Speaker 1: of those present when she insisted that he was one
Speaker 1: of the men that she'd heard. Willard's story was quickly dismantled, however,
Speaker 1: not least of all by the fact that Mansfield quite
Speaker 1: demonstrably had been nowhere near Vliska that night, having been
Speaker 1: in Montgomery, Illinois instead. With the trial concluded on July
Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen sixteen. It took the jury a little
Speaker 1: more than an hour to decide not to have Mansfield
Speaker 1: indicted for the murders. Later that day, he was released
Speaker 1: from custody and promptly returned to Kansas City. Realizing the
Speaker 1: trial had been a barely disguised effort to prove his
Speaker 1: own apparent culpability, the increasingly frustrated Frank Jones, still smarting
Speaker 1: from his election defeat, decided finally to take action and
Speaker 1: sued James Wilkerson. Jones accused the detective of defaming his
Speaker 1: character by unfairly and very publicly accusing him of being
Speaker 1: responsible for the Vliska murders. It was just about one
Speaker 1: of the worst decisions of his life, as pointed out
Speaker 1: by author Roy Marshall in his comprehensive twenty three retelling
Speaker 1: of the Vliska Event Vliska, the True account of the
Speaker 1: unsolved nineteen twelve mass murder that stunned the Nation. Frank's
Speaker 1: great mistake in taking Detective Wilkerson to court was that
Speaker 1: he was, by extension, also criticizing the professional integrity of
Speaker 1: his employer, the William Burns Detective Agency. In response, no
Speaker 1: expense was spared in securing for Wilkerson the best legal
Speaker 1: representation they could find. Perhaps even worse, however, was the
Speaker 1: fact that in order to prove Wilkerson's innocence, his lawyer
Speaker 1: Ed Mitchell had to prove that Wilkerson was entirely right
Speaker 1: to suspect Jones as the man who paid for the
Speaker 1: more family to be murdered. In essence, Wilkerson's defamation trial
Speaker 1: would be little more than a second opportunity for the
Speaker 1: detective to prove that Jones was in fact guilty. In
Speaker 1: the end, the case played out much like the Mansfield
Speaker 1: indictment trial, only Ed Mitchell made a much better job
Speaker 1: of it, and with the Folkers no longer on the
Speaker 1: question of Mansfield's possible involvement, things only got worse for Jones.
Speaker 1: Fiena Tompkins was once again brought forward to give her story,
Speaker 1: appearing much more convincing the second time around, and stated
Speaker 1: once again that Frank was one of the men she'd
Speaker 1: seen by the river. Alice Willard also returned to repeat
Speaker 1: her story once again. She stated that although she couldn't
Speaker 1: be sure that Mansfield was one of the men she'd overheard,
Speaker 1: talking about killing Joe. Frank Fernando Jones definitely was. Other
Speaker 1: witnesses would brought forward to say they'd seen Frank's son, Albert,
Speaker 1: in the town of Grant at around six am on
Speaker 1: the morning of the murders, some seven miles or so
Speaker 1: further away than Albert had said he was when quizzed
Speaker 1: about his whereabouts by the authorities, a fact which Wilkerson's lawyer,
Speaker 1: Ed Mitchell argued gave Wilkinson genuine reason to believe he
Speaker 1: was hiding something. Montgomery County Sheriff Owen Jackson was also
Speaker 1: brought to the stand to testify that he'd been with
Speaker 1: Wilkinson when Veena Tompkins was shown the picture of Frank Jones,
Speaker 1: who she then subsequently confirmed as one of the men
Speaker 1: she'd seen. Others were also brought forward claiming to have
Speaker 1: seen or heard Jones in compromisable situations relating to the crime,
Speaker 1: though Frank's defense team were able to successfully challenge some
Speaker 1: of the accounts. When it was later revealed that an
Speaker 1: associate of Jones had potentially tried to lean on Willard
Speaker 1: to retract her statement, the case was as good as
Speaker 1: over after closing statements on Saturday, December ninth, and a
Speaker 1: day of deliberations, the jury agreed unanimously the detective Wilkinson
Speaker 1: had every right to suspect that Frank Jones was involved
Speaker 1: in the murders. With everything that took place at the
Speaker 1: defamation trial and the ever growing support for Wilkerson's theory
Speaker 1: among the people of Veliska, including even Joe Moore's brother,
Speaker 1: Ross Joe Stillinger, the father of the murdered Stillinger girls,
Speaker 1: and John Montgomery, Sarah Moore's father, the state had little
Speaker 1: option but to take the theory seriously. Many, however, suspected Wilkinson,
Speaker 1: who seemed to have become obsessed with proving Frank Jones's guilt,
Speaker 1: regardless of any evidence to the contrary, had like manufactured
Speaker 1: much of his evidence against him. In February nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: he was convicted of assaulting previous suspect William Mansfield in
Speaker 1: an effort to secure a confession, and was eventually let
Speaker 1: go by the William Burns Agency. No longer involved in
Speaker 1: the Valiska case, it was left and newly appointed Iowa
Speaker 1: Attorney General Horace Hafner and County Attorney Oscar Wenstrand to
Speaker 1: build the case, but as the pair dug into the
Speaker 1: history of it, with neither particularly convinced of Frank Jones's involvement,
Speaker 1: another name slowly bubbled back to the surface. In nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: Reverend Lynn David Kelly was living in Sutton, Nebraska, since
Speaker 1: his arrest and incarceration for tricking women interposing naked for him,
Speaker 1: and his multiple declarations to prison guards that he had
Speaker 1: committed the murders in Vliska, some further facts had come
Speaker 1: to light. Only three weeks before the crime, Kelly had
Speaker 1: been chased off by a man who caught the reverend
Speaker 1: watching the man's wife undressing through their bedroom window, while
Speaker 1: further reports had also emerged of Kelly sharing details of
Speaker 1: the murders long before anyone could possibly have known about them,
Speaker 1: to Havna, and when struant it was utterly mind boggling
Speaker 1: that the man had never formerly been questioned about them.
Speaker 1: Kelly was promptly arrested and put in jail in Logan, Iowa,
Speaker 1: a town just to the northeast of Omaha, Nebraska, after
Speaker 1: which it was agreed to proceed immediately with an indictment trial.
Speaker 1: In truth, however, despite everything, his gut was telling him
Speaker 1: there was still nothing concrete linking Kelly to the crimes,
Speaker 1: so Havner took action and arranged to have an informant
Speaker 1: covertly share Kelly's prison cell with him. Incredibly, within only
Speaker 1: a few days, the informant delivered the news that Kelly
Speaker 1: wanted to confess. In early September, Kelly was taken from
Speaker 1: his cell late in the night and delivered to an
Speaker 1: interview room where Haner, along with a handful of other
Speaker 1: law enforcement officials and two journalists brought in to record
Speaker 1: the meeting, were waiting for him. By five thirty am
Speaker 1: the following morning, they had everything they needed. With only
Speaker 1: days to go until Reverend Kelly's indictment trial, Attorney General
Speaker 1: Haner received word from Kelly's lawyer that his client was
Speaker 1: retracting his statement, claiming it had been extracted under duress.
Speaker 1: Kelly accused Havna of scaring him into signing it and
Speaker 1: denying him the right to have a lawyer present at
Speaker 1: the time. Things were further complicated when hana was arrested
Speaker 1: himself on a grand jury indictment for allegedly oppressing Alice
Speaker 1: Willard in relation to the defamation case against Frank Jones,
Speaker 1: throwing further doubt on his insistence that Kelly's confession had
Speaker 1: been legally obtained either way. On September twenty fourth, the
Speaker 1: trial began. For the prosecution, it was simple Kelly was
Speaker 1: a sexual deviant with a history of window peaking and
Speaker 1: a seed criminal obsession with young girls, and who had also,
Speaker 1: on more than one occasion, confessed to committing the Valiska murders.
Speaker 1: Witnesses were brought forward to confirm some of the many
Speaker 1: rumors about him. Mister and Missus Simons of Carson traveled
Speaker 1: on the train with Kelly on the morning of June tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, the morning of the killings. They recalled how
Speaker 1: Kelly had been talking excitedly about the murder of an
Speaker 1: entire family in Vliska the night before. This conversation, they
Speaker 1: were sure had taken place at some time around seven
Speaker 1: fifteen am, a full hour before the murders were discovered.
Speaker 1: Others from Macedonia, where Kelly lived then also confirmed that
Speaker 1: he'd spoken to them too, back on his arrival in
Speaker 1: the town, before news of the crime had really gone public.
Speaker 1: Coura Macarte was then brought forward the council Bluffs. Laundry
Speaker 1: worker who'd washed Kelly's stained shirt, Marquard, reaffirmed her belief
Speaker 1: that the stain was blood, being similar to other blood
Speaker 1: stains she'd frequently come across in her work. As more
Speaker 1: and more evidence was presented to the jury, the slight
Speaker 1: and scrawny Kelly was frequently reduced to tears protesting his innocence,
Speaker 1: while his wife Laura sat stoically beside him, often wiping
Speaker 1: his tears and giving him comforting hugs. With Laura being
Speaker 1: a good few inches taller than her husband, it was
Speaker 1: said that he seemed almost like a lost child being
Speaker 1: comforted by his mother. Then Kelly's confession was read out,
Speaker 1: though it was somewhat lacking in precise details, the sheer
Speaker 1: strangeness of Kelly's statement and the horror of what he,
Speaker 1: apparently in his own words, had meted out on the
Speaker 1: victims stunned the court into silence. The statement was quickly challenged, however,
Speaker 1: by Kelly's defense, who encouraged the jury to disregard it
Speaker 1: entirely due to the fact that Kelly had allegedly been
Speaker 1: forcefully coerced into signing it. Then the defense gave their
Speaker 1: side of the story Lenore Ewing, wife of the Valiscan
Speaker 1: Presbyterian minister at whose home Kelly had stayed on the
Speaker 1: night at the crime, was brought forward. The prosecution had
Speaker 1: argued that Kelly didn't actually sleep in the bed that
Speaker 1: Lenore had prepared for him, since he'd been out all
Speaker 1: night at the Moor's house. Ewing, however, testified that the
Speaker 1: bed had been slept in, and that she found no
Speaker 1: blood stains or anything else to cause suspicion. The morning after,
Speaker 1: Laura Kelly then took the stand and testified that she'd
Speaker 1: packed her husband's bag for the trip and had not
Speaker 1: supplied him with a change of clothes. According to her,
Speaker 1: he couldn't possibly have done it because when he came
Speaker 1: home he was wearing exactly the same clothes he left,
Speaker 1: with not a spot of dirt on them. At one point,
Speaker 1: the murder weapon was even brought into the court, with
Speaker 1: which a demonstration was given to show whether or not
Speaker 1: Kelly was tall enough to have made the dents and
Speaker 1: the ceiling of the Moor's property thought to have been
Speaker 1: caused by the axe when the murderer swung it back.
Speaker 1: The prosecution argued he was more than tall and strong enough,
Speaker 1: while the defense argued otherwise. Doctors were also brought to
Speaker 1: the stand to confirm that Kelly was in his right
Speaker 1: mind when he gave his confession to Havener, while other
Speaker 1: doctors equally qualified argued he wasn't. And then, after twenty
Speaker 1: two days of back and forth, on September twenty sixth,
Speaker 1: the trial came to an end. After four hours of deliberations,
Speaker 1: the jury took a vote and found eleven in favor
Speaker 1: of a quitting Reverend Kelly of all charges and one
Speaker 1: in favor of declaring him not guilty for reasons of insanity.
Speaker 1: After a further three days deliberating, with the jury unable
Speaker 1: to reach a unanimous decision, the judge declared a hung
Speaker 1: jury and Kelly was released from custody. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: the result was a huge blow for Attorney General Havener,
Speaker 1: not least of all because he truly believed that Kelly
Speaker 1: was a deranged murderer who'd just been allowed back into society.
Speaker 1: Haner felt morally obligated to request a retrial the second
Speaker 1: time round. However, having known new evidence to add and
Speaker 1: deciding not to use the confession at all, Havener's case
Speaker 1: was even more flimsy. In a trial that took half
Speaker 1: as long to complete and the jury only five hours
Speaker 1: to reach a verdict, Kelly was found not guilty of
Speaker 1: all crimes. Over the next few years, Kelly continued to
Speaker 1: move from place to place with his wife Laura, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen attempted to soothe the state and Attorney
Speaker 1: General Havener for damages, believing his reputation had been irrevocably
Speaker 1: damaged by the trials. The case was dismissed, however, after
Speaker 1: which little more is known about him, other than he
Speaker 1: most likely returned to England, where he died sometime in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties. Frank Jones's son, Albert, who was
Speaker 1: also implicated in the crimes, died soon after due to
Speaker 1: general ill health. Frank is said to have sat tenderly
Speaker 1: by his son's bedside for days until he took his
Speaker 1: last breath, although as writer Roy Marshall has pointed out,
Speaker 1: there are some who believed that Frank was merely there
Speaker 1: to stop Albert from making any incriminating last minute deathbed confessions.
Speaker 1: As for Frank himself, though his major political aspirations were
Speaker 1: completely wrecked by the tragic events, he carried on regardless,
Speaker 1: and died in nineteen forty one in Veliska at the
Speaker 1: age of eighty one. As for Sarah and Joe Moore
Speaker 1: and their children, Hermann, Mary, Arthur and Paul, as well
Speaker 1: as young Eina and Lena Stillinger, they remained fondly remembered
Speaker 1: by the town and anyone else who encounters their story,
Speaker 1: some of whom continue to lay flowers by their graveside
Speaker 1: at Veliska Cemetery. The Reverend Lynn George Kelly's legal team
Speaker 1: attempted to dismiss his apparent confession as nothing but a
Speaker 1: sham that had been harassed out of him by Attorney
Speaker 1: General Horace Hafner. Notes taken by the two journalists tasked
Speaker 1: with recording it, however, suggest a somewhat different story. Although
Speaker 1: both admitted they had not been present for the entire process,
Speaker 1: and it can never be said for certain that they
Speaker 1: didn't edit their words afterwards, there is good reason to
Speaker 1: believe that Kelly willfully volunteered his statement. Whatever we believe,
Speaker 1: it certainly makes for harrowing reading. I Lynn, George J.
Speaker 1: Kelly say that I make the following affidavit it in confession,
Speaker 1: without any promises or threats having been made to me
Speaker 1: of any kind whatever, and that this is a voluntary statement.
Speaker 1: After church, I returned home with Reverend Ewing and his wife,
Speaker 1: and stayed up and visited with him until eleven or
Speaker 1: eleven thirty o'clock, when he showed me to my room
Speaker 1: and asked me if I would mind sleeping alone, as
Speaker 1: they were going to sleep in the tent. I said no,
Speaker 1: as I was intending to go to sleep at once.
Speaker 1: I undressed and went to bed, but was restless, being overtired.
Speaker 1: I heard a noise like a windmill and opened the
Speaker 1: door of the balcony, then stood outside to see what
Speaker 1: the noise was, but found nothing. Then I came back
Speaker 1: and shut the door and tried to sleep, but could not.
Speaker 1: My head was hot. I began to feel sick and
Speaker 1: wanted to get a walk, so I dressed, went downstairs
Speaker 1: and left the house by the front door. I walked
Speaker 1: across to the Presbyterian Church. I did not intend to
Speaker 1: go any further, but my mind was working on a
Speaker 1: sermon on a text called slagh utterly, and a voice
Speaker 1: said go on, and I went on because I was
Speaker 1: in the grip of something that I did not understand.
Speaker 1: I felt God wanted me to slay utterly, and I
Speaker 1: did not know where I was going or where I was.
Speaker 1: I got down near the end of the street and
Speaker 1: saw a shadow on the side of a house, going
Speaker 1: from the back to the front, and God told me
Speaker 1: to follow that shadow. I walked on a little bit further,
Speaker 1: still thinking about my sermon, and wanted to know where
Speaker 1: that shadow began. I went hunting the shadow to the
Speaker 1: back of the house. I did not know who lived there,
Speaker 1: but I kept hearing that voice sligh utterly. I said, yes, Lord,
Speaker 1: I will I was walking around in the darkness around
Speaker 1: the house trying to find that shadow and accidentally saw
Speaker 1: an axe. I picked it up. I went to where
Speaker 1: the shadow went, for God wanted me to follow that shadow.
Speaker 1: I went around toward the front door. A voice said,
Speaker 1: go in, do as I tell you, slay utterly. I
Speaker 1: saw no light, but I had to do as God
Speaker 1: told me, and I dare not turn back because somebody
Speaker 1: was urging me on. I did not know who. I
Speaker 1: went right ahead because I heard that voice, and as
Speaker 1: soon as I got in the house, some one whispered,
Speaker 1: come up higher. I went up a flight of stairs
Speaker 1: because I thought I was going up Jacob's ladder. I
Speaker 1: walked through the middle room into the further room. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I went there for, only I was
Speaker 1: driven by an impulse and a voice. I saw some
Speaker 1: children lying there. The Bible says, suffer little children to
Speaker 1: come unto me, and I said, they are coming Lord.
Speaker 1: Before I knew what I was doing, I started sending
Speaker 1: those children somewhere I did not know. After killing the children,
Speaker 1: I went into the room where the parents were, and
Speaker 1: I don't remember which one of them I struck first,
Speaker 1: as my head was all wrong, and I kept on
Speaker 1: hearing voices. I slayed utterly by using the acts led
Speaker 1: by this impulse that I did not seem able to control.
Speaker 1: I then went downstairs and wanted to lay down and rest,
Speaker 1: and saw a room and went in, not knowing who
Speaker 1: was there, but found two children in bed, and God
Speaker 1: said more work. Yet before I knew what I was doing,
Speaker 1: I had continued my sacrifices, killing these two children with
Speaker 1: the axe. I left the axe in the house and
Speaker 1: return to the ewing home and went back to bed.
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