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