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Speaker 1: Hi there, Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I
Speaker 1: am your host, Joe, joined as always by Steve and
Speaker 1: and today we're gonna bring you another fantastic mystery. I'm
Speaker 1: mad at you guys, actually, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can do this well you are. You're forgetting about
Speaker 1: something very important. Uh you get your haircut? No, it's
Speaker 1: our anniversary, that's what. It's our anniversary. Oh we've been
Speaker 1: doing the show for four years today. I knew that,
Speaker 1: of course, I know. I knew about that. Sure, so
Speaker 1: or we did you have anything planned? Are you going
Speaker 1: to a nice dinner? Like? Um? Well? Actually no, we
Speaker 1: we had a big plan to do a special anniversary episode,
Speaker 1: right Steve. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah totally. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a surprise. Well yeah, we hadn't. Now we haven't
Speaker 1: forgotten anything. Okay, yeah, all right, you sure? Okay now,
Speaker 1: and hey, no, seriously, we would never forget our anniversary.
Speaker 1: What are you saying here? What kind of guys do
Speaker 1: you think we are? We're smarter than that. Yeah, okay, alright,
Speaker 1: so I guess all right, we have something planned, Yeah,
Speaker 1: something very special. Um, of course I'm not going to
Speaker 1: tell you what it is. It's just like the ring
Speaker 1: in the bag on the top of the TV. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ringing in the bag on top of the te I
Speaker 1: don't know what happens, so funny, keep care No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm teasing our listeners here, because yeah, you guys have
Speaker 1: something really fantastic, but get a bag of the top
Speaker 1: of the TV. This is just like in the TV
Speaker 1: news and they tell you, they tell you about that
Speaker 1: fantastic story coming up, and you know what that means
Speaker 1: after the commercials. Yeah right, okay, And by the way,
Speaker 1: before I forget, this topic has been suggested actually by
Speaker 1: quite a few of our listeners. It's a popular one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a huge one. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: this list includes everybody, but yeah no, I don't think so,
Speaker 1: but I on my list Brooke, Joe, David, Kay and
Speaker 1: Matt and as for all the rest of you, they
Speaker 1: suggested it and didn't get added to my list. I
Speaker 1: apologize deeply. We usually do about five and then we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: there's only so much room in the Google spreadsheet names unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Yeah uh, but our mystery is about the valiska As
Speaker 1: murders of nineteen twelve. I can't wait. Do you hear it?
Speaker 1: Can you hear the little cheering? Yeah, big surprise to you.
Speaker 1: Didn't know about this because we put this little thing
Speaker 1: on the front the front of the episode that says
Speaker 1: generic mystery. Yeah, yeah, so the vliska As murders are
Speaker 1: They're kind of a big one. Eight people were killed
Speaker 1: in their beds, and so well that's pretty big, what
Speaker 1: you say. And this involved the More family of Veliska, Iowa. Valiska,
Speaker 1: by the way, is a little small town at the
Speaker 1: time in nineteen twelve was about I believe that's when
Speaker 1: our mystery takes places. Nineteen twelve. Yeah, it was in
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, and there was a town back then of
Speaker 1: about people. I think it's actually shrunk a little bit
Speaker 1: since then, but it's in southwest Iowa. And of course
Speaker 1: I've looked at on a street view it's listening like
Speaker 1: a pleasant little town. Unfortunately, damn you Google. You can't
Speaker 1: drive past the actual murder site itself on Google streets.
Speaker 1: I mean really, and I know when I say damn
Speaker 1: you Google, and I am kind of looking at gift
Speaker 1: Horse in the mouth a little bit. Uh. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the More family. Uh. They include Josiah Moore
Speaker 1: who's also known as Joe Moore also known as jb Uh.
Speaker 1: He was aged forty nine. That's why Sarah Moore aged
Speaker 1: thirty nine. They lived with their kids in the house
Speaker 1: at five oh eight East Second Street in Lascal, Iowa.
Speaker 1: And so you can look it up on Google the
Speaker 1: way I did. It's still there and it's still as
Speaker 1: a tourist attraction. By the way, was else has been restored? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has been. Yeah, it sort of fell into disrepair there,
Speaker 1: but somebody did restore. It's now in the list of
Speaker 1: historic places. Yeah. Yeah, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1: There four kids were Herman, Mary, Arthur, and Paul. That's
Speaker 1: from oldest to youngest. Herman was eleven the oldest and
Speaker 1: Paul the youngest, was five. So small kids, I mean
Speaker 1: old enough to operate farm machinery, sure, but I mean
Speaker 1: go get the thresher. Totally don't fall under again. Joe
Speaker 1: Moore had a farm equipment business in Pliska which was
Speaker 1: reportedly very successful. He has started out years before, I
Speaker 1: think about nineteen hundred, working for a guy named Frank Jones,
Speaker 1: also Realiska. Joe worked for Frank for seven years before
Speaker 1: he left to start his own business. He was the
Speaker 1: top salesman at Frank Jones farm business, but he left
Speaker 1: in nineteen o seven, reportedly because he didn't like working
Speaker 1: from seven am to eleven pm, six days a week. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh. When Joe Moore left, he took the John
Speaker 1: Deere account with him, which apparently didn't endear him to Frank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that had to be a pretty valuable account. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was. Yeah, John Deere. It was probably the
Speaker 1: biggest account in town. John Deere is big and was
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, and so basically that means it because
Speaker 1: usually stores or sell certain brands, he was the only
Speaker 1: the only store selling John Deere. Yeah, as far as
Speaker 1: I know, Yeah, okay, I just making sure that that's
Speaker 1: what I understood by taking the account, that's what that meant.
Speaker 1: I don't think John Deeer really wanted to have more
Speaker 1: than one dealership in any given Yeah. Yeah, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that was a blow to Frank, although
Speaker 1: as far as I know, he stayed in business. He
Speaker 1: actually Frank Jones went on to be account He was
Speaker 1: still fairly successful. He became a state senator, although this
Speaker 1: whole bruhaha with the murders and everything kind of scotch
Speaker 1: his political career just a little bit later on, but
Speaker 1: well we'll talk about that a little later. But yet
Speaker 1: another reason for Frank Jones to really dislike Joe Moore,
Speaker 1: and they didn't get a long and typically they were
Speaker 1: known to cross the street when they approached each other
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk to just avoid each other. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: that's good terms right there. Yeah, really good terms. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the reason the only reason I bring that up
Speaker 1: is that if anything unpleasant were to happen to Joe
Speaker 1: Moore and his family, I'm not saying it would, but
Speaker 1: if it did were to happen, well, Frank might be
Speaker 1: somebody the police would want to take a look at
Speaker 1: about just saying. But more on that later. I should
Speaker 1: also mention the or at least describe the fiscal surroundings
Speaker 1: of the Moor's house. Uh. As I've said, their addressed
Speaker 1: previously five oh eighties Second Street, which you can see
Speaker 1: on Google. It's on the eastern outskirts of Aliska. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's some new development to the east, but not a lot.
Speaker 1: They're really even and they're kind of on the outskirts
Speaker 1: of town. And from what I've heard, in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: there were a few houses there to the east of them,
Speaker 1: and that was it. That was the edge of town.
Speaker 1: And the house was also in a large lot, had
Speaker 1: a barn. Uh. There was room for some farm animals,
Speaker 1: which included at least some horses and some chickens, and
Speaker 1: I don't know anything else about any other animal, but
Speaker 1: they did they apparently did not have a dog like
Speaker 1: you can guess this because well, you know what happens.
Speaker 1: But they had a dog, maybe maybe things would have
Speaker 1: turned out differently, you know, probably. Yeah. And last of all,
Speaker 1: if you look on Google, you'll know that they are
Speaker 1: six blocks north of the railroad tracks that runs through town. Uh,
Speaker 1: not that that that has anything to do with anything,
Speaker 1: but in that at that time, and actually twelve about
Speaker 1: maybe thirty trains a day passed through the town. Nothing.
Speaker 1: That's not nothing, you know, And you're that close to
Speaker 1: the railroad tracks, well, you know. Uh. And and lastly,
Speaker 1: more about the town of Biliska. It's one of those
Speaker 1: little towns that you think of as people never locked
Speaker 1: their doors. And although I have heard in other places
Speaker 1: that actually most people did lock their doors in Biliska
Speaker 1: at night, but you know, I don't know, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to say. Um. And because people wonder about this,
Speaker 1: because they wonder how the killer got into the house
Speaker 1: Aaron White for and also why did he pick that
Speaker 1: particular house to begin with? Right, that's up in the
Speaker 1: air too. So now that I've told you all about
Speaker 1: on the family, I guess it's onto one of you guys.
Speaker 1: I guess you've guys have done a little research on
Speaker 1: this whole thing. Of course, yeah, I don't know we
Speaker 1: were doing this, so I didn't prepare. I'm just kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't It was supposed to be a surprise. Well,
Speaker 1: let me let's talk about the night before the murders,
Speaker 1: because there's some stuff that goes down, So that would
Speaker 1: be Sunday evening, the nineth of June. The family had
Speaker 1: gone to the Children's Day Service at the Presbyterian Church,
Speaker 1: which they were members of, and apparently they were accompanied
Speaker 1: by two neighbor children, Lena and Ena Stillinger, I believe
Speaker 1: that's how you pronounce it, and those I think it
Speaker 1: was okay, So Lena and Aina, and Lena was twelve,
Speaker 1: I was eight, and they had had their permission, parents
Speaker 1: permission to stay overnight with the more children. So what
Speaker 1: they did is when they went to they went to church,
Speaker 1: they we're going to the end of the year Sunday
Speaker 1: school program that was called the Children's Day Service, and
Speaker 1: Mrs Moore I understood that she was directing it, so
Speaker 1: never mind or part of it anyway, So never mind
Speaker 1: that her children were participating, as we're just about every
Speaker 1: other kid in the church, but she was involved in
Speaker 1: that way as well. According to accounts the this is
Speaker 1: what I'm not clear on. It says that everything ended
Speaker 1: at nine thirty, and I don't know if that means
Speaker 1: that the children's Day event, their service ended, or if
Speaker 1: that's when they left the church, because you know those
Speaker 1: kind of events. People go in, the event happens, and
Speaker 1: then you stand around and your chit chat and you
Speaker 1: catch up with your neighbors. So regardless though, it always
Speaker 1: says that they left at nine thirty, and at that
Speaker 1: point they would have walked home, which was not very far.
Speaker 1: It's about a five minute walk. If I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: it was three blocks, so yeah, I was even closer
Speaker 1: than that. But when they got home, everyone had a
Speaker 1: small snack before going to bed, cookies and milk Martiniz no,
Speaker 1: no Martiniz for the children, well maybe for the adults,
Speaker 1: maybe for the adults um. And again not entirely clear
Speaker 1: when they went to bed, but based on the time,
Speaker 1: the ages of the kids in the time at night,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that they were probably all in bed, probably
Speaker 1: quarter after ten or ten thirty, somewhere in that range.
Speaker 1: This was back in the day when there was no internet,
Speaker 1: no TV. Yeah, so you know, you know, and limited
Speaker 1: you know, limited lighting. So they're also children, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I'm getting at their twelve and they
Speaker 1: get exhausted, even even if you're an adult. What's the
Speaker 1: point of staying up, you know, I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: nothing to do as well, go sack out exactly. But
Speaker 1: but so it's after that at some point in the night.
Speaker 1: It's believed past midnight, but we're not a positive that
Speaker 1: the killer took the axe that was left sitting in
Speaker 1: the backyard and attacked a family The next morning, so
Speaker 1: this is Monday morning. Mary Peckham who was the neighbor,
Speaker 1: she's sixty three. She got up at normal time of
Speaker 1: five am and started her routine. She said that she
Speaker 1: noticed the More house was surprisingly quiet, which was weird
Speaker 1: because normally Joe Moore would get up and go take
Speaker 1: care of the horses in the backyard before going to
Speaker 1: his office, and Mrs Moore tended to wake up the
Speaker 1: kids before sunrise to get them ready and to do
Speaker 1: their chores. And when you've got four kids, they make
Speaker 1: a fair amount of noise in the morning. So the
Speaker 1: screaming and throwing rocks at each other, yeah, whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be playing because their kids, so there should
Speaker 1: have been those noises, and none of that was happening.
Speaker 1: And by eight o'clock that morning, she hadn't seen any
Speaker 1: of the family. So what Mary did is she went
Speaker 1: over to the house and she knocked on the door.
Speaker 1: Nobody answered. She tried to look through the windows, but
Speaker 1: they were drawn and shuttered, so she couldn't see anything.
Speaker 1: I saw that there were two windows in the entire
Speaker 1: house that didn't have shutters or curtains or anything on
Speaker 1: the inside, and they had clothes tacked up. Is that
Speaker 1: did you also see that? I don't remember seeing that
Speaker 1: there were. Yeah, and my understanding is that the windows
Speaker 1: all had clothes tacked up on the inside. Yeah, yeah, clothes, towels, whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It appears that somebody, we don't know who was trying
Speaker 1: to hide whatever, and maybe like you know, cover the windows,
Speaker 1: or somebody in the family did it for privacy reasons.
Speaker 1: Because somebody broke the blinds. I know people whose children
Speaker 1: have pulled the blinds down and they've had to hang
Speaker 1: a sheet for a couple of days till they get it,
Speaker 1: get replacement happen. Yeah, But anyway, so Mary, she goes
Speaker 1: over and she looks and she can't see anything. So
Speaker 1: she goes to the family's chicken coop, let's chickens out,
Speaker 1: so at least the chickens can be let out for
Speaker 1: the day, and goes home just figures, well, maybe Joe's
Speaker 1: family got ill and they had to leave in the
Speaker 1: middle of the tonight, and that's why they're not there.
Speaker 1: You know. She she's justifying what's going on, is what
Speaker 1: she's doing. So after after at Mary goes back to
Speaker 1: your house and here the events. I've read a couple
Speaker 1: of different versions of how this went down. And in
Speaker 1: the simple version, one of Joe's employees came over to
Speaker 1: the house to get his boss, couldn't find couldn't get
Speaker 1: into the house, couldn't see anybody, and then left and
Speaker 1: after and said something to Mary. And at that point
Speaker 1: then Mary placed a call to Joe's brother, whose name
Speaker 1: is Ross Moore. So that's one version that I've heard.
Speaker 1: I've also heard that unbidden by anybody, for reasons we
Speaker 1: don't know, Ross just came over on his own to
Speaker 1: see the family. I don't think that was the case.
Speaker 1: I don't think so either, because it does sound like
Speaker 1: there was, you know, a lot. I mean, people are
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where's Joe, what's going on. So
Speaker 1: what happens though, is Ross comes over and he does
Speaker 1: exactly what Mary did. He tries to look through the windows,
Speaker 1: he can't see anything. Knocks on the door, nobody answers,
Speaker 1: But of course he has the one thing that Mary
Speaker 1: didn't have, which is a key. Yeah, so I thought
Speaker 1: you were going to say a crowbar. So he unlocks
Speaker 1: and opens the door and he goes inside where he
Speaker 1: sees there's nothing good. So Mary waited on the porch
Speaker 1: while Ross went into the parlor. He found Aina and
Speaker 1: Lena's bodies in the bedroom, um in the guest bedroom
Speaker 1: on the bed. Ross at that point, and that's on
Speaker 1: the first floor. It's on the first floor. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: Ross at this point calls to Marry and says, hey,
Speaker 1: go get Hank Horton. He was kind of like the
Speaker 1: police chief. He was the the primary peace officer of
Speaker 1: the town at the time. He had the town marshall
Speaker 1: or town watchman or whatever you call some something some
Speaker 1: the person in charge basically probably one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's kind of a he's got a day job. Also.
Speaker 1: So what happens is, um, you know, Ross finds body,
Speaker 1: so he's you know, either goes back out or calls
Speaker 1: to Marry and says go get Hank um and then
Speaker 1: Ross way eats. From all the reporting, I can see
Speaker 1: waits until Hank shows up and either Mary called her,
Speaker 1: there's not The details are not clear here on how
Speaker 1: Hank got down there. Yeah, if she went and ran
Speaker 1: to get him, or if she called or what, but
Speaker 1: he was somehow summoned. I'm gonna guess it was a
Speaker 1: phone call. I think they called. Yeah, I would guess
Speaker 1: that as well. But I don't know where Hank. I
Speaker 1: mean maybe Hank lived two doors down and so she
Speaker 1: was like, just go down there. Anyway, Hank gets back,
Speaker 1: Hank and Mary and Ross all go into the house
Speaker 1: and upstairs they find the entire More family had also
Speaker 1: been bludged to death. I didn't say that Aina and
Speaker 1: Lena's bodies showed signs of being blooded to death, but
Speaker 1: there you go. They've been blunted to death, and as
Speaker 1: had the entire More family. I didn't even take it
Speaker 1: that initial look. I don't even think they peeked under
Speaker 1: the covers. I think that the first person that I've
Speaker 1: heard of pulled the covers back to see that they
Speaker 1: were blunde and was like the doctor that they brought
Speaker 1: later on. There's just a lot of blood. It was
Speaker 1: just like bodies in the bed. There's blood everywhere. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, what's happened to you know, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if it's bludgeoning or shooting or stabbing or what.
Speaker 1: They look kind of dead. There's some killing, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. So I've I've heard a few different ways,
Speaker 1: but I believe that the acts that had been used
Speaker 1: in all of the bludgeoning deaths was found in the
Speaker 1: guest bedroom with Nina and Lena's bodies. That's what I've
Speaker 1: heard too. So doctors were obviously called as well, and
Speaker 1: they examined the bodies and the crime scene, and here's
Speaker 1: what they found. They concluded that the murders had been
Speaker 1: committed before or five am, but after midnight, probably closer
Speaker 1: to midnight. Um, so in the early early hours of
Speaker 1: you know, the one two hours of the morning, not
Speaker 1: the not the later ones. The creepy factor is of
Speaker 1: course upped when they found two cigarette butts in the attic.
Speaker 1: I'm not totally sure why they were examining the attic
Speaker 1: in the first place, but they found two cigarette butts
Speaker 1: up there that would make sense. Seems reasonably spent because
Speaker 1: they had heard of hender KAIFEK. Yeah, sorry, I said
Speaker 1: reasonably they they seemed recently spent. They weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: as though the kids had been sneaking up there too.
Speaker 1: Although this is and I know you, I know you
Speaker 1: will find the cigarette bus in the attic thing on Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: But what I've heard is that that Wikipedia is wrong
Speaker 1: on that count, and that the actual the entrance to
Speaker 1: the attic, which the investigators did find the day of
Speaker 1: the discovery of the bodies, is actually in the closet
Speaker 1: of Joe and Sarah's bedroom in the upstairs, and it
Speaker 1: was blocked off by boxes and clothing and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and so in order, and so if there were cigarette
Speaker 1: bus there, they weren't left by the killer, because the
Speaker 1: killer again, when they when they found the bodies, the
Speaker 1: closet was full of boxes and clothes, and so if
Speaker 1: he had hidden there, he would have murdered them and
Speaker 1: then replaced all that stuff back into the closet and stuff,
Speaker 1: and before he left the house, unless there was an
Speaker 1: entrance externally, maybe some of the in to be able
Speaker 1: to hear what was going on in the house, or
Speaker 1: maybe that too. But I mean, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's other a few places have said that he hit
Speaker 1: in the cellar, same thing, though there's no there's no
Speaker 1: internal entrance from the house, so if he if he's
Speaker 1: in the cellar, he's got to exit the house and
Speaker 1: come back into the house, which is not you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing. No, not not insanely crazy, but you know,
Speaker 1: that's just what I've heard. That is that the whole
Speaker 1: wicked thing is not not exactly so the killer spider man. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so And actually I've heard another account out there.
Speaker 1: I can't. I gotta start taking better notes. Another account,
Speaker 1: which may have been a little bit of conflation with
Speaker 1: hintri Kaifak, because it's very hint kaifaky, is that, of
Speaker 1: course they the Moors did have a barn with their horses,
Speaker 1: and they found evidence that somebody had had been sitting
Speaker 1: on a couple of hay bills there and in close
Speaker 1: proximity to a novel in one of the exterior walls
Speaker 1: that afforded a view of the house, and that maybe
Speaker 1: the killer was hiding in the barn and watching the
Speaker 1: house from the barn. But again this is very cumstantial. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and again I think that this might really be a
Speaker 1: case of where over the years it's been sort of
Speaker 1: conflated with hinterra kaifak a little bit, you know, and
Speaker 1: but the same thing with the attic and stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Devin Starry to interrupt your narrative. So the killer's hanging
Speaker 1: out somewhere, I guess, And he was hanging that somewhere.
Speaker 1: Maybe not. Maybe he just came walking up out of
Speaker 1: the darkness and want right into the house. The massacre
Speaker 1: started in the master bedroom with Josiah and Sarah. Josili
Speaker 1: was really really badly beaten up. He'd been hacked. Um,
Speaker 1: he'd actually been hacked. Most of the victims had just
Speaker 1: been blundened with like the blunt side um, the butt
Speaker 1: what you would call the butt of the axe. Um.
Speaker 1: But he had actually been cut a number of times
Speaker 1: with the blade of the axe. In fact, he was
Speaker 1: beat so badly that his eyes were apparently missing which
Speaker 1: is pretty that's pretty intense. Next, the killer, because we
Speaker 1: don't actually know if there was only one killer or not,
Speaker 1: moved to the children's room. Sorry they obviously they bludgeoned
Speaker 1: Sarah as well at the same time at the same time.
Speaker 1: Right then they moved to the children's room. This is
Speaker 1: where herman, Catherine Boyd and Paul all were. They were
Speaker 1: all beaten with the butt as previously noted. Then after
Speaker 1: returning to the master bedroom to beat up on Josiah
Speaker 1: and Sarah a bit more, the killer or went downstairs
Speaker 1: to the guest bedroom where Anna and Lena were killing them. Lena,
Speaker 1: it seems, may have been awake when she was murdered,
Speaker 1: and that would be different from all of the rest
Speaker 1: of the victims. It looked like they were all asleep
Speaker 1: when they got bludgeoned, which means the bludgeoning had to
Speaker 1: have happened pretty dang quickly, especially the children. When you're
Speaker 1: talking about bludgeoning four children to death without waking any
Speaker 1: of them up in the interim, and they were sharing beds,
Speaker 1: weren't they, Because I mean, there's four kids and you're
Speaker 1: not a rich, i mean even a well off family
Speaker 1: at that time. It was it was not uncommon to
Speaker 1: just stack them like Cordwood in a totally yeah. Lena
Speaker 1: seems to have had signs of defensive wounds, maybe cuts
Speaker 1: to her arms. There's also speculation that Lina may have
Speaker 1: been sexually assaulted she was found. The other reason that
Speaker 1: people think that she was awake was because she wasn't
Speaker 1: found laying next to her sister in the bed. She
Speaker 1: was laying across the bed um, and her nightgown was
Speaker 1: pulled up to her waist, and she wasn't wearing any underwear,
Speaker 1: which may or may not be some kind of evidence
Speaker 1: against something. She was the oldest child, she was twelve,
Speaker 1: so other than Sarah, she would have been the closest
Speaker 1: to adulthood. Adulthood, I guess so if trying to think
Speaker 1: of a delicate way to say that, if some you know,
Speaker 1: if the killer was yeah, even more disgusting than just
Speaker 1: a murderer, might have been a thing. Can I just interrupt,
Speaker 1: just really quickly about her her nightgown being pushed up.
Speaker 1: But I never understood. What I always wondered about is
Speaker 1: what I couldn't because of course, obviously there's no photographic
Speaker 1: evidence out there of the bodies I always wondered was
Speaker 1: her um, was her waist like on the DoD the bed,
Speaker 1: because I could see if a body falls and then
Speaker 1: search the slide towards the edge of the bed. Her
Speaker 1: nightgown would then naturally ride up, well that's kind of
Speaker 1: around her hips, rather than they could bring it down
Speaker 1: over her head or something like that, instead of the
Speaker 1: insituation of somebody pulled it up to then do some
Speaker 1: naughty business. The other the other thing is is actually, um,
Speaker 1: he covered everybody's faces, and so they might not have
Speaker 1: been something immediate. It might have been the closest thing
Speaker 1: to cover her face with was just the night dress
Speaker 1: that she was wearing. Just grab it and pull it
Speaker 1: up wherever her face and cover you know. So it
Speaker 1: might have been that too. Got it cool? But I don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, That's what I was going to say, is
Speaker 1: that just because her nightgown and she wasn't wearing underwear,
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily mean that they were removed. Plenty of
Speaker 1: people to sleep, you know, without underwear, especially in those
Speaker 1: days when you didn't necessarily have Yeah, yeah, you might
Speaker 1: just take it off and then put you know, the
Speaker 1: same pair on and again the next morning. So how
Speaker 1: I do it the one for a month. The one
Speaker 1: other weird thing that I want to bring up is
Speaker 1: that Dr lind Quest, who was the corner at the time.
Speaker 1: He was the one who was examining the bodies. He
Speaker 1: reported there was a slab of bacon on the floor
Speaker 1: in the downstairs bedroom, laying next to the axe. This
Speaker 1: is what I've heard. He said that it was about
Speaker 1: two pounds and it was wrapped with what he thought
Speaker 1: might be a dish towel. And then a second, like
Speaker 1: a matching set of slab of bacon was found in
Speaker 1: the ice box, so it could have been pulled out
Speaker 1: of the ice box. But I don't know. It's weird,
Speaker 1: there's but it wasn't to go, It's just sitting there.
Speaker 1: It was left. Well, what I mean is get it
Speaker 1: ready to take it to go and then how often
Speaker 1: have you forgotten your lunch? Well exactly, So I was
Speaker 1: thinking that, yeah, I think maybe the killer was going
Speaker 1: to take it with him, had he it was Apparently
Speaker 1: what I heard is it was left in the in
Speaker 1: the guest bedroom, next to the axe, which was leading
Speaker 1: against the wall. And I almost might have just forgotten
Speaker 1: that well, I almost wondered if you know. Again, it's
Speaker 1: hard to get a sense of the layout of the
Speaker 1: house or whatever, but I almost wonder if the killer
Speaker 1: went in not knowing that Aina and Lena were there,
Speaker 1: or at least that they were in the guest bedroom,
Speaker 1: and went upstairs, did all his murdering stuff, came back down,
Speaker 1: grabbed a slab of bacon, kind of walked near by
Speaker 1: the guest room and was like, oh, there's two more
Speaker 1: people in there. Finish, finish the job, and then, you know,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, you know, set the bacon down beat
Speaker 1: the girls. Maybe he did end up raping Lena at
Speaker 1: that point. Maybe he put the bacon in the acts
Speaker 1: they're thinking, Okay, I'm gonna grab those as I leave,
Speaker 1: raped her, and then just totally forgot because he, I
Speaker 1: don't know, was hopefully ideally just so disgusted with all
Speaker 1: the horrible things he'd just done he just had to leave.
Speaker 1: But maybe it killed Zeppe to I think. Another another
Speaker 1: theory is that perhaps he was an early animal rights
Speaker 1: activist making a statement about about the condition of pigs
Speaker 1: and slaughter houses. Maybe yeah, yeah, that's possibly so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the scene of the body, the scene of
Speaker 1: the murderer. I guess, yeah, a killer or killers who
Speaker 1: knows which. And then one last sort of weird thing
Speaker 1: is that all the mirrors in the house had been
Speaker 1: covered well, and as we mentioned in passing to all
Speaker 1: of the all of the bodies had been I think
Speaker 1: mostly it was with sheets. Yeah, it was what she
Speaker 1: so it could have It was mostly most of their bodies.
Speaker 1: It might have been kind of a respecting or something
Speaker 1: like that, because apparently, according to the doctor's testimony that
Speaker 1: I read, one one good reason to put a sheet
Speaker 1: or a towel over somebody's face before you beat their
Speaker 1: head in is to keep the blood spattered down. But
Speaker 1: apparently they were placed after, Yeah, they were placed after
Speaker 1: after the death. The other thing that we haven't really
Speaker 1: mentioned is that, I mean, Devin brought up the fact
Speaker 1: that the sharp end of the ax was used on Joe,
Speaker 1: but he got he got the worst, He got the worst.
Speaker 1: That's when I was like, what forty or fifty He
Speaker 1: took forty or fifty whack or something like that number. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of I mean, that was the thing.
Speaker 1: You know, the murderer went and murdered the children, and
Speaker 1: I almost wonder if he hadn't really finished the job
Speaker 1: the first time, you know, and they're Joe was starting
Speaker 1: to make noises, and so he thought, long, I gotta
Speaker 1: go kill the kids so they don't wake up and
Speaker 1: come back. But I mean he went back like after
Speaker 1: every single one. It seems like it seems like the
Speaker 1: murderer killed Joe and then maybe killed Sarah or hit Joe,
Speaker 1: maybe killed Sarah, killed the kids, then came back and
Speaker 1: wailed on Joe. He will, he will on all of
Speaker 1: them a bunch more. Essentially, he whacked him all. I
Speaker 1: whacked him all at least once. And then and then
Speaker 1: when he was done, and he came back and just
Speaker 1: the job was starting with the parents just obliterated their faces,
Speaker 1: but not as not nearly as bad as what happened
Speaker 1: got the worst now he did, but but all all
Speaker 1: of them, their faces were essentially obliterated, all of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it looks so it looks like he made the
Speaker 1: first pass all the way through, then came back, did
Speaker 1: all the obliterating and and then he was done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the what is it from Zombieland the triple tap? Yeah,
Speaker 1: double tap, but yeah a little more than that really
Speaker 1: and uh and then and then Apparently, like I said,
Speaker 1: he covered all all the mirrors in the house. Um,
Speaker 1: which may or may not be significant. Um and uh
Speaker 1: also hung out a little bit. There was some stories
Speaker 1: I've heard there was a plate of food on the table,
Speaker 1: and there was also a basin that was filled with
Speaker 1: water and that had blood in it. So maybe he
Speaker 1: washed up after the fact, you wanted to wash all
Speaker 1: the blood up, which you know, I can't blame him up.
Speaker 1: Depending on where you're going to go, it would be
Speaker 1: fairly disgusting looking. Yeah, by the end of your whole thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then apparently he left the house bive it appears,
Speaker 1: to the front door and locked it behind him and
Speaker 1: took the key with him, because they know this because
Speaker 1: the front door been locked and the key was the
Speaker 1: only thing that was missing, so it was gone, so
Speaker 1: they just assumed he took it with him. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: nice hahing to lock up. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the word I would use. Yeah. Uh, Well, that pretty
Speaker 1: much sums it up. Before we hit into our theories,
Speaker 1: let's stick a really brief break. On a summer night
Speaker 1: in nine seven, among the chaos of Detroit Rebellion, a
Speaker 1: group of young people were detained, it said deal Cheers
Speaker 1: Hotel by the Detroit pt. By the end of the night,
Speaker 1: three of them would be dead. Instant lives Lost, an
Speaker 1: entire city Changed Forever, directed by Katherine Bigelow. Catch the
Speaker 1: premiere of Detroit starring John Buega, Anthony Mackie and Algie Smith,
Speaker 1: premier in theaters August four, and creating a collaboration with
Speaker 1: Antiperor Pictures as a companion piece to the movie Beyond
Speaker 1: the lookout for a new podcast called Rebellion in Detroit,
Speaker 1: which is coming soon. It's set in the same period
Speaker 1: as a film. It's a three part mini series about
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty seven riots in Detroit, and it's hosted
Speaker 1: by actor in Detroit native Courtney b. Vans. Listen along
Speaker 1: to his podcast and find out what really happened on
Speaker 1: the streets of Detroit over that hot week in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven and why so remember Detroit? Directed by Katherine Bigelow.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Okay, we have a few theories here
Speaker 1: for you, So with no further ado, here we go. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Nick and this is the captain from True
Speaker 1: Crime Garage. Congratulations on putting out a stellar podcast for
Speaker 1: the last four years. We're both big fans, so cheers
Speaker 1: to your mates. Let's grab a chair, grab a beer,
Speaker 1: and let's talk some true crime. Henry Lee Moore, first off,
Speaker 1: he is no relation to the More's that were killed
Speaker 1: in Vliska. But in our opinion, he is a great
Speaker 1: suspect to be the perpetrator of the Valiska as murders.
Speaker 1: Henry Lee Moore didn't actually live in Viliska, So how
Speaker 1: could he be a great suspect? You ask, Well, the
Speaker 1: ax murders and Valiska were not the first of their kind.
Speaker 1: There had been a string of axe murders going on
Speaker 1: nationwide before and after the ax murders in Valiska. Nine
Speaker 1: months earlier, in September of nineteen eleven, six victims were
Speaker 1: murdered by way of acts in Colorado Springs. Then in
Speaker 1: October there'd be a triple murder in Illinois. After that,
Speaker 1: the Showman family of five were killed in Kansas. In fact,
Speaker 1: just days before the Veliska massacre, a husband and wife
Speaker 1: were slaughtered in Kansas. And there were all similarities in
Speaker 1: these crimes, but the obvious ones were these were all
Speaker 1: families being killed in their homes and being taken out
Speaker 1: with an ax, and most of these cases, the authorities
Speaker 1: don't have a suspect until a federal officer, this is m. W. McClary.
Speaker 1: He decides that they must be dealing with a transient maniac.
Speaker 1: Using that theory, he also noticed another commonality in the
Speaker 1: string of killings. The houses were all located at various
Speaker 1: points along the Southern Pacific Railway. Now our suspect, Henry
Speaker 1: Lee Moore. He worked for the railways. Not only that,
Speaker 1: but he was a bad, bad man. On December eighteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, This is the day after Henry Moore tells
Speaker 1: his roommate that he is traveling to Columbia, Missouri, to
Speaker 1: visit his mother, who has taken ill. Henry Lee Moore's
Speaker 1: mother and grandmother lived together. This is Mrs Georgia Moore
Speaker 1: and her mother, Mary Wilson. Their neighbor sees Henry Moore
Speaker 1: enter his mother's home. A short while later, he goes
Speaker 1: to the neighbor's house. He says he has just arrived
Speaker 1: into town and wondered if the neighbor could tell him
Speaker 1: where his mother was. She says that she believes they
Speaker 1: would be at home. Henry goes back to his mother's house.
Speaker 1: Then he comes back to the neighbor's house once again
Speaker 1: and says, you've got to come with me and see
Speaker 1: what happened. When the neighbor gets there, what she sees
Speaker 1: is Henry Lee Moore's mother dead and grandmother dead, murdered
Speaker 1: by an axe. They were hacked to death in their home.
Speaker 1: The grandmother was found in her bed. Henry's mother was
Speaker 1: killed by the back door. She had a horrible gash
Speaker 1: in her neck and a deep cut on her forehead
Speaker 1: that penetrated the brain. They'd find old acts with a
Speaker 1: blunt edge and a broken handle, and they'd consider this
Speaker 1: the murder weapon. Now, remember, Henry said that he had
Speaker 1: arrived into town that morning, and upon his arrival, he
Speaker 1: had found the women dead. He was arrested after authorities
Speaker 1: learned from the neighbor that Henry had entered the home
Speaker 1: through the back door more than once that morning. They
Speaker 1: also found blood on him and on his underclothes, and
Speaker 1: later learned that Henry had rented a room at a
Speaker 1: hotel the night before under a fake name. Getting caught
Speaker 1: in these little white lines and his story not lining
Speaker 1: up is not looking good for Henry Lee Moore. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: neighbors would report that Henry's mother was not ill at
Speaker 1: all and she was in her normal health. Henry Lee
Speaker 1: Moore will be found guilty of these murders. Yes, he
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison for the death of his
Speaker 1: mother and grandmother. Many at the time suspected that his
Speaker 1: motive for the murders was in fact money had also
Speaker 1: received his family's property once his mother was dead. One investigator,
Speaker 1: m W. McClary, it's actually pronounced am Debbie McClary. Well,
Speaker 1: he decided that the motive for the murders was in fact,
Speaker 1: that Henry Lee Moore was a serial killer that rode
Speaker 1: the rails, and he would go to these different homes,
Speaker 1: break in and kill the families in their sleep at night,
Speaker 1: and that he was motivated by the act and thrill
Speaker 1: of killing itself. And he was a sexual maniac. So
Speaker 1: what would be Henry Lee's motive just the thrill of
Speaker 1: killing or possibly sexual assault and then covering up his
Speaker 1: crime and regarding the murders in Vliska and the other
Speaker 1: as murders that took place in that short time period, well,
Speaker 1: Henry Lee Moore worked for the railroad. He would have
Speaker 1: had the means to be in those areas, and the
Speaker 1: fact that he was found guilty of killing his mother
Speaker 1: and his grandmother, it would prove that he had the
Speaker 1: capability and to know how to create a double murder. Look,
Speaker 1: there are certainly many good suspects in the valiska As
Speaker 1: murders case, but our guy, Henry Lee Moore should be
Speaker 1: considered one of your prime suspects. Thank you, guys so
Speaker 1: much again for let us be a part of this
Speaker 1: four year and a versary. It was so much fun
Speaker 1: to meet you and hang out with you and drink
Speaker 1: some bruise with you at crime Con this year. Look
Speaker 1: forward to drinking with you again next year. First rounds
Speaker 1: on you, guys. Cheers. Hello everyone, and welcome to a
Speaker 1: very special episode of The Trail Went Sideways. My name
Speaker 1: is Robin Wardour and I am the host of the
Speaker 1: true crime podcast The Trail Went Cold. The Thinking Sideways
Speaker 1: crew have asked me to help them out because not
Speaker 1: only has the trail gone cold on this case, but
Speaker 1: the trail is completely frozen solid. I got to meet
Speaker 1: Joe Stephen Devon at crime Con and we all went
Speaker 1: out to lunch together and since they picked up the
Speaker 1: check they demanded. I reimbursed them by appearing on this episode.
Speaker 1: Not just kidding. We had an awesome time hanging out
Speaker 1: that weekend, and I am beyond thrilled and honor to
Speaker 1: be a guest on their podcast, which is one of
Speaker 1: my all time favorites. Anyway, the theory they've asked me
Speaker 1: to cover for this case involves a suspect named George Kelly,
Speaker 1: the only suspect who actually stood trial for this crime,
Speaker 1: and what makes Kelly such an unusual suspect is that
Speaker 1: he was a minister, an unlikely candidate to be an
Speaker 1: axe murderer. Reverend Kelly was originally born as Lynn George
Speaker 1: Jackline Kelly in England before he and his wife moved
Speaker 1: to the United States in nineteen o four. After serving
Speaker 1: the Methodist church for years, Kelly suddenly decided that this
Speaker 1: denomination wasn't for him, so he enrolled in a Presbyterian
Speaker 1: seminary in nineteen twelve. On the evening of June nine,
Speaker 1: Kelly was invited to attend the Children's Day services at
Speaker 1: the Presbyterian Church in the Liska, which of course also
Speaker 1: happened to be attended by the Moore family. And the
Speaker 1: Stillinger sisters right before they were murdered at five nineteen
Speaker 1: am the following morning, Kelly left the Liska by hopping
Speaker 1: on a train back to his hometown of Macedonia, and
Speaker 1: it was about three hours later when the victim's bodies
Speaker 1: were discovered. Now Kelly put himself on the radar as
Speaker 1: a suspect when he started writing a NonStop series of
Speaker 1: rambling letters about the murders and sending them to the
Speaker 1: police and the victims surviving relatives. It seemed like being
Speaker 1: in Veliska when the murders took place caused Kelly to
Speaker 1: develop a pretty unhealthy obsession with this case. In fact,
Speaker 1: one week after the crime took place, Kelly returned to
Speaker 1: Aliska and went to the trouble of convincing the police
Speaker 1: to give him a tour of the More home. Anyway,
Speaker 1: One private investigator decided to write Kelly back and asked
Speaker 1: him if he knew anything about the murders. Kelly responded
Speaker 1: with a pretty eye opening story about how he had
Speaker 1: been walking past the More home that night when he
Speaker 1: heard what sounded like the thought of an axe, and
Speaker 1: that a man who was likely the killer briefly stepped
Speaker 1: out onto the porch. Naturally, this made investigators suspicious, but
Speaker 1: there was no direct evidence that Kelly was involved in
Speaker 1: the crime, and since he had a history of mental
Speaker 1: illness and erratic behavior, it was hard to know if
Speaker 1: his story was actually true. So Kelly dropped off the
Speaker 1: radar for a while, but he got himself in a
Speaker 1: bit of trouble in nineteen fourteen after he placed a
Speaker 1: newspaper ad for a stenographer. When a young woman expressed
Speaker 1: her interest, Kelly wrote back and essentially said that the
Speaker 1: position was hers as long as she was willing to
Speaker 1: type in the nude. Well. This woman was mortified, so
Speaker 1: this letter was turned over to the authorities, and they
Speaker 1: proceeded to send Kelly a series of dummy letters in
Speaker 1: which they pretended to be her. This prompted Kelly to
Speaker 1: respond with some more sexually inappropriate letters, and their content
Speaker 1: was apparently so offensive that Kelly was arrested for sending
Speaker 1: obscene material through the mail. I guess this was essentially
Speaker 1: the nineteen fourteen version of sexting, and he had to
Speaker 1: spend some time in a mental hospital for it. While
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventeen, the investigation into other suspects in the
Speaker 1: Billiska Acts murders had completely fallen through, so they decided
Speaker 1: to focus their attention on Kelly again. The police brought
Speaker 1: Kelly in and interrogated a NonStop over the course of
Speaker 1: an entire night, until he finally broke down and confessed
Speaker 1: to the murders the following morning. He claimed that God
Speaker 1: had commanded him to kill every person in the More
Speaker 1: household that night, and that he essentially did this while
Speaker 1: in a trance like state. Of course, Kelly soon recanted
Speaker 1: his confession, but he still went on trial for the
Speaker 1: murder of Lena Stillinger. It seems like he was specifically
Speaker 1: charged with that one particular murder because, in addition to
Speaker 1: the incident involving the obscene letters, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of unsavory rumors about Kelly being a peeping tom and
Speaker 1: abusing his position to ask young girls to pose nude
Speaker 1: for him. The logic seemed to be that since Kelly
Speaker 1: was a sexual deviant, that's why Lena was found partially nut.
Speaker 1: Maybe Kelly had become fixated honor at the children's day
Speaker 1: services that night, so he decided to follow her to
Speaker 1: the More home and then proceeded to kill everyone inside.
Speaker 1: With an AX. The evidence against Kelly at trial was
Speaker 1: his confession, the letters he'd written about the murders, and
Speaker 1: the fact that he'd sent out a bloody shirt to
Speaker 1: be laundered only a week after the crime took place.
Speaker 1: There were also witnesses who claimed that they'd heard Kelly
Speaker 1: discussing the murders on his a trip from Vliska to
Speaker 1: Macedonia on June tenth, nineteen twelve. Remember this train had
Speaker 1: left Veliska at five nineteen am, three hours before the
Speaker 1: bodies were discovered, So how could Kelly have known about
Speaker 1: the murders unless he had been there. Well, the problem
Speaker 1: is that the witnesses who supposedly heard him talk about
Speaker 1: this changed their story, and given how questionable Kelly's confession was,
Speaker 1: this was hardly an airtight case. As a result, the
Speaker 1: jury wound up being deadlocked at eleven to one in
Speaker 1: favor of acquittal. So Kelly had to go on trial again,
Speaker 1: and this time he was acquitted, and that pretty much
Speaker 1: closed the books on him. This also kind of brought
Speaker 1: the investigation to a dead halt, and that's about as
Speaker 1: close as they ever came to solving the Valiska Acts murders.
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say the trail went cold.
Speaker 1: So here's my personal take on Reverend George Kelly as
Speaker 1: a suspect. He is most definitely a strange person and
Speaker 1: a major pervert. I really don't think the evidence is
Speaker 1: there which points to him being the perpetrator. From the
Speaker 1: sound of things, the police only decided to charge Kelly
Speaker 1: five years after the fact because they've gotten pretty desperate
Speaker 1: to close the case. You're going to hear other podcasters
Speaker 1: discussed the theory that Iowa State Senator Frank Fernando Jones
Speaker 1: hired a guy named William Mansfield to commit the murders,
Speaker 1: but after the investigation into them fell apart. I think
Speaker 1: there was a feeling that somebody had to go down
Speaker 1: for this crime, and Kelly was a convenient scapegoat. In fact,
Speaker 1: there were rumors that Senator Jones pressured investigators to orchestrate
Speaker 1: a frame up job on Kelly in order to take
Speaker 1: the spotlight off himself. Now, Kelly's alibi on the night
Speaker 1: of the murders was that he was asleep, but it's
Speaker 1: not like anyone could officially verify it. During his trip
Speaker 1: to Bliska, Kelly stayed at the home of a local
Speaker 1: minister named William j Ewing. On the evening of June nine.
Speaker 1: You in claimed that he showed Kelly to his bedroom
Speaker 1: at eleven PM before he went to sleep, and that
Speaker 1: Kelly was already gone by the time Youwing woke up
Speaker 1: the following morning. We know that Kelly's trained departed at
Speaker 1: five nineteen am, so he would have had a window
Speaker 1: of about six hours to commit the murders. You and
Speaker 1: his wife were called in to testify at Kelly's trials,
Speaker 1: and they stated that they believed his bed had been
Speaker 1: slept in that night. Now, Kelly was left handed, and
Speaker 1: the corner believed the blood spatters at the scene indicated
Speaker 1: that the killer swung the axe left handed. However, the
Speaker 1: biggest point in Kelly's favor was that he was a
Speaker 1: pretty small fellow at only five ft two and a
Speaker 1: hundred nineteen pounds, So would he really have been capable
Speaker 1: of murdering eight people with an axe singlehandedly? The fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is is that there's no direct evidence
Speaker 1: placing Kelly at the scene. All we really have is
Speaker 1: a coerced confession, unreliable eyewitness testimony, and a strange guy
Speaker 1: who developed a strange obsession with this crime. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's absolutely impossible that Kelly could have done it,
Speaker 1: but in my eyes, he just seemed like nothing more
Speaker 1: than a convenient scapegoat. And if there hadn't have been
Speaker 1: so much pre sure to solve the case at that time,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he ever would have been charged. So
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to think that the Veliska Acts murders were
Speaker 1: committed by someone else. Anyway, Thank you everyone for listening,
Speaker 1: and thanks again to Joe Stephen Devon for having me
Speaker 1: on here. Charlie and Ali here from the Insight podcast.
Speaker 1: We are covering one of the suspects who made maybe
Speaker 1: the biggest news partly because of who he was in
Speaker 1: the community, and that suspect is Frank Jones. He owned
Speaker 1: a large and successful store in Vliska, and Josiah Moore
Speaker 1: worked for him for something like nine years. He helped
Speaker 1: found a bank in the town and was at the
Speaker 1: time serving as a state representative, and he later became
Speaker 1: a state senator. He spent twenty five years as a
Speaker 1: superintendent of Sunday School for the Methodist Church. I know
Speaker 1: something that you would look at as a murderer, for sure,
Speaker 1: now the reason people looked at him as motive. After
Speaker 1: working for Frank Joe for years, Josiah opened his own
Speaker 1: hardware store and he worked in direct competition to Frank.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but he took the John Dear portion
Speaker 1: of the business with him when he left. Some people
Speaker 1: who work in corporate jobs today they have the sign
Speaker 1: paperwork when they're hired that they won't take clients or
Speaker 1: accounts with them if or when they leave the company.
Speaker 1: This is why non compete clauses have prevented many acts murders.
Speaker 1: I am sure of that. And according to one source
Speaker 1: I read, the two men, who obviously didn't speak to
Speaker 1: each other, would go as far as to cross the
Speaker 1: street to avoid each other. And then there was gossip.
Speaker 1: Frank Jones had a daughter in law named Dona. Donna
Speaker 1: had a reputation for meeting with men without her husband
Speaker 1: or a chaperone present. Back in those days, you couldn't
Speaker 1: just make a private phone call. You had to go
Speaker 1: through a central operator. Who could should she choose listen in?
Speaker 1: She could? Then should she choose tell the whole town
Speaker 1: about your business? Now? Is roommate that Dona and Joe
Speaker 1: arranged their made up by telephone, so a business competitor
Speaker 1: and rumored to be having an affair with these daughter
Speaker 1: in law, but there was dual motives for Frank Jones. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the rumors of Frank jones involvement led to an investigation
Speaker 1: into him not being the murderer himself, but rather being
Speaker 1: the money behind a murder for higher plot. The man
Speaker 1: they thought wielded the axe is a potential serial killer
Speaker 1: named William Mansfield. Mansfield would later be suspected in the
Speaker 1: murder of his own family years later. One man in
Speaker 1: particular really believed this theory. James Wilkerson, a private investigator,
Speaker 1: was convinced that Frank Jones hired William Mansfield to kill
Speaker 1: the More family. He also believed other killings across the
Speaker 1: Midwest were connected, and he connected them all to William Mansfield.
Speaker 1: He said that he could prove Mansfield was in every
Speaker 1: area on the notes of all of these murders. Frank
Speaker 1: Jones tired of the rumors, which eventually escalated to posters
Speaker 1: hung up around town accusing him of the crime. He
Speaker 1: sued Wilkerson's the slander. The best offense to slander is
Speaker 1: to prove what you said is true. So the defamation
Speaker 1: suit became kind of a mini murder trial for Frank Jones.
Speaker 1: Wilkerson had various eyewitnesses who saw and heard things related
Speaker 1: to the crime. This civil trial, however, happened in nine sixteen,
Speaker 1: so four years after the murders. So why did no
Speaker 1: one say any of this at the time of the
Speaker 1: murders and why are they only saying it now. One
Speaker 1: witness who had years previously testified at the inquest that
Speaker 1: he saw nothing unusual, was now testifying saying he saw
Speaker 1: the son of Frank Jones enter the More home while
Speaker 1: the Moors were still at the children's program. In the end,
Speaker 1: all person was found not guilty of slander. Now that's
Speaker 1: not to say the jury believed Frank Jones was involved
Speaker 1: in the murders, but that there was enough evidence that
Speaker 1: accusing him of being involved did not rise to the
Speaker 1: level of slander. A grand jury was convened and the
Speaker 1: state sought in indictment against Mansfield. The details are private,
Speaker 1: as they tend to be with grand juries, but in
Speaker 1: the end they failed to indict Mansfield, reportedly because he
Speaker 1: had a payroll receipt and it proved that he was
Speaker 1: in Illinois at the time of the murders. This essentially
Speaker 1: ended the legal case against Frank Jones, but this widely
Speaker 1: held belief that he used his influence to sway the
Speaker 1: investigation and the results of that investigation away from himself.
Speaker 1: It ruined his political career. Now, to me, giants had
Speaker 1: a luck to lose if it ever came out that
Speaker 1: he was involved in the murders. And I can't say
Speaker 1: even if he was, I imagine he would have had
Speaker 1: it all sign up TAI so it could never be
Speaker 1: traced back to him. But honestly, I think him being
Speaker 1: tied to the case is just a case of Mainsfield's
Speaker 1: obsession with the murders. One of the things that really
Speaker 1: leads me away from him is that slander case. He
Speaker 1: had to know with his own background that taking a
Speaker 1: defamation case to court saying he's saying I'm a murderer,
Speaker 1: I'm not a murderer that was going to turn into
Speaker 1: a de facto murder trial for him, And if he
Speaker 1: had something to lose, I don't think he would have
Speaker 1: done that because a lot of dirt could have come
Speaker 1: out in that defamation case. He was risking a lot, right,
Speaker 1: and I don't think he would have risked it over
Speaker 1: a defamation case that was already going to be difficult
Speaker 1: to win, because defamation cases are famously difficult to win.
Speaker 1: I'm Nina from the Already Gone podcast, and Bliska isn't
Speaker 1: the only place for an axe murder. How about Blue Island, Illinois.
Speaker 1: Blue Island is in cook Cow, me just south of Chicago,
Speaker 1: and on July six there was a gruesome ax murder
Speaker 1: of a family. Jacob Nislesla, his wife, their daughter, and
Speaker 1: their infant grandchild were killed. The survivor of the attack
Speaker 1: Jacob's son in law, William Mansfield. Mansfield was working out
Speaker 1: of town when his family was killed, and we know
Speaker 1: that two years later, in the summer of nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: Mansfield was working for the railroads in Kansas City. Now
Speaker 1: Mansfield was thought to be a troublemaker because of his
Speaker 1: work as a union organizer. This Detroit girl knows how
Speaker 1: poorly union organizers were thought of by those and positions
Speaker 1: of power, particularly at the start of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: James Wilkerson of the Burns Detective Agency, he felt that
Speaker 1: because of what happened in Illinois years earlier, Mansfield was
Speaker 1: good for the murders. He was convinced that Senator Jones
Speaker 1: hired Mansfield to do the deed. Wilkerson went so far
Speaker 1: as to hang up hundreds of flyers on lamp posts
Speaker 1: all over the city, labeling the fair haired, blue eyed
Speaker 1: Mansfield William the Lackey Mansfield and implying that Johns had
Speaker 1: hired him to commit the murders on his behalf. Mansfield
Speaker 1: was arrested and brought before Montgomery County Grand Jury. Mansfield's
Speaker 1: attorneys they produced payroll records and witnesses that placed Mansfield
Speaker 1: in Illinois at the time of the Vliska attack. Mansfield
Speaker 1: was released and he filed suit against Wilkerson and the
Speaker 1: notoriously anti union Burns Detective Agency. He received twenty dollars
Speaker 1: in damages and today's money. That's a fifty thousand dollar settlement.
Speaker 1: Devon Steve Joe, congratulations on four years of making the
Speaker 1: magic happen. Can't wait to see what you do next.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, this is Michael from the Unresolved podcast. The
Speaker 1: Valiska Acts murders remain one of America's most enduring mysteries
Speaker 1: because of the brutality of the crimes and the eerie
Speaker 1: mystery that followed. One of the theories that surfaced in
Speaker 1: the days afterwards hinged on the witness statements provided by
Speaker 1: Faye van Guil, the daughter of matriarch Sarah's sister, and
Speaker 1: it involved the inclusion of a man known by the
Speaker 1: name of Joe Rix, who has found the very next
Speaker 1: day with circumstantial evidence. Fay van Gilder, the sixteen year
Speaker 1: old niece of Joseph and Sarah Moore, had stated that
Speaker 1: she had seen a man on the morning before the murders.
Speaker 1: Faye told investigators that this man had been demanding to
Speaker 1: know where the More family lived. When she gave the
Speaker 1: rough description of the man to her aunt, Sarah Moore
Speaker 1: hours before the older woman's death, she was told that
Speaker 1: a man matching that description had been hanging around the
Speaker 1: area suspiciously. So it stands to reason that whoever this
Speaker 1: man was, he was likely involved in the murders, or
Speaker 1: at the very least should have been suspected of them.
Speaker 1: At least one other witness in Valiska recalls seeing a
Speaker 1: man who would call himself Joe Rix in the town
Speaker 1: of Valiska that day asking for directions. This would become
Speaker 1: relevant the day after the murders on June tenth of
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, when Joe Rix shuffled off of a train
Speaker 1: wearing bloody shoes. That's right, you heard me correctly. Joe
Speaker 1: Rix had traveled to Monmouth, Illinois, from a town just
Speaker 1: fifteen or so miles south from Vliska named Clarinda. When
Speaker 1: he got off of the train stayed away. Other travelers
Speaker 1: became alarmed by the blood on his shoes, meaning that
Speaker 1: it must have been somewhat noticeable. Police were contacted and
Speaker 1: Joe Rix was detained. Fay Van Gilder, the niece of
Speaker 1: the murdered family, was transported out to Illinois along with
Speaker 1: a county attorney to identify the man. She did not
Speaker 1: recognize Joe Rix as the man she had seen the
Speaker 1: day before. But I'd like to remind everyone listening how
Speaker 1: trustworthy eyewitness testimony can be. If someone asked you to
Speaker 1: identify a person you briefly saw a week beforehand, could you,
Speaker 1: especially if that person had done anything to change their
Speaker 1: appearance whatsoever, as Joe Rix could have possibly done either way.
Speaker 1: Joe Rix told investigators that he had obtained the bloody
Speaker 1: shoes in a trade with another passenger on the train
Speaker 1: a tramp so to speak. Does that sound fishy to
Speaker 1: you because it sounds pretty freaking fishy to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: who had trade for bloody shoes? After fay Van Gilder
Speaker 1: wasn't able who identify the man she had seen on
Speaker 1: the morning before the murders as Joe Rix. Police never
Speaker 1: further investigated him and just simply let him go. I
Speaker 1: personally think that this was a major mistake in the
Speaker 1: investigation and it's a reason why the story is still unresolved. Hi,
Speaker 1: we are at Thin Air podcast, which is me Daniel
Speaker 1: Calderone and me Jordan Simms. If you haven't heard of us,
Speaker 1: our podcast covers cold missing persons cases and the social
Speaker 1: issues behind them. So when our friends at Thinking Sideways
Speaker 1: asked us to discuss this creepy, murdery case, we were like, yes, awesome,
Speaker 1: But it's also somewhat different from what we regularly do.
Speaker 1: Our podcast usually features one missing person's case at a time.
Speaker 1: Daniel and I take turns telling each story, so we
Speaker 1: don't really interact with one another in our episodes. So
Speaker 1: what we're gonna try today is I have done some
Speaker 1: research on this case. Daniel is going to kind of
Speaker 1: come in blind. Yeah, I've no, I've not. I don't
Speaker 1: even know the name of this case, right, So it's
Speaker 1: going to be an interesting experience to kind of see
Speaker 1: how it goes. Is the way that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk today is not the tone of and structure of
Speaker 1: our regular show. We're much more serious. We don't talk
Speaker 1: back and forth. But today we're you know, we're experimenting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited. If you want to check out one of
Speaker 1: our regular normal episodes that are not like this, we
Speaker 1: would love for you to check us out over at
Speaker 1: thin Air podcast dot com. We're also you know, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: at the Whole Shebang, So yeah, I feel free to
Speaker 1: check us out. So what is the case that we're
Speaker 1: talking about today. It's it's a very horrific, notorious crime.
Speaker 1: This happened on June nine of nineteen twelve. In the
Speaker 1: house this night are Joe, Sarah, their four children, and
Speaker 1: the two sisters who are spending the night. Someone comes
Speaker 1: in with an acts and kills all eight people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so these were really grizzly said of murders. They're known
Speaker 1: as the Valiska Acts murders. Uh, And today our task
Speaker 1: is not to go into detail about the specifics of
Speaker 1: the crime itself, but we have a theory, and our
Speaker 1: specific theory was the theory of George Meyer. So we're
Speaker 1: going to launch into that right now. This is where
Speaker 1: we flash forward nineteen years or so to March one.
Speaker 1: This is when a man named Lee Roy Robinson, also
Speaker 1: known as George Myers, I think he's more known as
Speaker 1: George Myers. He's sitting in a jail in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1: He burglarized a house. All the reports I could find
Speaker 1: online we used research at the times when newspapers around
Speaker 1: this time said that he was burglarizing a home and
Speaker 1: he had been trapped inside, which to me is like
Speaker 1: kind of a stupid criminal, That's what I'm saying, is
Speaker 1: like me, or like you get your foot stuck in
Speaker 1: the dishwashing, you close yourself in a closet, hoping no
Speaker 1: one sees you, and then you get stuck in the closet,
Speaker 1: locked in the closet, get trapped in the closet. So
Speaker 1: to me, that says he's not the smartest man alive.
Speaker 1: If you're getting trapped inside the house you're robbing, you're
Speaker 1: not like a mask. But the thing about the Morris
Speaker 1: person is that Were they smart? Okay, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like that was like the super high tech
Speaker 1: criminal mind thing. By I mean he covered all the
Speaker 1: windows though, and took all that time. Yeah, okay, just
Speaker 1: because he got caught doesn't mean he couldn't have committed
Speaker 1: this crime. It to me, they seem sort of in congruent, incongruous.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how to say that? Congressions? Okay? Perfect.
Speaker 1: So he's sitting in this jail. Detroit police receive an
Speaker 1: anonymous letter, and this letter basically says, I have the
Speaker 1: exact thing I should probably read it. If you go
Speaker 1: to the Wayne County Jail and interview a man named Myers,
Speaker 1: you will learn something about a murder in Valiska, Iowa,
Speaker 1: nineteen years ago, A particularly horrible murder. Okay, okay, I
Speaker 1: mean it's obvious what murder they're referring to. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: it also says murder one. What do you say murders?
Speaker 1: I mean, or would you all roll them into it?
Speaker 1: I guess it could. Yeah, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know either. Anyway, tricky now, So uh, they go to
Speaker 1: my years Leroy Robinson, our guy, and they say, hey,
Speaker 1: did you do this? You know, we got this letter?
Speaker 1: And at first he denies it and he's sort of, um, no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to pin this on me, how dare you?
Speaker 1: I've never been there? Uh, And then he confesses. Newspapers
Speaker 1: at the time published what he said, and I've taken
Speaker 1: a selection of that. So this is a direct quote
Speaker 1: from his statement his confession. The basic story is that
Speaker 1: he at the time, in June of nineteen twelve, was
Speaker 1: in Kansas City, which is about two and a half
Speaker 1: hours south by car from Vliska. A man approaches him.
Speaker 1: So here's his his statement, Justice seditor, I just got
Speaker 1: out of jail. I guess I was having a drink
Speaker 1: when a man walked up and looked me over. After
Speaker 1: a few drinks, he told me there was a family
Speaker 1: in Valiska he wanted to get rid of and that
Speaker 1: it was worth five thousand dollars to be done. I
Speaker 1: agreed to do it. He said he didn't care how
Speaker 1: it was done, except that there must be no shooting,
Speaker 1: as it would make too much noise for me. The
Speaker 1: plot thatckens with this stranger, because why why would you
Speaker 1: have a vendetta against an entire family? So there's the
Speaker 1: theory with the senator who had this very spiteful relationship
Speaker 1: with Joe Moore. So maybe this stranger was somehow connected
Speaker 1: to the senator. But it's like he specifically says, I
Speaker 1: have a family that I need taken care of. Why
Speaker 1: on earth would you want a whole family of people killed?
Speaker 1: What did these kids do to you? You don't make
Speaker 1: a whole family murdered for a particular reason right where
Speaker 1: a whole family would need to be for vindictive reasons. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the second part of George Meyer's statement was this.
Speaker 1: He says that he met the man in Veliska on
Speaker 1: June nine, so the same day as the crime. He
Speaker 1: takes a train there, he meets in there, and this
Speaker 1: guy says, all right, here's two thousand dollars for this crime.
Speaker 1: I'll give you the rest tomorrow. Um. And here is
Speaker 1: his quote on his statement of committing the actual crime.
Speaker 1: I walked around a while and found an axe. I
Speaker 1: picked it up, thinking it would be a good thing
Speaker 1: in the killing. That night, I got into the house
Speaker 1: with a knife. I saw a man asleep in a
Speaker 1: downstairs bedroom. I hit him once with the axe. His
Speaker 1: wife moved a little so I hit her. Then I
Speaker 1: walked upstairs and saw four children in bed. I hit
Speaker 1: them with the blade side of the axe and ran
Speaker 1: out of the house, dropping the axe downstairs. So semi
Speaker 1: consistent but with what actually happened, but not entirely. There's
Speaker 1: actually quite a few inconsistencies in his original statement. So
Speaker 1: the first major inconsistency, and I think this was a
Speaker 1: big thing that later made people go he didn't do
Speaker 1: this was he only confessed to killing six people. He
Speaker 1: never talked about the girls downstairs. To me, another inconsistency
Speaker 1: is the idea that he drops this ax as he
Speaker 1: is running out of the house. Yeah, to me, this
Speaker 1: was not a fast There's no running involved in this crime.
Speaker 1: There's exactly exactly the ax was found downstairs, like he says.
Speaker 1: So he says he drops it downstairs, which is accurate.
Speaker 1: That's definitely a fact that would have been published in
Speaker 1: this crime. He says that when he went to meet
Speaker 1: the man the next day that he never showed up
Speaker 1: and he was so mad that he just left town. Okay,
Speaker 1: you killed eight people and you didn't get your money, right,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna the only reason you did it allegedly
Speaker 1: like I get who's what's your name? Yeah, what's your name?
Speaker 1: How can I find you? How can I get ahold
Speaker 1: of you? I'm not letting get away. He's discredited pretty quickly, Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think people took him seriously as a suspect.
Speaker 1: After his confession was out. He got so many details
Speaker 1: of this case wrong that even looking at the theory,
Speaker 1: I kind of go, yeah, I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: he did it for me. The bigger mystery is why
Speaker 1: would you confess to a crime you didn't commit? And
Speaker 1: who sent this letter to the jail about him? To me,
Speaker 1: that's kind of this bigger mystery is why would you
Speaker 1: confess to this horrific crime that you had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with? So I guess one of the only questions
Speaker 1: that I have left is whatever happened to George Meyers?
Speaker 1: So the only thing I could find was days later,
Speaker 1: So it seemed like this story was totally hot for
Speaker 1: like a moment, and then on March so to like
Speaker 1: two days later, he's sentenced to fourteen and a half
Speaker 1: to fifteen years in prison for this burglary that he commits. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a note in there that he around this time
Speaker 1: attempted to jail break with ten other inmates, and that's
Speaker 1: basically only a note that he was never charged for
Speaker 1: the crime in Iowa. That's it and then gone gone
Speaker 1: for me. I mean, I don't buy it, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't hold up for you. No, I don't think he
Speaker 1: had anything to do with it, But I don't understand.
Speaker 1: I don't understand the letter, and I do not understand
Speaker 1: why you would confess to this if you have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. Yeah, alright, well, um so, I
Speaker 1: mean those are all the questions that I have remaining
Speaker 1: about I mean, that's basically all there is about our
Speaker 1: friend George Myers, Lee Roy slash Lee Roy Robinson. So
Speaker 1: there you have it. If you've enjoyed listening to our
Speaker 1: banter and I want to listen to our podcast that's
Speaker 1: scripted and not interactive in any way a lot different,
Speaker 1: go to thin Air podcast dot com and listen to
Speaker 1: some of our reports on unsolved missing persons cases. And
Speaker 1: thank you for having us. Thank you Sideways team. This
Speaker 1: is Aaron and with me is Justin. We're the Generation
Speaker 1: Why podcast. How are you thinking? Sideways folks doing tonight
Speaker 1: talking about the Veliska acts murders. One of the suspects
Speaker 1: they were looking into was a man aimed Andrew Sawyer,
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the character in the show Lost.
Speaker 1: How this comes about is there's a man named Thomas
Speaker 1: Dyer of Burlington, Iowa, and he's a foreman for the
Speaker 1: Burlington Railroad. Andy Sawyer is looking for a job and
Speaker 1: he's transient, and he approaches Thomas asked if there's any
Speaker 1: work to be had. They described Sawyer as clean shaven,
Speaker 1: he was wearing a brown suit, his shoes were dirty,
Speaker 1: and his pants were wet. They said that Sawyer would
Speaker 1: purchase a newspaper about the axe murders and was very
Speaker 1: interested in the story. Dyer says that Sawyer slept in
Speaker 1: his clothes and kept to himself a lot. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: he slept in his clothes because he didn't have any
Speaker 1: other clothes. I don't know what they're getting out there.
Speaker 1: But the real creepy issue is they say that Sawyer
Speaker 1: slept with his ax. Do you sleep with your ax, Aaron,
Speaker 1: I don't have an ax, just in so, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would or not I would. I would
Speaker 1: say I probably wouldn't. Sawyer had a lot of information
Speaker 1: about the axe murders and would brag to dire in
Speaker 1: the other workman about how he got away and precisely
Speaker 1: where he ran from. He describes the area where a
Speaker 1: man jumped over a manure box and said that's how
Speaker 1: he escaped, and pointed at footprints in the ground. And
Speaker 1: he even took Dyer's son, who is named j R.
Speaker 1: Over to the other side of the car to show
Speaker 1: him these footprints and an old tree. So we have
Speaker 1: a guy who is very interested in the murders, who
Speaker 1: sleeps with an ax which the murder weapon used. It
Speaker 1: seems to have some inside information about the details of
Speaker 1: how the murderer got away. That seems kind of suspect
Speaker 1: right right well, And as you said, he was looking
Speaker 1: for a job. It wasn't even just this that he
Speaker 1: was talking about this case. But they said that his
Speaker 1: eyes looked mad, they looked glassy, So he was not
Speaker 1: really fitting in well with the other guys that we're
Speaker 1: working in this area. They were all nervous of him.
Speaker 1: One night, he he jumps up and says, I'll cut
Speaker 1: your goddamn heads off. I don't know if he was
Speaker 1: actually saying it to anybody or just saying it in general,
Speaker 1: but that's crazy town. I think you have to take
Speaker 1: him at his word. You have to really respect what
Speaker 1: he's saying and take heed because they said when they
Speaker 1: first tried to put him to work, they could tell
Speaker 1: that he had lied about his experience. You know. They
Speaker 1: asked him if he was good with steam engines, and
Speaker 1: he said, oh yeah, but he had no idea what
Speaker 1: he was doing. So then they had him sharpening sharpening piles.
Speaker 1: They were driving these poles into the river. They said
Speaker 1: with his ax, he could sharpen things up pretty quick.
Speaker 1: So he was obviously good with his ax, you know,
Speaker 1: the one he slept with. The Only reason why I
Speaker 1: guess I don't feel he's a legit suspect is the
Speaker 1: officials say that he was arrested for vagrancy in another
Speaker 1: part of town the night of the murders. So if
Speaker 1: that's true, obviously he has a pretty good alibi. I
Speaker 1: guess we're all into true crime. We're all interested in
Speaker 1: activities that go around us, So him buying the newspaper
Speaker 1: and reading about the murders maybe shouldn't be that suspect. Also,
Speaker 1: maybe he read something in the newspaper that talked about
Speaker 1: the escape route that the murderer took. I don't know. Well.
Speaker 1: His co workers contacted the sheriff, and the sheriff spoke
Speaker 1: with him, but they didn't arrest Sawyer. They let him go,
Speaker 1: and it seemed as though at least his coworkers thought
Speaker 1: he could have committed these murders because they thought he
Speaker 1: was crazy and he loved his acts too much. But
Speaker 1: he ended up quitting and going back home to his family,
Speaker 1: of all things, So he did have a family. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like he was just off on his own. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was just looking for work. I guess if they
Speaker 1: vetted him properly, then I'm gonna disregard him as a suspect.
Speaker 1: But if that's only going off of the arrest for vacancy, yeah,
Speaker 1: they did vet his stories. The sheriff supposedly went through
Speaker 1: with him his timeline, where he was, what he had
Speaker 1: been up to, as best they could. In the end,
Speaker 1: they're always be people who look at at Andy Sawyer
Speaker 1: and say, oh, he's a very good suspect. But at
Speaker 1: least as far as law enforcement at the time was concerned,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really check out to be a good suspect.
Speaker 1: But if you're looking for someone just crazy enough to
Speaker 1: commit such a horrible series of murders in a home
Speaker 1: like as to what happened in this case, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he does seem crazy, but these are the accounts of
Speaker 1: his coworkers, and um, just like any other case, we
Speaker 1: don't know what he was going through at the time,
Speaker 1: and so since we don't have interviews with people who
Speaker 1: knew him for years and years, we don't get a
Speaker 1: good complete picture of Andrew Sawyer. We just have what
Speaker 1: was he like around the time of the murders. Well,
Speaker 1: he was crazy and he slept with his acts. Happy
Speaker 1: anniversary thinking sideways. Do you guys like that? Okay, well
Speaker 1: that was pretty awesome first off, very fun. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That was totally cool. Now it's so great theorizing there.
Speaker 1: And uh and first off, I think we had to
Speaker 1: thank the Captain and Nick from Truth Crime Garage, Robin
Speaker 1: Murdered from Trail Want Colds and gosh who else, Alian
Speaker 1: Charlie from The Insight from Already Gone, Nina, Thanks Nina,
Speaker 1: and of course from Unresolved, and Daniel from Thin Air
Speaker 1: and our besties Aaron and Justin from john Way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: once again we've got him interning. Yeah, you guys yeah, no,
Speaker 1: great job. Way to point the finger of guilt all
Speaker 1: of you. And we like that now. Um and so well,
Speaker 1: you guys have any favorites yourselves among the suspects. Um No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's hard because I mean, really honestly,
Speaker 1: I think they are all good suspects, but none of
Speaker 1: them are great. And there there hears to be a
Speaker 1: lot of ax murdering going on in that that neck
Speaker 1: of the country at that time, So it's really difficult.
Speaker 1: You know. You think about like Henry Lee Moore and
Speaker 1: he there's killing. But then there's Andy Sawyer who likes
Speaker 1: to sleep with his ax. So I mean, Andy's kind
Speaker 1: of my favorite, just because the weirdo factor. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just I don't think he was a necessarily this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. I mean, I think he just had
Speaker 1: some issues going. You know. Well, I actually, if I
Speaker 1: if I lived in in a time when there were
Speaker 1: axe murders murders running around all over the place, I'd
Speaker 1: probably sleep with my ax too. If you're not a
Speaker 1: revolver or something, I can't really blame Andy for that. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that the only one of these these
Speaker 1: people that actually went to trial was, of course, the
Speaker 1: Reverend Kelly, who actually confessed, although his confession is a
Speaker 1: dubious quality. I had heard that he actually confessed to
Speaker 1: the sinking of the Lusitania. Not seriously. I think this
Speaker 1: guy everything, Yeah, I think he has some issues. He
Speaker 1: was also a big burv, so yeah, I wanted to
Speaker 1: throw in more. One more suspect, by the way, oh boy, yeah,
Speaker 1: one more suspect. My murder suspect is Josiah Moore, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, it was never actually positively identified. I
Speaker 1: mean I read the testimony from the doctor that I
Speaker 1: and they were all essentially they went into the bedroom
Speaker 1: and they pulled back the covers and then they saw
Speaker 1: him all with his face obliterated and everything, and the
Speaker 1: doctor said, yeah, that's Joe, and that's I think that's
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever actually Obviously, dental records are out,
Speaker 1: facial recognition is right out. I don't also nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: so it's not as though like fingerprint fingerprinting was in
Speaker 1: its infancy. His fingerprints would not have been on a
Speaker 1: file anywhere. How did identify the body. But if that's
Speaker 1: the doctor, the doctor may have seen Joe with his
Speaker 1: shirt off, and I don't know, maybe Joe had a
Speaker 1: you know, a set of scars or birthmarks or something
Speaker 1: like that, you know, very defining features might standing from
Speaker 1: the testimony was that it was just assumed right off
Speaker 1: the bat by everybody that it was it was Josiah
Speaker 1: and Sarah in the Bedday. Well, here's a question. If
Speaker 1: it was Josiah, why would he mean this series of
Speaker 1: murders when the neighbor girls were over killed him too?
Speaker 1: If he wanted to kill his entire family what he
Speaker 1: snapped and that children's day exactly. I'm not saying this
Speaker 1: series has no holes in it, but I mean it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it's kind of like Swiss cheese. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. It does, But that would explain one thing,
Speaker 1: which is why the killer went to extra links to
Speaker 1: obliterate his face more than anybody else's. Of course, it
Speaker 1: could be the killer especially hated him, or it could
Speaker 1: be the killer had it could be And here's another
Speaker 1: another possibility, and one that I actually think is the
Speaker 1: strongest one, is that I think it was a random
Speaker 1: serial killer. And uh it, maybe it may mend this
Speaker 1: guy might have had issues with his own dad, and
Speaker 1: so dad and his family came in for a little
Speaker 1: extra abuse. But if if you look at some of
Speaker 1: the other acts murders, and I'm not the first person
Speaker 1: to actually try to tie this in with a lot
Speaker 1: of other random acts murders that took place across the Midwest,
Speaker 1: but there was a lot of murdering. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of them, and what they all had in common
Speaker 1: was their proximity to railroad tracks. At least riding the
Speaker 1: rails was a common way to get around back in
Speaker 1: those days. And so without getting into, you know, incredible
Speaker 1: detail about all these other murders, let's just say that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that there might just be a
Speaker 1: tie in there, and it could. It's entirely possible. This
Speaker 1: was just a random thing. This guy might have gotten
Speaker 1: off the train, walked up the street towards their house,
Speaker 1: trying door knobs until he found the house that was
Speaker 1: unlocked and that didn't have a dog, and just walked
Speaker 1: in and did his thing, and then just walk back
Speaker 1: down to the train tracks and left. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe my question then would be why the master bedroom
Speaker 1: seemed to have been the furthest away from the door,
Speaker 1: So why go all the way in and murder your
Speaker 1: way all the way out on the chance that somebody
Speaker 1: might wake up and notify the rest of the house.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you start from the beginning and work your
Speaker 1: way back. Oh, I think that if it were me,
Speaker 1: what I would do first is I would identify the
Speaker 1: probably the parents, and killed them first, because those are
Speaker 1: the people, especially the dad, we are most likely to
Speaker 1: have a gun or be able to overpower you or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's why I would definitely kill mom and dad first.
Speaker 1: I would. Yeah, of course, you know, I'm not a killer.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but uh so, yeah, well that's a
Speaker 1: good point. And you know, I think you guys, that's
Speaker 1: why you guys should be glad we're doing commercials, because
Speaker 1: that that means I have a financial incentive not to
Speaker 1: kill you. Yeah, so yeah, keep those commercials coming kids. Otherwise, Yeah, old,
Speaker 1: enough of those dark theories things. But that's that's that's
Speaker 1: my theory essentially, is that it probably was a random
Speaker 1: dude you guys. Now, okay, well let's wrap this one
Speaker 1: up then. First of all, happy anniversary, Happy anniversary, thanks
Speaker 1: for something special just for you. Yeah, of course you
Speaker 1: probably have your own theories out there. Uh so you
Speaker 1: can reach us via email l at Thinking Sideways Podcast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. We also have a website, which
Speaker 1: is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, where you can find
Speaker 1: our episodes and download them. That are all. They're also
Speaker 1: links to merch at red Bubble and Zazzle. You can
Speaker 1: get shirts and mugs and all kinds of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: And where else. We're on iTunes. Find us on iTunes
Speaker 1: if you haven't already, and you probably have, but if
Speaker 1: you are so inclined, give us a rating and a review,
Speaker 1: preferably good ones, and you can stream us from all
Speaker 1: kinds of places including we Stitcher is a big one,
Speaker 1: and a lot of others. And where else social media. Facebook.
Speaker 1: We're on Facebook where you can like, join the group
Speaker 1: and like the pages. That's the way, that's the order
Speaker 1: it works in Yeah, it is, Yeah, And of course
Speaker 1: we're on Reddit where we are thinking sideways, and we
Speaker 1: are on Twitter where we are thinking sideways. What am
Speaker 1: I forgetting, guys? I can't think of anything. I think
Speaker 1: that's yeah, Wow, you did that all from memory. Good jobs.
Speaker 1: I'm getting better. If it's only taken four year, that
Speaker 1: that's it. And again we want to hear from you guys.
Speaker 1: If you live in Bliska or nearby. I would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you, especially who your favorite theories are.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that the town kind of split between
Speaker 1: Methodists and Presbyterians after this whole thing happened, because the
Speaker 1: Moors were Presbyterians and the chief, the chief accusing was
Speaker 1: Frank Jones, who was a Methodist, and so that there
Speaker 1: was a big apparently it was a big controversy for
Speaker 1: years in this town. Um and yeah, that's but other
Speaker 1: than that, Okay, So if you're either a Methodist or
Speaker 1: Presbyterian from Bliska, we'd like to hear from your side
Speaker 1: of the story. Uh, all right until next week to
Speaker 1: to lou Talculator. Guys, Bie guys,