Speaker 1: Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky listener Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twelve, in Vliska, Iowa, a family of six
Speaker 1: plus two of their guests were the victims of a
Speaker 1: horrible axe murderer. This unspeakable crime took place as they
Speaker 1: slept in their beds and horrified the small town of
Speaker 1: two thousand people. Since then, the house has been dubbed
Speaker 1: the Valiska Axe Murder House and is the site of
Speaker 1: many paranormal happenings, attracting paranormal investigators from around the globe.
Speaker 1: Robert Larson is one such paranormal investigator from Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: In fourteen, he was investigating the Valiska Axe Murder House
Speaker 1: with his parents. He told them he wanted to attempt
Speaker 1: an experiment where he would recreate the scene the murderer
Speaker 1: left following the horrible crime that took place there. He
Speaker 1: asked them to leave him completely alone, but to monitor
Speaker 1: the building from outside from their DVR cameras. Robert proceeded
Speaker 1: to stage the home exactly as it had been found
Speaker 1: the morning of the murders, including covering all the mirrors
Speaker 1: with cloth, drawing the curtains, leaving a bloody bowl of
Speaker 1: water in the kitchen, and even laying a large pile
Speaker 1: of bacon on the kitchen counter. We'll talk about the
Speaker 1: meaning of that later. The only thing Robert didn't have
Speaker 1: was an axe, so he may do with a knife.
Speaker 1: Robert lay down in one of the beds in the
Speaker 1: downstairs bedroom and clutched the knife in his right hand.
Speaker 1: Robert proceeded to call out to what he believed to
Speaker 1: be the ghost of the killer in the dark. He
Speaker 1: hurled horrible names and insults at the killer and provoked unrelentingly.
Speaker 1: The last thing Robert remembers is a strange light anomaly
Speaker 1: emerging from the closet in the room he was in
Speaker 1: and heading straight for him. When he came to, the
Speaker 1: knife he had been clutching was buried in his shoulder.
Speaker 1: He was screaming, and his parents were calling for help.
Speaker 1: Robert was severely injured. He was actually life lighted to
Speaker 1: the nearest hospital, where he coated due to blood loss,
Speaker 1: but thankfully revived. The police ruled that Robert did this
Speaker 1: to himself, but to this day he swears otherwise. He
Speaker 1: claims the knife was in his right shoulder at an
Speaker 1: angle that would have been impossible for him to do himself,
Speaker 1: and that even then he is right handed and had
Speaker 1: the knife in his right hand. Try that for yourself.
Speaker 1: Hold something in your right hand and try to reach
Speaker 1: your right shoulder with enough force to bury a knife
Speaker 1: in it. We will never know the answers as to
Speaker 1: what happ been that night. Robert's actions were just out
Speaker 1: of the camera frame, and his parents were so horrified
Speaker 1: by what they heard on the recorder Robert was running
Speaker 1: at the time that they destroyed it. Now I actually
Speaker 1: interviewed Robert face to face. I expected to walk in
Speaker 1: and find a man who may not be entirely truthful,
Speaker 1: but I believe him. Whatever happened there that night has
Speaker 1: left him a different person. And it was to this
Speaker 1: day probably one of the most powerful interviews I've ever
Speaker 1: conducted with someone. I think that was the first time
Speaker 1: I had ever met someone who had had a paranormal encounter.
Speaker 1: That made me question whether paranormal activity can actually be dangerous,
Speaker 1: because I had never heard a story like this, and
Speaker 1: the look in his eyes was one of just complete
Speaker 1: and utter terror. Eventually we were able to to get
Speaker 1: Robert to return to the house, and I think that
Speaker 1: was incredibly therapeutic moment for him that he needed. But
Speaker 1: it was also in the middle of the day and
Speaker 1: he was surrounded by people. I don't think you could
Speaker 1: pay him enough to ever re enter that home by himself.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Brunei and this is Haunted Road. Built in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty on Lote t The house at five o
Speaker 1: eight East Second Street in Viliska, Iowa is known by
Speaker 1: a few names, the Josiah B. And Sarah Moore House,
Speaker 1: the Vliska Axe Murder House, or just the Murder House.
Speaker 1: Josiah by Moore and his family bought the house in
Speaker 1: nineteen o three. Now Josiah was a pretty well known
Speaker 1: businessman locally. He owned and operated a farm implement store
Speaker 1: and was a successful and well regarded person. Also known
Speaker 1: as Joe, he was a moderately prosperous and small town businessman,
Speaker 1: raising a large family and a small play house. Joe
Speaker 1: was a cheerful, well liked simple man who, in the
Speaker 1: words of the Iowa Attorney General, was at peace with everybody.
Speaker 1: Also in the home was his wife, Sarah Montgomery, who
Speaker 1: was thirty nine. Herman Montgomery eleven, Mary Catherine ten, Arthur
Speaker 1: Boyd seven, and Paul Vernon five. Now let's go back
Speaker 1: to the summer of nine. You know, Vliska, Iowa was
Speaker 1: this small town with a little over two thousand people,
Speaker 1: and at that time in early June, the street lights
Speaker 1: had actually been turned out due to a dispute between
Speaker 1: the city and the power company over the cost of electricity.
Speaker 1: So between that and overcast guys, Vliska was said to
Speaker 1: have returned to a medieval darkness. Now that night in June,
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine invited two of her friends, sisters Lena, Gertrude
Speaker 1: and i Am. Lena was twelve and Eam eight, to
Speaker 1: stay over at their house that night. The eight of
Speaker 1: them got home between n and ten pm. In the
Speaker 1: late hours of the ninth or the early hours of
Speaker 1: the tenth of June, one or more persons entered the
Speaker 1: More home and killed all eight people inside, the six
Speaker 1: mores and the two still injured girls. The weapon of
Speaker 1: choice or convenience was Josiah's axe, which had been left outside.
Speaker 1: The killer walked past the two rooms where the children
Speaker 1: were sleeping and bludgeoned Josiah, then Sarah with the flat
Speaker 1: end of the axe while both were still sleeping. The
Speaker 1: next room the killer visited was of the four More children.
Speaker 1: Evidence indicates that all were asleep when they two were bludgeoned.
Speaker 1: The ceilings and the parents and the chill Daurn's rooms
Speaker 1: had gouge marks from the upswing. The final stop was
Speaker 1: the room where the two still in Your sisters slept.
Speaker 1: Lena maybe the only one who awoke before she was killed.
Speaker 1: Early the next morning, neighbor Mary Peckham went about her
Speaker 1: morning chores, but noticed that the Moors weren't doing the same.
Speaker 1: When she knocked on the door and received no response,
Speaker 1: she found it was locked. Peckham called on Ross Moore,
Speaker 1: Josiah's brother. He tried to look into the house and
Speaker 1: supposedly shouted, trying to alert his brother's family to his presence,
Speaker 1: but there was no response. After finding the right skeleton key,
Speaker 1: Ross entered the home and first found the bedroom on
Speaker 1: the main floor where Lena and Ana had been sleeping.
Speaker 1: According to testimony from Dr J. Clark Cooper, a physician
Speaker 1: who was called to the More home that day, all
Speaker 1: we could see was an arm of someone sticking from
Speaker 1: under the edge of the cover, with the blood on
Speaker 1: the pillows, and I went over and lifted the covers
Speaker 1: and saw what I supposed was a body, some entire
Speaker 1: stranger and a mere child at the back of the bed.
Speaker 1: I did not recognize them at all, nor did anyone
Speaker 1: else at the scene. The Marshal Henry Hank Horton was
Speaker 1: called by Ross. Horton found somebody murdered in every bed.
Speaker 1: Each body had been bludgeoned with the blunt side of
Speaker 1: the axe roughly twenty to thirty times. Strange things stood
Speaker 1: out to those who were first on the scene. According
Speaker 1: to Johnny Houser, the current caretaker of the home and
Speaker 1: a paranormal investigator, all the mirrors and windows in the
Speaker 1: house were covered. The oil lamps were placed at the
Speaker 1: edge of the beds. The moor's drawers had been ransacked
Speaker 1: in order to find coverings for the mirrors and windows.
Speaker 1: All the windows except for two had their curtains drawn.
Speaker 1: The two remaining ones did not have curtains, so we're
Speaker 1: covered with material found within the house. The kitchen table
Speaker 1: held a plate of uneaten food and a bowl of
Speaker 1: bloody water, probably where the murderer washed. The axe had
Speaker 1: been partially cleaned and was found in the room where
Speaker 1: the Stillinger sisters had slept. Next to the axe, there
Speaker 1: was a nearly two pounds slab of bacon. A second
Speaker 1: slab was in the ice box. Now. As far as suspects, remarkably,
Speaker 1: the Vliska murders remain unsolved to this day. However, that's
Speaker 1: not to say there weren't plenty of suspects. Most notably
Speaker 1: was a man by the name of Reverend Kelly. He
Speaker 1: had actually attended the Sunday school service that took place
Speaker 1: the evening of the murders. He left on an early
Speaker 1: morning train before the bodies were even discovered. He acted
Speaker 1: strangely in the weeks following the murders, including returning to
Speaker 1: Vliska two weeks later and pretending to be an investigator
Speaker 1: with the Scotland Yard. It wasn't until five years later
Speaker 1: that he was tried for the crime, and while he
Speaker 1: did confess twice, he was ultimately acquitted. But what strikes
Speaker 1: me most about him is his confession. He claims to
Speaker 1: have had insomnia the night of the murders and to
Speaker 1: have walked to the nearby Presbyterian church. While alone in
Speaker 1: the church, I heard a voice. It said, go further.
Speaker 1: I went out and walked to the end of the street,
Speaker 1: where I saw a shadow, which beckoned me to follow.
Speaker 1: The shadow led me to the rear of the moor house.
Speaker 1: I saw an axe on a rubbish heap. I picked
Speaker 1: the axe up by the handle. The voice again spoke, saying,
Speaker 1: go on, follow the shadow, slay utterly. At some point
Speaker 1: during the confession, Kelly explained the text slay utterly had
Speaker 1: been in my mind before the murders and has been
Speaker 1: ringing in my ears ever since. I have had a
Speaker 1: hard time resisting the impulse to slay. My soul is
Speaker 1: relieved now for the first time in five years. Slay utterly.
Speaker 1: Now think about that, He describes being almost in a
Speaker 1: trance like state, and for some reason, that reminds me
Speaker 1: so much of what happened to Robert Larson. I spent
Speaker 1: multiple nights investigating the Vliska Axe murder house, and I
Speaker 1: have to say it's one of those places that quite
Speaker 1: literally still haunts me to this day. I just had
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble going into the space, merely because
Speaker 1: of what happened there and the ages of the victims.
Speaker 1: But it's honestly kind of a serene little house when
Speaker 1: you're there during the day, the light beams in, it's
Speaker 1: very bright. And the way I handled it was I
Speaker 1: kept reminding myself that the way the family and the
Speaker 1: still and your sisters died did not define them, that
Speaker 1: they spent a lot of time in that home with wonderful,
Speaker 1: happy memories, because I do feel like sometimes we go
Speaker 1: into a place where a terrible tragedy has happened, and
Speaker 1: we focus so much on that that we forget that
Speaker 1: people actually lived in that space before, and how much
Speaker 1: more powerful living is than the moment of death. And
Speaker 1: so that's how I was able to cope with it.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like something very strange is going
Speaker 1: on there. I am not sure if it is the
Speaker 1: ghost of the murderer revisiting the space, or if it
Speaker 1: is something somehow created by all of the investigators and
Speaker 1: visitors and people who kind of go there and infuse
Speaker 1: it with thoughts of the murders, or if it's the
Speaker 1: ghosts of the family themselves. But I will say that
Speaker 1: it is one of the only places that I do
Speaker 1: question whether it is entirely safe for everyone. So I
Speaker 1: do caution any investigators going into that house to respect it.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly important to always have respect when investigating, but
Speaker 1: especially in the Vliska Axe Murder House, because none of
Speaker 1: us want to end up the way Robert Larson did.
Speaker 1: After a quick break, I'm going to interview Johnny Houser.
Speaker 1: Johnny is a paranormal investigator and is actually the caretaker
Speaker 1: of the Vliska Axe Murder House. He has a lot
Speaker 1: of great stories about the place, but also has some
Speaker 1: intriguing ideas and insight as to why the house is
Speaker 1: still haunted. So I am now joined by Johnny Houser,
Speaker 1: who is the I guess resident paranormal investigator at the
Speaker 1: Veliska House. Would that be your title? Yeah, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of a all titles with the hex House, the tour guide,
Speaker 1: the overnight guy, the website guy, the lawnmowering guy. Like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, jack of all trades, Jack of all trades
Speaker 1: for that house. I'm the Norman Bates of the Axemer House.
Speaker 1: And so you actually live right next door? Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I live right next door um in Mary Peckham's house.
Speaker 1: And she, of course was the neighbor that initially found
Speaker 1: or noticed something was wrong at the house next door,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because the more children used to play
Speaker 1: over in my house. I mean Mary was like a
Speaker 1: grandma to them. Oh, so there's a major connection there.
Speaker 1: We we kind of have found that interestingly enough at
Speaker 1: the Lizzie Borden House as well, because there were children
Speaker 1: that lived next door to the Lizzie Borden House that
Speaker 1: used to play in the Lizzie Borden House that knew Lizzie.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting these kind of coralations between these two
Speaker 1: very brutal Axe murders. Absolutely, you know, And there are
Speaker 1: some stories that have happened at my house with my
Speaker 1: daughter and stuff that kind of made me wonder if
Speaker 1: they can go, you know, back and forth between the houses. Um,
Speaker 1: and I just to tell the story real quick, my
Speaker 1: daughter text me. I don't know why she texted me,
Speaker 1: but at like three am, and I happened to wake
Speaker 1: up and hear my phone to the dad. I'm stuck
Speaker 1: in the bathroom and I'm hearing humming and crying. I thought,
Speaker 1: what not get up And the door was stuck, but
Speaker 1: it probably was from humidity or whatever. And the next
Speaker 1: day I was like, I'm going to get ahold of
Speaker 1: the overnights at the Ax house to see if they
Speaker 1: were outside and that's what she was hearing, and them
Speaker 1: being ghost runners, they had everything logged down to the minute,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're like, no, we were in the
Speaker 1: attic at this time. It's like, Okay, it wasn't them.
Speaker 1: But then they came back with the house was super active,
Speaker 1: except for right then it was strangely quiet. So I thought,
Speaker 1: could that have been the kids coming over here because
Speaker 1: it's familiar to them, right. That's interesting now, that kind
Speaker 1: of gamut of activity. Do you find that the activity
Speaker 1: in the house is more extreme at certain times or
Speaker 1: is it with certain people? Like what do you think
Speaker 1: triggers what goes on there. I've spent decades at the house,
Speaker 1: you know. I've done over fo overnights alone, and right
Speaker 1: off the bat, I was looking for patterns. There has
Speaker 1: to be a pattern in this somewhere, and I've looked
Speaker 1: for patterns in birthdays, anniversaries, moon phases, the eclipse. While
Speaker 1: everybody's outside staring at it, I'm doing an e VP
Speaker 1: session in the axe house, you know, trying to see
Speaker 1: if that does anything, and I found nothing. I found
Speaker 1: no rhyme or reason to it. I do see that
Speaker 1: there is a correlation with people sometimes. Interestingly enough, nurses
Speaker 1: and teachers seem to have a lot of good luck
Speaker 1: in there, and I think it takes a certain person
Speaker 1: to do those jobs. I couldn't do it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: be a nursery teacher. You know. It's not for the money, obviously,
Speaker 1: like it's for the passion, and they're passionate people, and
Speaker 1: they're very loving people, and I think that resonates with
Speaker 1: the spirits. So I think probably the hardest part for
Speaker 1: me investigating Veliska is that it gets in my head
Speaker 1: a lot just kind of what went on there. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously I'm a mom, but I don't think
Speaker 1: it's just mom's I think anybody is completely bothered at
Speaker 1: the idea of a number of children being killed so brutally.
Speaker 1: And how do you kind of separate yourself as you
Speaker 1: work in that space every day? How do you separate
Speaker 1: yourself between what went on there and and then also
Speaker 1: what your job is there? You know, it's I totally
Speaker 1: get it. I totally get how horrible it is. It's terrible.
Speaker 1: I wish it, like I hate the Axe Murder House
Speaker 1: more than anyone, you know, I hate what happened there.
Speaker 1: I wish it didn't even exist, but it does. And
Speaker 1: I think that these these kids should have laughed and
Speaker 1: played and grew up and fell in love and had
Speaker 1: their own children, but they were robbed of that. If
Speaker 1: I can tell their story and keep them alive in
Speaker 1: that way, I think it's totally worth it. Um well,
Speaker 1: not worth what happened, but worth what I do for
Speaker 1: a living. One thing that gives me a lot of excitement,
Speaker 1: it's probably twice a month I'll have the thirteen year
Speaker 1: old little girl. It's never the little boys. It's always
Speaker 1: the little girls that come up and they tell me
Speaker 1: when I graduate high school, I'm going to this college
Speaker 1: for forensic science because this inspired me. And I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: if a tragedy can be turned into a positive and
Speaker 1: it lights a fire under this young mind to stop
Speaker 1: one crime, that's amazing. But also, you know, it's if
Speaker 1: I wasn't there doing it, I'm afraid somebody else would
Speaker 1: be there that would make it a joke, make it
Speaker 1: a circus attraction. And I know that I do it
Speaker 1: with love and compassion for the crimes that happened was
Speaker 1: poor little kids in that family. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced they're even there, right, And that's something
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask about as well. So I have. Um,
Speaker 1: I've investigated there for a few nights, and I didn't
Speaker 1: really find any evidence of the children, but I do
Speaker 1: know that many people have. Uh. And then we did
Speaker 1: have an experience that we felt might have been with
Speaker 1: something more I don't like to say negative, but some
Speaker 1: some someone or something that was a little more angry
Speaker 1: and a little more malicious. And you know, your thoughts
Speaker 1: go to, this must be the ghost of the murderer,
Speaker 1: you know, but what what do you think that is?
Speaker 1: Who do you think that is? I think that everywhere
Speaker 1: on this planet where something horrible has happened, it leaves
Speaker 1: that negative imprint. It's just like you walk into a
Speaker 1: room where someone had an argument. You feel that negative energy.
Speaker 1: It's very real, and it lingers. This place had an
Speaker 1: atom bomb of negative energy dropped on it. Could that
Speaker 1: negative energy manifest as whatever it wants to be a
Speaker 1: little kid? You know, there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: happened to me aren't something a little kid from nine
Speaker 1: twelve would be doing. Assuming we keep the same personality
Speaker 1: and death as we do life, you know. Um, But
Speaker 1: then I go even further back to was something here
Speaker 1: before the murders even happened, the shadow that gave Reverend
Speaker 1: Kelly an Ax. Nobody's talking about shadow figures in eighteen
Speaker 1: you know, I can remember in the eighties they were aliens,
Speaker 1: then their innerdimensional time travelers, and now they're who knows what.
Speaker 1: Was there something in the house beforehand? Maybe a shadow
Speaker 1: gave Reverend Kelly an Ax preyed on him because he
Speaker 1: wasn't quite mentally stable at the time. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was schizophrenic and back then with no medicine or under
Speaker 1: standing of the the illness. You know, is there something
Speaker 1: in there that praise on people that aren't firmly rooted
Speaker 1: in their faith or extremely strong minded when they go
Speaker 1: into buildings like this and start yelling and screaming and
Speaker 1: trying to get stuff to happen. And I also kind
Speaker 1: of feel like the places like a mirror. It just
Speaker 1: reflects back to you what you put into it. If
Speaker 1: you go in there positive, it's going to give you positive.
Speaker 1: If you go in there with the come at me thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like good luck with that. Because I'll
Speaker 1: watch overnights and these are legit paranormal investigators that take
Speaker 1: it serious. They know how to debunk. They know what
Speaker 1: a wind or what's it a knock? You know, normal
Speaker 1: house settling noise. The one group will run out terrified
Speaker 1: at eleven PM, leave half their gear. I gotta mail
Speaker 1: it back to them. And then the next night they'll
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, is the most positive experience I've ever had.
Speaker 1: I felt a little child hugged me and I teared up,
Speaker 1: And how is this the same location? Right? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that just in general, hauntings react to the
Speaker 1: vibe in the space, you know, and and that goes
Speaker 1: for the living and the dead. You know, you can
Speaker 1: have a really great dinner party happening, and then a
Speaker 1: guest can arrive who's just a total downer and shift
Speaker 1: the entire mood of what's happening in the room. And
Speaker 1: I think if you apply that to paranormal investigation as well,
Speaker 1: you will get those kind of results from from the
Speaker 1: spirits or from whatever that energy is there. So that
Speaker 1: kind of leads me to experiences that you've you've personally
Speaker 1: had or that you've heard of in the house. Can
Speaker 1: you kind of go through maybe a couple just very
Speaker 1: powerful experiences or things that you would you would describe
Speaker 1: as as something scary or or you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I just I'm curious. I want to I want to
Speaker 1: give listeners kind of the vibe of the house because
Speaker 1: I experienced the gamut there. I experienced that kind of
Speaker 1: pow at a moment and the negative moments. I'm just
Speaker 1: wondering if you could kind of pass on some of those.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, over fifteen years being in this place, I've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, just the normal footsteps, door open and closing
Speaker 1: there for like a month. There's a lot of poltergeist
Speaker 1: activity of things stacking and arranging, which is odd because
Speaker 1: nobody lives there at all. It's just a empty place.
Speaker 1: I've seen the positive, I've seen the negative. One of
Speaker 1: the most profound things that I've ever experienced. It was
Speaker 1: a Friday night the overnight's camp sold for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: So I thought, I'm just gonna go in fix some
Speaker 1: some things in the upstairs bedroom, lock the kitchen doors
Speaker 1: and nobody could walk in. And as I'm up there,
Speaker 1: somebody walks in the house and I'm like, come on,
Speaker 1: people were closed. It's like, well, obviously, idiot, they broke in,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's like a nighttime and I thought,
Speaker 1: they have no idea. I'm upstairs, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: have fun with this. And I hid in the kid's
Speaker 1: room closet, and this plan was to scare this kid
Speaker 1: jump out, you know, and just do that while you're
Speaker 1: breaking and if you want to see it, I'll just
Speaker 1: show it to you. So the walking around downstairs for
Speaker 1: like ten minutes, it comes upstairs into the room I'm in.
Speaker 1: I kicked the closet door open to the big blah, nothing,
Speaker 1: there's nothing. And I couldn't even move, I couldn't talk.
Speaker 1: The I always heard, you know, I felt a rush
Speaker 1: of cold air. I thought, yeah, everybody says that I've
Speaker 1: never experienced it. At that time, I did. I checked
Speaker 1: the whole house, the door was locked, and watched a
Speaker 1: surveillance video. There's nothing. And what really got me was,
Speaker 1: at no time during this whole thing transpiring did I
Speaker 1: think a ghost. It was somebody broken the house, because
Speaker 1: it was so loud and so blatant and so obvious
Speaker 1: that there was no no debunking that. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: somebody walked in the house and up the stairs. And
Speaker 1: I've seen, you know, a lot of like Amityville quality
Speaker 1: of the house, of mental mental manipulation, and I've experienced
Speaker 1: that in there to where and especially in the downstairs
Speaker 1: bedroom Mine and Lena's were where you just kind of
Speaker 1: zone and out and pretty soon you're just like out
Speaker 1: of it. You go out of the house and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like an hour or two later you like start
Speaker 1: coming back to normal. And that's a that's a very
Speaker 1: scary part of the house for me. I know what
Speaker 1: it can do, so I don't push it anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: that leads me to, uh, to Robert Larson, who we
Speaker 1: were able to interview when Adam and I investigated there,
Speaker 1: And I walked into that interview ready to not believe
Speaker 1: him or ready to kind of find a way to
Speaker 1: disprove his story. And I guess I just didn't really
Speaker 1: have any idea how extreme it actually was, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure you remember when the story started going around in
Speaker 1: the paranormal circles with what happened with him, it was
Speaker 1: very oh yeah, this guy cut himself to to get
Speaker 1: the spirits to come out. And when we actually spoke
Speaker 1: with him and I found out he actually bled out
Speaker 1: and had to be you know, life lighted to a
Speaker 1: hospital and coded like it was so much more extreme
Speaker 1: than that, and that happened in that bedroom. So do
Speaker 1: you think he was kind of a victim of that,
Speaker 1: like mental manipulation. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's the
Speaker 1: second time he'd been there, and I get to know
Speaker 1: these people pretty well, and I mean he he just
Speaker 1: seemed like a normal dude, you know, just a normal guy.
Speaker 1: And I remember I remember him saying I'm going to
Speaker 1: give the house a piece of my mind tonight. I'm like,
Speaker 1: hey boy, you know, but I hear that like a
Speaker 1: million times a year. And so I go home and
Speaker 1: I wake up and I'm tagged and all this stuff
Speaker 1: on social media. I walk over there and you know,
Speaker 1: I find out what happened. I didn't even want to
Speaker 1: go in the house, honestly. I made two friends come
Speaker 1: over with me to walk in, and it was I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, that's one of those experiences walking
Speaker 1: in that house right after it happened. And I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: I felt so bad for him because I was reading
Speaker 1: all these things of he did it to be on TV,
Speaker 1: or he did it to be rich, or he cut
Speaker 1: himself to get the ghosts to do stuff, or I
Speaker 1: read one where he stabbed himself multiple times in the
Speaker 1: stomach in the yard. I'm like, what, you know, so
Speaker 1: many rumors, but until you sit and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys know to sit in this room and talk
Speaker 1: to this guy and feel his sincerity. I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened, but I know that I've experienced moments in
Speaker 1: that house to where you're just kind of out of it,
Speaker 1: and luckily i've left. That really struck me talking to Robert.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I wasn't aware that other people had
Speaker 1: that kind of mental moment in that room. And that's
Speaker 1: really exactly what he described was this kind of he
Speaker 1: kind of drifted off. He first, he initially was swearing
Speaker 1: at the killer and as you know, you know, he
Speaker 1: set everything up exactly like the killer left it, and
Speaker 1: he started swearing and yelling at the killer by while
Speaker 1: he was laying on one of the beds in that room,
Speaker 1: and he said, he just like a feeling overtook him,
Speaker 1: and he looked over at the closet and he saw
Speaker 1: this large light anomaly come toward him, and then he
Speaker 1: blacked out and the next thing he remembers was waking
Speaker 1: up screaming with the knife in his shoulder. And that
Speaker 1: really just kind of puts into perspective. It really went
Speaker 1: against everything I'd ever thought about the paranormal, because you know,
Speaker 1: I I've always it's the one time I've ever been like,
Speaker 1: this could be a dangerous situation if you don't go
Speaker 1: into this with a strong mind. Um, not that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have a strong mind, but just you know that
Speaker 1: you feel strong as you go in and not put
Speaker 1: yourself into a vulnerable position. So after that happened, did
Speaker 1: you guys have to or did you have to put
Speaker 1: any rules in place? Or do you warn people before
Speaker 1: they investigate? Martha actually said, can you put no weapons
Speaker 1: please on the website? And I'm just like, do we
Speaker 1: need to do that? Like, you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: that's pretty self explanatory. Um, as far as myself, we
Speaker 1: get a lot of I see a lot of young
Speaker 1: new paranormal investigators popping up, which is really exciting for me.
Speaker 1: But they'll come to the AX House and like, we
Speaker 1: just started a team last month, this is our first investigation,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, uh, okay, so I'll spend a little
Speaker 1: extra time with them to warn them, you know, like
Speaker 1: if somebody starts feeling weird or anything, like, go outside,
Speaker 1: take a breath, don't push the issue in this place.
Speaker 1: And I always remind everybody that's investigating, I'll end it
Speaker 1: with like, just remember what happened here. Little kids were murdered,
Speaker 1: you know, come about it with some respect. So I
Speaker 1: just try and one on one, look im in the face,
Speaker 1: and you know, just tell them, like, be respectful about it.
Speaker 1: Don't push yourself this this place is no joke, you know.
Speaker 1: And I hope that they take a little part of
Speaker 1: that and roll with it. Of course, you're going to
Speaker 1: have some people that don't, and there's no way of
Speaker 1: weeding those people out, you know what I mean, right exactly.
Speaker 1: Have you had any other kind of close calls like that,
Speaker 1: or or or incidents where you felt it could kind
Speaker 1: of go south again or do you think that was
Speaker 1: just a one off moment. I believe it could go
Speaker 1: south at any time. I think it's all the intent
Speaker 1: of the people going in there. I've had, you know,
Speaker 1: paranormal investigators that's been there times leave within an hour
Speaker 1: and they're like it was just off. Something just felt off,
Speaker 1: like something bad was about to happen, so we thought
Speaker 1: we just wouldn't push it. Do you feel like you've
Speaker 1: kind of developed a relationship with the house over the years. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you've been there for so long now, and
Speaker 1: and where do you see yourself going? Do you see
Speaker 1: yourself staying there forever? Or like, I mean, do you
Speaker 1: feel some kind of like you owe it to a
Speaker 1: house in some way? I mean, at this point, it's
Speaker 1: been so long, yeah, I mean I have a I
Speaker 1: found a picture of my son and I in the
Speaker 1: attic and he barely came up past my knee, a
Speaker 1: little little boy. And he's out of college and getting
Speaker 1: married now, you know. So it's like, wow, I've been
Speaker 1: there a long time. And then as weird as it sounds,
Speaker 1: and I've talked to other people that you know, have
Speaker 1: haunted locations or things of this nature, and they feel
Speaker 1: very attached to it. I almost feel like big brother
Speaker 1: in a weird way, like protector of the house, you know.
Speaker 1: After the stabbing went down, I walked in and I said, hey, like,
Speaker 1: I gotta work here, leave me alone. I'll leave you alone.
Speaker 1: We've gotta have some boundaries going on. And then I
Speaker 1: was like, you need me here because if I'm not here,
Speaker 1: you don't have a revolving cast of people to mess
Speaker 1: around with, you know, it's like trying to bargain a
Speaker 1: little bit. But I'm just so attached to the history
Speaker 1: in the house. I'll always have something to do with
Speaker 1: the ex House in the future. Um, whether it's just
Speaker 1: on the back end of it. You know. I'd never
Speaker 1: say I'm always going to do something for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life, because opportunities come, what what not, you know,
Speaker 1: but I'll probably always have something to do with the
Speaker 1: ex house, if anything, just making sure it's ran the
Speaker 1: way it should be ran, right. I mean, Flisk is
Speaker 1: such an interesting little town, you know, Having been there
Speaker 1: and spent multiple days there, I love how you can
Speaker 1: walk into a store or the pharmacy or something and
Speaker 1: they instantly just ask, oh, are you here to see
Speaker 1: the murder House, like they know they know who is
Speaker 1: in town. And why do you think that they're always
Speaker 1: going to keep it open like that? Do you think
Speaker 1: it's good for the town or do you think that
Speaker 1: at some point it might become a private residence. Again, well,
Speaker 1: it's on the historic Registry, so it's always going to
Speaker 1: be a historic landmark. It's not going anywhere. I don't
Speaker 1: don't foresee anyone ever wanting to live in it. It's
Speaker 1: great for what it is, but you know, we're talking
Speaker 1: house built in the eighties. There's gaps above the door,
Speaker 1: there's no insulation, let alone what happened there. You know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll ever be a home again. A house, yes,
Speaker 1: but not a home. I think it's good for the town,
Speaker 1: you know, it brings a lot of people here, and
Speaker 1: those people always go to the gas station or they'll
Speaker 1: go out to eat while they're here. I've had the
Speaker 1: people that own the diner say thank you for having
Speaker 1: this open, because if it wasn't, we would not be
Speaker 1: able to open on weekends just because we don't have
Speaker 1: enough people coming in. It quite literally attracts people from
Speaker 1: all over the world. I mean, people travel from everywhere.
Speaker 1: They feel there's a draw to it, and I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think it's a negative draw. It's it's a curiosity thing,
Speaker 1: but it's also just so notoriously haunted that people, you know,
Speaker 1: like to kind of cross it out. It's it is
Speaker 1: a bucket list item for many paranormal investigators. But what
Speaker 1: about just historically, do you get a lot of people
Speaker 1: who come in for tours during the day as well? Oh. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Going back to the people around the world. I just
Speaker 1: had a guy from Vietnam come doing overnight. Actually, he
Speaker 1: was doing a podcast and it was only going to
Speaker 1: be in the house for like three hours or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what was happening, but he was
Speaker 1: talking about how popular the house is in Vietnam. You say,
Speaker 1: acts and everybody knows. Veliska like what. He's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: very popular. I'm like, wow, that's cool. You know, it's
Speaker 1: neat that it's reached over there, that their story is
Speaker 1: being told in Vietnam. It's amazing to me. But as
Speaker 1: far as the people, I mean, our day tours are booming.
Speaker 1: This year has been horrible, but has been for everyone right.
Speaker 1: I would say, are people in the true crime Iowa's
Speaker 1: oldest cold case and it's people get so attached to
Speaker 1: what happened because of the children. I believe we have
Speaker 1: this group of senior citizen ladies that every month they
Speaker 1: choose a crime, a cold case, and they try and
Speaker 1: solve it themselves. You know, they'll come down to the
Speaker 1: house as far as overnights. It's a lot of families, mom, dad, kids,
Speaker 1: mom and dad or the mom and kids love the
Speaker 1: paranormal shows. The dad's here to drive and pay for
Speaker 1: the whole thing, you know, that seems to be a
Speaker 1: big part of it. We'll get six women that's known
Speaker 1: themselves their entire lives, and once a year they do
Speaker 1: something wacky together, just come to the Axe House. And
Speaker 1: I love that because there's always bottles of wine in
Speaker 1: the dumpster afterwards. And the reason I love that is
Speaker 1: because they're having the time of their life. They're laughing
Speaker 1: until they cry, you know, they're catching up, they're sharing memories,
Speaker 1: and that house needs laughing and love and memories in it.
Speaker 1: You know. That's why I love that. And then we'll
Speaker 1: get the paranormal groups. But it's it's not all that.
Speaker 1: I'd say it's fifty fifty A lot of true crime
Speaker 1: enthusiasts and a lot of people that see Axe Murder
Speaker 1: House sign on the highway. What in the world is this?
Speaker 1: I had one guy, and I get this quite a bit.
Speaker 1: A guy came down. He was in a company car
Speaker 1: and a company suit and he just stood there for
Speaker 1: a while asking questions. I was like, well, you can
Speaker 1: go on in the house walk around, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to, Okay, So what can we do?
Speaker 1: He goes, well, I just lost my faith in any
Speaker 1: god or anything, and I wanted to come to the
Speaker 1: house just to see if I felt something. I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool because I sat there and talked about
Speaker 1: what I believe and you know, and just my thoughts
Speaker 1: on life after death. A lot of people that come
Speaker 1: to the house have lost someone and just looking for something,
Speaker 1: an answer for life after death. Usually I will start
Speaker 1: with my tour and I'll give this the history spiel,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards they come up and we just talk.
Speaker 1: We just talked for an hour, you know, and I
Speaker 1: love it. It's interesting that something so tragic can kind
Speaker 1: of produce so many positives down the line. You know.
Speaker 1: It's clearly was something very awful it happened, but we're
Speaker 1: so far removed from it now time wise. Sometimes things
Speaker 1: like that just fade into obscurity. And yet here you
Speaker 1: have this, this story that just keeps going and inspiring
Speaker 1: people strangely in very different ways. Now, what I'd love
Speaker 1: to ask you, just because we got some evidence and
Speaker 1: we investigated there that kind of uh we thought might
Speaker 1: have some clues as to who actually committed the crime.
Speaker 1: Who who do you think did it? Who do I
Speaker 1: think did it? For some reason, I think Reverend Kelly
Speaker 1: was somewhat involved. Whether he did it or he happened
Speaker 1: in the house after it was over, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: But I've really been on a big kick of an
Speaker 1: early traveling serial killer because you have so many and
Speaker 1: you know, we do a lot of early tours before
Speaker 1: we open, which are Supreme Court judges for continuing education
Speaker 1: classes law enforcement colleges, so we do a lot of
Speaker 1: educational as well. But the group of Supreme Court judges
Speaker 1: were very much on the early traveling serial killer kick
Speaker 1: as well. Who was the gentleman who was found? He
Speaker 1: basically he killed his family later on, um, what was
Speaker 1: his name, Henry Lee Moore? I believe it is the
Speaker 1: guy you're talking about killed his mom and grandma two
Speaker 1: months after this, right, and then he was found. It
Speaker 1: was found the same way that the mirrors were covered
Speaker 1: and everything, and he was I feel like he was
Speaker 1: in Chicago or something. I can't remember exactly, but well,
Speaker 1: there was a blackie man's field. But he produced a
Speaker 1: work punching like handwritten hours he was working ticket as
Speaker 1: an alibi. But like this is five years after the fact, yeah,
Speaker 1: why would he have that. There was also a Henry
Speaker 1: Lemore who killed his mom and grandma in Columbia, Missouri,
Speaker 1: two months after this, But it was so badly done
Speaker 1: and he killed his mom and grandma for inheritance money.
Speaker 1: You know, I had motive all over it. And he
Speaker 1: got caught immediately. But yeah, I mean, there's so many suspects,
Speaker 1: and one thing that I think people don't quite grasp
Speaker 1: is detectives question people for five years. Five years is
Speaker 1: a long time, and a lot of gossip in a
Speaker 1: small town about a murder. There were hundreds of suspects,
Speaker 1: old man so and so it was weird he did it,
Speaker 1: you know, which went nowhere? But f Jones, Andy Sawyer,
Speaker 1: Blackie Mansfield went nowhere. Nobody went anywhere. And I've gone
Speaker 1: through twenty years of letters, f Jones wrote his daughter
Speaker 1: in New York. I've thumbed through his personal bible. I
Speaker 1: found nothing like these detectives did a great job. There's
Speaker 1: no leads really anywhere except for Reverend Kelly confessing. H
Speaker 1: But and one thing that kind of goes back. It's
Speaker 1: like in his confession he said that he felt like
Speaker 1: he was in a dream state and like he was
Speaker 1: being led to do things beyond his own control, which
Speaker 1: really creeps me out about the stabbing that happened and
Speaker 1: everything else, you know, And I think that's why I
Speaker 1: keep going back to him. I mean, it's just every day.
Speaker 1: I've thought about this for fifteen plus years, and I
Speaker 1: have no idea. Well, I mean, I think even the
Speaker 1: ghosts could tell us, and we still wouldn't know for sure.
Speaker 1: You know. I always wonder if we're going to get
Speaker 1: a name one day, or if we're going to get
Speaker 1: some sort of communication from them telling us who the
Speaker 1: murderer was. But even then, you know, would we believe it?
Speaker 1: You know, I think that without any solid evidence, which
Speaker 1: I don't think it is ever going to happen, I
Speaker 1: think this will probably remain unsolved. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you for telling us about the house. Thank you
Speaker 1: for conveying your experiences. I know that the house is
Speaker 1: currently open for tours, correct. Yeah, well, it'll be open
Speaker 1: for tours to come probably March for day tours, overnights
Speaker 1: or year round, so you can book an overnight anytime
Speaker 1: you want. Okay, great, and then where can people find you?
Speaker 1: Just Johnny Houser on Facebook Instagram, all the social media
Speaker 1: is just backslash. Johnny Houser, great well, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see you in person again. Hopefully we'll be back
Speaker 1: out there at events soon. And thank you so much
Speaker 1: for chatting with us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course,
Speaker 1: I think that after my own experiences at the veliska
Speaker 1: Ax Murder House and going further into its history, plus
Speaker 1: my conversation with Johnny, I can say that while I
Speaker 1: believe the home is very traditionally haunted, there is something
Speaker 1: even more mysterious than that at play there. I also
Speaker 1: think it's telling that throughout my interview with Johnny he
Speaker 1: never used the word murder to describe the house, and
Speaker 1: maybe that is a queue we should all take. Maybe
Speaker 1: we should start looking at that home for what it
Speaker 1: was and what it is now and not necessarily let
Speaker 1: it be defined by one dark day of nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. I look forward to our next journey
Speaker 1: down a haunted road. Haunted Road is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Speaker 1: The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive
Speaker 1: producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
Speaker 1: show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.