By MICHAEL SCHAFFER
OSKALOOSA — It has never been proven who the murderer was, waiting with an ax in the closet under the stairs in a house in Villisca in June 1912, waiting for the eight occupants to go to sleep before killing everyone inside sometime after midnight.
But 55 intrepid Mahaska County Reads, 2008, participants were ready to make the two-and-one-half hour bus ride from Oskaloosa to Villisca to visit the scene where some have said the most gruesome mass murder in United States history occurred in 1912. The death toll that fateful Monday, June 12, morning totaled eight — Josiah B. Moore, 43, his wife, Sarah Moore, 40, their children, Herman, 11, Katherine, 9, Boyd, 7, and Paul, 5, and the Stillinger sisters, Lena, 11, and Ina, 9.
Tuesday’s day-long trip was part two of the Oskaloosa Public Library’s four-part extravaganza delving into the Villisca ax murders. Part three is 1 p.m. Saturday at the library, where Roy Marshall’s book, “Villisca: The true account of the unsolved 1912 mass murder that stunned the nation,” will be discussed. Part four will be 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, with a screening of the documentary, “Villisca: Living with a Mystery,” directed and written by Kelly and Tammy Rundle, of Moline, Ill. The Rundles, as well as Dr. Edgar Epperly, will attend the screening.
If critics say the trip was one of morbid curiosity, then they have not been to Villisca lately. One resident in this tiny southwest Iowa community with less than 1,400 people located in Montgomery County has turned the house into a shrine of sorts, offering guided tours of not only the house but also the cemetery and other significant buildings in town.
So under a cloudy sky, an Arrow motor coach bus pulled out of the Oskaloosa Public Library parking lot a little after 9 a.m. Shortly after noon, the same bus pulled into Villisca.
The first stop was the bank Frank Fernando Jones built in 1901 for a catered lunch. Jones was an influential member of the community, a wealthy banker, businessman, politician and church leader and someone many suspected of the murders.
After lunch, author Roy Marshall spoke to the entire group. He said he was prepared to discuss the book but not the chapter that was left out where he reveals who he believes is the killer.
“In all, eight people were killed here, who did it?” Marshall said. “It’s not that simple. It really isn’t.”
Marshall said he started his research while in his mid-20s. He conducted his first interviews in Villisca in 1969, and in early 2003, his book was published.
Marshall said he was surprised there was not a book on Villisca other than the fictional “Morning Ran Red.”
“And to me the real story here is what actually happened,” Marshall said. “Far more compelling than what anyone can make up.”
The chapter both he and his publisher decided to leave out contains Marshall’s conclusions on who committed the crime and what he lays out as proof for that conclusion. In “The Killer Is,” Marshall writes there are four possibilities: the state’s case against an ordained minister named George Lyn Jacklin Kelly, a private detective’s case against Jones; it was the work of a serial killer and none of the above.
Marshall listed what he believes is compelling evidence against Kelly. He had the opportunity. He was in Villisca on June 12, 1912. He was a known pervert, a window-peeper. He had talked about the murders before the bodies were discovered. He confessed on several occasions. He took a bloody shirt to a dry cleaner in Council Bluffs for cleaning.
In the end, the evidence against the Rev. Kelly was too compelling for Marshall to not consider him the killer. And evidently, the evidence was compelling to the state of Iowa, as Kelly was tried for the murders in 1917 but acquitted by a jury.
From there, the entire group went to The Jones Store on the square, where Jones ran his farm implement business, and where Josiah Moore worked for nearly 10 years, which is now the Olson-Linn Villisca Museum, owned by Darwin Linn, who also owns the house where the murders took place.
From the museum, the bus drove past the Presbyterian Church where the Moore family and two Stillinger sisters attend a church service Sunday night before retuning home, only to be killed later that night. The bus drove past the house where the Rev. Kelly spent the night, the house where Jones lived, the cemetery and the ax murder house.
The ax murder house has changed hands over the years, Linn said. The Moore family moved into the house located on the northeast side of Villisca in 1904. The house was rented in 1914, two years after the murders, and again in 1927. The house was purchased in 1947, and in 1994, Linn purchased the property in order to preserve a piece of Villisca history.
“I think I was drawn to it,” he said. “And I know this sounds silly.”
The two-story, three-bedroom, white house was restored to as close to the early 1900s as possible, Linn said. A coal stove dominates the front room and kerosene lamps hang from the walls. All vestiges of modern life have been removed. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. The house is open for day and night tours and for overnight stays during the tourist season.
More information on the Villisca ax murder house can be found at www.villiscaiowa.com.
On the ride back home, Mike Wells, 36, of Oskaloosa, said nothing came across as unexpected.
“It was kind of what I expected,” he said. “The house was a lot smaller than I had really thought it would be.”
Sitting next to Wells was his sister, Tammy Stanbro, 47, of Oskaloosa. Stanbro said ever since she watched a documentary on Villisca she started to become interested in the story.
“I’ve always been interested in that kind of stuff,” she said. “And I’ve been interested in the story for a long time.”
Oskaloosa Public Library Director Suzann Holland said interest in true crime might be the reason for the book’s popularity.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest in this year’s Mahaska County Reads selection,” Holland said. “I’m not sure if it resonates because of the Iowa connection or if people are just drawn to true crime. Whatever the reason, ‘Villisca Fever’ has spread fast.”
Herald City Editor Michael Schaffer can be reached by email at mschaffer@oskyherald.com
