Thinking Sideways: Villisca Axe Murders

a series. Yeah, you can work on our intro. We have a music intro right now which everybody loves, but not everybody quite loves, and so we decided to have a contest among all of our listeners to create a new one. For the rules, go to our website that's Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. The rules are all there. All you gotta know is the deadline is July one, two thousand seventeen, So get your entries in as quick as you can. Think says I. I don't know stories

of things. We simply don't none of the answer too. Hi there, Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am your host, Joe, joined as always by Steve and and today we're gonna bring you another fantastic mystery. I'm mad at you guys, actually, so I don't know if I can do this well you are. You're forgetting about something very important. Uh you get your haircut? No, it's our anniversary, that's what. It's our anniversary. Oh we've been doing the show for four years today. I knew that,

of course, I know. I knew about that. Sure, so or we did you have anything planned? Are you going to a nice dinner? Like? Um? Well? Actually no, we we had a big plan to do a special anniversary episode, right Steve. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah totally. Yeah, it was a surprise. Well yeah, we hadn't. Now we haven't forgotten anything. Okay, yeah, all right, you sure? Okay now, and hey, no, seriously, we would never forget our anniversary. What are you saying here? What kind of guys do

you think we are? We're smarter than that. Yeah, okay, alright, so I guess all right, we have something planned, Yeah, something very special. Um, of course I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's just like the ring in the bag on the top of the TV. Yeah, ringing in the bag on top of the te I don't know what happens, so funny, keep care No, no, no, I'm teasing our listeners here, because yeah, you guys have something really fantastic, but get a bag of the top

of the TV. This is just like in the TV news and they tell you, they tell you about that fantastic story coming up, and you know what that means after the commercials. Yeah right, okay, And by the way, before I forget, this topic has been suggested actually by quite a few of our listeners. It's a popular one. Oh yeah, it's a huge one. And I'm not sure this list includes everybody, but yeah no, I don't think so, but I on my list Brooke, Joe, David, Kay and Matt and as for all the rest of you, they

suggested it and didn't get added to my list. I apologize deeply. We usually do about five and then we're like, okay, there's only so much room in the Google spreadsheet names unfortunately. Yeah uh, but our mystery is about the valiska As murders of nineteen twelve. I can't wait. Do you hear it? Can you hear the little cheering? Yeah, big surprise to you. Didn't know about this because we put this little thing on the front the front of the episode that says

generic mystery. Yeah, yeah, so the vliska As murders are They're kind of a big one. Eight people were killed in their beds, and so well that's pretty big, what you say. And this involved the More family of Veliska, Iowa. Valiska, by the way, is a little small town at the time in nineteen twelve was about I believe that's when our mystery takes places. Nineteen twelve. Yeah, it was in nineteen twelve, and there was a town back then of about people. I think it's actually shrunk a little bit

since then, but it's in southwest Iowa. And of course I've looked at on a street view it's listening like a pleasant little town. Unfortunately, damn you Google. You can't drive past the actual murder site itself on Google streets. I mean really, and I know when I say damn you Google, and I am kind of looking at gift Horse in the mouth a little bit. Uh. Okay, let's talk about the More family. Uh. They include Josiah Moore who's also known as Joe Moore also known as jb Uh.

He was aged forty nine. That's why Sarah Moore aged thirty nine. They lived with their kids in the house at five oh eight East Second Street in Lascal, Iowa. And so you can look it up on Google the way I did. It's still there and it's still as a tourist attraction. By the way, was else has been restored? Yeah, it has been. Yeah, it sort of fell into disrepair there, but somebody did restore. It's now in the list of historic places. Yeah. Yeah, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Okay.

There four kids were Herman, Mary, Arthur, and Paul. That's from oldest to youngest. Herman was eleven the oldest and Paul the youngest, was five. So small kids, I mean old enough to operate farm machinery, sure, but I mean go get the thresher. Totally don't fall under again. Joe Moore had a farm equipment business in Pliska which was reportedly very successful. He has started out years before, I think about nineteen hundred, working for a guy named Frank Jones,

also Realiska. Joe worked for Frank for seven years before he left to start his own business. He was the top salesman at Frank Jones farm business, but he left in nineteen o seven, reportedly because he didn't like working from seven am to eleven pm, six days a week. Yeah. Yeah, and uh. When Joe Moore left, he took the John Deere account with him, which apparently didn't endear him to Frank. Yeah, that had to be a pretty valuable account. Oh, I'm

sure it was. Yeah, John Deere. It was probably the biggest account in town. John Deere is big and was in the Midwest, and so basically that means it because usually stores or sell certain brands, he was the only the only store selling John Deere. Yeah, as far as I know, Yeah, okay, I just making sure that that's what I understood by taking the account, that's what that meant. I don't think John Deeer really wanted to have more

than one dealership in any given Yeah. Yeah, and so yeah, so I'm sure that was a blow to Frank, although as far as I know, he stayed in business. He actually Frank Jones went on to be account He was still fairly successful. He became a state senator, although this whole bruhaha with the murders and everything kind of scotch his political career just a little bit later on, but

well we'll talk about that a little later. But yet another reason for Frank Jones to really dislike Joe Moore, and they didn't get a long and typically they were known to cross the street when they approached each other on the sidewalk to just avoid each other. Yeah. That's

that's good terms right there. Yeah, really good terms. Uh. And the reason the only reason I bring that up is that if anything unpleasant were to happen to Joe Moore and his family, I'm not saying it would, but if it did were to happen, well, Frank might be somebody the police would want to take a look at about just saying. But more on that later. I should also mention the or at least describe the fiscal surroundings

of the Moor's house. Uh. As I've said, their addressed previously five oh eighties Second Street, which you can see on Google. It's on the eastern outskirts of Aliska. Uh. There's some new development to the east, but not a lot. They're really even and they're kind of on the outskirts of town. And from what I've heard, in nineteen twelve, there were a few houses there to the east of them, and that was it. That was the edge of town. And the house was also in a large lot, had

a barn. Uh. There was room for some farm animals, which included at least some horses and some chickens, and I don't know anything else about any other animal, but they did they apparently did not have a dog like you can guess this because well, you know what happens. But they had a dog, maybe maybe things would have turned out differently, you know, probably. Yeah. And last of all, if you look on Google, you'll know that they are

six blocks north of the railroad tracks that runs through town. Uh, not that that that has anything to do with anything, but in that at that time, and actually twelve about maybe thirty trains a day passed through the town. Nothing. That's not nothing, you know, And you're that close to the railroad tracks, well, you know. Uh. And and lastly, more about the town of Biliska. It's one of those little towns that you think of as people never locked

their doors. And although I have heard in other places that actually most people did lock their doors in Biliska at night, but you know, I don't know, it's really hard to say. Um. And because people wonder about this, because they wonder how the killer got into the house Aaron White for and also why did he pick that particular house to begin with? Right, that's up in the air too. So now that I've told you all about on the family, I guess it's onto one of you guys.

I guess you've guys have done a little research on this whole thing. Of course, yeah, I don't know we were doing this, so I didn't prepare. I'm just kidding. Yeah, it wasn't It was supposed to be a surprise. Well, let me let's talk about the night before the murders, because there's some stuff that goes down, So that would

be Sunday evening, the nineth of June. The family had gone to the Children's Day Service at the Presbyterian Church, which they were members of, and apparently they were accompanied by two neighbor children, Lena and Ena Stillinger, I believe that's how you pronounce it, and those I think it was okay, So Lena and Aina, and Lena was twelve, I was eight, and they had had their permission, parents

permission to stay overnight with the more children. So what they did is when they went to they went to church, they we're going to the end of the year Sunday school program that was called the Children's Day Service, and Mrs Moore I understood that she was directing it, so never mind or part of it anyway, So never mind that her children were participating, as we're just about every other kid in the church, but she was involved in that way as well. According to accounts the this is

what I'm not clear on. It says that everything ended at nine thirty, and I don't know if that means that the children's Day event, their service ended, or if that's when they left the church, because you know those kind of events. People go in, the event happens, and then you stand around and your chit chat and you catch up with your neighbors. So regardless though, it always says that they left at nine thirty, and at that point they would have walked home, which was not very far.

It's about a five minute walk. If I remember correctly, it was three blocks, so yeah, I was even closer than that. But when they got home, everyone had a small snack before going to bed, cookies and milk Martiniz no, no Martiniz for the children, well maybe for the adults,

maybe for the adults um. And again not entirely clear when they went to bed, but based on the time, the ages of the kids in the time at night, I'm guessing that they were probably all in bed, probably quarter after ten or ten thirty, somewhere in that range. This was back in the day when there was no internet, no TV. Yeah, so you know, you know, and limited you know, limited lighting. So they're also children, like, yeah, that's that's what I'm getting at their twelve and they

get exhausted, even even if you're an adult. What's the point of staying up, you know, I mean, there's just nothing to do as well, go sack out exactly. But but so it's after that at some point in the night. It's believed past midnight, but we're not a positive that the killer took the axe that was left sitting in the backyard and attacked a family The next morning, so this is Monday morning. Mary Peckham who was the neighbor, she's sixty three. She got up at normal time of

five am and started her routine. She said that she noticed the More house was surprisingly quiet, which was weird because normally Joe Moore would get up and go take care of the horses in the backyard before going to his office, and Mrs Moore tended to wake up the kids before sunrise to get them ready and to do their chores. And when you've got four kids, they make

a fair amount of noise in the morning. So the screaming and throwing rocks at each other, yeah, whatever the case may be playing because their kids, so there should have been those noises, and none of that was happening. And by eight o'clock that morning, she hadn't seen any of the family. So what Mary did is she went over to the house and she knocked on the door. Nobody answered. She tried to look through the windows, but they were drawn and shuttered, so she couldn't see anything.

I saw that there were two windows in the entire house that didn't have shutters or curtains or anything on the inside, and they had clothes tacked up. Is that did you also see that? I don't remember seeing that there were. Yeah, and my understanding is that the windows all had clothes tacked up on the inside. Yeah, yeah, clothes, towels, whatever. Yeah.

It appears that somebody, we don't know who was trying to hide whatever, and maybe like you know, cover the windows, or somebody in the family did it for privacy reasons. Because somebody broke the blinds. I know people whose children have pulled the blinds down and they've had to hang a sheet for a couple of days till they get it, get replacement happen. Yeah, But anyway, so Mary, she goes

over and she looks and she can't see anything. So she goes to the family's chicken coop, let's chickens out, so at least the chickens can be let out for the day, and goes home just figures, well, maybe Joe's family got ill and they had to leave in the middle of the tonight, and that's why they're not there. You know. She she's justifying what's going on, is what she's doing. So after after at Mary goes back to your house and here the events. I've read a couple

of different versions of how this went down. And in the simple version, one of Joe's employees came over to the house to get his boss, couldn't find couldn't get into the house, couldn't see anybody, and then left and after and said something to Mary. And at that point then Mary placed a call to Joe's brother, whose name is Ross Moore. So that's one version that I've heard. I've also heard that unbidden by anybody, for reasons we don't know, Ross just came over on his own to

see the family. I don't think that was the case. I don't think so either, because it does sound like there was, you know, a lot. I mean, people are trying to figure out where's Joe, what's going on. So what happens though, is Ross comes over and he does exactly what Mary did. He tries to look through the windows, he can't see anything. Knocks on the door, nobody answers, But of course he has the one thing that Mary didn't have, which is a key. Yeah, so I thought

you were going to say a crowbar. So he unlocks and opens the door and he goes inside where he sees there's nothing good. So Mary waited on the porch while Ross went into the parlor. He found Aina and Lena's bodies in the bedroom, um in the guest bedroom on the bed. Ross at that point, and that's on the first floor. It's on the first floor. Yeah. So Ross at this point calls to Marry and says, hey, go get Hank Horton. He was kind of like the police chief. He was the the primary peace officer of

the town at the time. He had the town marshall or town watchman or whatever you call some something some the person in charge basically probably one of those things where it's kind of a he's got a day job. Also. So what happens is, um, you know, Ross finds body, so he's you know, either goes back out or calls to Marry and says go get Hank um and then

Ross way eats. From all the reporting, I can see waits until Hank shows up and either Mary called her, there's not The details are not clear here on how Hank got down there. Yeah, if she went and ran to get him, or if she called or what, but he was somehow summoned. I'm gonna guess it was a phone call. I think they called. Yeah, I would guess that as well. But I don't know where Hank. I mean maybe Hank lived two doors down and so she

was like, just go down there. Anyway, Hank gets back, Hank and Mary and Ross all go into the house and upstairs they find the entire More family had also been bludged to death. I didn't say that Aina and Lena's bodies showed signs of being blooded to death, but there you go. They've been blunted to death, and as had the entire More family. I didn't even take it that initial look. I don't even think they peeked under

the covers. I think that the first person that I've heard of pulled the covers back to see that they were blunde and was like the doctor that they brought later on. There's just a lot of blood. It was just like bodies in the bed. There's blood everywhere. You know, you know, what's happened to you know, you know, I'm not sure if it's bludgeoning or shooting or stabbing or what. They look kind of dead. There's some killing, yeah, oh yeah,

for sure. So I've I've heard a few different ways, but I believe that the acts that had been used in all of the bludgeoning deaths was found in the guest bedroom with Nina and Lena's bodies. That's what I've heard too. So doctors were obviously called as well, and they examined the bodies and the crime scene, and here's what they found. They concluded that the murders had been committed before or five am, but after midnight, probably closer

to midnight. Um, so in the early early hours of you know, the one two hours of the morning, not the not the later ones. The creepy factor is of course upped when they found two cigarette butts in the attic. I'm not totally sure why they were examining the attic in the first place, but they found two cigarette butts up there that would make sense. Seems reasonably spent because they had heard of hender KAIFEK. Yeah, sorry, I said

reasonably they they seemed recently spent. They weren't, you know, as though the kids had been sneaking up there too. Although this is and I know you, I know you will find the cigarette bus in the attic thing on Wikipedia.

But what I've heard is that that Wikipedia is wrong on that count, and that the actual the entrance to the attic, which the investigators did find the day of the discovery of the bodies, is actually in the closet of Joe and Sarah's bedroom in the upstairs, and it was blocked off by boxes and clothing and stuff like that, and so in order, and so if there were cigarette bus there, they weren't left by the killer, because the killer again, when they when they found the bodies, the

closet was full of boxes and clothes, and so if he had hidden there, he would have murdered them and then replaced all that stuff back into the closet and stuff, and before he left the house, unless there was an entrance externally, maybe some of the in to be able to hear what was going on in the house, or

maybe that too. But I mean, it's like, you know, there's other a few places have said that he hit in the cellar, same thing, though there's no there's no internal entrance from the house, so if he if he's in the cellar, he's got to exit the house and come back into the house, which is not you know, the same thing. No, not not insanely crazy, but you know, that's just what I've heard. That is that the whole

wicked thing is not not exactly so the killer spider man. Okay, so yeah, so And actually I've heard another account out there.

I can't. I gotta start taking better notes. Another account, which may have been a little bit of conflation with hintri Kaifak, because it's very hint kaifaky, is that, of course they the Moors did have a barn with their horses, and they found evidence that somebody had had been sitting on a couple of hay bills there and in close proximity to a novel in one of the exterior walls that afforded a view of the house, and that maybe the killer was hiding in the barn and watching the

house from the barn. But again this is very cumstantial. Yeah, well, and again I think that this might really be a case of where over the years it's been sort of conflated with hinterra kaifak a little bit, you know, and but the same thing with the attic and stuff. Anyway, Devin Starry to interrupt your narrative. So the killer's hanging out somewhere, I guess, And he was hanging that somewhere. Maybe not. Maybe he just came walking up out of

the darkness and want right into the house. The massacre started in the master bedroom with Josiah and Sarah. Josili was really really badly beaten up. He'd been hacked. Um, he'd actually been hacked. Most of the victims had just been blundened with like the blunt side um, the butt what you would call the butt of the axe. Um. But he had actually been cut a number of times with the blade of the axe. In fact, he was beat so badly that his eyes were apparently missing which

is pretty that's pretty intense. Next, the killer, because we don't actually know if there was only one killer or not, moved to the children's room. Sorry they obviously they bludgeoned Sarah as well at the same time at the same time. Right then they moved to the children's room. This is where herman, Catherine Boyd and Paul all were. They were

all beaten with the butt as previously noted. Then after returning to the master bedroom to beat up on Josiah and Sarah a bit more, the killer or went downstairs to the guest bedroom where Anna and Lena were killing them. Lena, it seems, may have been awake when she was murdered, and that would be different from all of the rest of the victims. It looked like they were all asleep when they got bludgeoned, which means the bludgeoning had to

have happened pretty dang quickly, especially the children. When you're talking about bludgeoning four children to death without waking any of them up in the interim, and they were sharing beds, weren't they, Because I mean, there's four kids and you're not a rich, i mean even a well off family at that time. It was it was not uncommon to just stack them like Cordwood in a totally yeah. Lena seems to have had signs of defensive wounds, maybe cuts

to her arms. There's also speculation that Lina may have been sexually assaulted she was found. The other reason that people think that she was awake was because she wasn't found laying next to her sister in the bed. She was laying across the bed um, and her nightgown was pulled up to her waist, and she wasn't wearing any underwear, which may or may not be some kind of evidence against something. She was the oldest child, she was twelve, so other than Sarah, she would have been the closest

to adulthood. Adulthood, I guess so if trying to think of a delicate way to say that, if some you know, if the killer was yeah, even more disgusting than just a murderer, might have been a thing. Can I just interrupt, just really quickly about her her nightgown being pushed up.

But I never understood. What I always wondered about is what I couldn't because of course, obviously there's no photographic evidence out there of the bodies I always wondered was her um, was her waist like on the DoD the bed, because I could see if a body falls and then

search the slide towards the edge of the bed. Her nightgown would then naturally ride up, well that's kind of around her hips, rather than they could bring it down over her head or something like that, instead of the insituation of somebody pulled it up to then do some naughty business. The other the other thing is is actually, um, he covered everybody's faces, and so they might not have

been something immediate. It might have been the closest thing to cover her face with was just the night dress that she was wearing. Just grab it and pull it up wherever her face and cover you know. So it might have been that too. Got it cool? But I don't. Yeah, I mean, That's what I was going to say, is that just because her nightgown and she wasn't wearing underwear,

that doesn't necessarily mean that they were removed. Plenty of people to sleep, you know, without underwear, especially in those days when you didn't necessarily have Yeah, yeah, you might just take it off and then put you know, the same pair on and again the next morning. So how I do it the one for a month. The one other weird thing that I want to bring up is that Dr lind Quest, who was the corner at the time.

He was the one who was examining the bodies. He reported there was a slab of bacon on the floor in the downstairs bedroom, laying next to the axe. This is what I've heard. He said that it was about two pounds and it was wrapped with what he thought might be a dish towel. And then a second, like a matching set of slab of bacon was found in the ice box, so it could have been pulled out of the ice box. But I don't know. It's weird, there's but it wasn't to go, It's just sitting there.

It was left. Well, what I mean is get it ready to take it to go and then how often have you forgotten your lunch? Well exactly, So I was thinking that, yeah, I think maybe the killer was going to take it with him, had he it was Apparently what I heard is it was left in the in the guest bedroom, next to the axe, which was leading against the wall. And I almost might have just forgotten

that well, I almost wondered if you know. Again, it's hard to get a sense of the layout of the house or whatever, but I almost wonder if the killer went in not knowing that Aina and Lena were there, or at least that they were in the guest bedroom, and went upstairs, did all his murdering stuff, came back down, grabbed a slab of bacon, kind of walked near by the guest room and was like, oh, there's two more

people in there. Finish, finish the job, and then, you know, for whatever reason, you know, set the bacon down beat the girls. Maybe he did end up raping Lena at that point. Maybe he put the bacon in the acts they're thinking, Okay, I'm gonna grab those as I leave, raped her, and then just totally forgot because he, I don't know, was hopefully ideally just so disgusted with all the horrible things he'd just done he just had to leave.

But maybe it killed Zeppe to I think. Another another theory is that perhaps he was an early animal rights activist making a statement about about the condition of pigs and slaughter houses. Maybe yeah, yeah, that's possibly so. Yeah, that was the scene of the body, the scene of the murderer. I guess, yeah, a killer or killers who

knows which. And then one last sort of weird thing is that all the mirrors in the house had been covered well, and as we mentioned in passing to all of the all of the bodies had been I think mostly it was with sheets. Yeah, it was what she so it could have It was mostly most of their bodies.

It might have been kind of a respecting or something like that, because apparently, according to the doctor's testimony that I read, one one good reason to put a sheet or a towel over somebody's face before you beat their head in is to keep the blood spattered down. But apparently they were placed after, Yeah, they were placed after

after the death. The other thing that we haven't really mentioned is that, I mean, Devin brought up the fact that the sharp end of the ax was used on Joe, but he got he got the worst, He got the worst. That's when I was like, what forty or fifty He took forty or fifty whack or something like that number. Well, and that's kind of I mean, that was the thing.

You know, the murderer went and murdered the children, and I almost wonder if he hadn't really finished the job the first time, you know, and they're Joe was starting to make noises, and so he thought, long, I gotta go kill the kids so they don't wake up and come back. But I mean he went back like after every single one. It seems like it seems like the murderer killed Joe and then maybe killed Sarah or hit Joe, maybe killed Sarah, killed the kids, then came back and

wailed on Joe. He will, he will on all of them a bunch more. Essentially, he whacked him all. I whacked him all at least once. And then and then when he was done, and he came back and just the job was starting with the parents just obliterated their faces, but not as not nearly as bad as what happened got the worst now he did, but but all all

of them, their faces were essentially obliterated, all of them. Yeah, and it looks so it looks like he made the first pass all the way through, then came back, did all the obliterating and and then he was done. Yeah, it's the what is it from Zombieland the triple tap? Yeah, double tap, but yeah a little more than that really and uh and then and then Apparently, like I said, he covered all all the mirrors in the house. Um, which may or may not be significant. Um and uh

also hung out a little bit. There was some stories I've heard there was a plate of food on the table, and there was also a basin that was filled with water and that had blood in it. So maybe he washed up after the fact, you wanted to wash all the blood up, which you know, I can't blame him up. Depending on where you're going to go, it would be fairly disgusting looking. Yeah, by the end of your whole thing. Yeah. Yeah.

And then apparently he left the house bive it appears, to the front door and locked it behind him and took the key with him, because they know this because the front door been locked and the key was the only thing that was missing, so it was gone, so they just assumed he took it with him. Um and yeah, nice hahing to lock up. I don't know if that's the word I would use. Yeah. Uh, Well, that pretty much sums it up. Before we hit into our theories,

let's stick a really brief break. On a summer night in nine seven, among the chaos of Detroit Rebellion, a group of young people were detained, it said deal Cheers Hotel by the Detroit pt. By the end of the night, three of them would be dead. Instant lives Lost, an

entire city Changed Forever, directed by Katherine Bigelow. Catch the premiere of Detroit starring John Buega, Anthony Mackie and Algie Smith, premier in theaters August four, and creating a collaboration with Antiperor Pictures as a companion piece to the movie Beyond the lookout for a new podcast called Rebellion in Detroit, which is coming soon. It's set in the same period as a film. It's a three part mini series about the nineteen sixty seven riots in Detroit, and it's hosted

by actor in Detroit native Courtney b. Vans. Listen along to his podcast and find out what really happened on the streets of Detroit over that hot week in nineteen sixty seven and why so remember Detroit? Directed by Katherine Bigelow. And we're back. Okay, we have a few theories here for you, So with no further ado, here we go. Hi, this is Nick and this is the captain from True Crime Garage. Congratulations on putting out a stellar podcast for the last four years. We're both big fans, so cheers

to your mates. Let's grab a chair, grab a beer, and let's talk some true crime. Henry Lee Moore, first off, he is no relation to the More's that were killed in Vliska. But in our opinion, he is a great suspect to be the perpetrator of the Valiska as murders. Henry Lee Moore didn't actually live in Viliska, So how could he be a great suspect? You ask, Well, the ax murders and Valiska were not the first of their kind. There had been a string of axe murders going on

nationwide before and after the ax murders in Valiska. Nine months earlier, in September of nineteen eleven, six victims were murdered by way of acts in Colorado Springs. Then in October there'd be a triple murder in Illinois. After that, the Showman family of five were killed in Kansas. In fact, just days before the Veliska massacre, a husband and wife

were slaughtered in Kansas. And there were all similarities in these crimes, but the obvious ones were these were all families being killed in their homes and being taken out with an ax, and most of these cases, the authorities don't have a suspect until a federal officer, this is m. W. McClary. He decides that they must be dealing with a transient maniac. Using that theory, he also noticed another commonality in the string of killings. The houses were all located at various

points along the Southern Pacific Railway. Now our suspect, Henry Lee Moore. He worked for the railways. Not only that, but he was a bad, bad man. On December eighteenth, nineteen twelve, This is the day after Henry Moore tells his roommate that he is traveling to Columbia, Missouri, to visit his mother, who has taken ill. Henry Lee Moore's mother and grandmother lived together. This is Mrs Georgia Moore and her mother, Mary Wilson. Their neighbor sees Henry Moore

enter his mother's home. A short while later, he goes to the neighbor's house. He says he has just arrived into town and wondered if the neighbor could tell him where his mother was. She says that she believes they would be at home. Henry goes back to his mother's house. Then he comes back to the neighbor's house once again and says, you've got to come with me and see what happened. When the neighbor gets there, what she sees is Henry Lee Moore's mother dead and grandmother dead, murdered

by an axe. They were hacked to death in their home. The grandmother was found in her bed. Henry's mother was killed by the back door. She had a horrible gash in her neck and a deep cut on her forehead that penetrated the brain. They'd find old acts with a blunt edge and a broken handle, and they'd consider this the murder weapon. Now, remember, Henry said that he had arrived into town that morning, and upon his arrival, he

had found the women dead. He was arrested after authorities learned from the neighbor that Henry had entered the home through the back door more than once that morning. They also found blood on him and on his underclothes, and later learned that Henry had rented a room at a hotel the night before under a fake name. Getting caught in these little white lines and his story not lining up is not looking good for Henry Lee Moore. Furthermore, neighbors would report that Henry's mother was not ill at

all and she was in her normal health. Henry Lee Moore will be found guilty of these murders. Yes, he sentenced to life in prison for the death of his mother and grandmother. Many at the time suspected that his motive for the murders was in fact money had also received his family's property once his mother was dead. One investigator,

m W. McClary, it's actually pronounced am Debbie McClary. Well, he decided that the motive for the murders was in fact, that Henry Lee Moore was a serial killer that rode the rails, and he would go to these different homes, break in and kill the families in their sleep at night, and that he was motivated by the act and thrill

of killing itself. And he was a sexual maniac. So what would be Henry Lee's motive just the thrill of killing or possibly sexual assault and then covering up his crime and regarding the murders in Vliska and the other as murders that took place in that short time period, well, Henry Lee Moore worked for the railroad. He would have had the means to be in those areas, and the fact that he was found guilty of killing his mother and his grandmother, it would prove that he had the

capability and to know how to create a double murder. Look, there are certainly many good suspects in the valiska As murders case, but our guy, Henry Lee Moore should be considered one of your prime suspects. Thank you, guys so much again for let us be a part of this four year and a versary. It was so much fun to meet you and hang out with you and drink some bruise with you at crime Con this year. Look forward to drinking with you again next year. First rounds

on you, guys. Cheers. Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of The Trail Went Sideways. My name is Robin Wardour and I am the host of the true crime podcast The Trail Went Cold. The Thinking Sideways crew have asked me to help them out because not only has the trail gone cold on this case, but the trail is completely frozen solid. I got to meet Joe Stephen Devon at crime Con and we all went out to lunch together and since they picked up the

check they demanded. I reimbursed them by appearing on this episode. Not just kidding. We had an awesome time hanging out that weekend, and I am beyond thrilled and honor to be a guest on their podcast, which is one of my all time favorites. Anyway, the theory they've asked me to cover for this case involves a suspect named George Kelly, the only suspect who actually stood trial for this crime, and what makes Kelly such an unusual suspect is that he was a minister, an unlikely candidate to be an

axe murderer. Reverend Kelly was originally born as Lynn George Jackline Kelly in England before he and his wife moved to the United States in nineteen o four. After serving the Methodist church for years, Kelly suddenly decided that this denomination wasn't for him, so he enrolled in a Presbyterian seminary in nineteen twelve. On the evening of June nine, Kelly was invited to attend the Children's Day services at the Presbyterian Church in the Liska, which of course also

happened to be attended by the Moore family. And the Stillinger sisters right before they were murdered at five nineteen am the following morning, Kelly left the Liska by hopping on a train back to his hometown of Macedonia, and it was about three hours later when the victim's bodies were discovered. Now Kelly put himself on the radar as a suspect when he started writing a NonStop series of rambling letters about the murders and sending them to the

police and the victims surviving relatives. It seemed like being in Veliska when the murders took place caused Kelly to develop a pretty unhealthy obsession with this case. In fact, one week after the crime took place, Kelly returned to Aliska and went to the trouble of convincing the police to give him a tour of the More home. Anyway, One private investigator decided to write Kelly back and asked

him if he knew anything about the murders. Kelly responded with a pretty eye opening story about how he had been walking past the More home that night when he heard what sounded like the thought of an axe, and that a man who was likely the killer briefly stepped out onto the porch. Naturally, this made investigators suspicious, but there was no direct evidence that Kelly was involved in the crime, and since he had a history of mental illness and erratic behavior, it was hard to know if

his story was actually true. So Kelly dropped off the radar for a while, but he got himself in a bit of trouble in nineteen fourteen after he placed a newspaper ad for a stenographer. When a young woman expressed her interest, Kelly wrote back and essentially said that the position was hers as long as she was willing to type in the nude. Well. This woman was mortified, so this letter was turned over to the authorities, and they proceeded to send Kelly a series of dummy letters in

which they pretended to be her. This prompted Kelly to respond with some more sexually inappropriate letters, and their content was apparently so offensive that Kelly was arrested for sending obscene material through the mail. I guess this was essentially the nineteen fourteen version of sexting, and he had to spend some time in a mental hospital for it. While by nineteen seventeen, the investigation into other suspects in the Billiska Acts murders had completely fallen through, so they decided

to focus their attention on Kelly again. The police brought Kelly in and interrogated a NonStop over the course of an entire night, until he finally broke down and confessed to the murders the following morning. He claimed that God had commanded him to kill every person in the More household that night, and that he essentially did this while in a trance like state. Of course, Kelly soon recanted his confession, but he still went on trial for the

murder of Lena Stillinger. It seems like he was specifically charged with that one particular murder because, in addition to the incident involving the obscene letters, there were a lot of unsavory rumors about Kelly being a peeping tom and abusing his position to ask young girls to pose nude for him. The logic seemed to be that since Kelly was a sexual deviant, that's why Lena was found partially nut.

Maybe Kelly had become fixated honor at the children's day services that night, so he decided to follow her to the More home and then proceeded to kill everyone inside. With an AX. The evidence against Kelly at trial was his confession, the letters he'd written about the murders, and the fact that he'd sent out a bloody shirt to be laundered only a week after the crime took place. There were also witnesses who claimed that they'd heard Kelly discussing the murders on his a trip from Vliska to

Macedonia on June tenth, nineteen twelve. Remember this train had left Veliska at five nineteen am, three hours before the bodies were discovered, So how could Kelly have known about the murders unless he had been there. Well, the problem is that the witnesses who supposedly heard him talk about this changed their story, and given how questionable Kelly's confession was, this was hardly an airtight case. As a result, the jury wound up being deadlocked at eleven to one in

favor of acquittal. So Kelly had to go on trial again, and this time he was acquitted, and that pretty much closed the books on him. This also kind of brought the investigation to a dead halt, and that's about as close as they ever came to solving the Valiska Acts murders. So I guess you could say the trail went cold. So here's my personal take on Reverend George Kelly as a suspect. He is most definitely a strange person and a major pervert. I really don't think the evidence is

there which points to him being the perpetrator. From the sound of things, the police only decided to charge Kelly five years after the fact because they've gotten pretty desperate to close the case. You're going to hear other podcasters discussed the theory that Iowa State Senator Frank Fernando Jones hired a guy named William Mansfield to commit the murders, but after the investigation into them fell apart. I think there was a feeling that somebody had to go down

for this crime, and Kelly was a convenient scapegoat. In fact, there were rumors that Senator Jones pressured investigators to orchestrate a frame up job on Kelly in order to take the spotlight off himself. Now, Kelly's alibi on the night of the murders was that he was asleep, but it's not like anyone could officially verify it. During his trip to Bliska, Kelly stayed at the home of a local minister named William j Ewing. On the evening of June nine.

You in claimed that he showed Kelly to his bedroom at eleven PM before he went to sleep, and that Kelly was already gone by the time Youwing woke up the following morning. We know that Kelly's trained departed at five nineteen am, so he would have had a window of about six hours to commit the murders. You and his wife were called in to testify at Kelly's trials, and they stated that they believed his bed had been

slept in that night. Now, Kelly was left handed, and the corner believed the blood spatters at the scene indicated that the killer swung the axe left handed. However, the biggest point in Kelly's favor was that he was a pretty small fellow at only five ft two and a hundred nineteen pounds, So would he really have been capable of murdering eight people with an axe singlehandedly? The fact of the matter is is that there's no direct evidence

placing Kelly at the scene. All we really have is a coerced confession, unreliable eyewitness testimony, and a strange guy who developed a strange obsession with this crime. I'm not saying it's absolutely impossible that Kelly could have done it, but in my eyes, he just seemed like nothing more than a convenient scapegoat. And if there hadn't have been so much pre sure to solve the case at that time,

I'm not sure he ever would have been charged. So I'm inclined to think that the Veliska Acts murders were committed by someone else. Anyway, Thank you everyone for listening, and thanks again to Joe Stephen Devon for having me on here. Charlie and Ali here from the Insight podcast. We are covering one of the suspects who made maybe the biggest news partly because of who he was in the community, and that suspect is Frank Jones. He owned a large and successful store in Vliska, and Josiah Moore

worked for him for something like nine years. He helped found a bank in the town and was at the time serving as a state representative, and he later became a state senator. He spent twenty five years as a superintendent of Sunday School for the Methodist Church. I know something that you would look at as a murderer, for sure, now the reason people looked at him as motive. After working for Frank Joe for years, Josiah opened his own hardware store and he worked in direct competition to Frank.

Not only that, but he took the John Dear portion of the business with him when he left. Some people who work in corporate jobs today they have the sign paperwork when they're hired that they won't take clients or accounts with them if or when they leave the company. This is why non compete clauses have prevented many acts murders. I am sure of that. And according to one source I read, the two men, who obviously didn't speak to each other, would go as far as to cross the

street to avoid each other. And then there was gossip. Frank Jones had a daughter in law named Dona. Donna had a reputation for meeting with men without her husband or a chaperone present. Back in those days, you couldn't just make a private phone call. You had to go through a central operator. Who could should she choose listen in? She could? Then should she choose tell the whole town

about your business? Now? Is roommate that Dona and Joe arranged their made up by telephone, so a business competitor and rumored to be having an affair with these daughter in law, but there was dual motives for Frank Jones. Eventually, the rumors of Frank jones involvement led to an investigation into him not being the murderer himself, but rather being the money behind a murder for higher plot. The man they thought wielded the axe is a potential serial killer

named William Mansfield. Mansfield would later be suspected in the murder of his own family years later. One man in particular really believed this theory. James Wilkerson, a private investigator, was convinced that Frank Jones hired William Mansfield to kill the More family. He also believed other killings across the Midwest were connected, and he connected them all to William Mansfield. He said that he could prove Mansfield was in every

area on the notes of all of these murders. Frank Jones tired of the rumors, which eventually escalated to posters hung up around town accusing him of the crime. He sued Wilkerson's the slander. The best offense to slander is to prove what you said is true. So the defamation suit became kind of a mini murder trial for Frank Jones. Wilkerson had various eyewitnesses who saw and heard things related to the crime. This civil trial, however, happened in nine sixteen,

so four years after the murders. So why did no one say any of this at the time of the murders and why are they only saying it now. One witness who had years previously testified at the inquest that he saw nothing unusual, was now testifying saying he saw the son of Frank Jones enter the More home while the Moors were still at the children's program. In the end,

all person was found not guilty of slander. Now that's not to say the jury believed Frank Jones was involved in the murders, but that there was enough evidence that accusing him of being involved did not rise to the level of slander. A grand jury was convened and the state sought in indictment against Mansfield. The details are private, as they tend to be with grand juries, but in the end they failed to indict Mansfield, reportedly because he had a payroll receipt and it proved that he was

in Illinois at the time of the murders. This essentially ended the legal case against Frank Jones, but this widely held belief that he used his influence to sway the investigation and the results of that investigation away from himself. It ruined his political career. Now, to me, giants had a luck to lose if it ever came out that he was involved in the murders. And I can't say even if he was, I imagine he would have had it all sign up TAI so it could never be

traced back to him. But honestly, I think him being tied to the case is just a case of Mainsfield's obsession with the murders. One of the things that really

leads me away from him is that slander case. He had to know with his own background that taking a defamation case to court saying he's saying I'm a murderer, I'm not a murderer that was going to turn into a de facto murder trial for him, And if he had something to lose, I don't think he would have done that because a lot of dirt could have come

out in that defamation case. He was risking a lot, right, and I don't think he would have risked it over a defamation case that was already going to be difficult to win, because defamation cases are famously difficult to win. I'm Nina from the Already Gone podcast, and Bliska isn't the only place for an axe murder. How about Blue Island, Illinois. Blue Island is in cook Cow, me just south of Chicago, and on July six there was a gruesome ax murder

of a family. Jacob Nislesla, his wife, their daughter, and their infant grandchild were killed. The survivor of the attack Jacob's son in law, William Mansfield. Mansfield was working out of town when his family was killed, and we know that two years later, in the summer of nineteen sixteen, Mansfield was working for the railroads in Kansas City. Now Mansfield was thought to be a troublemaker because of his

work as a union organizer. This Detroit girl knows how poorly union organizers were thought of by those and positions of power, particularly at the start of the twentieth century. James Wilkerson of the Burns Detective Agency, he felt that because of what happened in Illinois years earlier, Mansfield was good for the murders. He was convinced that Senator Jones

hired Mansfield to do the deed. Wilkerson went so far as to hang up hundreds of flyers on lamp posts all over the city, labeling the fair haired, blue eyed Mansfield William the Lackey Mansfield and implying that Johns had hired him to commit the murders on his behalf. Mansfield was arrested and brought before Montgomery County Grand Jury. Mansfield's attorneys they produced payroll records and witnesses that placed Mansfield

in Illinois at the time of the Vliska attack. Mansfield was released and he filed suit against Wilkerson and the notoriously anti union Burns Detective Agency. He received twenty dollars in damages and today's money. That's a fifty thousand dollar settlement. Devon Steve Joe, congratulations on four years of making the magic happen. Can't wait to see what you do next.

Hey everyone, this is Michael from the Unresolved podcast. The Valiska Acts murders remain one of America's most enduring mysteries because of the brutality of the crimes and the eerie mystery that followed. One of the theories that surfaced in the days afterwards hinged on the witness statements provided by Faye van Guil, the daughter of matriarch Sarah's sister, and it involved the inclusion of a man known by the name of Joe Rix, who has found the very next

day with circumstantial evidence. Fay van Gilder, the sixteen year old niece of Joseph and Sarah Moore, had stated that she had seen a man on the morning before the murders. Faye told investigators that this man had been demanding to know where the More family lived. When she gave the rough description of the man to her aunt, Sarah Moore hours before the older woman's death, she was told that a man matching that description had been hanging around the

area suspiciously. So it stands to reason that whoever this man was, he was likely involved in the murders, or at the very least should have been suspected of them. At least one other witness in Valiska recalls seeing a man who would call himself Joe Rix in the town of Valiska that day asking for directions. This would become relevant the day after the murders on June tenth of nineteen twelve, when Joe Rix shuffled off of a train

wearing bloody shoes. That's right, you heard me correctly. Joe Rix had traveled to Monmouth, Illinois, from a town just fifteen or so miles south from Vliska named Clarinda. When he got off of the train stayed away. Other travelers became alarmed by the blood on his shoes, meaning that it must have been somewhat noticeable. Police were contacted and Joe Rix was detained. Fay Van Gilder, the niece of the murdered family, was transported out to Illinois along with

a county attorney to identify the man. She did not recognize Joe Rix as the man she had seen the day before. But I'd like to remind everyone listening how trustworthy eyewitness testimony can be. If someone asked you to identify a person you briefly saw a week beforehand, could you, especially if that person had done anything to change their appearance whatsoever, as Joe Rix could have possibly done either way.

Joe Rix told investigators that he had obtained the bloody shoes in a trade with another passenger on the train a tramp so to speak. Does that sound fishy to you because it sounds pretty freaking fishy to me. I mean, who had trade for bloody shoes? After fay Van Gilder wasn't able who identify the man she had seen on the morning before the murders as Joe Rix. Police never further investigated him and just simply let him go. I personally think that this was a major mistake in the

investigation and it's a reason why the story is still unresolved. Hi, we are at Thin Air podcast, which is me Daniel Calderone and me Jordan Simms. If you haven't heard of us, our podcast covers cold missing persons cases and the social issues behind them. So when our friends at Thinking Sideways asked us to discuss this creepy, murdery case, we were like, yes, awesome, But it's also somewhat different from what we regularly do. Our podcast usually features one missing person's case at a time.

Daniel and I take turns telling each story, so we don't really interact with one another in our episodes. So what we're gonna try today is I have done some research on this case. Daniel is going to kind of come in blind. Yeah, I've no, I've not. I don't even know the name of this case, right, So it's going to be an interesting experience to kind of see how it goes. Is the way that we're going to talk today is not the tone of and structure of

our regular show. We're much more serious. We don't talk back and forth. But today we're you know, we're experimenting. Yeah, I'm excited. If you want to check out one of our regular normal episodes that are not like this, we would love for you to check us out over at thin Air podcast dot com. We're also you know, Facebook, Twitter, at the Whole Shebang, So yeah, I feel free to check us out. So what is the case that we're talking about today. It's it's a very horrific, notorious crime.

This happened on June nine of nineteen twelve. In the house this night are Joe, Sarah, their four children, and the two sisters who are spending the night. Someone comes in with an acts and kills all eight people. Yeah, so these were really grizzly said of murders. They're known as the Valiska Acts murders. Uh, And today our task is not to go into detail about the specifics of the crime itself, but we have a theory, and our specific theory was the theory of George Meyer. So we're

going to launch into that right now. This is where we flash forward nineteen years or so to March one. This is when a man named Lee Roy Robinson, also known as George Myers, I think he's more known as George Myers. He's sitting in a jail in Detroit, Michigan.

He burglarized a house. All the reports I could find online we used research at the times when newspapers around this time said that he was burglarizing a home and he had been trapped inside, which to me is like kind of a stupid criminal, That's what I'm saying, is like me, or like you get your foot stuck in the dishwashing, you close yourself in a closet, hoping no one sees you, and then you get stuck in the closet,

locked in the closet, get trapped in the closet. So to me, that says he's not the smartest man alive. If you're getting trapped inside the house you're robbing, you're not like a mask. But the thing about the Morris person is that Were they smart? Okay, I don't know. Yeah, it wasn't like that was like the super high tech criminal mind thing. By I mean he covered all the windows though, and took all that time. Yeah, okay, just because he got caught doesn't mean he couldn't have committed

this crime. It to me, they seem sort of in congruent, incongruous. Can you tell me how to say that? Congressions? Okay? Perfect. So he's sitting in this jail. Detroit police receive an anonymous letter, and this letter basically says, I have the exact thing I should probably read it. If you go to the Wayne County Jail and interview a man named Myers, you will learn something about a murder in Valiska, Iowa, nineteen years ago, A particularly horrible murder. Okay, okay, I

mean it's obvious what murder they're referring to. I mean, right, it also says murder one. What do you say murders? I mean, or would you all roll them into it? I guess it could. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know either. Anyway, tricky now, So uh, they go to my years Leroy Robinson, our guy, and they say, hey, did you do this? You know, we got this letter? And at first he denies it and he's sort of, um, no, you're not going to pin this on me, how dare you?

I've never been there? Uh, And then he confesses. Newspapers at the time published what he said, and I've taken a selection of that. So this is a direct quote from his statement his confession. The basic story is that he at the time, in June of nineteen twelve, was in Kansas City, which is about two and a half hours south by car from Vliska. A man approaches him. So here's his his statement, Justice seditor, I just got out of jail. I guess I was having a drink

when a man walked up and looked me over. After a few drinks, he told me there was a family in Valiska he wanted to get rid of and that it was worth five thousand dollars to be done. I agreed to do it. He said he didn't care how it was done, except that there must be no shooting, as it would make too much noise for me. The plot thatckens with this stranger, because why why would you

have a vendetta against an entire family? So there's the theory with the senator who had this very spiteful relationship with Joe Moore. So maybe this stranger was somehow connected to the senator. But it's like he specifically says, I have a family that I need taken care of. Why on earth would you want a whole family of people killed? What did these kids do to you? You don't make a whole family murdered for a particular reason right where

a whole family would need to be for vindictive reasons. Okay, So the second part of George Meyer's statement was this. He says that he met the man in Veliska on June nine, so the same day as the crime. He takes a train there, he meets in there, and this guy says, all right, here's two thousand dollars for this crime. I'll give you the rest tomorrow. Um. And here is his quote on his statement of committing the actual crime.

I walked around a while and found an axe. I picked it up, thinking it would be a good thing in the killing. That night, I got into the house with a knife. I saw a man asleep in a downstairs bedroom. I hit him once with the axe. His wife moved a little so I hit her. Then I walked upstairs and saw four children in bed. I hit them with the blade side of the axe and ran out of the house, dropping the axe downstairs. So semi consistent but with what actually happened, but not entirely. There's

actually quite a few inconsistencies in his original statement. So the first major inconsistency, and I think this was a big thing that later made people go he didn't do this was he only confessed to killing six people. He never talked about the girls downstairs. To me, another inconsistency is the idea that he drops this ax as he is running out of the house. Yeah, to me, this was not a fast There's no running involved in this crime.

There's exactly exactly the ax was found downstairs, like he says. So he says he drops it downstairs, which is accurate. That's definitely a fact that would have been published in this crime. He says that when he went to meet the man the next day that he never showed up and he was so mad that he just left town. Okay, you killed eight people and you didn't get your money, right, you're just gonna the only reason you did it allegedly like I get who's what's your name? Yeah, what's your name?

How can I find you? How can I get ahold of you? I'm not letting get away. He's discredited pretty quickly, Okay, Um, I don't think people took him seriously as a suspect. After his confession was out. He got so many details of this case wrong that even looking at the theory, I kind of go, yeah, I don't. I don't think he did it for me. The bigger mystery is why would you confess to a crime you didn't commit? And

who sent this letter to the jail about him? To me, that's kind of this bigger mystery is why would you confess to this horrific crime that you had nothing to do with? So I guess one of the only questions that I have left is whatever happened to George Meyers? So the only thing I could find was days later, So it seemed like this story was totally hot for like a moment, and then on March so to like two days later, he's sentenced to fourteen and a half

to fifteen years in prison for this burglary that he commits. Um, there's a note in there that he around this time attempted to jail break with ten other inmates, and that's basically only a note that he was never charged for the crime in Iowa. That's it and then gone gone for me. I mean, I don't buy it, and it doesn't hold up for you. No, I don't think he had anything to do with it, But I don't understand.

I don't understand the letter, and I do not understand why you would confess to this if you have nothing to do with it. Yeah, alright, well, um so, I mean those are all the questions that I have remaining about I mean, that's basically all there is about our friend George Myers, Lee Roy slash Lee Roy Robinson. So

there you have it. If you've enjoyed listening to our banter and I want to listen to our podcast that's scripted and not interactive in any way a lot different, go to thin Air podcast dot com and listen to some of our reports on unsolved missing persons cases. And thank you for having us. Thank you Sideways team. This is Aaron and with me is Justin. We're the Generation Why podcast. How are you thinking? Sideways folks doing tonight

talking about the Veliska acts murders. One of the suspects they were looking into was a man aimed Andrew Sawyer, nothing to do with the character in the show Lost. How this comes about is there's a man named Thomas Dyer of Burlington, Iowa, and he's a foreman for the Burlington Railroad. Andy Sawyer is looking for a job and he's transient, and he approaches Thomas asked if there's any work to be had. They described Sawyer as clean shaven, he was wearing a brown suit, his shoes were dirty,

and his pants were wet. They said that Sawyer would purchase a newspaper about the axe murders and was very interested in the story. Dyer says that Sawyer slept in his clothes and kept to himself a lot. Now, maybe he slept in his clothes because he didn't have any other clothes. I don't know what they're getting out there. But the real creepy issue is they say that Sawyer slept with his ax. Do you sleep with your ax, Aaron, I don't have an ax, just in so, I don't

know if I would or not I would. I would say I probably wouldn't. Sawyer had a lot of information about the axe murders and would brag to dire in the other workman about how he got away and precisely where he ran from. He describes the area where a man jumped over a manure box and said that's how he escaped, and pointed at footprints in the ground. And he even took Dyer's son, who is named j R. Over to the other side of the car to show

him these footprints and an old tree. So we have a guy who is very interested in the murders, who sleeps with an ax which the murder weapon used. It seems to have some inside information about the details of how the murderer got away. That seems kind of suspect right right well, And as you said, he was looking for a job. It wasn't even just this that he

was talking about this case. But they said that his eyes looked mad, they looked glassy, So he was not really fitting in well with the other guys that we're working in this area. They were all nervous of him. One night, he he jumps up and says, I'll cut your goddamn heads off. I don't know if he was actually saying it to anybody or just saying it in general, but that's crazy town. I think you have to take

him at his word. You have to really respect what he's saying and take heed because they said when they first tried to put him to work, they could tell that he had lied about his experience. You know. They asked him if he was good with steam engines, and he said, oh yeah, but he had no idea what he was doing. So then they had him sharpening sharpening piles. They were driving these poles into the river. They said with his ax, he could sharpen things up pretty quick.

So he was obviously good with his ax, you know, the one he slept with. The Only reason why I guess I don't feel he's a legit suspect is the officials say that he was arrested for vagrancy in another part of town the night of the murders. So if that's true, obviously he has a pretty good alibi. I guess we're all into true crime. We're all interested in activities that go around us, So him buying the newspaper

and reading about the murders maybe shouldn't be that suspect. Also, maybe he read something in the newspaper that talked about the escape route that the murderer took. I don't know. Well. His co workers contacted the sheriff, and the sheriff spoke with him, but they didn't arrest Sawyer. They let him go, and it seemed as though at least his coworkers thought he could have committed these murders because they thought he

was crazy and he loved his acts too much. But he ended up quitting and going back home to his family, of all things, So he did have a family. It wasn't like he was just off on his own. Uh, he was just looking for work. I guess if they vetted him properly, then I'm gonna disregard him as a suspect. But if that's only going off of the arrest for vacancy, yeah, they did vet his stories. The sheriff supposedly went through with him his timeline, where he was, what he had

been up to, as best they could. In the end, they're always be people who look at at Andy Sawyer and say, oh, he's a very good suspect. But at least as far as law enforcement at the time was concerned, he doesn't really check out to be a good suspect.

But if you're looking for someone just crazy enough to commit such a horrible series of murders in a home like as to what happened in this case, Yeah, and he does seem crazy, but these are the accounts of his coworkers, and um, just like any other case, we don't know what he was going through at the time, and so since we don't have interviews with people who knew him for years and years, we don't get a good complete picture of Andrew Sawyer. We just have what

was he like around the time of the murders. Well, he was crazy and he slept with his acts. Happy anniversary thinking sideways. Do you guys like that? Okay, well that was pretty awesome first off, very fun. Thank you. That was totally cool. Now it's so great theorizing there.

And uh and first off, I think we had to thank the Captain and Nick from Truth Crime Garage, Robin Murdered from Trail Want Colds and gosh who else, Alian Charlie from The Insight from Already Gone, Nina, Thanks Nina, and of course from Unresolved, and Daniel from Thin Air and our besties Aaron and Justin from john Way. Yeah, once again we've got him interning. Yeah, you guys yeah, no, great job. Way to point the finger of guilt all of you. And we like that now. Um and so well,

you guys have any favorites yourselves among the suspects. Um No, I don't know. It's hard because I mean, really honestly, I think they are all good suspects, but none of them are great. And there there hears to be a lot of ax murdering going on in that that neck of the country at that time, So it's really difficult. You know. You think about like Henry Lee Moore and he there's killing. But then there's Andy Sawyer who likes to sleep with his ax. So I mean, Andy's kind

of my favorite, just because the weirdo factor. I don't know, I just I don't think he was a necessarily this sort of thing. I mean, I think he just had some issues going. You know. Well, I actually, if I if I lived in in a time when there were axe murders murders running around all over the place, I'd probably sleep with my ax too. If you're not a

revolver or something, I can't really blame Andy for that. Um. Yeah, I don't know that the only one of these these people that actually went to trial was, of course, the Reverend Kelly, who actually confessed, although his confession is a dubious quality. I had heard that he actually confessed to the sinking of the Lusitania. Not seriously. I think this guy everything, Yeah, I think he has some issues. He was also a big burv, so yeah, I wanted to

throw in more. One more suspect, by the way, oh boy, yeah, one more suspect. My murder suspect is Josiah Moore, who,

by the way, it was never actually positively identified. I mean I read the testimony from the doctor that I and they were all essentially they went into the bedroom and they pulled back the covers and then they saw him all with his face obliterated and everything, and the doctor said, yeah, that's Joe, and that's I think that's I don't think they ever actually Obviously, dental records are out,

facial recognition is right out. I don't also nineteen twelve, so it's not as though like fingerprint fingerprinting was in its infancy. His fingerprints would not have been on a

file anywhere. How did identify the body. But if that's the doctor, the doctor may have seen Joe with his shirt off, and I don't know, maybe Joe had a you know, a set of scars or birthmarks or something like that, you know, very defining features might standing from the testimony was that it was just assumed right off the bat by everybody that it was it was Josiah

and Sarah in the Bedday. Well, here's a question. If it was Josiah, why would he mean this series of murders when the neighbor girls were over killed him too? If he wanted to kill his entire family what he snapped and that children's day exactly. I'm not saying this series has no holes in it, but I mean it doesn't. I was gonna say it's kind of like Swiss cheese. Yeah, it does. It does, But that would explain one thing, which is why the killer went to extra links to

obliterate his face more than anybody else's. Of course, it could be the killer especially hated him, or it could be the killer had it could be And here's another another possibility, and one that I actually think is the strongest one, is that I think it was a random serial killer. And uh it, maybe it may mend this guy might have had issues with his own dad, and so dad and his family came in for a little

extra abuse. But if if you look at some of the other acts murders, and I'm not the first person to actually try to tie this in with a lot of other random acts murders that took place across the Midwest, but there was a lot of murdering. There are a lot of them, and what they all had in common was their proximity to railroad tracks. At least riding the rails was a common way to get around back in

those days. And so without getting into, you know, incredible detail about all these other murders, let's just say that, you know, I think that there might just be a tie in there, and it could. It's entirely possible. This was just a random thing. This guy might have gotten off the train, walked up the street towards their house, trying door knobs until he found the house that was unlocked and that didn't have a dog, and just walked in and did his thing, and then just walk back

down to the train tracks and left. Yeah. I mean, maybe my question then would be why the master bedroom seemed to have been the furthest away from the door, So why go all the way in and murder your way all the way out on the chance that somebody might wake up and notify the rest of the house. Why wouldn't you start from the beginning and work your

way back. Oh, I think that if it were me, what I would do first is I would identify the probably the parents, and killed them first, because those are the people, especially the dad, we are most likely to have a gun or be able to overpower you or whatever. Yeah, so that's why I would definitely kill mom and dad first. I would. Yeah, of course, you know, I'm not a killer. I don't know, but uh so, yeah, well that's a

good point. And you know, I think you guys, that's why you guys should be glad we're doing commercials, because that that means I have a financial incentive not to kill you. Yeah, so yeah, keep those commercials coming kids. Otherwise, Yeah, old, enough of those dark theories things. But that's that's that's my theory essentially, is that it probably was a random dude you guys. Now, okay, well let's wrap this one up then. First of all, happy anniversary, Happy anniversary, thanks

for something special just for you. Yeah, of course you probably have your own theories out there. Uh so you can reach us via email l at Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. We also have a website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, where you can find our episodes and download them. That are all. They're also links to merch at red Bubble and Zazzle. You can get shirts and mugs and all kinds of cool stuff.

And where else. We're on iTunes. Find us on iTunes if you haven't already, and you probably have, but if you are so inclined, give us a rating and a review, preferably good ones, and you can stream us from all kinds of places including we Stitcher is a big one, and a lot of others. And where else social media. Facebook. We're on Facebook where you can like, join the group

and like the pages. That's the way, that's the order it works in Yeah, it is, Yeah, And of course we're on Reddit where we are thinking sideways, and we are on Twitter where we are thinking sideways. What am I forgetting, guys? I can't think of anything. I think that's yeah, Wow, you did that all from memory. Good jobs. I'm getting better. If it's only taken four year, that that's it. And again we want to hear from you guys.

If you live in Bliska or nearby. I would love to hear from you, especially who your favorite theories are. My understanding is that the town kind of split between Methodists and Presbyterians after this whole thing happened, because the Moors were Presbyterians and the chief, the chief accusing was Frank Jones, who was a Methodist, and so that there was a big apparently it was a big controversy for

years in this town. Um and yeah, that's but other than that, Okay, So if you're either a Methodist or Presbyterian from Bliska, we'd like to hear from your side of the story. Uh, all right until next week to to lou Talculator. Guys, Bie guys,