Who Committed the 1912 Villisca Ax Murders?

on X murders UM, and Wikipedia had thirty listed. I'm surprised. That's if there's like ten mentioned in this this article alone. M M, well, we'll see why there are so many X murders. This this UM. This whole researching the Viliska X murder kind of solved a question I've had that I didn't realize I knew had how to pronounce Vliska. We just settled that by calling the Valiska town hall. That was a pretty great moment. Right before we recorded, I was like, are you sure there's a Valissa? Josh

called the town hall and lied. Well, it was kind of a bet that's just settled. We just never put money on it. So if you are whoever answers the phone at the Vliska Town Hall, um, first of all, thank you. You got a call today, so congratulations. And second of all, you just spoke to an internet celebrity. I don't know, man. I think Valisca is on the map and it is a d percent because of this this murder. Well, if you just type in Valisca, almost

all you see is stuff about the Sacks murder. Well, yeah, the site of Valiska, Iowa dot com is entirely dedicated to the Sacs murder. It's it's a it's a pretty big deal. Yeah, no, it's just it doesn't mention it at all. But all the copy is just in the outline of the shape of an x. They just talk about like their boys club and stuff that they're doing their Fourth of July prade, But it's in the shape of an X. The population and elevation is in a

drop of blood coming off of the axe. It's his population, not as much as it was on June nine. That's morbid nineteen twelve. Did you did you hear about this before? Well, I think after hint k effect. We had some emails from probably local Iowans Iowan's, Iowan's, Iowania Nights, uh saying, hey, you guys should if you're into the not into X murders, but if you're into reporting on grizzly crimes, you should

check out the one we had in nineteen twelve. Yeah, they were right, man, this is so before we get into it, I think it goes without saying, listeners that this is a very horrific grizzly crime. They we're going to talk about in some detail, right listen at your own discretion. X murder is in the title, everybody. I just want to make sure we cover ourselves there. This is one of the most brutal crimes in American history, and a lot of people don't know about it. Man.

Well let's let's let's stop jabbering and get this criming. Okay, all right? Where where was Where was this from? By the way? Uh Well, one of the articles we researched was from Mike dash the Smithsonian Magazine. They do great work, great work. Um. There's another guy named and named Ed Epperley who we have to give a shout at to, who has like a whole site called asked Ed that's dedicated to this murder. Guys research to for like fifty five years or something like that, write one of the

two books. Probably Sure. He's widely known as the expert on the Veliska X murder. He knows everything there is to know, and he's got a really fascinating So if you're even remotely into true cry him in this thing floats your boat. Go check out eds site and you will just spend days pouring over. Yeah. One thing I realized in researching this was it was way easier to

get away with murder in nineteen twelve. Um. Yeah, there's there's a lot of um agreement that had this been done today, they would have caught the guy very quickly. But yeah, nineteen twelve it was like you wear gloves and you just confounded. There are only means of detection. Basically, it's not from an eyewitness pretty much. Yeah, so we keep saying nineteen twelve specifically, Like you said, June nine, twelve in a little town, Well, it was one of

those things where it crossed over into midnight. So je depends on if you're still at party in Potato Potato, Aliska Melissa right, but at five ohway East Second Street in Valiska, Iowa, which is in the county of Montgomery in the south east of the state. I believe not as far from here as I thought. No. I just looked on a map and I was like, wait, I was there. I thought. I was like, basically in Canada, where is it this more in the middle of the country.

I did not realize that, like, it doesn't look further west than like Dallas. I I can believe that. But it was the north that gets you, the northern, the northern ward direction, that's what gets your share. So on this night j and this little house, there were eight people sleeping. You were a mom and a dad, Joe and Sarah Moore, and then there four kids, um what were their names, Charles I believe Herman, Catherine, Boyd and Paul.

And then downstairs there were two additional people sleeping in the house, little Lena and Iina Stillinger and they were just having to sleep over. Yeah, they were friends of Catherine, the oldest daughter for the only daughter I guess, of the moors Um and the whole group had been at church their Presbyterians, and they had been at church Um that day it was Sunday for a special children's day Mass that Mrs Moore had helped put on and the

kids had all participated in. And at that mass, Catherine had asked her two friends Lena and Ana the sisters, to spend the night, And so they came back home with the Moors from the children's day Mass, and by I think ten or ten thirty, they were all at home in bed and the lights were out and the house was settled and dark. Yeah. Man, the Stillinger girls. I mean, this is all very sad. But anytime I hear of a faithful turn like oh yeah, we just spent the night there that night and things go bad,

it always I don't know, bothers me more. Yeah, for sure, twists of fate are terrible, especially when they resulting terror deaths. So uh, very late at night, like you said, after midnight, Um, someone crept in to the back of the house which was not locked. That's stuff for debate. Oh yeah, all right, locked or unlocked. They got in without raising suspicion. Two story house. And this is a small town, this is um.

There were I don't even think two thousand people living there then, and I think even less now and there we're back then. Yeah, one of those places. Um, so this person and I think ball accounts, we can safely say it was a man creeps in this house with an ax from the property. Yeah, it was Joe Moore's own ax. Yeah. And as we will see, apparently, Um, they called these weapons of convenience because back in the day, every single house in the US had an ax, like

in the front or backyard. That just explained it. That was the question I didn't realize i'd had. Why were there's so many axe murderers at a certain period of time in American history? Is because everybody had an ax. Yeah, and you would leave it just you know, like chopped into the stump that you use as the chopping block or whatever. It'd be like a weapon of convenience. Yeah, these days you would have to kill people with like a mailbox, just some something that everyone has, so like

a silicon spatula or a high speed internet cable. There you choke somebody with that. Yeah, Okay, all joking aside. So this this dude creeps in there, He's got this axe. He gets and this is very key here, he gets the lamp, an oil lamp from the dresser inside the house. He takes off the chimney the glass, you know, and it takes it off, bends the wick and half so the flame is smaller, lights the lamp and then turns

it down really low, and then commences creeping. Yeah, with an axe in hand and this low light um oil lamp and the other chimney lest lamp, which will see is a big clue. Yeah, So he goes up the stairs, apparently, so he passes the stillinger girls. First goes up the stairs.

He passes the children's bedroom, and then opposite I believe the landing from the children's bedroom are Joe and Sarah's room, or is Joe and Sarah's room, and they're sleeping, and he sets the oil lamp down I believe at the foot of the bed, and he raises the axe over his head and using the flat the flat end flat side of the axe, not the sharp blade side, but the other side, he delivers a blow to Joe's head. Joe, I believe was lying on his back, even though Smithsonian

article says something different. Yeah, raise it so high he even gouged the ceiling correct, Yeah, brought it down hard on Joe's head. Probably killed him instantly from that one blow. Then apparently he didn't disturb Sarah at all because he did the same thing to her. And both of them were found in a position that they would have been sleeping, and there wasn't like the beg clothes weren't ruffled, There wasn't their arm was enough to defend themselves. They died

in their sleep, it appeared, right. Yes, So he kills the parents, um, either immediately or they they died, probably pretty quickly, leaves the room and goes next door. And this is really just almost too awful to talk about. But he kills all the children in their sleep, one by one, but again without waking any of them. Yeah, by the time he got to the Stillinger girls downstairs, um, it seemed evidence points to the fact that they may

have awakened. Finally one of them, the older one Linna I believe is the older one, and then he dispatches with both of them in the same manner. Yeah, grizzly, awful, awful murder. So that's enough, right, This guy just went around and murdered eight people, six of them children under the age of twelve or twelve are under um with the blunt end of an ax. That's bad enough, but then it just gets a million times worse. And this is probably why this ax murder is is just part

of American history, whether we like it or not. So what the guy does next is, um, well, he took the axe and he flips it over, and he takes them the sharp side, and he goes around and he starts bashing everybody's head in one by one. Um. Apparently Joe was later found to have been struck as many as thirty times in the head with the ax. Um, just one by one. He went around and completely caved in the head and face of all of his victims

methodically throughout the house after they were dead. Which is a bizarre, horrible thing to do. Yeah, so then it gets a little bit strange. He Um. He goes around to the rooms and all over the house really and does different things in each one. He covers windows with sheets and things. He covers mirrors. All the mirrors in the house are covered. He covered the faces of I

believe all the victims, right, yeah, one way or another. Um, I believe all of their faces were covered with either sheets or pillow cases, or I think in the case of the girls, he pulled their dresses up over their faces. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. Uh. Yeah, it's very um, I think in the serial killer or psychopath mode, though I've heard of stuff like that before. Though right like, um, you get the idea that they don't the murderer doesn't

want the victim looking at him. Yeah, which may also explain why you bashed their faces in here, know. Um. So the guy apparently hang out for a little while. Um. He does other weird things though. The bacon, he grabbed a two pound slab of bacon, and I saw elsewhere that there was another slab of bacon found in the house. But there was at least one two pounds slab of bacon that he wrapped in a dish towel and then

left on the floor of one of the bedrooms. There was a bowl of bloody water that was later found he washed himself off. He washed off the axe, um, although he left it behind. Um. And he apparently hung out for a little while in the house before leaving sometime before five am. So the murders took place around midnight and then come five am the house is dark still it's five am, so that's not the weirdest thing.

Although we're talking about Iowa, so plenty of people were up at five, including the neighbor, a woman named Mary Peckham, and she noticed that, um, there wasn't anybody up at the house, which was a little odd. It was a Monday morning now, and um, by seven she thought it was just downright eerie that there was no sign of life at the house. She went over and let the

Moore's chickens out so that they could pick around and feed. Um. She called Joe Moore's um store and said, hey, has Joe showed up and found from the employee that he hadn't. And finally one of those two gets in touch with a guy named Ross Moore, Joe Moore's brother, and Ross comes over and unlocks the door. The front door is locked, and um, he goes inside and he comes almost immediately rushing back out, calling for the local marshal to be called. Yeah,

basically he gets Hank Horton is the marshall's name. He gets him on the scene, and this this is where things just kind of go berserk. It's it's such a small town, such a grizzly crime. Um, any chances of preserving a crime scene. And this is nineteen twelve. I don't even know how much a small town like this

knows about preserving a crime scene at the time. Um, but any hopes were lost within those first few hours after the discovery, because by all accounts, there were a hundred or more people that went through that house, from doctors to corners to investigators who just townspeople, right that were allowed to just go in there and check things out. Yeah.

So the the first group that comes with the the uh, the Marshal Hank Horton, right, was to two doctors and a minister, Jay Clark Cooper, right, great doctor name j Clark Cooper and Edgar Huff and Wesley Ewing who was the minister of the church. They were the first contingent to make it into the house after Rossmore came running out. Yeah. So they go in and uh they know enough to not disturb things too much. Another guy gets brought in, um l A Linquist. He's the coroner. Uh. He tries

to take some notes about the crime scene. But the person who um got the most information was another doctor. His name was um Yeah F. S. Williams was the one who examined the body and at a later in quest. Um he had the most details to offer about the bodies, of positions, all that stuff, So when those guys walked in, they were at least well versed enough to know not disturbed things as much as possible, or at least more

than the towns people knew. And f S. Williams allegedly came out of the house pretty shaken and said, don't go in there, boys, well you'll regretted to your last day. And the townspeople said, nuts to you. We're going inside.

We want to see some dead bodies. And it probably till their last day, yeah, because they not only messed with the crimes and they poked around there was supposedly the town drunk took fragments of Joe Moore's skull as mementos like the The crime scene was toast, like you said, if if it could have ever been preserved, it was toast. And even the local druggist showed up with his camera to help preserve the crime scene because he heard that

the townspeople were were tramping all over it. Um and Ross Moore, not understanding what he was doing through the guy out thought he was just being a ghoul. Trying to get pictures. So the crime scene is utterly and completely lost. Yeah, and uh, one of the things about Valesca, almost said Vassila, is that it was a train town. There were about thirty trains every day that went through there.

And so by this time, unless this person was local and maybe hiding out locally, by all accounts, the murderer had probably hopped the train was out of there at that time, but they didn't They didn't realize this until they had already released some bloodhounds. They searched the countryside. Um, there was like a pretty pretty big search to find whoever did this, and they didn't find any. And so

the town was just terrified. Town of two thousand people, eight including six children, had just been murdered with an ax in your town. And now the sun is starting to go down and nobody's been caught. All right, So let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about suspect number one right after this. Okay, So suspect number one, UM might be a little surprising when you first hear that he was a state senator, very um well well well respected by some as a local businessman,

and um a very prominent Methodist. It seems the town was pretty sharply divided between Methodist and Presbyterian. You know those days, and that stuff mattered to those people. Um, and his name was Frank Jones, and uh, Methodists immediately said, no, uh, he's he's got to be innocent. This is a fine upstanding member of our church. Presbyterians are like, now, it's got to be him. Uh. And at first I was like, well, why would it be the state centator? None of this

makes sense. There were a couple of big things that made people believe that he could be the guy. Joe Moore worked for him for seven years and was one of his best salesman on his farm equipment team, and apparently he left in nineteen o seven uh and was not too happy with the work hours, which were sixteen hour days, six days a week. Who would be it's like us um, and then set up a rival business and even took one of the clients, the John Deer Company. Yeah that was a big one. I'm sure so big

that UM. When Sarah Peckham called, Uh, Joe Moore's UM employee to tell him the news, Joe Moore's employee called the John Deer people in Omaha to let them know they were like the third people called after the bodies were discovered. So he takes John Deer with him. Um. So this set up an obvious rivalry and uh, worse than that apparently, um. And I don't know if this is super confirmed, but at least the rumor was that

Joe Moore had slept with Jones's daughter in law. From what I understand, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's been that's understood is true. That's true. So sleuch with his daughter in law who apparently kind of had several affairs in town and was not very discreet. Yeah, apparently, according to Mike Dash at Smithsony and she used to set up her um, her meet and greets over the phone. It's called ason. Oh that's right, um over the phone.

And this was at a time when there was a switchboard operator running the phones in the town, sat there and listen. Yeah, and this lady obviously didn't care. So um. Apparently it was pretty well known that that Joe Moore had had an affair with F F. Jones daughter in law was huge. You put those two things together and friends, the fact that apparently they used to cross to the other side of the street to keep from from from encountering one another. Um that that's that's a big deal

in that town. You small town, right, So suspicion fell on to f apparently from what I understand, within a couple hours of the bodies being discovered. Yeah, And and suspicion not that he may have done it, that Jones was actually the killer. But maybe Jones because he was fifty seven years old and probably had some pretty good money. Clearly, Oh yeah, he was wealthy. He was building a bank, overseeing his new bank being built when he got the

news of the bodies. When you're building the bank, you're you're rolling in. Yeah. So everyone thought that he probably hired somebody out to kill him. Uh. And there was a very Burns detective agency. Um that was a detective named James Wilkerson who said, you know what, I think, you're right. I think he hired someone. I think that man's name was William Mansfield, William Blackie Mansfield. It was already, Um no, he wasn't already. He would later be I believe,

convicted of an axe murder himself. Yeah, which is probably one of the chief reasons he was suspect. Well, no, that that came a couple of years after. I believe that was fourteen or fifteen that he murdered his wife, her parents, and their child, their child, his childet with an ax right to see. I was a bad dude. But there was one problem with James Wilkerson's theory. Blackie Mansfield had um an air tight alibi. He was in Illinois,

hundreds of miles away when the crimes occurred. Not only did the foreman vouch for him, but the payroll chords showed very clearly that he had not been in Viliska that day, um, and couldn't have done it. Yeah, so he was exonerated, but um, a lot of townspeople still thought that that. You know how it was back then and still is today to a certain degree, sure, especially in a small town. Yeah, people were convinced that he was a guy, and a lot of people probably went

to their graves thinking that. So even though Chuck that Mansfield was exonerated, and and like you said, a lot of people thought that um Jones F Jones apparently went by f um did have something to do with it. That still in your girls, father and Ross Moore, Joe Moore's brother both thought F. Jones was behind this, um and and Wilkinson made it like his personal mission to take Jones down and apparently ruined his his political career, cost him re election to the state Senate. I would

think that probably happened anyway, just from suspicion. But maybe. But I think like there's something between townspeople suspecting you and a detective like bringing evidence against you and getting a grand jury to indict you. It was like the good old days when you could be suspected of an x murder and still win a Senate seat, right exactly, Um the uh the But Jones he didn't win re election and uh yeah, apparently to their dying day, some

people assumed that it was him behind it. Another candidate, candidate suspect candidates not the right word, Uh Lynn George Jacqueline Kelly, Uh, the man with four names. He went by George Kelly though. He was an Englishman, um, which is probably a little weird at the time, be living there, no one had ever seen an Englishman in Iowa. Maybe Uh. He was a preacher though, and it says uh in this Smithsonian article a known sexual deviant. Um. He definitely

had some mental health problems. But um, there are some things in his case where it's sort of we're suspicious, and others that made him not a great suspect, one of which he was a little guy. He was five to one hundred nineteen pounds, so maybe not the best um suspect for swinging and ax like that. Yeah, although you know he could have been strong as an ox. You never know. Sure, thumbs of little guys, you know, Yeah, but they're usually good with like jiu jitsu sleeper holds

rather than axe swinging. You know, they just scramble up on top of them before you know what. Their legs are around your neck and you're losing contoe, their thumbs are in your eyeballs, that kind of thing. Uh, yeah,

so fair enough. But he was left handed, and the corner Linquist did say that, you know, from their analysis his rudimentry is that might be in nineteen twelve, that could probably at least determine that it was a left handed assailant from the blood spatter, I believe on the walls it's good good for them for being that advanced. So there were some other things that um that implicated George Kelly one. He was in Valiska. He was a

traveling preacher. He and his wife toured around Um and they were in Valiska than the day of the murder Um. They were actually at the children's service that the that the moors and the still injured girls were at Um. Again, this guy was a sex maniac, is what he was known as. Yeah, I kind of wonder about that, and I guess if there were. He placed an ad and this is in the nineteen tens. He placed an ad in the Omaha World Harald looking for a a stenographer

who would be willing to pose as a model. And when one, one woman named Justumine Hodgson, replied to his ad, he sent her a letter. Apparently he's quite lude, so much so that the court that that heard the case against him um said that it was so obscene, lewd, lascivious, and filthy as to be offensive to this honorable court and improper to be spread upon the record thereof. I really want to know what was in that. Last One of the things was that the lady would be required

to type in the nude. This is the nineteenth ten. No, That's what I'm saying. I wonder how it would be judged by today's standard, although I mean by today's standard. If you sent a potential job candidate a letter that said going to require you to be typing in the nude, yeah, you would get in some trouble for that. Sure, I just don't know that you would say it was obscene luden Lecity, I'm with you. They'd say that's kin, But

I think the it's okay. George Kelly was a kinky traveling preacher who had his wife in toil and he was in Viliska at the time of the murders, and he left that next morning on a train, right, But there was supposedly a witness that said that he had a very incriminating um statement when he got off of that train that very morning. Yeah, he apparently referenced the murders, but he had left town before they found out about

the murders. But then later on those people recanted those statements. Correct. So when when Frank Jones F F. Jones had a grand jury brought to hear evidence against him, he was exonerated. Um. Same thing. Not with George Kelly. Actually, I should say he was actually the only person to ever go to trial for these murders, and he was tried twice. The first time the jury found eleven to one in his favor. The second jury acquitted him entirely. Um, the evidence against

him was just too flimsy, and uh, it probably wasn't him. Yeah, I mean, the the the idea was there, like he was at that church service, he's a pervert. He saw these kids in the service, he went back and peeked into their house and camped out in their barn. And the evidence there was there was some hay bales in the barn that had depressions, as if someone had been laying on them, and if you'd laid down and one of them that was a people right there in the

barn where you could see the house. This is all pretty flimsy. There was also, though, I think one of the reasons why the case was brought against him. He was specifically tried for the murder of Lena Stillinger, and

that's Um. That's noteworthy because although they don't say in the official court record directly that she may have been sexually assaulted or that some sort of sex crime had been committed against her, Um, supposedly she had been found with her nightclothes hiked up over her waist, like above her waist, her undergarments have been taken off and stuffed under the bed, and then her her legs had been arranged so that her genitalia was prominent. Right. Um, that

was done after she had been murdered. And I think that's one of the reasons why they suspected George Kelly. Um because to add a sexual dimension to this brutal murder. Or they said, well, this guy's just just enough of a sex maniac for that to be possible. Yeah, Oh, I forgot about this fact though. He actually returned a week later and post this the Scotland Yard detective so he could get a tour of the house. That is

so George Kelly. Well, it's definitely one of those things that makes you go, wait a minute, uh, return to the scene of the crime. You lied to get in there and look at the house, but apparently everyone wanted to go look at the house. So it's plus what's posing? You know, We've seen so many like cartoony movies that like somebody gets like the deer Stalker hat and a pipe and says they're from Scotland Yard. Posing could be like somebody saying like, oh, you must be from Scotland.

Yard like, am I grunting in the affirmative? Yeah, that's true. I guess that technically constitutes posing in the real world. Apparently signed a confession. Um, oh yeah, that was a big one too. Yeah, but I mean the confession literally said, I killed the children upstairs first and the children downstairs last. I knew God wanted me to do it this way. Lay utterly came to mind, and I picked up the axe, went into the house and killed them. Um. But you

know he took it back later. I was like, you know, all that very specific stuff I said about killing his family, I didn't really do it. So he was exonerated. Um. So, so far, the little town of Aliska has looked around and said, we couldn't find any tramps. So who's the person that hated Joe more the most ff Jones? While it wasn't him, Who's the weirdest pervert we can find? Who was in town of the time, George Kelly? It wasn't him, So they didn't know a lot of people

went to their graves dying not knowing what happened. And we still don't know what happened. But with the hindsight of UM, I guess, modern forensic techniques, modern profiling, and the work of dedicated historians like Ed Epperley, we have something of a clearer picture emerging, and that picture seems to be centering on the serial killer. We'll talk about that theory more right after this. All right, so we've ruled out these local suspects local ish I guess in

Kelly's case. UM. And now the modern take on this is that this was a serial killer because, uh, in nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve, there were a lot of axe murders uh in the Midwest, at least ten UM everywhere from Colorado Springs to Ellsworth, Kansas, UM, and many of them had uh similar traits. Yeah, like some very

startlingly similar traits, right, but not all of them. And some of them are like and we'll go through these, but some were like, well, in five of them, these same things happened, and two of them these same things happen. So it makes me wonder if it wasn't if they're kind of grouping too many of these together. This does Ed Epperly actually whittles it down to five, including Vliska. I thought five so there's three that happened in nineteen eleven.

There was one that happened in Colorado Springs, Colorado that supposedly kicked the whole thing off, followed by Momoth in Illinois, I forgot the s is silent, right yeah, and then Ellsworth, Kansas. Then there was one in Paola, Kansas, and then the last one in Valiska. And those five crimes have some

similarities that make them really really suspicious. That the idea of just like five different people or even a couple of different people um separately committing these crimes, and as ed Epper's Lee puts it, kind of dismissively the idea that these were local vendettas or you know, um that that people were like argument farming or something. Yeah, that's not what these these crimes reflect at all. They reflect the work of a like just a straight up nut

job psychopath who um are few and far between. So that the fact that these things occurred between October of nineteen eleven in June of nineteen twelve um suggests strongly that that there was one person doing them. Yeah. Well that was the final one in Columbia, Missouri in December nineteen twelve. Um, and one of the theories is that a man named Henry Lee Moore uh killed Georgia Moore in Columbia, Missouri, who was his mother Mary Wilson. Um,

so is that the guy. It would be weird to commit a series of murders and then finish up with your own family, right, Usually it's the other way around. Yeah, right, So, like, if you're gonna go off on a killing spree, usually start you practice on your family first, you get a feel for it. Right. Um, this guy, Henry Lee Moore, aside from having three names, is not a good suspect for the serial killer, right. Um. He apparently wanted the

deeds to his family house. And um, like you said that, it's very rare for a serial killer to go back, you know, to deal with the three names. They don't all have three names, no, I know, but so many of them do. It's well, no, the news reports it that way to distinguish them every other Henry Moore in the world. So like everyone's always like serial killers have three names. Now they're just reported that way. That's awesome. Yeah, I love him when things are just explained. Yeah, I

wrapped up in a nice little bow. Thanks for that. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, he I think went by Lee Oswald. I think you're right. Yeah. So if anyone ever write a story about Charles Wayne Bryant, we're in trouble. Um. Oh yeah, I'm in trouble. I would kill you. Thanks man. I wouldn't kill you either. Hey, you want to shake on it? Jerry witnessed. Um, So the Henry Lee Moore thing,

he's almost like a red herring. Like a lot of people say, well, he was the one, he was a serial killer behind it, because the serial the serial murders started um right after he got out of prison in Kansas, and then they ended right after he got caught in Columbia, Missouri with his family. Yeah, I mean kind of makes sense, it does, but that's where the whole thing really begins in it. And so a lot of people say, well, it wasn't hand really more so, it wasn't a serial killing.

Well plus uh sorry, but his his killing his own family was about obtaining the deeds to his family house. Yeah, that's what I was saying. So that was greed motivated, not not a serious psychopathic, sex based serial killer spree. Right, This guy was just a jerk Um, so, since Henry Lee Moore is associated with the serial murder theory, once somebody then finds out that it wasn't Henry ly more, they stopped thinking it was a serial murderer. And Epperly says,

not so fast. Wait, wait, wait, just because Henry Lee Moore's out of the equation doesn't mean there's not a serial killer involved. He's like, consider the similarities between these five cases, and they're they're they're pretty thick. Right. In a couple of the cases, Um, there were oil lamps found where chimney. The chimneys were removed and set aside, and the wicks were bent in half to keep the light low. That's a big one. Axes were used in four of the five, but he says that's just probably

a matter of convenience. A pipe, I think was used in the Mamouth, Illinois case, which is again an implement of convenience to right, don't have an axe, handy, go for a lead pipe. Yeah, he probably didn't bring that with you. Um, there were tell them about the tell them about the mirrors, Chuck, Well, I mean it's several of these places the mirrors were covered up. I mean, that's a big one mirrors and windows, and in one

of the places the telephone was covered. And the thought there is is that, uh, like you said earlier, like they don't want the victims to be watching them even after death, or to be seen in the mirrors and windows being covered. But the phone appearently it was one of those old box phones on the wall that you that you crank, and it has the two it sort of looks like a face when you look at it. It has like looks like two eyes and a nose.

And so the thought was that that even looks like a face to the Drange serial killer, so they'll cover that up as well, because nothing else makes much sense. You know, you're not gonna in nineteen twelve, you're not getting phone calls after midnight. You probably probably don't get more than a couple of phone calls a week in nineteen twelve. Most people I have phones, Yeah, And throwing

a sheet over it wouldn't like disable it anyway. No. Um. There was another female victim, a young female victim in Mammouth who was found basically the same way that Um. Lena Still Injury was found Um with her her nightgown thrown up over waist and her undergarments removed. UM And apparently there was a similarity in I believe Mammoth and Veliska where and one other town to where the killer was went on to try to kill again. Yeah, this

was the most interesting to me. Either successfully did kill again. There was one where he went to an adjacent house whose backyard connected the first murderhouse and then went in and killed another family right afterwards. That was Colorado Spring. And then in Vliska there the telephone operator who was like sleeping in the telephone switchboard headquarters because no calls were coming through. She reported the UM the door knob being tried about two hours after the more house UM

members were murdered. Yeah, like heard footsteps come up to the door, try to open it, and then heard the footsteps leave. That's a little shaky, But this, the last one was the one that kind of sent the chill up my spine. It was the one in Kansas specifically, you said, Paola, I bet you there are people they're laughing because it's probably pronounced Paula or something probably, but who knows p a l a Kansas, there was a second family UM Mrs uh Longmire, the Longmire family. Um,

they were awakened. She and her daughter at about midnight to the sound of broken glass, went downstairs and saw a dude in their dining room who had just broken uh oil lamp chimney and then got the heck out of there through a window. So they actually saw a guy. So think about that, Chuck, think about that they saw they woke up and I saw the man who was about to probably bludgeon them all to death with an axe. Um, this is probably. And these were all trained towns, so

they were all linked by train depots. So by all accounts, there was a train going serial killer uh for a couple of years in the Midwest, killing people hopping trains, never ever caught in the nuts. It is nuts, and that the Valiska axe murders were probably one of his

crazy But we'll never know, you know. When you say stuff like that, or when you see stuff like that in print to like will never know who it was, it makes you wonder, like what kind of technology are we going to have in the future, Like will we never know? Or are we gonna come up with something one day where we're like, oh, it was this guy, Like now we know, you know, um, who who knows the future knows? That's who knows. We should do one on ed Geen. That's like kind of one of the

big big ones we haven't covered. I got a couple more too. I don't want to I don't want to even tease him yet. Okay, okay, true crime. Maybe we'll do one and uh like this October. We used to do multiple kind of creepy episodes. I think we did last time too. Looks October. You all right, we'll look forward to another ghoulish serial killer type thing. Okay, yeah, we did hinder Kfec I think. Okay. Uh. If you want to know more about the Valista X murders, well

again strongly recommend you go look up Ed Epperley. You can read the Smithsonian article, um, the X Murderer Who Got Away, which was great. Uh, and there were plenty of other articles that we relied on that we love. Thank you for those. UM. In the meantime, you can also hang out with us on how stuff works dot com and our famous search bars. It's as a search bar. Got it in there. It's sort for the listener mail. Hey, guys, love the show, and now I have even more reason

to promote your podcast. Everyone. I know. I work in a small family business with my cousin. In this previous January, started experiencing severe gastro intestinal issues. Yeah, I remember this one. Uh, it was like from yesterday. I won't go into detail, but for months afterward, he saw specialists after specialists hoping to find out the route, tested for Crohn's ulcers, ibs, everything under the sun, none of which had a positive result or diagnosis. Couldn't focus on anything, no energy, took

a ton of time away from work. He felt totally lost and even sought the help of a psychologist because of his diminished work ethic deteriorating quality of life. Do you see where this is going? People? I think listeners might know. And he was souther one day last month. Uh, he was Southern. Actually. He came in after a doctor's appointment and said he developed an iron deficient anemia to add to his list of issues. At first, it sounded disconnected until and I kid you, this isn't all caps.

I kid you not, Josh and Chuck. I was listening to your Hookworm episode that day. Man. When he got to the part about the aggressive iron deficient anemia, I lost my mind. I looked up hookworm infection symptoms immediately brought it to my cousin and he had every last symptom. His doctor prescribed a medication and he is currently being de wormed. From the first day he started his treatment, he had a noticeable increase in both mood and energy.

I don't know how these symptoms could have slipped by a half dozen GPS and specialists, but I truly can't thank you both enough of your podcast and his wide range of topics that is James and St. Pete, Florida. That is so awesome. Man, dude had hookworm? Can you believe it? And man, thank you James, and good luck to you cousin. Way to go for being so smart to connect the dots too. I think your cousin knows you pizza or a beer or whatever you may be both. Yeah,

trip to Chuck E cheese drunk Uh. If you want to get in touch with us to tell us an amazing story like James did, you can tweet to us. I'm at Joshum Clark and s Y s K podcast, Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant and stuff you should know on Facebook and you can send us all an email, including Jerry at Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and has always joined us at at Home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com.