Membership, peace, apply after free trial, cancel anytime. Can I be real with you for a second. That goal you have to exercise and eat better? You really can do it, but nobody is going to do it for you. Nobody is going to push you out of bed to work out, nobody is going to make you eat better. But here's the thing. Nobody has to because you can do it if you have the right tools and a community that cares about helping you get results. And that's us beach Body.
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Let us help you succeed. Here's al Go to beachbody dot com to claim your free membership and start feeling great. The following episode contains deeply disturbing scenes of violence, murder,
and sexual violence toward children. Parental discretion is advised. If the United States was a body, you might say the town of Velisca, in the southwest corner of Iowa was its heart, located as it is in its upper torso, a little to the right at center, as it sits prettily under a vast Midwestern sky between the middle and west Nodaway River, surrounded by endless acres of rich and
fertile earth. Life in this modest sized town has chained significantly, albeit subtly, since its heyday back in the early nineteen hundreds, where once it boasted a bustling population of twenty five hundred. Over the years, the gradual modernization of the agricultural industry on which most of the town's economy is based, has led to a steady decline in the numbers of personnel it employs. To day, the town's population sits a little
closer to the thirteen hundred mark. Regardless, though some of the paint on its main street buildings may be peeling and the brickwork crumbling, it remains a proud and tight knit community that values its history and place in the world, a place no better epitomized than by the immaculately preserved early twentieth century house that sits on the corner of sixth Avenue and Second Street, a typical home of any of the industrious church going families of the area upon
whose hard work and resilience the town was established. Certainly, on the surface of it, this quaint, white panel walled, three bedroom and achronism is perhaps the last place you might have expected an ambulance crew to find themselves late one night in November twenty fourteen, after reports that a man had been violently stabbed there. But how dark and deep are the many tendrils that lie beneath the surface
of things. For the house of which I speak is no ordinary preserved property, but rather an ominous, singular place that, back in June nineteen twelve, was the scene of one of the most brutal and inexplicable unsolved murders in American history.
And it was there on that peculiar night in November just over a hundred years later, that thirty seven year old Robert Louis and Junior traveled on the hunt for answers, only to almost lose his life in the process, as Robert would explain some years later, as a keen ghost hunter with a particular fascination for the infamous for Lyska murders, his mother and stepfather decided to buy him an overnight stay at the Pretty White House on Sixth and Second,
which by then was a museum devoted to the history of the crime and its victims. That night, accompanied by his parents, Robert entered the property and immediately felt the weight of its grim history, made all the more potent by the efforts of the museum owners to model the interior exactly how it would have been on that infamous
night back in June nineteen twelve. Robert, who'd come equipped with walkie talkies, a tape recorder, and a six inch hunting knife, handed one of the radios to his parents and told them to start in the main bedroom upstairs. He would start downstairs in the parlor bedroom, where two
of the victims were found. Once inside the small, narrow room, he took a moment to position the bed, nightstand, and dresser exactly how he believed them to have been on the night of the crime, and then switched off the light. Standing in the center of the room, he lifted his head and cried out for the spirits to reveal themselves. Visions of the crime and how he imagined it played out, flashed through his mind, and soon a rage rose inside
of him. Unable to hold it back any longer, his words became coarser as he directed them solely toward the unknown culprit, telling them how dare they for doing what they did and that they should pay for their crimes. Then a crackle came through on the walkie talkie. It was his mother from upstairs. Something was happening, she said excitedly. The room was filling with orbs. As Robert would go on to explain, he too saw an orb appear in the corner of the room that he was in, and
then instinctively grabbed for his knife from above. Robert's parents heard a piercing, anguished scream and raced down to find their son lying prostrate on the bed with the six inch hunting knife now protruding from his chest. After nearly bleeding to death and being airlifted to Crichton University Medical Care in Omaha, Robert woke up the following day in a hospital bed with a tube down his throat. Certain
of only one thing. There was something deeply evil in that house, a darkness that he should never have provoked. Back when Vealiska was just a nascent settlement on the banks of the Nodaway, its founders searched for an aim that could best encapsulate the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside. They settled on the term Williska, from the language of the Native American sork and Musquawky people. The men had been led to believe that the word translated to pretty
place in English. What it actually meant was evil spirit. You're listening to unexplained, and I am Richard McClean smith. It had been an unusually cool summer's day in Valiska, with a permanent threat of rain in the gathering clouds above. As Sarah Moore called to her husband Joe from the backyard of their home, a white panel up two down on the northeastern outskirts of the town. It was Sunday, June ninth, nineteen twelve, and with the time just gone seven p m, the family was still to get ready
for that evening's church service. Forty three year old Joe Moore or Josiah, to give him his full name, who seemed to be in a rather deep conversation with his neighbor, Albert Jones took a few more minutes, then finally peered away from Albert and returned to the house. As a couple, the Moors were immensely popular and a cherished part of the community, with thirty nine year old Sarah being the daughter of a prominent farming family and Joe running a
farming implement store in town. Inside the house that evening, the couple's four children, eleven year old Hermann, ten year old Mary, seven year old Arthur, and five year old Poor, along with their friends eight year old Eina and twelve year old Lina Stillinger, had little to do, having spent the morning at Sunday school. Already drest in their finest church attire, white dresses and bows for the girls and
gray shorts and jackets for the boys. Joe found them are busily putting on shoes and fixing their hair as he made his way to the telephone to make a quick call to Eina and Lena's parents farm. The girls had been due to spend the night at their grandmothers in town, but had decided it might be more fun to stay at the Moor's home instead. Joe wasn't able to reach their parents, but their sister Blanche promised to
pass on the message. Then, after a quick brush of his hair, Joe joined the rest of his family in the parlor to begin the short three block walk to the local Presbyterian church for a night of children's exercises. This podcast is sponsored by Better Help. Is there something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals? Better Help will assess your needs and match you with your own license to professional therapist. It's not a crisis
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com forward slash unexplained one zero. With the congregation arriving steadily in preparation for the event, all were greeted warmly by Reverend William j. Ewing and his wife Lenore, alongside one other less familiar figure, the slight and mousey Reverend George Kelly, dressed also in black ministerial robes like Ewing, had arrived from the nearby town of Macedonia the day before and had been invited to Vliska by Ewing to
observe that night's service. The thirty three year old Kelly, who came to the US from Kent in England with his wife Laura in nineteen oh four, was studying to be a Presbyterian minister at the Omaha Seminary and had gladly taken up Ewing's offer, which included a bed for the night at his home in the past snage across the road that evening, as the children sang their songs and recited scripture, Sarah and Joe watched on proudly alongside the rest of the parents, while Kelly watched on from
the back, smiling pleasantly as the sweet sound of the children's voices echoed around the church. At roughly ninety five PM, Sarah and Joe were among some of the last to leave as they exchanged pleasant trees and goodbyes with fellow members of the congregation before finally gathering the children and heading off back home. With the last of the congregation gone, Reverend Kelly escorted the Ewings and their four children back
to the parsonage. At the time, the family were sleeping together in a tent in the garden due to an ongoing issue with Reverend Ewing sinuses. While the rest of the family bedded down there for the night. The two reverends stay up talking until sometime around eleven PM, when Ewing finally called it to night and retired to the tent, while Kelly made his way to the guest room. At
the top of the house. It had just gone four am early in the morning of Monday, June tenth, when Sarah and Joe's neighbor Mary Peckham got up from bed and quietly made her way to the kitchen. With daylight yet to break and only the stillness of the night for company, Mary lit the fire in the cooking stove, then stood back for a moment to enjoy the warmth of it before making a start on the day's laundry.
Over the next few hours, Mary went back and forth from the house, washing and hanging the laundry in the yard as a large golden sun inch gradually higher into the sky. Over at the moor house, however, the windows stayed resolutely dark. Like most in the farming trade, the moors were early rises. Certainly Mary would have expected to see Joe heading off to work by seven a m. But as the minutes continued to tick by, a strange
stillness prevailed at their home. It was a few minutes later, when the family's cows, in desperate need of milking, began to wail mournfully that Mary finally went over to investigate. Stepping on to the porch, she could see clearly that all the blinds and curtains had yet to be pulled back, but when she knocked on the door, she received no response from insight. She was just about to rap on the window when she remembered that Joe's father had recently
been gravely ill. Perhaps the family had left hastily in the night to tend to him, she thought, and so around a tm Joe's sister in law Jesse, received a call from Mary to ask if something had happened to Joe's father, because the family didn't seem to be at home. But Jesse had heard no such news and quickly passed Mary's concern onto her husband and Joe's brother, Ross Moore, who was tending to the store he managed in town at the time. Ross, in turn but to call in
to Ed Selli, an employee of Joe's. Sellee, arrived at the moors a short time later, and, after knocking on the door to no avail, concluded that the family must have headed out somewhere at short notice. After making a quick check on the animals, Celli, who had a number of errands to run for Joe that morning, then headed off, eager to complete them before his boss returned. But when news of Celli's visit got to Ross soon after, Joe's brother couldn't shake the feeling in the pit of his
stomach that something was terribly wrong. Russ locked up the store, then hurriedly made its way to the house. After also getting no response from any one in sight, he cupped his hand to the glass, but saw nothing beyond the thick material of curtains. By now, others had gathered in the street to see what all the commotion was as Ross tried one more time to get his brother's attention, or any one else in the house for that matter.
Still hearing nothing from inside, he pulled a key from his pocket, placed it into the keyhole, and turned the handle. The door eased open with a long, drawn out creak, throwing pale light into the unsettling silence of the family's parlor room. Beyond dust mots floated in the air as Ross stepped forward, the sound of his shoes on the wooden floorboard reverberating loudly around the room. Ross called out for Joe and Sarah, but the words merely dissolved into
the air. Looking back at the concerned face of Mary Peckham on the porch. He then turned to the parlor bedroom on his right, noticing that some kind of material had been placed over the window in the middle of it. He opened the door and proceeded in side. A dull, metallic odor struck him first as he stepped into the room.
In the single bed that lay opposite against the far wall, two small lump and shapes could be discerned lying under a bed sheet that looked almost black in the half light, a single pale white arm protruding from out of it. Ross cocked his head waited for a sign of life as the horrifying realization dawned on him. The bedsheet was saturated with blood. It was sprayed all up the wall too. Ross stumbled back out onto the porch. Called the authorities,
Missus Peckham, call them now, he said. City Marshall Hank Houghton was promptly dispatched to the property. Moments later. He stood in the gloomy half light of the parlor bedroom and lit a match to better observe the scene. Dear God, he said, as he stepped closer to the bed, only noticing then how the blood had come from the head end of the victim's bodies. Then the match burned out, suddenly,
plunging the room back into darkness. Horton rushed to the windows and pulled back the curtains, flooding the room with light and revealing suddenly the grizzly sight of the long handled axe leaning against the opposite wall, its blade clean but its handle still sticky with the blood and the faint wisps of human hair, and next to it, utterly incongruously, a two pound slab of red raw bacon wrapped loosely
in a dishcloth. Houghton retreated back into the parlor, then continued on into the kitchen, stopping at the foot of a narrow flight of stairs. Another match was struck, hissing and fizzling as it lit up the stairwell. Then Houghton continued on up the stairs, each step creaking heavily as he went, arriving quickly at the top floor. He stopped suddenly and listened for a moment. Hearing nothing, he headed
on into the master bedroom. The opening of the blinds revealed another grim scene to larger bodies, this time lying under a heavily blood soaked sheet, and in the bedroom across the hall. It was more of the same four more bodies, smaller ones spread out across three beds, also
hidden under dark, burgundy stained sheets. By shortly after eight am, news of the horrors of the More property had steadily filtered through to the town center, where Frank Jones was overseeing the building of the first National bank in the town square. As a former member of the Iowa House of Representatives, a banker and successful business owner, the fifty six year old Jones was one of the more prosperous members of the community, and an acquaintance of the Moors
have he once employed Joe. As such, it seemed only fitting that he would be one of the first to arrive at the Moor's home to offer his condolences to Ross and his brother Harry, who arrived soon after. The steadily growing group were then joined by a doctor Howe and the Reverend William Ewing, offering whatever help they could. Surely before nine a m City Marshall Houghton, who'd himself left to find a doctor, returned with doctor j Clark
Cooper in tow, telling the others to wait outside. Houghton then led Cooper into the house and into the first bedroom, resisting every urge to turn away. Doctor Cooper stepped closer to the bed, took hold of the sheet and pulled it back. Of the two bodies lying underneath, The smallest was on its back, closest to the wall, in what might be described as a natural sleeping position, a small
gray jacket placed over the face. Cooper grimaced as he pulled the sheet down further to reveal the head of the second body, which had been pulverized and split completely open at the top. The face was unrecognizable. This body lay completely differently, its arm dangling out to the side and the legs twisted round, suggesting to Cooper that the young victim had attempted to fight back. Cooper pulled back the gray jacket from the head of the other body
and grimaced again. This head, too had been pounded until it had split, with nothing but a lump and reddened mass for a face. Cooper turned to the two bibles lying on the nightstand opposite the bed and thumbed open the front pages. On the inside of each. The owner's names were inscribed Lina and Ana Stillinger. Heading up to the second floor, Cooper went first into the master bedroom and pulled back the sheet there to reveal the larger bodies of what he assumed to be Sarah and Joe Moore.
He gasped again at the sight of them. The sheet and pillows were completely saturated with blood that had also sprayed out in a violent mess up the wall to the back and side of Joe's face. It too had been pulverized, with its two protruding, cheap bones the only visible feature. The eyes had been scythed out with the blows, and the rest who completely caved in. Bone splinters covered the pillow, while bits of brain could also be seen having been chopped out of the top of his head.
Sarah's body was in much the same condition. In the bedroom opposite, doctor Cooper found the Moore's children, all murdered just like the others, with their heads smashed and their bodies covered over with the sheets. Just after nine am, County coroner doctor Linquists arrived to inspect the scene. Starting like the others in the parlor bedroom, Linquist noted first how the two Stylinger girls had been killed with mainly
blows from the blunt end of an axe. Then, pulling off the rest of the sheet, he found something unexpected. Lena's nightgown had bunched up around her waist, revealing her naked body underneath, with a spot of blood on the inside of her thigh. While one arm hung out of the bed, the other was extended above her head rest on the pillow, which had led doctor Cooper to assume that she'd fought back against the killer, but Linquist wasn't
so sure. Though the girl didn't appear to have been raped, the coroner couldn't shake the feeling that there was far more to all this than just a brutal slaying of innocence. Turning to examine the room, he noted then that the mirror on the dresser had likely been deliberately covered up by the killer, just like the window in the door, and both with the same material. A dress of Sarah's
that had been hurriedly ripped in half. A kerosene lamp had also been placed at the foot of the bed with its chimney removed, which again was likely put there by the killer. Looking at the axe, it took him less than a minute to confirm it as the murder weapon, but as for why there was a two pound slab of bacon lying next to it, he couldn't be sure. Then Linquist saw Lena's underwear that had been discarded under the bed and on which the killer had wiped their
bloodstained hands. The girl hadn't fought back. He thought she'd been deliberately placed like that, exposed for the killer to see. What makes a murderer's mind tick. Killer Psyche is a true crime podcast from Wandry that explores these types of
questions about the crimes that killers and criminals commit. Killer Psyche covers high profile cases that shocked the world, and host Candy Stlong uses her five decades of experience as a clinical psychiatric nurse and FBI criminal profiler to dissect the motivations and behaviors of the most terrifying felons in history. And you'll definitely want to listen to a recent episode of Killer Psyche where Candies looks into the mysterious murder
of Ted Ammon, a wealthy Wall Street financier. Ted had been going through a divorce with his wife of thirteen years, Gena Rosa, and child custody and millions in assets were at stake. Generosa and her new boyfriend Danny Pelosi were the prime suspects, but Generosa died of cancer before police could prove her involvement. In twenty four Danny was convicted of second degree murder, but still maintains his innocence. How does hatred drive a person to murder the father of
their children? Listen to Kill a Psyche on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen to one Week and Free by joining Wandry Plus in the Wandry app Moving into the main house, Linquist took note of how clean the place was. There were no bloody footprints or handprints anywhere. In the kitchen, however, a large bowl of bloody wall had been left out, he presumed used by the killer to wash their hands. Then Linquist turned his attention to
the bodies upstairs. Unlike with Lena Stillinger, there was no sign of any resistance or abuse of the more children, with all killed quickly and presumably more or less silently, since none appeared to have awoken during the horrific ordeal. The same appeared to be true of Sarah and Joe, but here Linquist found significant differences, mainly in the manner of their mutilation. Both had been hacked at far more
than any of the other victims. A shoe that had been knocked over close to their bed, spilling blood from inside it onto the floor that had needed time to fill up there suggested the murderer had even come back to mutilate them further, having already killed them, the apparent intention being the complete removal of their faces. Where the others had been struck five to ten times for Sarah
and Joe, it was closer to thirty. Indentations in the ceiling above the bed, presumed to be from the back swing of the axe, were testament to the wild brutality that had been meted out. After finishing up in the house, doctor Linquist made his way to the family barn. He wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for, but eventually found himself in the hay loft, where he noticed a relatively fresh pile of hay that had been dumped next
to some neatly stacked bales in the corner. Moving closer to investigate, he saw what appeared to be the pattern of a body in the straw, as if some one had recently been lying there, And at the end where the head and shoulders would have been, Linquist noticed a hole in the wall. Bending down to peer through it, he could see perfectly a completely unobstructed view of the house.
Having supervised the initial analysis of the crime scene, City Marshall Houghton placed a night watchman outside the property to guard it, then made his way to Veliska's city hall to meet with Montgomery County Sheriff Jackson to discuss the next steps. The forty nine year old Houghton had lived most of his life in or near Veliska, and up until that day, had spent most of his time as city marshal coloring petty criminals and pulling drunks off the street.
In fact, Houghton had only been in the job a year when the more and stillinger murders took place, having worked the previous few years as a night patrolman and before that as a farm hand. In short, he was woefully out of his depth. Though Sheriff Jackson had seen a little more of the world, most notably trying his luck in Alaska during the eighteen ninety gold Rush, his primary responsibility was overseeing the town jail and making sure
the relevant paperwork was up to date. It didn't help either that, due to the system at the time, there was no state police or criminal investigative agency set up to deal with crimes of such complexity and magnitude. As such, the state had to rely on private detective agencies if they wanted to crack the case. At City Hall, it was agreed to give Detective Thomas O'Leary from the Kirk
Detective Agency a first go at finding the culprit. Houghton also suggested bringing him bloodhounds, but worried that it might be too expensive. Then Frank Jones spoke up. As a significant figure of the community. Jones had taken it on himself to join Haughton and Jackson at City Hall. Frank told Houghton not to worry about the cost. Whatever it was,
he would make sure it was covered. Houghton returned to the Moor's home late in the afternoon to find it completely full of people, with as many as fifty to one hundred believed to have poked around the crime scene before the VELISKA National Guard were eventually called in to
take control of the situation. A short time later, the first posses from the National Guard set out on the hunt for clues, searching homes and outbuildings, hoping to find footprints, scraps of clothing or maybe even the killer themselves, but little of note was discovered. It was just after nine pm when the bloodhounds arrived, using the axe to scent
them from inside the house. The dogs immediately set off through the front door, pulling hard on their leads as they traveled west all the way to the banks of the west not Away River, only to hit a bank of heavy bushes, where they quickly lost interest. As news of the killing spread throughout the county, many naturally began to wander as to who could possibly do such a thing, But when darkness finally came round again, petty gossip turned to abject fear at the thought of a deranged killer
that was quite possibly still very much among them. Local stores quickly sold out of padlocks, while those who didn't own guns raced into town to purchase one. Later in the afternoon, coroner doctor Linquist convened the coroner's jury and led the members round the house to inspect the crime scene. Then at ten p m. County Attorney Ratcliffe arrived and gave word finally for the local undertakers to take the
bodies away. Each was carried carefully one at a time, then placed on a buggy and wheeled out of the house to gasps and cries from the many who'd gathered outside, drawn there inexorably by a collective morbid fascination. It was sometime around two am, with the bodies having been delivered to a temporary morgue at the town fire station, that armed guards were placed at each of the two doors,
and one by one the onlookers dispersed that evening. Families stayed up all night, sat with lamp lights on and loaded guns across their laps, their doors and windows heavily barricaded shut. Those who lived alone stayed with friends, and few ventured out into the dark to use outhouses, while virtually no one got any sleep at all. In the days to come. Some would attest to seeing Reverend Ewing's guest of the night before, Reverend George Kelly, depart that
morning from Veliska train station on the five nineteen. Later in the afternoon, having arrived back home in Macedonia, many would be especially struck by how obsessed he seemed by news of the crime. Some even claimed they'd heard him discussing the murders much earlier in the day, earlier in fact, than when the bodies were first discovered, but all that was yet to come. You've been listening to Unexplained Season six, episode twelve, A Darkness on the Edge of Town, Part
one of three. Part two will be released next Friday, April eighth. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can now do so via Patreon. To receive access to add three episodes, Just go to patron dot com Forward Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at
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