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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. You're listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode twelve, A Darkness on the Edge of Town, Part three. Early in the autumn of nineteen eleven, just south of Olyska, a young barefoot girl picks her way through a patch of scrubland beside
a disused and decaying slaughterhouse. Spotting an old wooden crate before her, the young girl hurries forward to retrieve it, only to yelp out suddenly in pain and collapse to the ground. Grabbing her foot, the girl winces at the sy to the large hazel colored thorn, now deeply embedded in the soul of it. She pulls it out. Bright red blood oozes to the surface, and the girl cries
out for her mother. Edith runs forward to help, pressing her handkerchief to her daughter's foot, who then begins to cry. Edith's friend, Vina, rushes to join them. It's no use, says Edith. They have to go back to patch it up. Vina would have to carry on without them. Edith and Vina had recently arrived in the county, having moved down
with their husbands and children. The two couples were camped a little further downstream, and with the men having both found work laying pavements in town, it was left to the women to tend the camp. The sight of the old slaughterhouse had proved fertile ground for finding good scraps to dismantle for firewood. After waving Edith and to order off, Vena grabs what she can and then veers toward the river on her way back to the camp, when suddenly
she hears voices talking in hushed and ominous tones. Thinking it was probably a conversation that the men having it didn't want overheard, Vena ducks behind a nearby bush, torn between staying hidden or trying to get away unseen as all the while, the men continue to talk. He's got to be killed, says one of them angrily. If it can't be done any other way, it's got to be done while he's asleep. The man talking was in his fifties with graying dark hair. Beside him stood another man
about half his age that looked noticeably similar. Then the third man spoke up, who Vena couldn't see so well. He seemed rougher somehow not like the other men. The man mentions the name Levi Wood and possibly someone called Whipple, the names of men that Vina knew all too well. And these men talking, said Texan detective James Wilkerson, puncturing the story. You believe you know who they are, well, if you'd let me finish, detective, said Vina Tomkins, taking
another drag on her cigarette. It was June nineteen fourteen, and Wilkerson was sat in Vienna's living room in Marshalltown, about one hundred and sixty miles northeast of Veliska, listening with all the restraint he could muster as she regaled him finally with her story. The detective had made a number of attempts to extract it from her, only for Vena to change her mind at the last moment. Until now,
Wilkerson waited with bated breath. I couldn't very well see the third man, said Vena, but I believe the other two were called Stone or Jones. Viena was later shown a picture of the lisk And banker and current Iowan Senator Frank Fernando Jones, and asked to confirm if he was one of the men that she saw, Vina nodded yes,
she said it was him. Born Viena Whipple and raised in Guthrie County, near the town of Fansler in Iowa, Viena Tompkins was a smart, thirty six year old with no formal education who grew up surrounded by career criminals, from her father to her brothers and most of the men she dated, including her ex husband and father of her children, Dave Clark. The lifestyle had dominated every aspect of her life, and she was desperate to escape it. The only problem was she wanted to save her children too,
one of whom was currently living with Clark. With Detective Wilkerson's promise that he could help, Fiena agreed to write everything down in a statement, having also gone on to explain that Levi Wood, who was apparently mentioned by the men she claimed to see by the river, was well known as a man who could be trusted to carry out dirty work. The man named Whipple, who they also apparently mentioned, she suspected was a reference to her own brother,
Harry Whipple. With Tompkins's explosive statement, Wilkerson began steadily to formulate his theory that the three men by the river were Frank Jones, his son Albert, and one other, possibly Jake Weems, another member of the crime community that Fiena was part of, and together these men conspired with Levi Wood to murder Joe Moore, take his entire family and the Stillinger girls with him. Any concrete evidence linking Jones to the crime, however, was nonexistent, and he'd need far
more than Veena Tompkins's testimony to convince the jury. Then in July, another horrific murder hit the headlines, this time twenty one year old Margaret Mansfield and her seven month old daughter Maisie, along with her parents, Mary and Jacob Mislich, all slaughtered horrifically in Blue Island, Illinois. Just like the Veliska murders, all the victims were attacked solely in the head with an axe that was casually left behind at
the scene. After traveling to Blue Island to investigate, Wilkerson quickly picked up the trail of William Mansfield, a two time military deserter who'd spent time in jail for other offenses too. William had also just eloped with another woman a few months after he left town, Margaret and her
family were murdered. After digging deeper into Mansfield's backstory, Wilkerson soon became convinced that he was not only responsible for killing his family, but for the Veliska murders too, if he was right, Frank Jones had employed him to do it.
Wilkerson insisted also that Mansfield was in fact the third man that Fena Tompkins had seen talking to Frank and Albert Jones by the river, and though he didn't have enough evidence to get Frank Jones indicted, if he could at least get Mansfield on the stand, it would be all he needed to expose the Joneses too. For the next few years, Wilkerson continued building his case against William Mansfield as the man directly responsible for the murders of
the Moore family and the two Stillinger girls. For the while, Frank Jones did his best to ignore the now open secret that one of the William Byrne's detective agencies top investigators suspected he was involved. Two In July nineteen fifteen, a man was arrested in Buffalo, New York. His name was Casimir Ariyazevski, a lodger who'd been staying with Margaret Mansfield and her family when they were murdered. After his arrest, Ariyazevski confessed to the crime, but it was all too
late for William Mansfield. Thanks to Wilkerson's efforts, he was promptly arrested some time later and successfully indicted for the Valiska murders, with a trial set for July nineteen sixteen. As the trial approached, on June third, nineteen sixteen, two days before Frank Jones was due to stand in the Iowa Senate primary elections, a letter arrived on his desk.
Opening it, he found a large mug shot of William Mansfield below the words this is the axe murderer he murdered the more family at Veliska, the hypocrite whose dirty money paid for the hellish job. Once your support for the state Senate will he get it? As Frank furiously rang round for any information about where it had come from, he soon discovered he wasn't the only one to receive the letter. Over the next few days, the letters damning
contents spilled steadily out into the wider community. Frank's campaign was completely sunk, though no one admitted responsibility for the letter, Jones was in little doubt that Wilkerson was behind it. The following month, William Mansfield's trial began. The bulk of wilkerson case hinged on the testimony of Veena Tompkins, which by now he'd adapted to suit the new narrative that Mansfield had in fact been the man who wielded the
acts at the behest of Frank Jones. Especially damning for Mansfield was the testimony given by a man named W. R. Tilson, a county treasurer in Maryville, Missouri. Tilson claimed that on May thirty first, nineteen sixteen, a man came into his office asking for some money. The man apparently gave his name as Bill Mansfield and explained that someone from Veliska was supposed to leave it with Tilson for him to pick up later. This money, Detective Wilkerson insisted, was part
of Mansfield's payment from Jones for committing the crime. When Tilson came to take the stand, however, Mansfield's lawyer, Jacob Dettweiler, made the counterclaim that it couldn't possibly have been his client because he was in Kansas City that day and he had the evidence to prove it. Furthermore, when Tilson was asked to look again at William Mansfield in court, he was forced to admit that he wasn't, in fact
the man who'd come to see him. Fena Tompkins's testimony too fell flat when she was also forced to admit that she couldn't be sure that Mansfield was one of the men she'd apparently seen by the river. As a last throw of the dice, Wilkerson had a young woman
called Alice Willard brought to the stand. Willard had apparently been out with friends on the Saturday night before the murders back in nineteen twelve, when she walked past the Moor's house and overheard some men in conversation saying that if they got Joe first, the rest would be easy. Willard then pointed confidently toward Mansfield, drawing gasps from many of those present when she insisted that he was one
of the men that she'd heard. Willard's story was quickly dismantled, however, not least of all by the fact that Mansfield quite demonstrably had been nowhere near Vliska that night, having been in Montgomery, Illinois instead. With the trial concluded on July twenty first, nineteen sixteen. It took the jury a little more than an hour to decide not to have Mansfield indicted for the murders. Later that day, he was released
from custody and promptly returned to Kansas City. Realizing the trial had been a barely disguised effort to prove his own apparent culpability, the increasingly frustrated Frank Jones, still smarting from his election defeat, decided finally to take action and sued James Wilkerson. Jones accused the detective of defaming his character by unfairly and very publicly accusing him of being
responsible for the Vliska murders. It was just about one of the worst decisions of his life, as pointed out by author Roy Marshall in his comprehensive twenty three retelling of the Vliska Event Vliska, the True account of the unsolved nineteen twelve mass murder that stunned the Nation. Frank's great mistake in taking Detective Wilkerson to court was that he was, by extension, also criticizing the professional integrity of
his employer, the William Burns Detective Agency. In response, no expense was spared in securing for Wilkerson the best legal representation they could find. Perhaps even worse, however, was the fact that in order to prove Wilkerson's innocence, his lawyer Ed Mitchell had to prove that Wilkerson was entirely right to suspect Jones as the man who paid for the more family to be murdered. In essence, Wilkerson's defamation trial would be little more than a second opportunity for the
detective to prove that Jones was in fact guilty. In the end, the case played out much like the Mansfield indictment trial, only Ed Mitchell made a much better job of it, and with the Folkers no longer on the question of Mansfield's possible involvement, things only got worse for Jones. Fiena Tompkins was once again brought forward to give her story, appearing much more convincing the second time around, and stated once again that Frank was one of the men she'd
seen by the river. Alice Willard also returned to repeat her story once again. She stated that although she couldn't be sure that Mansfield was one of the men she'd overheard,
talking about killing Joe. Frank Fernando Jones definitely was. Other witnesses would brought forward to say they'd seen Frank's son, Albert, in the town of Grant at around six am on the morning of the murders, some seven miles or so further away than Albert had said he was when quizzed about his whereabouts by the authorities, a fact which Wilkerson's lawyer, Ed Mitchell argued gave Wilkinson genuine reason to believe he
was hiding something. Montgomery County Sheriff Owen Jackson was also brought to the stand to testify that he'd been with Wilkinson when Veena Tompkins was shown the picture of Frank Jones, who she then subsequently confirmed as one of the men she'd seen. Others were also brought forward claiming to have seen or heard Jones in compromisable situations relating to the crime, though Frank's defense team were able to successfully challenge some
of the accounts. When it was later revealed that an associate of Jones had potentially tried to lean on Willard to retract her statement, the case was as good as over after closing statements on Saturday, December ninth, and a day of deliberations, the jury agreed unanimously the detective Wilkinson had every right to suspect that Frank Jones was involved
in the murders. With everything that took place at the defamation trial and the ever growing support for Wilkerson's theory among the people of Veliska, including even Joe Moore's brother, Ross Joe Stillinger, the father of the murdered Stillinger girls, and John Montgomery, Sarah Moore's father, the state had little
option but to take the theory seriously. Many, however, suspected Wilkinson, who seemed to have become obsessed with proving Frank Jones's guilt, regardless of any evidence to the contrary, had like manufactured much of his evidence against him. In February nineteen seventeen, he was convicted of assaulting previous suspect William Mansfield in an effort to secure a confession, and was eventually let
go by the William Burns Agency. No longer involved in the Valiska case, it was left and newly appointed Iowa Attorney General Horace Hafner and County Attorney Oscar Wenstrand to build the case, but as the pair dug into the history of it, with neither particularly convinced of Frank Jones's involvement,
another name slowly bubbled back to the surface. In nineteen seventeen, Reverend Lynn David Kelly was living in Sutton, Nebraska, since his arrest and incarceration for tricking women interposing naked for him, and his multiple declarations to prison guards that he had committed the murders in Vliska, some further facts had come
to light. Only three weeks before the crime, Kelly had been chased off by a man who caught the reverend watching the man's wife undressing through their bedroom window, while further reports had also emerged of Kelly sharing details of the murders long before anyone could possibly have known about them, to Havna, and when struant it was utterly mind boggling that the man had never formerly been questioned about them.
Kelly was promptly arrested and put in jail in Logan, Iowa, a town just to the northeast of Omaha, Nebraska, after which it was agreed to proceed immediately with an indictment trial. In truth, however, despite everything, his gut was telling him there was still nothing concrete linking Kelly to the crimes, so Havner took action and arranged to have an informant covertly share Kelly's prison cell with him. Incredibly, within only a few days, the informant delivered the news that Kelly
wanted to confess. In early September, Kelly was taken from his cell late in the night and delivered to an interview room where Haner, along with a handful of other law enforcement officials and two journalists brought in to record the meeting, were waiting for him. By five thirty am
the following morning, they had everything they needed. With only days to go until Reverend Kelly's indictment trial, Attorney General Haner received word from Kelly's lawyer that his client was retracting his statement, claiming it had been extracted under duress. Kelly accused Havna of scaring him into signing it and denying him the right to have a lawyer present at
the time. Things were further complicated when hana was arrested himself on a grand jury indictment for allegedly oppressing Alice Willard in relation to the defamation case against Frank Jones, throwing further doubt on his insistence that Kelly's confession had been legally obtained either way. On September twenty fourth, the
trial began. For the prosecution, it was simple Kelly was a sexual deviant with a history of window peaking and a seed criminal obsession with young girls, and who had also, on more than one occasion, confessed to committing the Valiska murders. Witnesses were brought forward to confirm some of the many rumors about him. Mister and Missus Simons of Carson traveled on the train with Kelly on the morning of June tenth,
nineteen twelve, the morning of the killings. They recalled how Kelly had been talking excitedly about the murder of an entire family in Vliska the night before. This conversation, they were sure had taken place at some time around seven fifteen am, a full hour before the murders were discovered. Others from Macedonia, where Kelly lived then also confirmed that he'd spoken to them too, back on his arrival in the town, before news of the crime had really gone public.
Coura Macarte was then brought forward the council Bluffs. Laundry worker who'd washed Kelly's stained shirt, Marquard, reaffirmed her belief that the stain was blood, being similar to other blood stains she'd frequently come across in her work. As more and more evidence was presented to the jury, the slight and scrawny Kelly was frequently reduced to tears protesting his innocence, while his wife Laura sat stoically beside him, often wiping
his tears and giving him comforting hugs. With Laura being a good few inches taller than her husband, it was said that he seemed almost like a lost child being comforted by his mother. Then Kelly's confession was read out, though it was somewhat lacking in precise details, the sheer strangeness of Kelly's statement and the horror of what he, apparently in his own words, had meted out on the
victims stunned the court into silence. The statement was quickly challenged, however, by Kelly's defense, who encouraged the jury to disregard it entirely due to the fact that Kelly had allegedly been forcefully coerced into signing it. Then the defense gave their side of the story Lenore Ewing, wife of the Valiscan Presbyterian minister at whose home Kelly had stayed on the
night at the crime, was brought forward. The prosecution had argued that Kelly didn't actually sleep in the bed that Lenore had prepared for him, since he'd been out all night at the Moor's house. Ewing, however, testified that the bed had been slept in, and that she found no blood stains or anything else to cause suspicion. The morning after, Laura Kelly then took the stand and testified that she'd packed her husband's bag for the trip and had not
supplied him with a change of clothes. According to her, he couldn't possibly have done it because when he came home he was wearing exactly the same clothes he left, with not a spot of dirt on them. At one point, the murder weapon was even brought into the court, with which a demonstration was given to show whether or not Kelly was tall enough to have made the dents and the ceiling of the Moor's property thought to have been caused by the axe when the murderer swung it back.
The prosecution argued he was more than tall and strong enough, while the defense argued otherwise. Doctors were also brought to the stand to confirm that Kelly was in his right mind when he gave his confession to Havener, while other doctors equally qualified argued he wasn't. And then, after twenty two days of back and forth, on September twenty sixth,
the trial came to an end. After four hours of deliberations, the jury took a vote and found eleven in favor of a quitting Reverend Kelly of all charges and one in favor of declaring him not guilty for reasons of insanity. After a further three days deliberating, with the jury unable to reach a unanimous decision, the judge declared a hung
jury and Kelly was released from custody. Needless to say, the result was a huge blow for Attorney General Havener, not least of all because he truly believed that Kelly was a deranged murderer who'd just been allowed back into society. Haner felt morally obligated to request a retrial the second time round. However, having known new evidence to add and deciding not to use the confession at all, Havener's case
was even more flimsy. In a trial that took half as long to complete and the jury only five hours to reach a verdict, Kelly was found not guilty of all crimes. Over the next few years, Kelly continued to move from place to place with his wife Laura, and in nineteen nineteen attempted to soothe the state and Attorney General Havener for damages, believing his reputation had been irrevocably
damaged by the trials. The case was dismissed, however, after which little more is known about him, other than he most likely returned to England, where he died sometime in the late nineteen twenties. Frank Jones's son, Albert, who was also implicated in the crimes, died soon after due to
general ill health. Frank is said to have sat tenderly by his son's bedside for days until he took his last breath, although as writer Roy Marshall has pointed out, there are some who believed that Frank was merely there to stop Albert from making any incriminating last minute deathbed confessions. As for Frank himself, though his major political aspirations were completely wrecked by the tragic events, he carried on regardless, and died in nineteen forty one in Veliska at the
age of eighty one. As for Sarah and Joe Moore and their children, Hermann, Mary, Arthur and Paul, as well as young Eina and Lena Stillinger, they remained fondly remembered by the town and anyone else who encounters their story, some of whom continue to lay flowers by their graveside at Veliska Cemetery. The Reverend Lynn George Kelly's legal team attempted to dismiss his apparent confession as nothing but a sham that had been harassed out of him by Attorney
General Horace Hafner. Notes taken by the two journalists tasked with recording it, however, suggest a somewhat different story. Although both admitted they had not been present for the entire process, and it can never be said for certain that they didn't edit their words afterwards, there is good reason to believe that Kelly willfully volunteered his statement. Whatever we believe,
it certainly makes for harrowing reading. I Lynn, George J. Kelly say that I make the following affidavit it in confession, without any promises or threats having been made to me of any kind whatever, and that this is a voluntary statement. After church, I returned home with Reverend Ewing and his wife, and stayed up and visited with him until eleven or eleven thirty o'clock, when he showed me to my room and asked me if I would mind sleeping alone, as
they were going to sleep in the tent. I said no, as I was intending to go to sleep at once. I undressed and went to bed, but was restless, being overtired. I heard a noise like a windmill and opened the door of the balcony, then stood outside to see what the noise was, but found nothing. Then I came back and shut the door and tried to sleep, but could not. My head was hot. I began to feel sick and wanted to get a walk, so I dressed, went downstairs and left the house by the front door. I walked
across to the Presbyterian Church. I did not intend to go any further, but my mind was working on a sermon on a text called slagh utterly, and a voice said go on, and I went on because I was in the grip of something that I did not understand. I felt God wanted me to slay utterly, and I did not know where I was going or where I was. I got down near the end of the street and saw a shadow on the side of a house, going from the back to the front, and God told me
to follow that shadow. I walked on a little bit further, still thinking about my sermon, and wanted to know where that shadow began. I went hunting the shadow to the back of the house. I did not know who lived there, but I kept hearing that voice sligh utterly. I said, yes, Lord, I will I was walking around in the darkness around the house trying to find that shadow and accidentally saw an axe. I picked it up. I went to where the shadow went, for God wanted me to follow that shadow.
I went around toward the front door. A voice said, go in, do as I tell you, slay utterly. I saw no light, but I had to do as God told me, and I dare not turn back because somebody was urging me on. I did not know who. I went right ahead because I heard that voice, and as soon as I got in the house, some one whispered, come up higher. I went up a flight of stairs because I thought I was going up Jacob's ladder. I
walked through the middle room into the further room. I don't know what I went there for, only I was driven by an impulse and a voice. I saw some children lying there. The Bible says, suffer little children to come unto me, and I said, they are coming Lord. Before I knew what I was doing, I started sending
those children somewhere I did not know. After killing the children, I went into the room where the parents were, and I don't remember which one of them I struck first, as my head was all wrong, and I kept on hearing voices. I slayed utterly by using the acts led by this impulse that I did not seem able to control. I then went downstairs and wanted to lay down and rest, and saw a room and went in, not knowing who was there, but found two children in bed, and God
said more work. Yet before I knew what I was doing, I had continued my sacrifices, killing these two children with the axe. I left the axe in the house and return to the ewing home and went back to bed. If you enjoy unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now do so via patroon to receive access to add free episodes. Just go to patron dot com
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