#11 - Villisca victims

#11 - Villisca axe murders, Villisca, Iowa

                       This story is the stuff of true nightmares. A family brutally murdered in their sleep and the killer never found.

                During the night of June 9, 1912,  some say an unknown assailant broke into the home of Josiah and Sarah Montgomery. Others say a man was already in the house, hiding in the attic and waiting for them to go to bed.   Every family member was killed along with 2 neighbor girls who were spending the night. Lena and Ina Stillinger, Josiah, Sarah and their children Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul. The oldest was Lena, age 12 and the youngest was Paul, only 5 years old. Their skulls were crushed and a bloody axe was found in the front parlor where the Stillinger sisters had been sleeping.  No suspects were ever arrested and even today, 100 years later, the crime has remained unsolved. No one knows why this particular family was the target of such violence. 

                      Although there have been no reports of actual hauntings , people who visit the house do say they feel uneasy and there is a definite "creepiness" to it as they walk around.  I can't help but think their spirits still dwell in the parlor and bedrooms where their bodies were found, unable to rest in peace after suffering such traumatic deaths. 

                           *footnote*
                                 I just read that in fact there was an arrest made. Rev. Lyn George Jacklin Kelly was charged and tried in 1917, but was acquitted. The crime will always remain a mystery...


                                                   4 of 6 of the Moore family members