On the morning of June 10, 1912, the Villisca, Iowa home of prominent business owner Josiah B. Moore and his family was eerily still. That stillness gave way to a terrible discovery that would shake the small rural community in southwestern Iowa to its roots and live on as one of the most mysterious crimes in the state’s history.
The brutal murder of eight people, six of them children aged 12 and under, occurred sometime between the late night hours of June 9 and the morning of June 10. Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, their children Herman, Mary, Arthur and Paul, and family friends Lena and Ina Stillinger were bludgeoned in their beds with the blunt end of an ax. In the years that followed, a few suspects were tried but no one was ever convicted. More than 100 years later, the grisly murders remain unsolved.
In 1994, the J. B. Moore home was purchased by Darwin and Martha Linn and restored to emulate life as the Moore family might have experienced it in 1912. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the home serves as a living museum and has gained national notoriety as an allegedly haunted hotspot now known as the Villisca Axe Murder House (VAMH).
Visitors have reported paranormal phenomena such as phantom footsteps, disembodied voices, shadow figures, light anomalies and EVPs. This, paired with a compelling true crime story, led to the VAMH appearing in popular media like the TV series The Scariest Places on Earth and Most Terrifying Places in America, on podcasts like Lore and My Favorite Murder, and as the subject of both feature and documentary films.
Day tours of the VAMH are available by reservation spring through autumn. Overnight tours, which include a visit to the town museum and Moore family gravesite (this author recommends!), run year round. Once called “the most intense case of good versus evil I have ever come across” by Ghost Adventures host Zak Bagans, a visit to the Villisca Axe Murder House is a macabre but fascinating trip back in time.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s December 2023 issue as a part of Peak Iowa, a collection of fascinating state stories, sites and people.
