Villisca Axe Murders Essay

The Villisca Axe Murders has been one of America’s most terrifying unsolved mass murders in American history that changed the town of Villisca forever. This murder took place in a small town called Villisca in the county of Montgomery, Iowa. The family murdered was the Moores. Josiah and Sarah had 4 kids. Boyd was the youngest of the three, just a couple years younger than Katherine and Herman, who was the oldest kid of the Moore family. This murder happened sometime during the night of June 10, 1912. On Sunday evening, June 9th, the day before the night of the murder, the Moores had gone to a Children’s Day Service at their Presbyterian Church. Sarah Moore, the mom of the family was the co director of the play which her children had performed

The murderer continued into the house and killed all 8 people sleeping in the home of the Moore’s. By 7:30 on June 10th, Marry Peckham, the Moore’s elderly neighbor had become concerned that the house was so quiet. Marry then called Josiah’s brother, Ross, the local druggist and shared her concern about the Moores’ house being so quiet considering there were lots of young ones there that day.. Ross had arrived at the house at 8:00. He had found two people in the back bedroom with sheets laid over them and he saw blood on the bedstead. After looking around Ross called Josiah’s hardware store and talked with Ed Selley and told him to call Hank Harton. Hank had arrived at the murder scene around 8:30. He found the murderer’s axe leaning against the south wall of one of the downstairs bedrooms which was where the Stillinger girls were found. “Somebody murdered in every bed,” said

Mansfield was from Blue Island, Illinois and was a prime suspect of Burns Detective Agency of Kansas City. H was also known as George Worley and Jack Turnbaugh.According to Wilkerson, Mansfield was a cocaine fiend and serial killer. He also believes that he's responsible for axe murders of his wife, infant child, father-in-law, and mother-in-law in Blue Island. The murder of Mansfield’s family happened on July 5, 1914, 2 years after the Villisca Axe Murder. He also believes that Mansfield is the murderer of the Axe Murder that happened 4 days before the Villisca and also the murders of Jennie Peterson and Jennie Miller in Aurora Colorado. Wilkerson believes that all of these murders were done in the same manner indicating the same man was the murderer of all of them. Wilkerson had evidence to show that Mansfield was present in each of these places on the night of the murders. In each murder the people that died were all hit to death with an axe. All of the murderers also covered the mirrors in the homes with clothes. In all of the murders the murderer managed not to leave any fingerprints at any of the crime scenes by wearing gloves. Wilkerson believed that this was strong evidence that Mansfield did it. He managed to convince a Grand Jury to open an investigation in 1916. Mansfield was arrested and brought to Montgomery County from Kansas City. Payroll records showed that Mansfield was