Villisca Ax Murder House

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

A Night at the Villisca Ax Murder House

On June 9, 1912, the Moore family and two friends were murdered in their beds. The killer, who slaughtered them with an ax, was never found. Today ghost hunters, curious people, and in this case, journalists, spend the night at the house to see whether or not it’s haunted.

BY MADISON LOTENSCHTEIN AND BROOKLYN DRAISEY daily-iowan@uiowa.edu

Listening to the whispers of disembodied voices was not something I planned on falling asleep to. The voices, reminiscent of parseltongue from the Harry Potter book series, caused me to open my eyes and examine the 19th century-esque living room where the rest of The Daily Iowan team slept.

No one was talking. No one was moving. I shivered, knowing full well that whoever, or whatever was talking, was not a being of this world — but that’s what student journalists like me, Madison Lotenschtein, get for spending the night at the Villisca Ax Murder House. A group made up of myself, Projects Editor Brooklyn Draisey, Visuals Director Katie Goodale, TV Director Bailey Cichon, and Documentary Director Jake Maish stayed the night in the house to learn about its history and see if we could spot some ghosts.

On June 9, 1912, Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, and their children, Herman, Mary Katherine, Arthur, Paul and two of Mary Kathrine’s friends, Ina and Lena Stillinger, slept in the same house but never woke up. All eight people were murdered by a mysterious killer with an ax. Since then, the family’s tragic story has caught the intrigue and curiosity of people across the state of Iowa and the U.S. Tour guide Johnny Houser said paranormal investigators and the public have all been keen on spending the night in the house.

Their main reason for spending the night? To see if the house is truly haunted, of course. Leaning on an old-fashioned black iron stove earlier that afternoon, Houser told the DI that in his 15 years working at the house, he has stayed the night over 400 times. Visitors not only bring their own beliefs and camera/paranormal gear, they also sometimes bring toys for the “ghost children” to play with.

These gifts can be seen scattered across the wooden floors of the children’s bedrooms, most of which consist of glassy-eyed dolls with broken plastic smiles, bouncy balls, and toy sports cars. Houser added that the three-bedroom house had been remodeled to look as it did when the Moores lived here, complete with old fashioned furniture, including the beds, which The DI team chose to not sleep in.

Walking into the house felt like a moment frozen in time, as though someone had locked up every memory, word, and action inside it and thrown away the key. According to Houser, the murderer placed sheets over each mirror in the house. To manufacture the same look from June 9, 1912, the mirrors were covered with white sheets. Haunting.

When he first came to the house, Houser said he was super into UFO conspiracies, but thought the idea of ghosts was “stupid.” That was until he heard footsteps while he was alone in the house. While cleaning one day, the guide heard someone walk upstairs and shut a dresser door. Thinking someone had broken in, he walked up the stairs to confront what he believed to be a trespasser.

“So, I go up to kick this guy out — nobody’s up there,” he said. “[I] talk to my buddies afterwards and they’re all saying ‘Oh, houses make noise.’ Like, I’m fully aware of what a footstep is at this point in my life, I’m not a complete idiot. So that’s what kinda got me started staying the night.”.

The tour guide has also witnessed objects moving, chairs rocking, and has even heard full conversations upstairs — when no one else was inside the house — but has never seen a ghost. One time, a photography student took Houser’s photo with a civil war-era camera in the attic. The photographer believed that the lighting was too dark and that the photo wouldn’t turn out, he said. When the photo developed, he noticed a shadow behind him.

“Then I got to looking at the shadow and its shoulders kind of went straight down and mine kind of went out,” Houser said. “So that kind of instantly made me think of the shadow and I’m not about that business at all.”

It was still daylight, Houser had left, and the DI crew was capturing footage and taking...

(SEE VILLISCA, 3B)