Villisca Ax Murder House, Villisca, Iowa

On the morning of June 11, 1912, the small town of Villisca, Iowa, awoke to find the Moore family and two overnight guests, the Stillenger girls, brutally murdered in their sleep. Known today as the Villisca Ax Murder House, the site of the murders attracts ghosts and ghost hunters alike.

Since the murders, the house has had more than a dozen residents living in it, but by 1994, it was in danger of being destroyed. Darwin and Martha Linn, the owners of the local Olson-Linn Museum, decided to buy the historic home rather than see it demolished.

“I was drawn to it,” Darwin Linn said. “I have a museum uptown, and I was looking for a hook. I have saved too many pieces of history to see it torn down.”

Linn decided to restore the house to its original appearance. The house slowly warped back into its 1912 form as Linn replaced vinyl siding with wooden planks and electric lights with oil lamps. Using old court documents and newspapers, Linn decorated the rooms as they might have looked on the night of the murder. He also added small touches to personalize the house the way the Moores might have.

“Sarah Moore was fond of collecting bird nests, so I’ve assembled some to re-create touches of the room,” Linn said.

Linn’s efforts were rewarded in 1997, when the house won the Preservation at its Best award from the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance. The following year, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The design of the Villisca Ax Murder House does not come across as a flashy commercial production. There are no bloodstained walls or battered mannequins lying in the beds. There are no cheesy hidden clues leading guests to the murderer. Linn simply imparts his knowledge of the crime and the many theories behind the murders. And they are all just that, theories, because no one really knows what happened that night or the identity of the true murderer.

Linn begins the tour at the end of the story. In Villisca’s cemetery, a massive headstone and six smaller headstones mark the untimely deaths of the Moore family on June 10, 1912.

After visiting the cemetery, Linn takes guests to the house itself. The neighborhood is bustling and alive, unlike the small white house at the end of the block where tragedy once struck. Before entering the house, the guests venture into a restored barn, where they watch a video about the family. As faces are put to the names, the Moore family and the Stillenger girls become real. A vocal re-enactment of the night before the murder gives listeners a sense of what life was like for families in 1912.

Linn takes the guests through the house room by room, following the murderer’s probable path. Using testimonies and police reports, Linn explains everything from the covered mirrors to the angle of ax marks.

After the tour, the group gathers in the living room like children at story time and listens to a description of the aftermath. The story is a tangled web of shoddy police work, prejudice and a list of unusual suspects, which included a preacher, a hobo and a senator. The story follows a twisted path through multiple trials, hung juries and false confessions.

Linn originally offered daylight and lamplight tours, but one group wanted to take their experience one step further.

“I gave them the tour like usual, but they wanted to stay the night,” Linn said. “I didn’t see why anyone would want to stay overnight in a house with no electricity or running water.”

The first stay was a success. Families, ghost hunters and thrill-seekers have flocked to the house since that night. Whether it is disbelief or curiosity that draws them to Villisca, few people walk away disappointed.

During one of the first overnight visits, Linn let a doctor stay in the house. Linn simply requested that the doctor leave the key and whatever the experience was worth.

“When I came back the next day, I found some money and change with a note attached saying ‘I gave you all the money I had with me,’” Linn said.

Local Debbie Schenck decided to stay overnight with a group of co-workers.

“You hear people saying stuff like blood was oozing from the walls, and some of us just wanted to see for ourselves,” Schenck said.

She said they sat in the kitchen playing with two Ouija boards, asking questions about the murders.

“The only thing creepy that happened was a bat flew out when we had asked the Ouija boards to give us a sign that someone was here,” Schenck said.

Schenck also laid out toys upstairs for the children to play with, but unlike some rumors suggested, the toys stayed in place.

This was not her first visit to the house, however. As a teenager, Schenck knew one of the families that used to live in the house.

“I used to baby-sit at that house and never had anything happen — of course I didn’t go upstairs,” Schenck said.

She said going back into the house was a great experience and encouraged others to grab a group of friends and come for a visit.

Schenck said that when the house was first made a tourist attraction, the community was split.

“It divided churches at first,” she said. “Now people just have differing opinions about the matter, like politics.”

Many people in the town feel like it’s a tragedy that should be forgotten, Schenck said, while others feel like it brings people to Villisca.

Owner Darwin Linn came across some resistance in the beginning of his renovations, but he said now he just takes it in stride.

“It’s a horrible thing that has happened, but you take it in time,” Linn said. “It’s history, and you can’t change history.”

Since the renovation, many visitors believe the house’s history has lead to paranormal activities. Word of this phenomenon has brought recognition to in the tiny town of Villisca. TruTV, “Scariest Places on Earth,” Sci Fi, the Travel Channel and WE have all featured the Villisca Ax Murder House on their programs.

Paranormal investigator Patrick Burns visited the Villisca Ax Murder House in spring 2007 for the show “Haunting Evidence” on TruTV.

“I was actually the one that brought the case to the production company’s attention,” Burns said.

Burns said the Villisca house is a dream location that he had always wanted to visit after hearing about it from a fellow ghost hunter.

“I can’t understand why [the Villisca murders] are not at the forefront of America’s crime murders,” Burns said. “This is a horrendous crime, and it seems the murders and children’s deaths have faded from our culture’s consciousness.”

After the cameras stopped rolling for “Haunting Evidence,” Burns stayed the night alone in the house with only his camera by his side.

“I had at least one experience I could not explain,” Burns said. “At two or three in the morning, I was in the children’s bedroom, and I heard a rapping someplace in the house. I looked in and around the house, and there was no one there.”

Burns spent the duration of the night in the Moore parents’ bed. Burns said he has the whole night taped and soon will review the tapes to see if he caught anything else.

Through all the tapings of television shows, owner Darwin Linn said he has seen strange things happen during the filming. He said that fully charged camera batteries often die for no apparent reason. However, it is not just objects that are affected by paranormal activity. Linn said that children often react differently than adults do in the house.

“I’ve seen little girls and boys play peek-a-boo with children that aren’t there,” Linn said.

The Villisca Ax Murder House serves as a monument to the family and history. The tragedy of the Moores’ deaths are not glamorized or sold out. Linn merely tells the story as he knows it. But then again, what happened that night is part of the mystery.

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