Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Selects: Who Committed the 1912 Villisca Ax Murders?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's select,
- 0:03Speaker 1: I've chosen a really unsettling episode on the Valisca Axe Murders,
- 0:09Speaker 1: one of the most unsettling murders in the history of
- 0:12Speaker 1: American true crime. It's from twenty seventeen and it's a
- 0:17Speaker 1: good one. But fair warning, hopefully you have a strong
- 0:20Speaker 1: constitution because a lot of the stuff we talk about
- 0:23Speaker 1: is not nice anyway. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
- 0:33Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
- 0:43Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Put the three of us together at a little mystery,
- 0:51Speaker 1: a lot of mayhem, you got stuff you should and
- 0:54Speaker 1: one axe? Yeah? How many is this? Three? We got
- 1:01Speaker 1: Lizzie Borden yet effect yep, and then this one. I
- 1:05Speaker 1: couldn't think of anymore. Well, I looked. It's funny because
- 1:08Speaker 1: I looked, I was like, I wonder if we could
- 1:09Speaker 1: do a spinoff show just on X murders. Um and
- 1:13Speaker 1: Wikipedia had thirty listed. I'm surprised that's it. There's like
- 1:18Speaker 1: ten mentioned in this this article alone. M Well, we'll
- 1:23Speaker 1: see why there are so many X murders. This this um,
- 1:26Speaker 1: this whole researching the Vliska X murder kind of solved
- 1:32Speaker 1: a question I've had that I didn't realize I knew
- 1:35Speaker 1: had how to pronounce Vliska. We just settled that by
- 1:38Speaker 1: calling the Vliska town Hall. I know, that was a
- 1:41Speaker 1: pretty great moment. Right before we recorded, I was like,
- 1:43Speaker 1: are you sure there's a Valissa? Josh called the town
- 1:46Speaker 1: hall and lied. Well, it was kind of a bet.
- 1:52Speaker 1: That's just settled. Yeah, we just never put money on it.
- 1:55Speaker 1: So if you are whoever answers the phone at the
- 1:57Speaker 1: Veliska town Hall, Um, first of all, thank you. You
- 2:02Speaker 1: got a call today, so congratulations. And second of all,
- 2:06Speaker 1: you just spoke to an internet celebrity. I don't know, man,
- 2:09Speaker 1: I think Valisca is on the map and it is
- 2:13Speaker 1: one hundred percent because of this this murder. Well, if
- 2:17Speaker 1: you just type in Valisca, almost all you see is
- 2:21Speaker 1: stuff about the sax murder. Well, yeah, the site Valiska,
- 2:24Speaker 1: Iowa dot com is entirely dedicated to this axe murder.
- 2:29Speaker 1: It's a it's a pretty big deal. Yeah, no, it's
- 2:31Speaker 1: just it doesn't mention it at all. But all the
- 2:34Speaker 1: copy is just in the outline of the shape of
- 2:36Speaker 1: an axe. They just talk about like their boys club
- 2:40Speaker 1: and stuff, that they're doing their Fourth of July braide,
- 2:43Speaker 1: but it's in the shape of an ax. Yeah. The
- 2:45Speaker 1: population and elevation is in a drop of blood coming
- 2:49Speaker 1: off of the axe. Yeah, it's this population, not as
- 2:52Speaker 1: much as it was on June ninth. That's morbid. Nineteen twelve.
- 2:56Speaker 1: Did you did you hear about this before? Well, I
- 2:59Speaker 1: think or hinterc effect. We had some emails from probably
- 3:03Speaker 1: local Iowans, Iowans Iowans Iowanian Nights saying, hey, you guys
- 3:12Speaker 1: should if you're into the not into X murders, but
- 3:16Speaker 1: get a load of it. If you're into reporting on
- 3:18Speaker 1: grizzly crimes, you should check out the one we had
- 3:21Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve. Yeah, they were right, man, This is
- 3:24Speaker 1: so before we get into it, I think it goes
- 3:26Speaker 1: without saying listeners that this is a very horrific grizzly
- 3:30Speaker 1: crime that we're going to talk about in some detail. Right,
- 3:34Speaker 1: listen at your own discretion. X murder is in the title, everybody. Yeah,
- 3:38Speaker 1: I just want to make sure we cover ourselves there.
- 3:40Speaker 1: This is one of the most brutal crimes in American history. Yeah,
- 3:44Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't know about it. Man.
- 3:47Speaker 1: Well let's let's let's stop jabbering and get this criming. Okay,
- 3:53Speaker 1: all right, where was where was this from? By the way, Well,
- 3:57Speaker 1: one of the articles we researched was from Mike dash
- 4:01Speaker 1: the Smithsonian magazine. They do great work, great work. There's
- 4:07Speaker 1: another guy named and named Ed Epperley who we have
- 4:10Speaker 1: to give a shout out to, who has like a
- 4:12Speaker 1: whole site called ask ed that's dedicated to this murder
- 4:16Speaker 1: guys researched to for like fifty five years or something
- 4:19Speaker 1: like that. Did he write one of the two books? Probably? Sure. Yeah.
- 4:22Speaker 1: He's widely known as the expert on the veliska acts murder.
- 4:25Speaker 1: He knows everything there is to know, and he's got
- 4:27Speaker 1: a really fascinating So if you're even remotely into true
- 4:30Speaker 1: crime and this thing floats your boat, go check out
- 4:33Speaker 1: Ed's site and you will just spend days pouring over it. Yeah.
- 4:36Speaker 1: One thing I realized in researching this was it was
- 4:39Speaker 1: way easier to get away with murder, yeah than nineteen twelve. Yeah. Yeah,
- 4:45Speaker 1: there's a lot of agreement that had this been done today,
- 4:50Speaker 1: they would have caught the guy very quickly. But yeah,
- 4:54Speaker 1: nineteen twelve. It was like, oh, you wear gloves and
- 4:57Speaker 1: you just confounded their only means of detection basically from
- 5:00Speaker 1: an eyewitness pretty much. Yeah, so we keep saying nineteen
- 5:04Speaker 1: twelve specifically, like you said, June ninth, nineteen twelve in
- 5:08Speaker 1: the little town t Well, it was one of those
- 5:11Speaker 1: things where it crossed over into midnight. So June ninth,
- 5:15Speaker 1: tenth depends on if you're still partying. Potato Potato Liska, Melissa, Right, Yeah,
- 5:21Speaker 1: but at five away East second Street in Valiska, Iowa,
- 5:24Speaker 1: which is in the County of Montgomery in the southeast
- 5:29Speaker 1: of the state. I believe not as far from here
- 5:31Speaker 1: as I thought. No. I just looked on a map
- 5:34Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, I was there, I thought,
- 5:37Speaker 1: I always like basically in Canada. No, huh, where is
- 5:42Speaker 1: it more right in the middle of the country. I
- 5:44Speaker 1: did not realize that, Like, it doesn't look further west
- 5:47Speaker 1: than like Dallas. I can believe that. But it was
- 5:51Speaker 1: the north that gets you, the northern, the northernward direction,
- 5:55Speaker 1: that's what gets your share. So on this night June ninth, tenth,
- 6:00Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, and this little house there were eight people sleeping.
- 6:06Speaker 1: There were a mom and a dad, Joe and Sarah Moore,
- 6:11Speaker 1: and then there four kids what were their names, Charles
- 6:17Speaker 1: I believe Herman, Katherine Boyd and Paul right, And then
- 6:22Speaker 1: downstairs there were two additional people sleeping in the house,
- 6:26Speaker 1: little Lena and Aina Stillinger, and they were just having
- 6:29Speaker 1: a sleepover, right, Yeah, they were friends of Catherine, the
- 6:32Speaker 1: oldest daughter or the only daughter I guess, of the Moors,
- 6:37Speaker 1: and the whole group had been at church. They were
- 6:40Speaker 1: Presbyterians and they had been at church that day. It
- 6:45Speaker 1: was Sunday for a special Children's Day Mass that Missus
- 6:49Speaker 1: Moore had helped put on and the kids had all
- 6:51Speaker 1: participated him. And at that mass, Katherine had asked her
- 6:55Speaker 1: two friends, Lena and Iena the sisters, to spend the night.
- 6:59Speaker 1: And so they came back home with the Moors from
- 7:03Speaker 1: the Children's Day Mass, and by I think ten or
- 7:07Speaker 1: ten thirty, they were all at home in bed and
- 7:10Speaker 1: the lights were out and the house was settled and dark. Yeah, man,
- 7:14Speaker 1: the Stillinger girls. I mean, this is all very sad,
- 7:16Speaker 1: But anytime I hear of a fateful turn, like oh yeah,
- 7:20Speaker 1: we just spent the night there that night and things
- 7:22Speaker 1: go bad. It always I don't know bothers me more. Yeah,
- 7:25Speaker 1: for sure, Twists of fate are terrible, especially when they
- 7:29Speaker 1: result in terrible deaths. So very late at night, like
- 7:34Speaker 1: you said, after midnight, someone crept in to the back
- 7:37Speaker 1: of the house, which was not locked. That's so up
- 7:40Speaker 1: for debate. Oh yeah, all right, locked or unlocked. They
- 7:46Speaker 1: got in without raising suspicion, right, Yeah, two story house,
- 7:50Speaker 1: and this is a small town, this is there were
- 7:53Speaker 1: I don't even think two thousand people living there then,
- 7:55Speaker 1: and I think even less now than there were back then. Yeah,
- 8:00Speaker 1: of those places. So this person, and I think by
- 8:03Speaker 1: all accounts we can safely say it was a man
- 8:07Speaker 1: creeps in this house with an axe from the property. Yeah,
- 8:12Speaker 1: it was Joe Moore's own ax. Yeah. And as we
- 8:15Speaker 1: will see, apparently they called these weapons of convenience because
- 8:20Speaker 1: back in the day, every single house in the US
- 8:24Speaker 1: had an ax, like in the front or backyard. That
- 8:27Speaker 1: just explained it. That was the question I didn't realize
- 8:29Speaker 1: i'd had. Why were there so many axe murderers at
- 8:32Speaker 1: a certain period of time in American history? Was because
- 8:36Speaker 1: everybody had an ax? Yeah, and you would leave it
- 8:38Speaker 1: just you know, yeah, like chopped into the stump that
- 8:42Speaker 1: you use as the chopping block or whatever. It'd be
- 8:45Speaker 1: like a weapon of convenience. Yeah, these days you would
- 8:48Speaker 1: have to kill people with like a mailbox, right, just
- 8:51Speaker 1: some something that everyone has, so like a silicone spatula
- 8:56Speaker 1: or a high speed internet cable here you yeah, chokes
- 9:00Speaker 1: somebody with that. Yeah, Okay, all joking aside. So this
- 9:04Speaker 1: dude creeps in there. He's got this axe. He gets
- 9:07Speaker 1: and this is very key here. He gets the lamp,
- 9:09Speaker 1: an oil lamp from the dresser inside the house. He
- 9:13Speaker 1: takes off the chimney the glass you know, covering, and
- 9:18Speaker 1: takes it off, bends the wick and half so the
- 9:20Speaker 1: flame is smaller, lights the lamp, and then turns it
- 9:23Speaker 1: down really low, and then commences creeping. Yeah, with an
- 9:28Speaker 1: axe in hand, and this low light oil lamp in
- 9:32Speaker 1: the other chimney less lamp, which we'll see is a
- 9:34Speaker 1: big clue. Yeah. So he goes up the stairs, apparently,
- 9:39Speaker 1: so he passes the Stillinger girls first, yep, goes up
- 9:43Speaker 1: the stairs. He passes the children's bedroom and then opposite
- 9:49Speaker 1: I believe the landing from the children's bedroom are Joe
- 9:52Speaker 1: and Sarah's room, or is Joe and Sarah's room, and
- 9:55Speaker 1: they're sleeping, and he sets the oil lamp down I believe,
- 10:00Speaker 1: at the foot of the bed, and he raises the
- 10:03Speaker 1: axe over his head and using the flat the flat
- 10:09Speaker 1: end flat side of the axe, not the sharp blade side,
- 10:12Speaker 1: but the other side, he delivers a blow to Joe's head.
- 10:17Speaker 1: Joe I believe, was lying on his back, even though
- 10:19Speaker 1: Smithsonian article says something different. Yeah, raise it so high.
- 10:22Speaker 1: He even gouged the ceiling correct. Yeah, brought it down
- 10:25Speaker 1: hard on Joe's head. Probably killed him instantly from that
- 10:29Speaker 1: one blow. Yeah. Then apparently he didn't disturb Sarah at
- 10:33Speaker 1: all because he did the same thing to her. And
- 10:36Speaker 1: both of them were found in a position that they
- 10:39Speaker 1: would have been sleeping. And there wasn't like the bed
- 10:41Speaker 1: clothes weren't ruffled. There wasn't their arm wasn't enough to
- 10:44Speaker 1: defend themselves. They died in their sleep, it appeared, right. Yes,
- 10:49Speaker 1: So he kills the parents either immediately or they die
- 10:54Speaker 1: probably pretty quickly, right leaves the room and goes next door.
- 10:58Speaker 1: And this is really just almost awful to talk about.
- 11:01Speaker 1: But he kills all the children in their sleep. One
- 11:03Speaker 1: by one, but again without waking any of them. Yeah,
- 11:07Speaker 1: by the time he got to the Stillinger girls downstairs,
- 11:13Speaker 1: it seemed evidence points to the fact that they may
- 11:17Speaker 1: have awakened. Finally, one of them, the older one Len
- 11:20Speaker 1: and I believe is the older one, and then he
- 11:23Speaker 1: dispatches with both of them in the same manner. Yeah, grizzly, awful,
- 11:28Speaker 1: awful murder. So that's bad enough, right, This guy just
- 11:31Speaker 1: went around and murdered eight people, six of them children
- 11:34Speaker 1: under the age of twelve. Yeah, or twelve are under
- 11:38Speaker 1: with the blunt end of an axe. That's bad enough.
- 11:41Speaker 1: But then it just gets a million times worse. And
- 11:44Speaker 1: this is probably why this axe murder is just part
- 11:49Speaker 1: of American history, whether we like it or not. So
- 11:52Speaker 1: what the guy does next is, well, he took the
- 11:55Speaker 1: axe and he flips it over, and he takes the
- 12:00Speaker 1: sharp side, and he goes around and he starts bashing
- 12:04Speaker 1: everybody's head in one by one. Apparently, Joe was later
- 12:10Speaker 1: found to have been struck as many as thirty times
- 12:14Speaker 1: in the head with the axe. Yeah, just one by one.
- 12:18Speaker 1: He went around and completely caved in the head and
- 12:21Speaker 1: face of all of his victims, methodically throughout the house
- 12:26Speaker 1: after they were dead, which is a bizarre, horrible thing
- 12:30Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, So then it gets a little bit strange.
- 12:33Speaker 1: He goes around to the rooms and all over the
- 12:38Speaker 1: house really and does different things in each one. He
- 12:42Speaker 1: covers windows with sheets and things. He covers mirrors. Yeah,
- 12:47Speaker 1: all the mirrors in the house were covered. He covered
- 12:48Speaker 1: the faces of I believe all the victims, right, Yeah,
- 12:51Speaker 1: one way or another. I believe all of their faces
- 12:55Speaker 1: were covered with either sheets or pillowcases, or I think
- 12:57Speaker 1: in the case of the girls, he pulled their dress
- 13:00Speaker 1: up over their faces. Yeah. We'll talk about that in
- 13:02Speaker 1: a second. Uh. Yeah, it's very um, I think in
- 13:09Speaker 1: the serial killer or psychopath mode though I've heard of
- 13:13Speaker 1: stuff like that before though, right, like, Um, you get
- 13:16Speaker 1: the idea that they don't the murderer doesn't want the
- 13:20Speaker 1: victim looking at him, Yeah, which may also explain why
- 13:24Speaker 1: he bashed their faces in who knows. Um. So the
- 13:27Speaker 1: guy apparently hangs out for a little while. Um. He
- 13:32Speaker 1: does other weird things though. The bacon he grabbed a
- 13:35Speaker 1: two pound slab of bacon, and I saw elsewhere that
- 13:38Speaker 1: there was another slab of bacon found in the house,
- 13:41Speaker 1: but there was at least one two pound slab of
- 13:43Speaker 1: bacon that he wrapped in a dish towel and then
- 13:46Speaker 1: left on the floor of one of the bedrooms. There
- 13:48Speaker 1: was a bowl of bloody water that was later found
- 13:51Speaker 1: he washed himself off. He washed off the axe, although
- 13:57Speaker 1: he left it behind um and he apparently hung out
- 14:01Speaker 1: for a little while in the house before leaving sometime
- 14:05Speaker 1: before five am. So the murders took place around midnight. Yeah,
- 14:11Speaker 1: and then come five am the house is dark still.
- 14:15Speaker 1: It's five am, so that's not the weirdest thing, although
- 14:18Speaker 1: we're talking about Iowa. So plenty of people were up
- 14:21Speaker 1: at five, including the neighbor, a woman named Mary Peckham,
- 14:25Speaker 1: and she noticed that there wasn't anybody up at the house,
- 14:29Speaker 1: which was a little odd. It was a Monday morning now,
- 14:32Speaker 1: and by seven she thought it was just downright eerie
- 14:37Speaker 1: that there was no sign of life at the house.
- 14:39Speaker 1: She went over and let the Moore's chickens out so
- 14:42Speaker 1: that they could peck around and feed. She called Joe
- 14:45Speaker 1: Moore's store and said, hey, has Joe showed up and
- 14:51Speaker 1: found from the employee that he hadn't. And finally one
- 14:54Speaker 1: of those two gets in touch with a guy named
- 14:56Speaker 1: Ross Moore, Joe Moore's brother, and Ross comes over and
- 15:01Speaker 1: unlocks the door. The front door is locked, and he
- 15:05Speaker 1: goes inside and he comes almost immediately rushing back out
- 15:09Speaker 1: calling for the local marshal to be called. Yeah, basically,
- 15:14Speaker 1: he gets Hank Horton as the marshall's name, He gets
- 15:17Speaker 1: him on the scene, and this is where things just
- 15:20Speaker 1: kind of go berserk. It's it's such a small town,
- 15:24Speaker 1: such a grizzly crime. Any chances of preserving a crime scene,
- 15:30Speaker 1: and this is nineteen twelve. I don't even know how
- 15:33Speaker 1: much a small town like this knows about preserving a
- 15:36Speaker 1: crime scene at the time, but any hopes were lost
- 15:40Speaker 1: within those first few hours after the discovery, because by
- 15:44Speaker 1: all accounts, there were a hundred or more people that
- 15:47Speaker 1: went through that house, from doctors to coroners, to investigators
- 15:53Speaker 1: to just townspeople, right, that were allowed to just go
- 15:56Speaker 1: in there and check things out. Yeah, So the first
- 15:59Speaker 1: group comes with the the the marshal, Hank Horton, right,
- 16:06Speaker 1: was to two doctors and a minister, Jay Clark Cooper, right,
- 16:10Speaker 1: great doctor name Jay Clark Cooper and Edgar Huff and
- 16:15Speaker 1: Wesley Ewing, who was the minister of the church. They
- 16:18Speaker 1: were the first contingent to make it into the house
- 16:21Speaker 1: after Rossmore came running out. Yeah. So they go in
- 16:24Speaker 1: and they know enough to not disturb things too much.
- 16:28Speaker 1: Another guy gets brought in, um La Linquist. He's the coroner. Yep.
- 16:34Speaker 1: He tries to take some notes about the crime scene.
- 16:37Speaker 1: But the person who got the most information was another doctor.
- 16:41Speaker 1: His name was Williams. Yeah. FS Williams was the one
- 16:46Speaker 1: who examined the body and at a later inquest, um
- 16:49Speaker 1: he had the most details to offer about the bodies,
- 16:52Speaker 1: of positions, all that stuff. So when those guys walked in,
- 16:55Speaker 1: they were at least well versed enough to know not
- 16:59Speaker 1: disturb things as much as possible, or at least more
- 17:03Speaker 1: than the townspeople knew. Yeah, and FS Williams allegedly came
- 17:06Speaker 1: out of the house pretty shaken and said, don't go
- 17:10Speaker 1: in there, boys, or you'll regretted to your last day. Yeah,
- 17:14Speaker 1: And the townspeople said, nuts to you. We're going inside.
- 17:17Speaker 1: We want to see some dead bodies. And they all
- 17:19Speaker 1: regretted it probably till their last day. Yeah, Because they
- 17:22Speaker 1: not only messed with the crime scene, they poked around.
- 17:24Speaker 1: There was supposedly the town drunk took fragments of Joe
- 17:27Speaker 1: Moore's skull as mementos. Like the crime scene was toast,
- 17:31Speaker 1: Like you said, if it could have ever been preserved,
- 17:34Speaker 1: it was toast. And even the local druggist showed up
- 17:38Speaker 1: with his camera to help preserve the crime scene because
- 17:41Speaker 1: he heard that the townspeople were tramping all over it,
- 17:45Speaker 1: and Ross Moore, not understanding what he was doing through
- 17:48Speaker 1: the guy out, thought he was just being a ghoul
- 17:50Speaker 1: trying to get pictures. So the crime scene is utterly
- 17:53Speaker 1: and completely lost. Yeah, and one of the things about Valesca,
- 18:00Speaker 1: almost said Vassela, is that it was a train town.
- 18:04Speaker 1: There were about thirty trains every day that went through there,
- 18:07Speaker 1: and so by this time, unless this person was local
- 18:11Speaker 1: and maybe hiding out locally, by all accounts, the murderer
- 18:15Speaker 1: had probably hopped a train was out of there right
- 18:17Speaker 1: that time, but they didn't gone. They didn't realize this
- 18:19Speaker 1: until they had already released some bloodhounds. They searched the countryside.
- 18:24Speaker 1: There was like a pretty pretty big search to find
- 18:28Speaker 1: whoever did this, and they didn't find anybody. So the
- 18:30Speaker 1: town was just terrified. Town of two thousand people, eight
- 18:35Speaker 1: including six children, had just been murdered with an axe
- 18:38Speaker 1: in your town. And now the sun's starting to go
- 18:40Speaker 1: down and nobody's been caught, all right, So let's take
- 18:42Speaker 1: a break and we'll come back and talk about suspect
- 18:45Speaker 1: number one right after this. Okay, So suspect number one
- 19:15Speaker 1: might be a little surprising when you first hear that
- 19:18Speaker 1: he was a state senator, very um well, well well
- 19:24Speaker 1: respected by some as a local businessman and a very
- 19:29Speaker 1: prominent Methodist. Seems the town was pretty sharply divided between
- 19:34Speaker 1: Methodists and Presbyterian you know those days, and that stuff
- 19:39Speaker 1: mattered to those people. And his name was Frank Jones,
- 19:44Speaker 1: and Methodist immediately said, no, he's he's got to be innocent.
- 19:51Speaker 1: This is a fine upstanding member of our church. Presbyterians
- 19:54Speaker 1: are like, no, it's got to be him. And at
- 19:57Speaker 1: first I was like, well, why would it be the
- 19:58Speaker 1: state senator? None of this makes sense. There were a
- 20:00Speaker 1: couple of big things that made people believe that he
- 20:04Speaker 1: could be the guy. Yeah. Joe Moore worked for him
- 20:08Speaker 1: for seven years and was one of his best salesmen
- 20:12Speaker 1: on his farm equipment team. And apparently he left in
- 20:16Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, and was not too happy with the
- 20:20Speaker 1: work hours, which were sixteen hour days, six days a week.
- 20:24Speaker 1: Who would be it's like us, And then set up
- 20:27Speaker 1: a rival business and even took one of the clients,
- 20:30Speaker 1: the John Deer company. Yeah, that was a big one.
- 20:32Speaker 1: I'm sure, so big that when Sarah Peckham called Joe
- 20:38Speaker 1: Moore's employee to tell him the news. Yeah, Joe Moore's
- 20:42Speaker 1: employee called the John Deer people in Omaha to let
- 20:45Speaker 1: them know. Oh sure, they were like the third people
- 20:47Speaker 1: called after the bodies were discovered. So he takes John
- 20:50Speaker 1: Deer with him. So this set up an obvious rivalry
- 20:54Speaker 1: and worse than that apparently, and I don't know if
- 20:59Speaker 1: this is super were confirmed, but at least the rumor
- 21:02Speaker 1: was that Joe Moore had slept with Jones's daughter in law.
- 21:07Speaker 1: From what I understand, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
- 21:09Speaker 1: that's been that's understood, is true. That's true. So sleuch
- 21:13Speaker 1: with his daughter in law, who apparently kind of had
- 21:16Speaker 1: several affairs in town and was not very discreet. Yeah, apparently,
- 21:21Speaker 1: according to Mike Dash at Smithsonian, she used to set
- 21:24Speaker 1: up her um her meet and greets over the phone.
- 21:29Speaker 1: It's called a liaison. Oh that's right, um, over the phone.
- 21:33Speaker 1: And this was at a time when there was a
- 21:34Speaker 1: switchboard operator running the phones in the town. Yeah, they
- 21:38Speaker 1: could set there and listen. Yeah, and this lady obviously
- 21:41Speaker 1: didn't care. So um. Apparently it was pretty well known
- 21:45Speaker 1: that that Joe Moore had had an affair with F.
- 21:48Speaker 1: Jones's daughter in law. Yes, huge, you put those two
- 21:51Speaker 1: things together, and friends, the fact that apparently they used
- 21:54Speaker 1: to cross to the other side of the street to
- 21:56Speaker 1: keep from from from encountering one another, that's that's a
- 22:02Speaker 1: big deal in that town. You're a small town, right,
- 22:05Speaker 1: So Yeah, suspicion fell on to f apparently, from what
- 22:08Speaker 1: I understand, within a couple hours of the bodies being discovered. Yeah,
- 22:12Speaker 1: and suspicion not that he may have done it, that
- 22:15Speaker 1: Jones was actually the killer, but maybe Jones because he
- 22:18Speaker 1: was fifty seven years old and probably had some pretty
- 22:21Speaker 1: good money clearly, Oh yeah, he was wealthy. He was
- 22:23Speaker 1: building a bank, overseeing his new bank being built when
- 22:27Speaker 1: he got the news of the bodies. When you're building
- 22:28Speaker 1: the bank, you're you're rolling in it. Yeah, So everyone
- 22:31Speaker 1: thought that he probably hired somebody out to kill him
- 22:35Speaker 1: and there was a very the Burns Detective Agency. There
- 22:39Speaker 1: was a detective named James Wilkerson who said, you know what,
- 22:42Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think he hired someone, and
- 22:43Speaker 1: I think that man's name was William Mansfield, William Blackie Mansfield.
- 22:48Speaker 1: It was already, Um no, he wasn't already. He would
- 22:51Speaker 1: later be, I believe, convicted of an axe murder himself. Yeah,
- 22:57Speaker 1: which is probably one of the chief reasons he was suspect. Well, no,
- 23:00Speaker 1: that that came a couple of years after. I believe
- 23:03Speaker 1: that was nineteen fourteen or fifteen, that he murdered his wife,
- 23:07Speaker 1: her parents, and their child, their child, his chocket with
- 23:11Speaker 1: an axe. Right. Yeah, See, I was a bad dude.
- 23:14Speaker 1: But there was one problem with James Wilkerson's theory. Blackie
- 23:18Speaker 1: Mansfield had an airtight alibi. He was in Illinois, hundreds
- 23:24Speaker 1: of miles away when the crimes occurred. Not only did
- 23:27Speaker 1: the foreman vouch for him, but the payroll records showed
- 23:31Speaker 1: very clearly that he had not been in Viliska that
- 23:34Speaker 1: day and couldn't have done it. Yeah, so he was exonerated,
- 23:38Speaker 1: but a lot of townspeople still thought that that you
- 23:43Speaker 1: know how it was back then and still is today
- 23:45Speaker 1: to a certain degree. Sure, especially in a small town. Yeah,
- 23:48Speaker 1: people were convinced that he was a guy, and a
- 23:49Speaker 1: lot of people probably went to their graves thinking that.
- 23:52Speaker 1: So even though Chuck that Mansfield was exonerated, and like
- 23:56Speaker 1: you said, a lot of people thought that Jones, F
- 23:59Speaker 1: Jones apparently went by f M did have something to
- 24:03Speaker 1: do with it. The still in your Girl's father and
- 24:05Speaker 1: Ross Moore, Joe Moore's brother, both thought f Jones was
- 24:09Speaker 1: behind this, right and and Wilkinson made it like his
- 24:14Speaker 1: personal mission to take Jones down and apparently ruined his
- 24:19Speaker 1: political career, cost him reelection to the state Senate. I
- 24:22Speaker 1: would think that probably happened anyway, just from suspicion, but maybe,
- 24:26Speaker 1: but I think like there's something between townspeople suspecting you
- 24:30Speaker 1: and a detective like bringing evidence against you and getting
- 24:34Speaker 1: a grand jury to indict you. It was like the
- 24:37Speaker 1: good old days when you could be suspected of an
- 24:39Speaker 1: X murder and still win a Senate seat, right exactly.
- 24:44Speaker 1: But Jones he didn't win re election, and uh yeah,
- 24:49Speaker 1: apparently to their dying day, some people assumed that it
- 24:53Speaker 1: was him behind it. Another candidate, candidate suspect. Sure in candidates,
- 25:01Speaker 1: not the right word. Lynn George Jacqueline Kelly, a man
- 25:07Speaker 1: with four names. He went by George Kelly though. He
- 25:09Speaker 1: was an Englishman, which was probably a little weird at
- 25:13Speaker 1: the time, sure be living there. No one had ever
- 25:16Speaker 1: seen an Englishman in Iowa. Maybe he was a preacher though,
- 25:19Speaker 1: and it says in this Smithsonian article a known sexual deviant.
- 25:25Speaker 1: He definitely had some mental health problems. But there are
- 25:29Speaker 1: some things in his case where it's sort of we're
- 25:32Speaker 1: suspicious in others that made him not a great suspect,
- 25:35Speaker 1: one of which he was a little guy. He was
- 25:37Speaker 1: five to one, one hundred and nineteen pounds, so maybe
- 25:41Speaker 1: not the best suspect for swinging an ax like that. Yeah, yeah,
- 25:47Speaker 1: although you know he could have been strong as an ox.
- 25:49Speaker 1: You never know. Sures, those little guys, you know, Yeah,
- 25:53Speaker 1: but they're usually good with like jiu jitsu sleeper holds
- 25:56Speaker 1: rather than axe swinging. You know, they just scramble up
- 25:59Speaker 1: on top of before you know what, their legs are
- 26:01Speaker 1: around your neck and you're losing concoct their thumbs are
- 26:03Speaker 1: in your eyeballs, right, that kind of thing, right, Uh, yeah,
- 26:06Speaker 1: so fair enough, But he was left handed, and the
- 26:10Speaker 1: coroner Linquist did say that you know, from their analysis,
- 26:14Speaker 1: as rudimentary as that might be in nineteen twelve, that
- 26:16Speaker 1: it could probably at least determine that it was a
- 26:19Speaker 1: left handed assailant from the blood spatter. I believe, Yeah,
- 26:22Speaker 1: on the walls. It's good. Good for them for being
- 26:25Speaker 1: that advanced. So there were some other things that Um
- 26:29Speaker 1: that implicated George Kelly. One, he was in Valiska. He
- 26:32Speaker 1: was a traveling preacher. He and his wife toured around
- 26:35Speaker 1: Um and they were in Valiska. Then the day of
- 26:38Speaker 1: the murder Um they were actually at the children's service. Yeah,
- 26:43Speaker 1: that the that the moors and the still injured girls
- 26:46Speaker 1: were at Um. Again, this guy was a sex maniac,
- 26:49Speaker 1: is what he was known ass Yeah, I kind of
- 26:51Speaker 1: wonder about that. And I man, he liked to have sex.
- 26:54Speaker 1: I guess there were He placed an ad and this
- 26:57Speaker 1: is in the nineteen tens. He placed an ad the
- 27:00Speaker 1: Omaha World Herald looking for a stenographer who would be
- 27:07Speaker 1: willing to pose as a model. And when one woman
- 27:11Speaker 1: named Jessamine Hodgson replied to his ad, he sent her
- 27:15Speaker 1: a letter. And apparently he's quite lude so much so
- 27:19Speaker 1: that the court that heard the case against him said
- 27:24Speaker 1: that it was so obscene, lude lascivious, and filthy as
- 27:29Speaker 1: to be offensive to this honorable court, and improper to
- 27:32Speaker 1: be spread upon the record thereof. I really want to
- 27:35Speaker 1: know what was in that last Well. One of the
- 27:36Speaker 1: things was that the lady would be required to type
- 27:39Speaker 1: in the nude. Yeah, this is the nineteen ten. No,
- 27:42Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. I wonder how it would be
- 27:44Speaker 1: judged by today's standard. Oh, although I mean by today's standard.
- 27:48Speaker 1: If you sent a potential job candidate a letter that
- 27:52Speaker 1: said going to require you to be typing in the nude, Yeah,
- 27:56Speaker 1: you would get in some trouble for that. Sure, I
- 27:59Speaker 1: just don't know that you would say it was obscene
- 28:01Speaker 1: luden Lecity. No, I'm with you. They'd say that's kink.
- 28:05Speaker 1: But I think the so okay. George Kelly was a
- 28:08Speaker 1: kinky traveling preacher who had his wife in tow and
- 28:11Speaker 1: he was in Viliska at the time of the murders,
- 28:14Speaker 1: and he left that next morning on a train. Right.
- 28:17Speaker 1: But there was supposedly a witness that said that he
- 28:20Speaker 1: had a very incriminating statement when he got off of
- 28:24Speaker 1: that train that very morning. Yeah, he apparently referenced the murders,
- 28:29Speaker 1: but he had left town before they found out about
- 28:32Speaker 1: the murders. But then later on those people recanted those statements, correct, Right,
- 28:38Speaker 1: So when Frank Jones f F. Jones had a grand
- 28:42Speaker 1: jury brought to hear evidence against him, he was exonerated.
- 28:48Speaker 1: Same thing, not with George Kelly. Actually, I should say
- 28:52Speaker 1: he was actually the only person to ever go to
- 28:54Speaker 1: trial for these murders, and he was tried twice. The
- 28:58Speaker 1: first time the jury found a eleven to one in
- 29:01Speaker 1: his favor. Yeah, the second jury acquitted him entirely. The
- 29:05Speaker 1: evidence against him was just too flimsy and it probably
- 29:10Speaker 1: wasn't him. Yeah, I mean the idea was they were
- 29:13Speaker 1: like he was at that church service, he's a pervert.
- 29:16Speaker 1: He saw these kids in the service, he went back
- 29:19Speaker 1: and peeked into their house and camped out in their barn.
- 29:24Speaker 1: And the evidence there was there were some hay bales
- 29:26Speaker 1: in the barn that had depressions as if someone had
- 29:29Speaker 1: been laying on them, and if you'd laid down in
- 29:32Speaker 1: one of them. There was a peephole right there in
- 29:33Speaker 1: the barn where he could see the house. This is
- 29:36Speaker 1: all pretty flimsy. There was also, though, I think one
- 29:39Speaker 1: of the reasons why the case was brought against him.
- 29:41Speaker 1: He was specifically tried for the murder of Lena still Injured,
- 29:45Speaker 1: and that's that's noteworthy because although they don't say in
- 29:51Speaker 1: the official court record directly that she may have been
- 29:55Speaker 1: sexually assaulted her, that some sort of sex crime had
- 29:57Speaker 1: been committed against her. Yeah, Supposedly she had been found
- 30:02Speaker 1: with her nightclothes hiked up over her waist, like above
- 30:06Speaker 1: her waist. Yeah, her undergarments had been taken off and
- 30:09Speaker 1: stuffed under the bed. Yeah, and then her her legs
- 30:12Speaker 1: had been arranged so that her genitalia was prominent. Right.
- 30:17Speaker 1: That was done after she had been murdered. And I
- 30:21Speaker 1: think that's one of the reasons why they suspected George Kelly,
- 30:25Speaker 1: because to add a sexual dimension to this brutal murder,
- 30:30Speaker 1: they said, well, this guy's just just enough of a
- 30:32Speaker 1: sex maniac for that to be possible. Yeah. Oh, I
- 30:35Speaker 1: forgot about this fact though. He actually returned a week
- 30:38Speaker 1: later and posed as a Scotland yard detective so he
- 30:42Speaker 1: could get a tour of the house. That is so
- 30:44Speaker 1: George Kelly, Well, it's definitely one of those things that
- 30:47Speaker 1: makes you go, wait a minute, returned to the scene
- 30:50Speaker 1: of the crime. You lied to get in there and
- 30:52Speaker 1: look at the house, right, but apparently everyone wanted to
- 30:55Speaker 1: go look at the house. Yeah, so it's and plus,
- 30:58Speaker 1: what's posing? You know, we've seen so many like cartoony
- 31:01Speaker 1: movies that like somebody gets like the deer stalker hat
- 31:05Speaker 1: and a pipe and says they're from Scotland Yard. Posing
- 31:08Speaker 1: could be like somebody saying like, oh, you must be
- 31:10Speaker 1: from Scotland Yard and like grunting in the affirmative. Yeah,
- 31:13Speaker 1: that's true. I guess that technically constitutes posing in the
- 31:16Speaker 1: real world. Apparently signed a confession. Oh yeah, that was
- 31:19Speaker 1: a big one too. Yeah, but I mean the confession
- 31:23Speaker 1: literally said I killed the children upstairs first and the
- 31:26Speaker 1: children downstairs last. I knew God wanted me to do
- 31:29Speaker 1: it this way. Slay utterly came to mind, and I
- 31:32Speaker 1: picked up the axe, went into the house and killed them.
- 31:37Speaker 1: But you know, he took it back later. It was like, yeah,
- 31:39Speaker 1: all that very specific stuff I said about killing this family,
- 31:41Speaker 1: it didn't really do it. So he was exonerated. So
- 31:45Speaker 1: so far, the little town of Veliska has looked around
- 31:49Speaker 1: and said we couldn't find any tramps. So who's the
- 31:52Speaker 1: person that hated Joe more the most f Jones? While
- 31:56Speaker 1: it wasn't him, who's the weirdest pervert we can find?
- 31:59Speaker 1: Who was in town of the Yeah, that englishman George Kelly.
- 32:02Speaker 1: It wasn't him. So they didn't know. A lot of
- 32:05Speaker 1: people went to their graves dying, not knowing what happened.
- 32:08Speaker 1: And we still don't know what happened. But with the
- 32:11Speaker 1: hindsight of I guess, modern forensic techniques, modern profiling, and
- 32:17Speaker 1: the work of dedicated historians like Ed Upperley, we have
- 32:22Speaker 1: something of a clear picture emerging. And that picture seems
- 32:25Speaker 1: to be centering on a serial killer. We'll talk about
- 32:29Speaker 1: that theory more right after this. All right, so we've
- 32:55Speaker 1: ruled out these locals local I guess in Kelly's case,
- 33:03Speaker 1: And now the modern take on this is that this
- 33:08Speaker 1: was a serial killer because in nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve,
- 33:13Speaker 1: there were a lot of axe murders in the Midwest,
- 33:18Speaker 1: at least ten everywhere from Colorado Springs to Ellsworth, Kansas.
- 33:26Speaker 1: And many of them had similar traits. Yeah, like some
- 33:34Speaker 1: very startlingly similar traits, right, but not all of them
- 33:38Speaker 1: and some of them are like, and we'll go through these,
- 33:40Speaker 1: but some were like, well, in five of them, these
- 33:42Speaker 1: same things happened, and two of them, these same things happen.
- 33:46Speaker 1: So it makes me wonder if it wasn't if they're
- 33:48Speaker 1: kind of grouping too many of these together. This does.
- 33:54Speaker 1: Ed Epperley actually whittles it down to five, including Veliska.
- 33:57Speaker 1: Oh I thought it was three. Was at five? Five?
- 34:00Speaker 1: There's three that happened in nineteen eleven. There was one
- 34:02Speaker 1: that happened in Colorado Springs, Colorado that supposedly kicked the
- 34:07Speaker 1: whole thing off, followed by momouth in Illinois, I forgot
- 34:12Speaker 1: the s is silent, right, yeah, and then Ellsworth, Kansas.
- 34:17Speaker 1: Then there was one in Paola, Kansas, and then the
- 34:22Speaker 1: last one in Valiska. And those five crimes have some
- 34:25Speaker 1: similarities that make them really really suspicious. That the idea
- 34:31Speaker 1: of just like five different people or even a couple
- 34:34Speaker 1: of different people um separately committing these crimes, and as
- 34:39Speaker 1: Ed Eppersley puts it, kind of dismissively the idea that
- 34:43Speaker 1: these were local vendettas or you know, um that that
- 34:47Speaker 1: people were like, yeah, that's not what these these crimes
- 34:53Speaker 1: reflect at all. They reflect the work of a like
- 34:56Speaker 1: just a straight up nut job psychopath, whom are few
- 35:02Speaker 1: and far between. So the fact that these things occurred
- 35:06Speaker 1: between October of nineteen eleven in June of nineteen twelve
- 35:10Speaker 1: suggests strongly that that there was one person doing them. Yeah. Well,
- 35:15Speaker 1: there was that final one in Columbia, Missouri in December
- 35:17Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, and one of the theories is that a
- 35:21Speaker 1: man named Henry Lee Moore killed Georgia Moore in Columbia, Missouri,
- 35:28Speaker 1: who was his mother, Mary Wilson. So is that the guy. No,
- 35:37Speaker 1: it would be weird to commit a series of murders
- 35:41Speaker 1: and then finish up with your own family, right, Usually
- 35:44Speaker 1: it's the other way around. Yeah, right, So, like, if
- 35:46Speaker 1: you're going to go off on a killing spree, usually
- 35:48Speaker 1: start your practice on your family first. Yeah, you can
- 35:52Speaker 1: get a feel for it, right. This guy, Henry Lee Moore,
- 35:56Speaker 1: aside from having three names, is not a good respect
- 36:00Speaker 1: for the serial killer, right. Um, he apparently wanted the
- 36:03Speaker 1: deeds to his family house, and um, like you said that,
- 36:07Speaker 1: it's very rare for a serial killer to go back.
- 36:09Speaker 1: You know, they deal with the three names. They don't
- 36:12Speaker 1: all have three names. No, I know, but so many
- 36:14Speaker 1: of them do. It's well, no, the news reports it
- 36:17Speaker 1: that way to distinguish them. Every other Henry Moore in
- 36:20Speaker 1: the world, gotcha, So like everyone's always like serial killers
- 36:24Speaker 1: have three names. No, they're just reported that way. That's awesome. Yeah,
- 36:27Speaker 1: I love it when things are just explained. Yeah, I
- 36:30Speaker 1: wrapped up in a nice little bow. Thanks for that.
- 36:33Speaker 1: Like Lee Harvey Oswald, he I think went by Lee Oswald.
- 36:37Speaker 1: I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. So if anyone ever
- 36:42Speaker 1: writes a story about Charles Wayne Bryant, we're in trouble.
- 36:48Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm in trouble. No, I wouldn't kill you,
- 36:52Speaker 1: thanks man, I wouldn't kill you either. Hey, you want
- 36:55Speaker 1: to shake on it? It's Jerry witnessed. Yeah. Um. So
- 37:00Speaker 1: the Henry Lee Moore thing, he's almost like a red herring.
- 37:02Speaker 1: Like a lot of people say, well, he was the one.
- 37:04Speaker 1: He was a serial killer behind it because the serial
- 37:07Speaker 1: murder started right after he got out of prison in Kansas, Yes,
- 37:13Speaker 1: and then they ended right after he got caught in Columbia,
- 37:16Speaker 1: Missouri with his family. Yeah. I mean kind of makes sense,
- 37:18Speaker 1: it does, But that's where the whole thing really begins.
- 37:21Speaker 1: An end. So a lot of people say, well, it
- 37:23Speaker 1: wasn't henrally more so, it wasn't a serial killing. Well
- 37:26Speaker 1: plus uh sorry, but his killing his own family was
- 37:30Speaker 1: about obtaining the deeds to his family house. Yeah that's
- 37:34Speaker 1: what I was saying. Oh so that was greed motivated right, Okay, yeah,
- 37:37Speaker 1: not a serial psychopathic, sex based serial killing spree. Right,
- 37:42Speaker 1: this guy was just a jerk. Um. So, since Henry
- 37:46Speaker 1: Lee Moore is associated with the serial murder theory, once
- 37:49Speaker 1: somebody then finds out that it wasn't Henry Ly Moore,
- 37:52Speaker 1: they stopped thinking it was a serial murderer, right at
- 37:54Speaker 1: Epperly says not so fast. Wait, wait, wait, just because
- 37:59Speaker 1: Henry Lee Moore's out the equation, it doesn't mean there's
- 38:01Speaker 1: not a serial killer involved. Yeah, He's like, consider the
- 38:04Speaker 1: similarities between these five cases, and they're they're they're pretty thick. Right.
- 38:10Speaker 1: In a couple of the cases, there were oil lamps
- 38:15Speaker 1: found where chimney. The chimneys were removed and set aside,
- 38:19Speaker 1: and the wicks were bent in half to keep the
- 38:21Speaker 1: light low. Yeah, that's a big one. Axes were used
- 38:24Speaker 1: in four of the five, But he says that's just
- 38:28Speaker 1: probably a matter of convenience. A pipe I think was
- 38:31Speaker 1: used in the Mamouth, Illinois case, which is again an
- 38:34Speaker 1: implement of convenience too. Right, sure, don't have an axe, handy,
- 38:38Speaker 1: go for a lead pipe, right, Yeah, he probably didn't
- 38:40Speaker 1: bring that with you, right there were Tell him about
- 38:44Speaker 1: the Tell him about the mirrors, Chuck, Well, I mean
- 38:47Speaker 1: at several of these places the mirrors were covered up.
- 38:50Speaker 1: I mean that's a big one. Yeah, mirrors and windows.
- 38:53Speaker 1: And in one of the places, the telephone was covered.
- 38:56Speaker 1: And the thought there is is that, like you said earlier,
- 39:01Speaker 1: like they don't want the victims to be watching them
- 39:04Speaker 1: even after death, or to be seen in the mirrors
- 39:07Speaker 1: and windows being covered. But the phone appearently it was
- 39:10Speaker 1: one of those old box phones on the wall that
- 39:13Speaker 1: you that you crank, and it has the two it
- 39:16Speaker 1: sort of looks like a face right when you look
- 39:18Speaker 1: at it. It has like looks like two eyes and
- 39:20Speaker 1: a nose. And so the thought was that that even
- 39:23Speaker 1: looks like a face to the Draine serial killer. So
- 39:26Speaker 1: they'll cover that up as well, right, because nothing else
- 39:30Speaker 1: makes much sense. You know, you're not gonna in nineteen twelve,
- 39:33Speaker 1: You're not getting phone calls after midnight. You probably probably
- 39:36Speaker 1: don't get more than a couple of phone calls a
- 39:38Speaker 1: week in nineteen twelve, Right, most people I have phones? Yeah,
- 39:42Speaker 1: and throwing a sheet over it wouldn't like disable it anyway. No,
- 39:46Speaker 1: there was another female victim, a young female victim in
- 39:51Speaker 1: Monmouth who was found basically the same way that Lena's
- 39:56Speaker 1: still injury was found. Yeah, with her nightgown thrown up
- 40:01Speaker 1: over waist and her undergarments removed. And apparently there was
- 40:08Speaker 1: a similarity in I believe Mammoth in Valiska, where and
- 40:13Speaker 1: one other town too, where the killer was went on
- 40:17Speaker 1: to try to kill again. Yeah, this was the most
- 40:19Speaker 1: interesting to me. Either successfully did kill again. There was
- 40:22Speaker 1: one where he went to an adjacent house whose backyard
- 40:24Speaker 1: connected the first murder house and then went in and
- 40:27Speaker 1: killed another family right afterwards. That was Colorado Springs. And
- 40:30Speaker 1: then in Valiska, the telephone operator who was like sleeping
- 40:35Speaker 1: in the telephone switchboard headquarters because no calls were coming through.
- 40:39Speaker 1: She reported them the doorknob being tried about two hours
- 40:44Speaker 1: after the more house members were murdered. Yeah, like heard
- 40:49Speaker 1: footsteps come up to the door try to open it,
- 40:51Speaker 1: and then heard the footsteps leave. Yeah, that's a little shaky.
- 40:55Speaker 1: But this, the last one was the one that kind
- 40:57Speaker 1: of sent the chill up my spine. It was the
- 41:00Speaker 1: one in Kansas specifically, you said, Paola, I bet you
- 41:05Speaker 1: there are people they're laughing because it's probably pronounced Paula
- 41:08Speaker 1: or something, probably but who knows p a l A. Kansas.
- 41:12Speaker 1: There was a second family, Missus Longmire, the Longmire family.
- 41:19Speaker 1: They were awakened she and her daughter at about midnight
- 41:22Speaker 1: to the sound of broken glass, went downstairs and saw
- 41:26Speaker 1: a dude in their dining room who had just broken
- 41:29Speaker 1: oil lamp chimney and then got the heck out of
- 41:32Speaker 1: there through a window. So they actually saw a guy.
- 41:35Speaker 1: So think about that, Chuck, Think about that they saw
- 41:38Speaker 1: they woke up and saw the man who was about
- 41:42Speaker 1: to probably bludgeon them all to death with an axe.
- 41:46Speaker 1: This is probably yeah. And these were all trained towns,
- 41:50Speaker 1: so they were all linked by train depots. So by
- 41:54Speaker 1: all accounts, there was a train going serial killer for
- 41:59Speaker 1: a couple of years in the Midwest. Yeah, killing people
- 42:02Speaker 1: hopping trains. Never ever caught in that nuts, It is nuts,
- 42:06Speaker 1: And that the Valiska Acts murders were probably one of
- 42:09Speaker 1: his crazy, but we'll never know. No, you know, when
- 42:15Speaker 1: you say stuff like that or when you see stuff
- 42:17Speaker 1: like that in print too, like we'll never know who
- 42:19Speaker 1: it was, it makes you wonder, like what kind of
- 42:22Speaker 1: technology are we going to have in the future, Like
- 42:25Speaker 1: will we never know or are we gonna come up
- 42:27Speaker 1: with something one day where we're like, oh, it was
- 42:30Speaker 1: this guy? Yeah, like now we know, you know, um
- 42:33Speaker 1: who who knows the future knows? That's who knows. We
- 42:38Speaker 1: should do one on ed Gean. Okay, that's like kind
- 42:41Speaker 1: of one of the big big ones we haven't covered. Okay,
- 42:44Speaker 1: I got a couple more too. Oh yeah, I don't
- 42:47Speaker 1: want to I don't want to even tease him yet. Okay, okay,
- 42:50Speaker 1: true crime. Maybe we'll do one and uh like this October. Okay,
- 42:55Speaker 1: we used to do multiple kind of creepy episodes. I
- 42:59Speaker 1: think we did last time too. That's October. You all right,
- 43:02Speaker 1: we'll look forward to another ghoulish serial killer type thing. Okay, yeah,
- 43:08Speaker 1: we did hinter Kfec I think think so. Yeah. Okay,
- 43:13Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the veliska Ax murders,
- 43:15Speaker 1: well again strongly recommend you go look up ed Epperley.
- 43:20Speaker 1: You can read the Smithsonian article um the ax Murder
- 43:23Speaker 1: Who Got Away, which was great, and there were plenty
- 43:26Speaker 1: of other articles that we relied on that we love.
- 43:29Speaker 1: Thank you for those. In the meantime, you can also
- 43:33Speaker 1: hang out with us on HowStuffWorks dot com and our
- 43:35Speaker 1: famous search bar and s it's us a search bar.
- 43:37Speaker 1: Got it in there. It's Sime for listener mail. Hey guys,
- 43:42Speaker 1: love the show, and now I have even more reason
- 43:44Speaker 1: to promote your podcast. Everyone. I know. I work in
- 43:47Speaker 1: a small family business with my cousin. In this previous
- 43:49Speaker 1: January start experiencing severe gastrointestinal issues. Oh I love this email.
- 43:54Speaker 1: Yeah remember this one? It was like from yesterday. Yeah.
- 43:58Speaker 1: I won't go into detail, but for months afterward, he
- 44:02Speaker 1: saw specialists after specialists hoping to find out the route
- 44:04Speaker 1: tested for Crohn's ulcers, ibs, everything under the sun, none
- 44:08Speaker 1: of which had a positive result or diagnosis. Couldn't focus
- 44:11Speaker 1: on anything, no energy, took a ton of time away
- 44:13Speaker 1: from work. He felt totally lost and even sought the
- 44:16Speaker 1: help of a psychologist because of his diminished work ethic
- 44:19Speaker 1: deteriorating quality of life. Do you see where this is going? People?
- 44:24Speaker 1: I think listeners might know and he was southered. One
- 44:28Speaker 1: day last month, he was Southern. Actually, he came in
- 44:31Speaker 1: after a doctor's appointment and said he developed an iron
- 44:34Speaker 1: deficient anemia to add to his list of issues. At first,
- 44:38Speaker 1: it sounded disconnected until and I kid you, this isn't
- 44:41Speaker 1: all caps. I kid you not, Josh and Chuck. I
- 44:44Speaker 1: was listening to your Hookworm episode that day, man. When
- 44:49Speaker 1: he got to the part about the aggressive iron deficient anemia,
- 44:53Speaker 1: I lost my mind. I looked up hookworm infection symptoms,
- 44:57Speaker 1: immediately brought it to my cousin and he had every
- 45:00Speaker 1: last symptom. Is doctor prescribed a medication and he is
- 45:04Speaker 1: currently being de wormed. From the first day he started
- 45:07Speaker 1: his treatment, he had a noticeable increase in both mood
- 45:09Speaker 1: and energy. I don't know how these symptoms could have
- 45:11Speaker 1: slipped by a half dozen gps and specialists, but I
- 45:15Speaker 1: truly can't thank you both enough of your podcast and
- 45:17Speaker 1: its wide range of topics. That is, James and Saint
- 45:19Speaker 1: Pete Florida. That is so awesome, man, dude head hookworm.
- 45:23Speaker 1: Can you believe it? In man? Thank you James, and
- 45:28Speaker 1: good luck to you cousin. Way to go for being
- 45:30Speaker 1: so smart to connect the dots too. I think your
- 45:33Speaker 1: cousin owes you a pizza or a beer or whatever
- 45:36Speaker 1: you may be both. Yeah, Yeah, trip to Chuck e
- 45:39Speaker 1: Cheese Drunk. If you want to get in touch with
- 45:43Speaker 1: us to tell us an amazing story like James did,
- 45:46Speaker 1: you can tweet to us sysk podcasts, and you can
- 45:50Speaker 1: send us all an email, including Jerry at stuff podcast
- 45:53Speaker 1: at HowStuffWorks dot com and has always joined us at
- 45:56Speaker 1: Home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
- 46:01Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
- 46:04Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 46:08Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows