The Unsolved Villisca Axe Murders

In the quiet town of Villisca, Iowa, the summer of 1912 began with laughter

and hymns. On the evening of June 9th, the Moore family — Josiah,

his wife Sarah, and their four children — attended a church event along with two neighbor girls

who had been invited to stay the night. By dawn, the home was no longer a place of

warmth. It had become the site of one of the most infamous unsolved murders in American

history. The bodies were discovered on the morning of June 10th.

Each of the eight occupants had been killed by blows from an axe, their faces covered

afterward with clothing or bedclothes. The weapon itself — Josiah Moore’s own axe — was left