- We're just gonna have to try our best
and ignore this nest on my head. Umm... (faint slam)
(slight laugh) Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian,
and today is Monday which means it's Murder, Mystery-- (laughs) & Makeup Monday! (theme song) If you are new here, hi. Every Monday I sit down and I talk about a
true crime story that’s been heavy on my... (tongue click) Noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. If you’re interested in true crime,
and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you
hit that subscribe button, 'cause I’m here for you every Monday-- Well like most Mondays. So, last week we talked about... You know the weeks are going by so fast
and so slow at the same time. Okay hold on. Last week, we talked about... Oh! Son of Sam. ♫ Son of Sam ♫ I know. Yeah. That was a ducey. This week I thought I could talk about a
little unsolved murder/mystery. Unsolved mysteries. Not the show, but just in general is not
my favorite thing to do, 'cause I’m the type of person
who likes closure. I need closure. I just wanna go to bed. You know? But I thought I’d sprinkle this one in there, 'cause it’s actually quite
interesting, and horrifying. Today’s video is sponsored by Hunt A Killer! Like, if you’ve been watching
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25% off your first box! I can’t say that word, horror-r-r. Horror-r. Whatever. A big thank you to Hunt A Killer for partnering
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because without you I wouldn’t be here. And I know I say that all
the time but, hey it's true. Also I just wanna say stay tuned this week, because I am going to be dropping an extra, or like bonus Murder, Mystery & Makeup
related video later this week. But this time with a special guest, very exciting. But that'll be up, a little bonus video. But other than that, I will stop rambling and let’s get into today’s
spooky-ooky-dooky story. I mean it’s not even spooky, it’s just
horrifying so, there’s that. So, today’s story takes place in Villisca, Iowa. Villisca, Iowa in the early 1900’s was a
midwestern town of around 2500 people. It was said that at that time it was flourishing. Businesses lined the streets
and several dozen trains pulled into the depot
on a daily basis, I would say. I was there.
(laughs) In 1912 the town built the only publicly funded
armory in the state of Iowa, which was used for storing military accessories, machine guns, rifles, pistols,
ammunition, parts, etc., and also was used for,
like a training headquarters. The people housed there
participated in WW1 and WW2, as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars. Now this was like a really big deal for the
town and brought more people to the area, and it just took great pride in it all, because it was like a small town
and they’re growing, and it was exciting. Unfortunately for the people
of this close-knit community, their accomplishments became overshadowed by the horrific deaths that had taken place
on June 10th, 1912. So a man by the name of Josiah Moore, he was one of Villisca’s most prominent
businessmen, and his wife, Sarah, they had four children, Herman, who was 11, Katherine who was 10, Boyd who was
seven and five-year-old Paul. Here comes Saint. So the Moore family purchased
their home in Villisca in 1903, and it was considered like a
traditional American colonial home that was built around the 1860’s. It was a simple home,
less than 1000 square feet, but there were three bedrooms
and one bathroom. I’ve always wondered that about older homes,
like how come there's always one bathroom? So I’ll give you a little description, as
best as I can of the layout of the home. Here we go. When you walk through the
front door you enter the kitchen, instantly, into the kitchen, the to the right there was a little... There’s like two door entry ways,
one would go to the living room, and then the other one had a staircase that
would lead to the upper level. When you enter into the living room, on the right wall of the
living room was another door that lead to the only bedroom on the first
floor, and then if you took the stairs, it would take you directly into the master
bedroom, where Mr. and Mrs. Moore slept, and across from the master bedroom was another
room where the Moore children slept. On Sunday afternoon, June 9th, 1912, the Moore family was planning on attending
children’s day service at their church. The neighbors were pretty close
with the Moore family as well. And they had two daughters, 12-year-old, Lena,
and her sister Ina who was eight. That night Lena and Ina asked their parents
if they could, you know, go to the children’s day service and stay
the night with the Moore family? They agreed and the two sisters tagged along
with the Moore family to attend church. The children’s day service was an end of
the year Sunday school program. Sarah, she was a co-director at the church
and her children performed little speeches and songs along with the other
Sunday school members. When the service ended, parents and kids all
hung around chatting until about 9:30 at night. Finally, when everybody left, that’s when
the Moore family decided they could start heading home as well. The Moore family plus the two neighbor children, they all walked the three blocks to the Moore’s
home and went to bed. Just a normal Sunday, y'know? The next morning on June 10th,
around 7:30 in the morning, a neighbor, who was close to the Moore family, this is a different neighbor,
not the one with the kids, so she was becoming a little concerned because
normally the Moore house would be filled with noise in the morning,
like the kids would be playing outside, Josiah would be working on the farm
or tending to his animals. There was no noise, no movement, nothing. It's real suspish. So this neighbor, she walks over to the Moore’s
house, and she knocks on the door. (imitates knocking) She’s like attempting to wake the Moore’s,
something right? But no answer. So then, she goes around
to the back area of the home, and she sees that the chickens
are still like cooped up, so she lets the family chickens out, and she checked on the other livestock
because they were all still tied up as well. So the neighbor lady, she’s still
concerned and she’s like "I just don’t understand
what’s going on", so she decided to call
Josiah’s brother Ross, she’s talking on the phone
with him, she’s like "Hey, where’s your brother? Aren’t they
supposed to be home?" "It’s very quiet over here"
like "What’s going on?". He agreed that it was strange because everyone
was supposed to be at the house. This is the 1900's okay? You just don’t-- Like where are you going? So Ross, he decided to drop by his brothers
home around 8:00 a.m. to see what was going on. When he arrived there,
he was met by the neighbor and both of them looked around
for the spare key to get into the front door. Ross, he finds the key and
he opens up the front door. Ross said that he walked in,
and it was very quiet, and then he just like keeps walking and
he goes into that back bedroom, where the living rooms at? So he goes into that back bedroom, and then
he sees two figures covered with a sheet. And then he also saw what seemed
to be blood on the bedframe. Oh I’m having Deja vu. Hm okay. Ross comes running out of the house
and he tells the neighbor, who was waiting on the porch, he was like
"Something really awful has happened", I guess that’s what he said, probably
something more but we don’t know. And he asked her to go call the sheriff. So Ross ends up calling a man named Ed, who was an employee of the Moore family,
told him over the phone like something has happened at the house. So Ed comes over to the house,
around 8:30 a.m., and Ross told him like,
"I can’t go inside, can you go inside" and see like if it got any worse
than two bodies he found, y'know like "You go see". So Ed goes into the house and not long after
he just comes running out, and he comes running out to inform Ross that there was somebody murder in every bedroom. He also mentioned that he found
what might’ve been the murder weapon, an axe, partially cleaned,
it was left leaning against the south wall of downstairs bedroom,
where the neighbor’s girls were found. Dr. J Clark Cooper, he was the first physician
to arrive at the scene of the crime. According to Dr. Cooper the group
stepped into the living room and then they went into the first-floor bedroom and all they could see was an arm of someone
sticking out from under the edge of like, a blanket with blood all over the
pillows, also like brains and stuff, I don’t know. It was very brutal. Dr Cooper, said that he also lifted the covers,
to see like who it was, and he couldn’t even recognize whoever he
was looking at, or any of the victims because of how badly
beaten their faces were. So it was believed whoever had
committed these awful murders had left some bizarre touches to the scene. The first was a four-pound piece
of slab bacon, yeah. It was wrapped in a cloth, and it was leaning
against the wall next to the axe, which was believed to be the murder weapon. And yeah, it was just like bacon,
that hasn’t been cut into slices yet, I don’t know, it was just bacon,
but it was left there. Also, the murderer seemed to have searched
through all of the dresser drawers for pieces of clothing to cover
all the mirrors in the house as well as any of like the windows
and the glass in the entry door. So all of those are covered. On the kitchen table was a plate of uneaten
food and get this, a bowl of bloody water. All of the victims were found in their beds,
their heads were covered with sheets and all of them had their heads beaten in, about 20 to 30 times with the
blunt end of an axe. Up on the ceiling there seemed
to be gouge marks, believed to have been made
by the upswing of the axe. Yeah, so up in the ceiling,
there’s a bunch of marks. And there was kerosene lamp that was found
at the foot of Josiah and Sarah’s bed. A similar lamp was found
at the foot of the bed in the room where the
Stillinger girls, the neighbors. I forgot to mention their last name 'cause
I can’t really say it that well, Stillinger? Anyway where they were sleeping, there was also a similar lamp
found at the foot of the bed. Lena Stillinger, she was sleeping
downstairs with her sister, her nightgown had been pushed up
and she'd been left exposed, but doctors concluded that she
had not been sexually abused. This is the early 1900's, I don’t know if
they’re able to even tell if that’s-- Whatever, but they said that
she had not been, so that’s good. She still died though, okay. Anyways, but she also had
a bloodstain on her knee, or like a cut on her knee,
and also one on her arm, that seemed to be a defensive
wound on her arm, which lead investigators
or detectives to believe that she was maybe the only one
to see her killer alive, because everybody else seemed to be asleep,
and she really tried to defend herself. Also, one of Sarah’s shoes were found on
Josiah’s side of the bed. But also the shoe was like laying on it's side and there was blood on the inside of the shoe,
as well as underneath the shoe. The strangest thing of all, well I don’t
know, between the bacon and this, was the fact that all of the doors were locked. The only way to lock the doors
was from the inside. There was no broken windows
or signs of somebody breaking their way into the house. The killer is in the house. I’m just kidding. The killer was not in
the house that we know of. The killer perhaps maybe had a key? Now let’s talk about the possible suspects. At 5:19 a.m., the morning following the murders, a man named Reverend Lyn Kelly,
he left Villisca on board the westbound number five train. He gets on the train and
allegedly told fellow travelers there were eight dead souls back in Villisca,
butchered in their beds while they slept. Now that’s fine and all,
like you’re allowed to talk, right? But at this time, the bodies hadn’t even
been found yet. Nobody even knew about the murders. I know what you’re thinking, "It was him".
(slight laugh) Right? I know. I thought that too, but I don’t
even know anymore. So this Lyn Kelly had arrived
in Villisca for the first time the Sunday morning of the murders and attended
the Sunday school performance by the church kids before departing early
Monday morning. So he attended the church service that the
kids all were doing, the Moore kids? Two weeks after the murders,
he returns but this time he’s posing as a detective and
joined a tour of the murder house with a group of investigators. Yeah. Nobody knew he wasn’t a detective, he just
got in there and was like "Hey I’m a detective", and they were like "Alright, come on in". Wild times. I mean, you know when
you’re a kid, this is a side note, you know when you’re a kid
and your teacher and stuff tell you like "You could be whatever you wanna be in life". I think this is what they were referring to,
this point in America because literally you could just be like
"Hey, I’m a detective", everyone would be like
"Yeah, okay he’s a detective. Come on in", and the other guy would be like
"Hey I’m a doctor!", you know, you could literally be whatever
you wanted to be, it’s just wild. Okay, cool. So, authorities first became
interested in Lyn Kelly a few weeks after
the murders had taken place, when people were coming forward saying
that he had a very questionable past. You see, this Kelly guy would often
put classifieds ads in the local newspaper, in hopes to find a young
secretary who would work for him, but not a normal secretary, nay nay. Of course not, preferably one who would be
willing to work in the nude. Now this would get him into some trouble
because people were complaining. Mr. Lyn Kelly was the son and grandson of
English ministers, and had suffered a mental breakdown as teenager. Kelly had preached at churches across North
Dakota, Minnesota... Minnesota, Kansas, and Iowa. He’d been assigned as a visiting minister to several small communities north of Villisca, where he became known as
the guy with the "odd behavior". Lyn Kelly was considered odd,
because get this, he was taking walks late at night, I mean
nobody did that back then. Like "Why is he walking?
Late at night? That’s so weird". But on top of that, there were
many rumors swirling around that he was a peeping tom and
there were unconfirmed stories that he had tried to convince a young girl
to undress for him. He got a bad reputation obviously, right? Kelly at one point, had suffered
from a mental break down, and then he was later diagnosed
with paranoid schizophrenia. Now, while he was staying at a mental hospital, that’s where he wrote to
the Montgomery County DA, and he wrote them a letter saying that he
expected at any moment to be arrested for the Villisca murders. A grand jury indicted Kelly
for Lena Stillinger's murder and he was then interrogated throughout the
summer of 1917 while in jail awaiting trial. I couldn’t figure out why he was just being
tried for one of the murders and not the whole family, I couldn’t figure
that out exactly. But he was being tried so, it is what it is. Okay, but on August 31st at 7:00 a.m.,
Lyn Kelly signed a confession. Oh yes, he signed a confession to the murder
saying God had whispered to him “suffer the children to come unto me”. Woah I’m looking like a clown, my bad. He signed a confession saying
that he committed the murders, and that god had whispered to him
"Suffer to the children to come unto me". But during his trial Kelly recanted his confession and his case went to
the jury on September 26th. The jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for acquittal. A second jury was brought in and once again,
Kelly was acquitted in November. There just wasn’t enough
evidence to convict him. There were a lot of talks in the community
about other suspects, who it could be. Many believed that a man named Frank F Jones
was responsible for the murders. Now Frank Jones, Frank Jones, he was a prominent Villisca resident
and Iowa state senator. He ran a store called the Jones store.
(slight laugh) And Josiah, you know, Mr. Moore, he worked for Frank Jones
at the Jones store for several years and was considered one
of Frank's best employees. Now people are thinking
it could be Frank because well, one day Josiah just surprises Frank
and quits, he puts in his... Well I don’t know if they
had a two-week notice but, he decided he wanted to start
his own business, Josiah did. So he leaves Frank's store, now literally down
the street from his store, Josiah opens up his own store, he’s pretty
much selling the exact same stuff as Frank Jones store. Now rumor has it, Frank was livid. He just felt the ultimate betrayal, "My favorite employee just did this to me",
I don’t blame him, any of us would be upset,
but upset enough to murder? Frank Jones was never arrested. He denied, denied, denied, denied ever being
connected to the horrible crime. But it did have a lot of people talking about
the possibility, right? You know, a lot of people are thinking "Okay well, if Frank didn’t do it himself,
I mean the man had a lot of money" "He could’ve easily paid somebody to commit
these awful murders", right? So it was suggested that
maybe Frank Jones paid a man, a man named William Mansfield,
who was a cocaine loving, serial killer. Oh yes, the plot thickens. A cocaine loving serial killer? we should do another
Murder, Mystery & Makeup on this guy. His name's William Mansfield, he loved cocaine. A detective believed that Williams Mansfield
was responsible for the murders because all of the murders
committed by this Mansfield guy, were done in the same manner, indicating that
maybe the same man committed them, these murders.
(slight laugh) You know what I’m saying? So in each of Mansfield’s killings, the victims were hacked to death with an axe, and also the mirrors in the homes were covered
with an article of clothing or sheets. In each case the murderer avoided leaving
fingerprints by wearing gloves, which, I know what you’re thinking like that’s not that big of a deal
to wear gloves to a murder, this is the early 1900's, wearing
gloves to commit a murder and just like, it wasn’t a well-known thing. Mansfield knew that his fingerprints were
on file at the federal military prison. Now there was a detective
who was on the Villisca case, who’s kinda like piecing it together because
this Mansfield had just like killed some people. So this detective thinking
"Yeah, it’s gotta be him, right?" "It’s gotta be him, case solved", and then
a restaurant owner came forward and identified Mansfield as the man he saw
the morning after the murder, boarding a train near the Moore’s. Which is like, okay. But that was really all the had on him. Later on, Mr. Mansfield, he won a lawsuit
that he brought against the detective who brought on his arrest in the first place,
and he was awarded $2,225. But it’s kinda funny, well it’s not funny
because William Mansfield, he was actually like a serial killer,
they kinda like released him, and it was like dude, he just went on
to like being more horrible, and they probably shouldn’t have done that,
but what can we do? I mean literally you could be whatever you
want at this stage in America, and he chose to be a serial killer,
like that’s so lame. So there’s possibility that a serial killer was indeed actually responsible for the murders and there was a federal officer,
who was assigned to the Villisca case, and he announced in May of 1913,
that he believed, a serial killer by the name of Henry Moore -- No relation to the actual family, I guess
it was just a common name. But he believed that this Henry guy
was responsible for the murders. Just months after the murders in Villisca, well, Henry Moore was
convicted of murder for killing his mother and grandmother in Missouri. Oh yes. Henry’s weapon of choice? An axe. Henry, just like the other Mansfield guy,
I mean both used an axe, and both seemed to like to
cover the mirrors and windows with articles of clothing, and also covered
the faces of his victims with a bedsheet, and Henry seemed to wipe the axe
clean after he murdered people. But Henry Moore was never charged
with the Villisca killings. I believe the detective on
the Villisca murder case, he was just looking to close the case, and
he was trying to pin it on somebody. He was like "This guy. Great". There’s literally nothing that ties Henry
to the murders other than they had a similar style. It was also believed that
whoever may have done this, might have been living with the family? A family member of Josiah came to the house
after the murders and looked around. I believe it was his sister. She had noted that it was a little odd that
the family had an unoccupied bed in the downstairs room, that had
been made but never used. Remember the two neighbors
sisters were sleeping in the room, but for the most part it was pretty unusual to have this spare bedroom in the first place. But most of all to have a bed made in it. I don’t know when a guest bedroom was invented, but at this time, like it just was
odd to have a spare room. Like what do you do with that? So it was odd. One theory is that the family had expected
another person to stay the night with them or maybe there WAS another
person staying with them. That’s what the bedroom was for,
besides the girls, y'know? Also, off from the room
the Stillinger girls slept in-- I don’t know why I f--king struggle with
the most basic words. Anyways, the girls, the neighbor girls are
sleeping in the room, and then there was like a closet off to the
side of the room, and in the closet, there were several bags
of cotton batting found inside, on the floor, and it looked
like there were marks of a person having either sat or stood on all this cotton. It just looked like somebody
had been sitting there. Also in the bed, where the two
girls were sleeping, there was a broken piece of a watch chain, which was believed to have
been torn by one of the girls who may have struggled with their killer. But at this time, they couldn’t do anything
with that, y'know? They’re like "Oh". Unfortunately, nothing really came from it. So some people believed that maybe somebody
was actually in the closet, and somehow had escaped without going out
of the front doors, or windows after they commit the crime, or maybe they were still in the house after
they committed the crimes, waited, and then at what point did they escape? I don’t know. Several of Villisca’s historic buildings
have since been demolished, but the Axe Murder House,
as it's now known, great, has been placed on the national
registry of historic buildings and is open to tour, oh that’s right. You can tour or visit the home for the low,
low price of $10. It’s still there, you can go inside and
look around. I went down a rabbit hole of videos, watching
people tour the house and talk to the Moore/Stillinger ghosts, which are believed to
still be inside the house. It’s believed to be a heavily
haunted house, right? So, went down this rabbit, I was like watching
all these videos, people are going there, these are old ass
videos by the way, but people are going there and like filming
them trying to talk to the ghosts, right? And they’re like “Open the door if you
are here.”, then the door opens, and they’re like "Close the door if you
are here", closes you know? And then some people have even brought their
own balls, like kid bouncy balls, and they’ll put the ball
on the floor and be like “Push the ball if you are here, ghost child!“
and then the ball moves. I watched so many of these videos, I don’t
know why, but I did. One thing that bothers me the most is like,
I don’t know why we as people, or just people in general, are always asking
ghosts to open doors, push stuff or turn stuff on. No. We need to stop with this. We need to be asking more of these ghosts “Ghost if you can hear me, can you please
let yourself be known by doing the dishes”. Like ghosts could be doing more, but instead
you’re having them push balls and stuff. Like, no. "Ghost, if you are here,
make yourself known by vacuuming" In conclusion, no one has been
convicted for the murders, and the crime remains one of the most horrific, unsolved mass murders in American history. And that my friends is the awful story of
the Villisca axe murders. Sorry Iowa. Let me know your guys thoughts down below. What are your theories? Why do you think they were
covering the mirrors and stuff? I would like to hear your theories down below. Rest in peace to the Moore family,
and the Stillinger girls. It was kinda sad, 'cause I couldn’t really
figure out like how did their family feel. I guess if I had more time,
I could figure that out. At first, I wasn’t sure about this look,
but I feel like I’m going to prom. Prom, 2002. Thank you, guys, so much for
hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful day ahead, and
a good rest of your week as well. A big thank you to Hunt A Killer for partnering
with me on today’s video. Let me know who you want
me to talk about next week. Oh, oh, oh, really quick. So next we'll begin our spooky-ooky
October Halloween month. Murder, Mystery & Makeup edition. I so far have not planned anything,
so this is not good. But it should be fun. But other than that. I hope you have a good rest of your day. You make good choices. And I’ll be seeing you guys later. Bye. (suspicious music)
Today’s MM&M is even more special than usual because today is my birthday! 🥳
Any and all comments about the video are welcome—please remember the rules, though. Looking forward to reading your comments!
I am also looking forward to watching Bailey’s bonus MM&M video. All I can tell you is it’s going to be epic. Big things ahead for Bailey. :)
(Oh, and welcome to our secret little Bailey club, new members!)
I absolutely hate unsolved cases because I can't stand to leave things open-ended. ;) lol I watched this and remembered exactly why I cant stand unsolved cases. She got me with Mitrice too! Lol Now I'm going to go watch the ghosts videos and read the urban legends. 😂🤦🏻♀️ Why am I like this? Smh.
So I live in Omaha, NE which is relatively close to there. A lot of my friends have gone to tour the house, and one of my former coworkers actually grew up in Villisca. My fiancé is OBSESSED with this case because it was so weird.
After watching Baileys video I really think the first guy who left and talked about the 8 souls was the one who did it. I wish they would have looked into the bacon closer like where did it come from? Is there a local meat butcher or something..could they have asked who was in recently and bought 8 pounds of bacon? (Idk in 1912 what life looked like really)
The watch link too?? Like check the first guy if he had a watch and was missing links! Like idk there were clues but it was bizarre. Really sad it was never solved I wonder if anyone ever found out what happened.
“If you remember that, then it’s definitely time to look into a more hydrating eye cream, because we’re getting old.”
I feel called out. 😂
The part where she was talking about how the bacon was left at the crime scene ... haha, what?!
OMG 🤣what was that yelling about in the hunt a killer discount code?!? ROFLMAO 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Okay so #1 Happy Birthday mod r/whatsername 🌞😜
2 I am so stoked for the bonus MM&M
3 HOW the hell did the killer get away?? Like seriously, so many suspects but no one was really investigated and cleared. I understand it's complicated but damn. There are so many signatures something should have been clear. Very very irritating -- these unsolved cases. Obviously we're going to lose sleep over this one. 😓