Author, historian reflects on Villisca murder mystery

LEON - Edgar Epperly said it doesn’t feel any different giving his presentation on the anniversary date of the Villisca murders, when eight people were killed with an axe in a home on the night of June 9, 1912.

And that even is part of the mystery as it could have happened in the early morning hours of June 10.

No one knows for sure when it exactly happened. And no one knows who did it.

“I’ve done this so many times, today doesn’t feel any different” he said Friday after his presentation at the Leon Community Center, the town where he grew up. Part of his presentation was promoting his book “Fiend Icarnate” released in late 2021, a collection of his research about the case that he started in the 1950s.

Using an axe, which was found at the crime scene, someone killed Josiah B. Moore, his wife Sara, their children Herman, Katherine, Boyd and Paul, and two overnight guests Lena and Ina Stillinger in the Villisca home of the Moore’s. Josiah and Sara were the only adults, the six children ranged in ages from 5 to 12.

With the mystery having been the basis of documentaries and cable-television shows, Epperly said he hopes his book and work will be reasons why the interest in the mystery won’t go away in the future. Epperly called it one of the most intriguing crimes comparing it to Jack the Ripper, a serial killer in 1888 in London, and Lizzie Borden. Borden, 32, was tried for the murder of her stepmother, Abby Borden, and father, Andrew Borden in August 1892 in Massachusetts. She was acquitted but no other person was a suspect.

As part of an Iowa history class at what is now known at the University of Northern Iowa, Epperly thought the murders would be an “interesting subject” to study other than the French explorers through the state or Lewis and Clark traveling up the Missouri River.

Despite the movies, related books and the house as a tourist stop for something that is more than 100 years old, it’s still a struggle.

“There is an ill feeling in Villisca,” he said how some of the Montgomery County town’s residents have been annoyed by the attention the case still receives; The axe is part of the state historical society’s collection.

“There is a better chance of it having gravy stains,” Epperly laughed when asked if the ax still has any evidence. Before being under the watch of the state and Vilisca’s historical group, Epperly and a friend possessed the axe and showed it to friends during dinner parties.

“I never felt we owned the axe,” he said. “We just possessed it.”

Epperly, 87, began his research of the crime as a college student. In 1955 he traveled to Villisca with two friends and met Dr. Cooper, the physician who examined the victims and the crime scene. Epperly eventually taught education at Luther College in Decorah before retiring.

Villisca Marshall Mike Overman on the night of June 9, 1912, patrolled the town from midnight to 4 a.m. Nothing suspicious was noted.

The town’s telephone office was on the second story of a business building and accessed by an exterior, cast-iron stairway. Overnight calls were usually emergencies and rare. Delaney was able to rest on a cot in the room. During her shift that night she claimed she heard at 2:10 a.m. doors opening and footsteps outside the office. Whoever it was not able to enter the telephone room because of a locked door and left. Delaney was never able to see or identify a person. She did not contact law enforcement about the moment.

“Murder and violence were rare,” Epperly said about Villisca then.

Epperly said Villisca’s case has some similarities to other murders in other parts of the country, from 1898 to 1912 in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Monmouth, Illinois; and Paola and Ellsworth, Kansas. The serial killer suspect killed a family. The murders in Paola, which is south of metro-Kansas City, happened on June 5, 1912. An axe was the common weapon.

A neighbor to the Moores noticed the lack of activity at the house while outside doing laundry. With blinds still pulled over windows in the morning and no response to knocks on the door, authorities were called and gained access to the house and the bodies were discovered at about 8:30 a.m. June 10. The county coroner arrived at about 9:30 a.m.

“There wasn’t a roll of crime scene tape in Villisca, let alone the world,” Epperly said. “They didn’t know who to look for.” Epperly said the science behind finding fingerprints then was too primitive; nothing of use was found.

As time passed, suspects were noted from Joe Moore’s heated business rival F.F. Jones and the Rev. George Kelly. A grand jury couldn’t put it on Jones.

Kelly was at a children’s day church service on Sunday evening, June 9, the same church event all the victims had attended.

Kelly was born in England. He and his wife, Laura, had arrived in New York City in 1904. During his youth Lynn suffered some kind of mental illness.

He served the Methodist church in the United States and traveled to North Dakota for his first parish. Between 1904 and 1912, he served a dozen or more Methodist churches. Because of poor money management and personal habits, Kelly never stayed long term in any church as he preached in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Scheduled to begin classes in September 1912, the seminary president arranged for him to serve three churches that summer including two churches northwest of Villisca.

He was arrested in May 1917 based on evidence connecting him to being in Villisca. Kelly admitted to the murders but recanted his story before trials began later that year. Kelly was reported by others he had left Villisca by train at 5:20 a.m. June 10 and was telling others of the crime before it received regional attention. In 1912, it was common for Villisca to have dozens of trains a day.

He had been known of being sexually inappropriate with women in various ways. One of the girl victims in Villisca may have been sexually assaulted.

The first jury was hung and the second acquitted him.

In 1942, the Kellys were living in Manhattan, New York. Laura died in December 1947 in a hospital at the age of 80. George was admitted to a New York mental hospital in September 1957 and he died in April 1959 at the age of 80 still with mental illness.

“Kelly was a viable suspect,” Epperly said.

But no one knows for sure.