The Villisca Axe Murders: Eight Victims, No Answers Pt. 2

Investigators spent years chasing suspects in the Villisca Axe Murders, including a traveling minister, a suspected serial killer, and an alleged hitman, yet every lead collapsed before trial. A coerced confession, two hung juries, and a killer who was never convicted left the case permanently unsolved. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Serial Killers & Murderous Minds to never miss a case! Want all 2 parts of every case all at once? Join Crime House+ and get both parts of each case dropped together on Monday ad-free. Join atcrimehouseplus.com http://crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Serial Killers & Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Murder True Crime Stories, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/TikTok: @Crimehouse https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudios https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudiosYouTube: @crimehousestudios https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Crime House.

• 0:41Vanessa Richardson?

  Gossip often serves a purpose in life. It helps us navigate the world around us, like who we can trust and who we might want to avoid. Long before social media or the daily news cycle, gossip was how communities shared information and protected themselves. But sometimes, the grapevine is unreliable and gossip can lead us down the wrong path. In the early 1900s, the town of Villisca relied on rumors and hearsay to solve a heinous multiple homicide. At first, it seemed like the townspeople would be the key to unlock the mystery. But as the years passed, investigators found themselves running in circles around the same theories. And the more they searched for answers,

• 1:26Vanessa Richardson?

  even more horrifying revelations came to light.

• 1:43Vanessa Richardson?

  The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes, it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

• 1:59Tristin Engels?

  And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Ingles. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.

• 2:08Vanessa Richardson?

  Crime House exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Before we get started, be advised, this episode contains descriptions of violence, so please listen with care. Today, we conclude our deep dive on the Villisca Axe Murders, one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in American history. In the summer of 1912, the murder of eight people inside a family home

• 2:53Vanessa Richardson?

  shattered the small town of Villisca, Iowa, and triggered a wave of terror throughout the Midwest, one we're still coming to terms with today.

• 3:02Tristin Engels?

  As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like patterns among seemingly disconnected crimes, how some suspects choose to turn themselves in, and the lasting impact a violent tragedy can have on a community.

• 3:16Vanessa Richardson?

  And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a killer?

• 3:26Vanessa Richardson?

  In the early morning hours of June 10, 1912, a family and their two guests were bludgeoned to death in their home while they slept. The victims were 43-year-old Joe Moore, his wife, 40-year-old Sarah, their four children, Herman, Catherine, Boyd, and Paul, and Catherine's two friends, Lena and Ina Stillinger. The killer had used the Moore's own axe as the murder weapon. And based on the nature of their injuries, it seemed like he'd used both the blunt and sharp sides. It was the most brutal and violent crime the town had ever seen. On top of that, authorities had discovered some strange details left behind, like mirrors covered with pieces of fabric,

• 4:09Vanessa Richardson?

  a bowl of bloody water in the kitchen, and a slab of uncooked bacon left out next to the murder weapon in the downstairs bedroom. But investigators had no solid leads, which meant the killer was still on the loose.

• 4:24Tristin Engels?

  A crime like this completely changes the way a community sees itself. Because before the murders, people in Villisca felt like they lived in a place where everyone knew each other and looked out for one another and where something like this simply couldn't happen. And like we talked about in episode one, overnight, that's just gone. But some time has passed and there's been no arrest, there's no leads, and there's no forensic evidence. When there's no answer and no accountability, people don't know where to put their fear. So in a case like this, of course, they're going to start questioning their neighbors. They're going to replay conversations they've had and they're going to wonder if they've missed any signs. That can take a psychological toll. Some people may become anxious or hypervigilant.

• 5:07Tristin Engels?

  An entire family of six with two overnight guests were killed and not a single one of them heard anything to stop it. It's easy to build up this offender's strengths and capability in their minds. Without any confidence in the investigation, I think anyone in their position would have trouble sleeping or constantly worry that it could happen to them.

• 5:30Vanessa Richardson?

  The townspeople were suffering, but at the same time, they were partially to blame for the lack of answers. When the people of Villisca heard about the murders, dozens swarmed the Moore family home. They forced their way inside, explored every blood-soaked room, and even took some of the family's belongings as souvenirs. If the killer had left behind any identifying clues, it's possible they were obscured. So while the Moore family and Stillinger sisters were laid to rest, investigators spent days interviewing witnesses and trying to separate fact from fiction. People had different ideas about who may have carried out the gruesome attack. And the name that came up most was Reverend George Kelly. Kelly was a traveling minister

• 6:14Vanessa Richardson?

  who'd arrived in town shortly before the murders. He'd even attended the church service that Sarah Moore had organized and that all the children had participated in. But it was his behavior following the murders that sparked suspicion. In the aftermath of the crime, Reverend Kelly spoke incessantly and erratically about what had happened. People felt he was a little too interested in the horrifying details. And when Kelly realized people were suspicious of him, he claimed he'd seen a mysterious stranger at the train station the morning after the crime. However, no one could verify this account. At the same time, there was no evidence tying Kelly to the crime either. So as days turned to weeks, investigators shifted their focus.

• 6:59Vanessa Richardson?

  The idea of a serial killer wasn't common at the time. But when Villisca authorities learned about a similar crime that had taken place in Colorado Springs, they started to wonder if the same person might be responsible.

• 7:13Vanessa Richardson?

  On September 17, 1911, nine months before the Villisca murders, two families living next door to one another were murdered in their sleep, six people in all. The killer had used an axe. The similarities to the Moore family murders immediately stood out, which made the authorities wonder if the killer they were after was the same person who'd struck in Colorado. And if that were true, how many other murders this person had committed? Detectives started poring through newspaper coverage from nearby states. And soon, they made a startling discovery. The Colorado killings weren't the only ones that resembled the Moore family attack. Over the last nine months, there'd been two similar axe murders

• 7:57Vanessa Richardson?

  in Monmouth, Illinois, and Ellsworth, Kansas. And that wasn't all. Just like Villisca, each of those cities had a railroad depot, which may have been how the killer traveled. That's when a frightening possibility dawned on the police. The Moore family's killer could be hundreds of miles away in another state, planning another attack.

• 8:20Tristin Engels?

  We talked about patterns in episode one and how central they are to my work as a forensic psychologist. In fact, I talk about them quite a bit on this podcast. Investigators, at least as I understand it, are also looking for patterns because patterns can help narrow down suspects, identify motives, and anticipate future criminal behavior. The problem in this case was that they didn't have much to work with. They had an isolated mass murder in a small town, no forensic evidence, no obvious motive, and no clear suspect. That's a whole lot of nothing in a very gruesome case to explain. So they're going to start looking for connections that can explain what currently seems unexplainable. So upon hearing about other murders that appeared similar in nature,

• 9:05Tristin Engels?

  it would make sense that they'd ask whether they'd be connected. That's how hypotheses are formed. You notice similarities and then you test whether they're meaningful or just coincidental.

• 9:15Vanessa Richardson?

  Okay, what risks can emerge when, say, investigators become convinced they've found a pattern before all the evidence is available?

• 9:23Tristin Engels?

  The biggest risk is that the theory starts driving the investigation instead of the evidence. If they're invested in a specific explanation, it's very easy to give more weight to information that supports it psychologically and less weight to information that doesn't. Another risk is that you miss something important. If all your time and resources are focused on proving one theory, you're likely to overlook evidence at points elsewhere. And then there's the risk of falsely accusing someone. History is full of cases where an innocent person became the focus of an investigation because the facts initially seemed to fit. That's why it's important to keep testing your theories rather than trying to prove them.

• 10:04Vanessa Richardson?

  The theory about a traveling killer sparked a lot of sensation. And eventually, federal investigators who'd learned about the case started eyeing possible suspects. One of these suspects was named Henry Lee Moore. Henry wasn't related to the Moore family, and he couldn't have been more different from them. Whereas Joe and Sarah Moore's family had been known as a sociable, God-fearing group, Henry had a reputation as a dark, troubled loner. He grew up in Missouri, and when he was younger, he got in trouble a lot for sneaking into the morgue to look at the dead bodies. And when he was about eight years old, he started keeping a scrapbook of famous murders. Still, Henry seemed to stay out of legal trouble for most of his life.

• 10:46Vanessa Richardson?

  But that changed in 1911, when Henry was in his late 30s. He was convicted of forgery and went to prison for a year. At the time, most of his immediate family was dead. So when Henry left prison, he had nowhere to go and found a job as a railroad worker. Soon after Henry was released, the Colorado Axe Murders occurred, followed by Kansas, Illinois, and Villisca. So federal authorities believed Henry may have used the railroad system to go on a violent rampage from Colorado and into the Midwest. The problem with this theory was that Henry had no documented history of violence. Just like Reverend Kelly, all the suspicion toward him was based on the fact

• 11:30Vanessa Richardson?

  that people thought he seemed creepy, and he seemed to be in the wrong places at the wrong time. None of that would be enough to build a murder case. It seems like federal agents kept their eyes on Henry anyway, and officers in Villisca continued focusing on their own case. Weeks had turned into months, and they'd made zero progress. Running out of ideas, they turned their attention back to their initial suspect, Reverend Kelly. By early 1913, Kelly was living in Omaha, Nebraska with his wife. So in February of that year, Iowa's Assistant Attorney General sent an investigator there to speak with him. Their goal was to see if Kelly could still keep his story straight.

• 12:13Tristin Engels?

  There are a few reasons that could explain why authorities wanted to go speak with Kelly again. One is that investigators genuinely believed that Kelly was involved and hoped that, given enough time, he'd somehow slip up or make a mistake. Because people's stories can change. They may be inconsistent in what they share. They can contradict themselves, reveal information they shouldn't know, or tell different versions of events to different people. Investigators, even forensic psychologists, are trained to look for inconsistencies. Another possibility is that they simply don't have any other viable leads. When an investigation stalls, it's not uncommon for them to revisit their primary suspect to see whether anything has changed or whether a fresh interview uncovers something that was missed the first time.

• 12:58Tristin Engels?

  The challenge, though, is making sure you're still following the evidence. By the sound of this, there is pressure coming from the top. They are being sent there by the Assistant Attorney General because this investigation has stalled for months. And when there is pressure to get results, that can, in some cases, impair objectivity.

• 13:17Vanessa Richardson?

  Ultimately, the investigator wasn't able to uncover anything new about Reverend Kelly. And with that, the case came to a grinding halt. About a year would pass before things picked back up again. Because soon, another suspicious stranger would land on investigators' radar, causing them to wonder if someone in Villisca had been pulling the strings all along.

• 13:47Vanessa Richardson?

  By early 1913, about eight months after the Villisca Axe Murders, the authorities had made zero progress in the case. No matter what threads they pulled, they could never seem to uncover enough evidence to actually arrest someone. So far, they'd considered the traveling minister, Reverend George Kelly, who'd been in Villisca at the time of the murders, as well as a man federal authorities believed may be a serial killer, Henry Moore. But none of these theories led to arrests. So by 1914, investigators started to wonder if they were looking at things through a shattered lens. Maybe it wasn't just a local responsible for the murders, or even just a serial killer, but two of those people working together.

• 14:31Vanessa Richardson?

  It all started that year when a woman, her child, and her parents were violently murdered in their home in Blue Island, Illinois. They'd been killed with an axe. And the woman's husband, a man named William Mansfield, quickly came under suspicion. Mansfield was a suspected hitman. And when he came onto the authorities' radar for the murder of his family, a private detective named James Wilkerson, hired by the Moore and Stillinger families, wondered if someone in Villisca had hired him to kill Joe Moore and his family. He believed that person was none other than Frank Jones. Frank was Joe's former mentor and employer. Before the murders, they'd had a huge falling out when Joe left Frank's company to start his own.

• 15:15Vanessa Richardson?

  And when rumors circulated about an affair between Joe and Frank's daughter-in-law, people wondered if Frank was behind the Villisca murders. It's not clear whether investigators had any evidence linking Frank and William Mansfield, but the allegations gained enough traction that the Iowa authorities eventually brought the alleged hitman before a Montgomery County grand jury in July 1916.

• 15:39Tristin Engels?

  The authorities are broadening their search and the number of cases they believe may be connected. And we talked earlier about why they initially started looking elsewhere for connections, particularly with the railroad depots and the possibility of a serial offender, Henry Moore, even though that term hadn't been coined yet. Exploring those similarities was a reasonable hypothesis. One of the challenges with any long-running investigation, at least psychologically speaking, is remaining cognitively flexible. Because, again, once you've invested time and effort into a particular theory or suspect, it can become difficult to let it go. That's where confirmation bias can begin to creep in. Investigative fatigue, public pressure, and months or years without answers can make it easier to interpret neutral information

• 16:23Tristin Engels?

  as though it's supporting your belief or theory, when it actually doesn't.

• 16:28Vanessa Richardson?

  Do you think authorities were reaching for maybe a blanket explanation for multiple violent crimes? And if so, why would they do that?

• 16:35Tristin Engels?

  I can't really speak to what the investigators were thinking, because I'm not an investigator. But from a psychological perspective, I can certainly understand why they would consider whether these crimes were connected. They're trying to solve an extraordinarily brutal crime with virtually no forensic evidence and a number of bizarre crime scene behaviors, at least to their belief, that would have been difficult to explain, especially in a small town in 1912. Psychologically, we are driven to make sense of senseless events. A single explanation for multiple violent crimes is inherently more satisfying than believing each one occurred for completely different reasons. Remember, there's a feeling of safety and predictability. We talked about that in episode one.

• 17:20Tristin Engels?

  But on a personal level, I think they, like anyone else, desperately want to solve this crime and are willing to entertain any theory that is within the realm of possibility. And I think that's good on some level. Because as long as they're willing to let it go, if the evidence doesn't support it too.

• 17:41Vanessa Richardson?

  In the end, the theory was too broad to stand on its own. The grand jury refused to indict Mansfield. His alibi held up, and Frank himself was never charged with a crime. It seemed like yet another failure in the investigation. But the Iowa Attorney General, Horace Hafner, refused to see it that way. Because a big reason the grand jury proceedings cast suspicion away from Frank was that another name continually popped up: Reverend Kelly. The authorities had been down this road with Kelly many times before, but Hafner felt it was different this time. It seems like the court hearings shed light on multiple witness statements about Kelly that investigators had overlooked before.

• 18:23Vanessa Richardson?

  So Hafner told investigators to track down those witnesses and speak to them again.

• 18:29Tristin Engels?

  There is a lot of responsibility that goes into being an investigator. And they're trying to solve a brutal crime where six children were horrifically murdered. Cases like these come with even more pressure and motivation to solve than the external pressures that they are already operating under. And investigations are not always linear. We talked about how they can sometimes cause authorities to circle back to previous suspects or persons of interest to see what new information they can get or what inconsistencies they can find. New witness statements that were overlooked can certainly seem compelling in general, but they especially can directly after a failed grand jury indictment of another suspect.

• 19:12Vanessa Richardson?

  Nowadays, what kind of toll could this approach to an investigation have on the victim's loved ones? And what about their community? Especially if the victims were from a tight-knit community like this one, like Villisca?

• 19:23Tristin Engels?

  It can take an enormous toll. Every new suspect that they are made aware of brings new hope. And that's followed by disappointment when it does not go anywhere. That kind of cycle can be exhausting physically and mentally. And for loved ones, they're experiencing traumatic and ambiguous grief. The lack of answers can prolong that healing process. For the community as a whole, every new suspect can actually divide neighbors and create more suspicion. Especially when you consider how many times that they have focused on one particular member in their community, Reverend Kelly, without any results. The competing theories, the constant fear and uncertainty, can actually divide a community instead of unite them.

• 20:08Vanessa Richardson?

  It was the latest iteration of a years-long battle, and it may have been worth it because in 1917, a different picture of Kelly began to emerge, one that made him look less bizarre and more sinister. Witnesses described troubling incidents involving the minister. Multiple women had accused Kelly of peering into their windows at night as they got ready for bed. And apparently, he didn't just target grown women, but young girls. Some reports described sexually explicit letters Kelly had sent to multiple underage girls. Kelly had been caught and convicted at the time. During his trial, he was deemed legally insane and was sent to a psychiatric institution. To investigators revisiting the Villisca murders,

• 20:53Vanessa Richardson?

  these revelations cast Kelly in a new light. What they'd once dismissed as eccentric behavior now seemed more alarming. However, as troubling as these accusations were, they didn't paint Kelly as a murderer. But soon, authorities discovered something that might. An employee at a local laundry said that just a day or two after the murders, Kelly had brought in a bloodstained shirt. It was a formal shirt, the type a minister would wear, and it was wet, as though Kelly had tried to wash it himself first. Still, this didn't prove Kelly had murdered anyone, but the stories did suggest that the minister had a history of violating boundaries. And prosecutors believed they could call witnesses

• 21:38Vanessa Richardson?

  to testify about Kelly's behavior toward young girls, which might help them build a case against him in regards to the Villisca murders. Because while these accounts were troubling on their own, they became even more significant when viewed alongside the crime scene. From the beginning, some investigators had wondered whether there might have been a sexual element to the murders because of how Lena Stillinger's body had been posed. And as far as A.G. Havelin was concerned, Kelly's past predatory behavior was a clue into his guilt as the killer. The only question now was whether a jury would agree.

• 22:16Tristin Engels?

  Kelly's past behavior is certainly concerning from a psychological standpoint. If true, it reflects a pattern of sexual boundary violations, voyeuristic behavior, and an interest in young girls. Those behaviors tell us something about his sexual interests, and they are relevant to understanding who he was as a person and what his future risk is. But where I think we have to be careful is assuming that those behaviors naturally progressed to homicide or that those behaviors make him guilty of this crime. Most people who commit sexual offenses do not go on to commit homicide. And most who commit homicide do not have Kelly's particular history. What someone with Kelly's history is more likely to commit is sexual violence.

• 23:00Tristin Engels?

  And despite their belief that Lena had been sexually assaulted simply because her dress was rolled up, there was no forensic evidence to suggest she was sexually assaulted. And neither were the other two girls. That said, that doesn't mean he's incapable of homicide either. There are always outliers. So I can certainly understand why A.G. Havelin viewed Kelly as a primary suspect again once they learned this information about him. I'm sure many people listening right now may have done the same. But being a plausible suspect because of their history is not the same thing as being guilty, like you said. Unfortunately, Kelly's past alone also doesn't establish that he committed the murders,

• 23:45Tristin Engels?

  the same way it didn't for William Mansfield, Frank Jones, or the separate serial killer, Henry Moore, who has no relation to the victims.

• 23:55Vanessa Richardson?

  The Iowa authorities felt they at least had enough to bring the case against Kelly before a grand jury. And after reviewing the evidence, the grand jury sided with the state. Nearly five years after the murders, Reverend George Kelly was indicted. For the first time since June of 1912, the authorities had formally accused someone of killing the Moore family and the Stillinger sisters. Still, a lot of the evidence against Kelly was circumstantial. Even the most damning clue, the bloodstained shirt, may have only been hypothetical because it's unclear whether investigators actually had the shirt in their possession. They did have statements from people who saw Kelly at the train station the morning after the murders,

• 24:37Vanessa Richardson?

  but no one had noticed anything unusual about his appearance. Just when investigators thought they'd made a breakthrough, they were back at square one. However, the case would soon make serious progress in a completely unexpected way.

• 25:03Vanessa Richardson?

  By 1917, Reverend George Kelly had been officially indicted for the murders of the Moore family and Stillinger sisters. At the time of his indictment, Kelly was living out of state. The authorities had been keeping it a secret to avoid tipping him off. However, unbeknownst to them, someone told him he'd been indicted, and he promptly boarded a train back to Iowa to turn himself in. When Kelly and his wife entered the courthouse on the morning of May 14, 1917, the authorities were stunned. Kelly was facing the death penalty if found guilty. So the fact that he seemed to be cooperating suggested he was confident in his ability to defend himself.

• 25:45Tristin Engels?

  There are a few reasons that may have driven Kelly to turn himself in. He may have genuinely been innocent or believed he was innocent and thought he could explain away the allegations or maybe even poke holes into the case against him as a result. He may have also recognized that resisting, especially with his history, would make him look more suspicious. At the same time, with his mental health history and the behaviors he's been described as having even leading up to and after the murders, it's important to consider whether or not he even had the capacity to understand what he was doing or the risks associated. It's not to say that cooperating is bad, but was he rationally able to do so? I don't know. I wasn't there.

• 26:29Tristin Engels?

  But if he wasn't, let's say, you run the risk of coerced confessions, civil rights violations, and more. But surrendering or not surrendering tells us very little about someone's guilt or innocence. The reasons that somebody surrenders varies by person.

• 26:47Vanessa Richardson?

  How do juries typically interpret behavior like this? Could this work in the defendant's favor down the line?

• 26:53Tristin Engels?

  Potentially. Jurors are human and, more often than not, have no courtroom experience. So they rely primarily on interpreting behavior, credibility, and guilt through several psychological mechanisms. One is the attribution theory, which is where they try to infer the cause of behavior. This is where they say, "He turned himself in because he's innocent." Or conversely, "He fled because he's guilty." Instead of saying, "What are the possible reasons someone might behave this way?" The second is the fundamental attribution error, which is when they tend to explain behavior in terms of their personality rather than the circumstances. So for example, in this case, he surrendered because he's an honest person,

• 27:38Tristin Engels?

  instead of considering that he surrendered because he spoke to an attorney who advised him to, as per the circumstances. Another is confirmation bias, which we talked about. But how it applies here is jurors, once they begin leaning toward guilt or innocent, then everything else they learn throughout the trial is interpreted through that belief system. So if they've been leaning toward innocence, then him turning himself in means he was innocent, even if the evidence, let's say, showed he was guilty. If they were leaning towards him being guilty, then him turning himself in would be interpreted as, for example, performative, even if the evidence shows he's innocent or it's circumstantial, they can't produce the bloody shirt, etc.

• 28:21Tristin Engels?

  There's also narrative construction. Jurors build stories, but the courtroom also gives them one. They just choose the one that fits the best within their schemas or mental prototype, which is also known as the representative heuristic. And their implicit biases frame the moral character inferences they make about a defendant. So it could absolutely work in his favor. Research shows jurors tend to infer positive character traits from cooperative behavior, but it could also not work in his favor too, for all the reasons I just highlighted. Most people, which represent the average juror, are not aware of these cognitive biases that they have, let alone how to challenge them as they're happening.

• 29:05Vanessa Richardson?

  Officers quickly took Kelly into custody, which should have been a huge milestone. But Kelly maintained his innocence. Without a confession, the authorities racked their brains, trying to think of the best way to secure a conviction. That's when they realized, if it was one thing they knew about Reverend George Kelly, it was that he loved talking about the case. So maybe it was only a matter of time until he'd said something incriminating. Thinking quickly, investigators enlisted two undercover officers to pose as inmates. The officers were placed in cells near Kelly's. Their job was to pay close attention to his every word. However, after some time, Kelly still hadn't said anything that could be used against him in court.

• 29:49Vanessa Richardson?

  So the authorities decided to take a more aggressive approach. The exact details of what happened are unclear. But while interviewing Kelly in his cell, investigators allegedly used physical violence to force a confession out of him. And it worked. During a round of intense interrogation, Kelly told the investigators he was ready to confess. And he specifically asked to speak with A.G. Havelin face to face. Kelly's wish was granted. At the end of August 1917, he was taken to the sheriff's office, where he met A.G. Havelin for the first time. Court reporters were present for the meeting. And once everyone took their seats, Kelly finally revealed something.

• 30:33Vanessa Richardson?

  He said, quote, "I want to save my life for my wife's sake." Then the floodgates opened. Kelly admitted he'd been, quote, "insane for five years" and that he had no idea how he got into the Moore house that evening, nor how he acquired the axe.

• 30:52Vanessa Richardson?

  Kelly reiterated that a preacher like him couldn't commit such a crime unless he was insane. He begged for the AG's help, asking what would happen if he confessed, and if he'd be sent to prison or an asylum. AG Hafner said he couldn't promise anything. It probably wasn't what Kelly wanted to hear, but he kept talking anyway. He made increasingly disturbing comments. He said he'd always been "bothered" by children. After that, Kelly remarked, "I suppose I killed the children first." With that, investigators had what they needed, and around 7:00 AM, Kelly had signed an official confession.

• 31:33Tristin Engels?

  We know that coerced confessions, meaning confessions that are obtained through psychological or physical means, are not considered reliable on their own. But let me walk you through why I think this is a relatively unpersuasive confession from a psychological standpoint. The first thing that stood out to me was Kelly's focus on the consequences. He wasn't primarily focused on telling investigators what happened. He seemed far more concerned with what would happen to him after. He wanted to know whether he would go to prison or an asylum. I actually find that particularly interesting for someone who willingly turned himself in. Whether he was guilty or innocent, surrendering was a decision he made. Yet, almost immediately,

• 32:15Tristin Engels?

  he appeared to be seeking reassurance about what confessing would mean for him. Turning yourself in to comply and confessing are two different agendas. But what I find even more interesting is his alleged account. He had no idea how he got into the house. He didn't know where he got the axe. He "supposed" he killed the children first. For someone voluntarily confessing to a crime of this magnitude, this is a significant lack of detail. These are the kinds of basic facts you would expect an offender to remember who had more than likely planned this attack: hid out in the home, hung blankets over mirrors and dimmed the lights, waited for the Moore family to return, hung out after killing each of them,

• 33:00Tristin Engels?

  possibly cleaned his shirt in a bowl of water, and pulled out uncooked bacon before leaving. Yet, he does not remember how he got into the home? That deserves scrutiny. The phrase "I suppose" is particularly telling, at least in my opinion. Someone genuinely recalling a sequence of events is generally more likely to describe what they remember than speculate about what they think happened. Now, that doesn't automatically make the confession false. It also doesn't mean he was telling the truth or that he genuinely didn't remember. We also don't know what he was diagnosed with. There are certain neurodevelopmental conditions that could explain this memory gap too, which weren't widely understood

• 33:43Tristin Engels?

  back then. I've also evaluated hundreds of defendants who claimed not to remember details that later in the evaluation became very clear they absolutely did remember. Incentives and secondary gain are powerful motivators for feigning otherwise. But considering everything that happened leading up to this confession, the circumstantial evidence, the repeated focus on Kelly over the years, the way this interview unfolded, and the quality of the information he actually provided, I don't think this is a confession that should be accepted at face value without independent evidence confirming that what he is saying is true.

• 34:20Vanessa Richardson?

  Is it possible that mental illness can affect a person's confidence in their own memories, or their ability to distinguish between what they remember, what they might imagine, and what others have told them?

• 34:30Tristin Engels?

  Absolutely, it can. There's something called "source monitoring." Our brains have to remember information, but they also have to remember where that information came from. For individuals with certain mental health conditions, this can become particularly difficult. For example, psychosis can cause impairment in reality testing. They become disoriented, and as a result, their ability to distinguish between something they personally experienced, something they imagined, or something they later learned from someone else can blur. And because of that, their confidence in knowing the difference can be affected, especially if they don't have good reality testing tools. So in general, mental illness can affect how someone interprets their memories, or even their comfortability

• 35:12Tristin Engels?

  asserting what they think they remember as well. If they're unsure, they may not be confident sharing it either. And this is independent of neurodevelopmental conditions, which weren't really well-understood back then.

• 35:27Vanessa Richardson?

  It's unclear what Kelly's written confession said specifically, and when the case went to trial on September 4, 1917, that proved to be a major problem, because the minister couldn't remember the details of his own story. Sometimes, Kelly reiterated that he was the killer, but other times, he seemed confused about basic details of what had happened. And at one point during his interrogation, he asked the prosecutor, "If I was out of my mind, would I remember it?" The defense used this to their advantage. They argued that Kelly was a deeply troubled man, struggling to make sense of his own thoughts, which meant his confession should be considered illegitimate.

• 36:09Tristin Engels?

  This is actually a great example of how two people can look at the exact same piece of evidence and reach completely different conclusions, which is not uncommon in a courtroom. The prosecution looked at Kelly's confession and viewed it as an admission of guilt. The defense looked at the same confession and focused on his inability to consistently remember or explain what he was confessing to. This is what you would expect to see in a courtroom: two competing stories. Neither side was arguing over whether Kelly made the statements. They were arguing over what those statements meant. That's one of the fascinating aspects of a trial. Evidence doesn't always speak for itself. People interpret it, assign meaning to it, and then construct a narrative around it.

• 36:53Tristin Engels?

  Ultimately, it's up to the jury, though, to decide which interpretation is the more persuasive one.

• 37:00Vanessa Richardson?

  The jurors in Reverend Kelly's case had all heard the same confession, but whether they believed it or not was an entirely different matter. After hearing weeks of testimony, deliberations began. Five hours later, the jury found themselves hopelessly deadlocked. Eleven jurors voted to acquit Kelly completely, and one voted "not guilty" for reasons of insanity. This meant if prosecutors wanted a conviction, they'd need to undergo a brand-new trial. For the authorities, it was a devastating outcome. Five years of investigation had produced an indictment, a confession, and a highly-publicized trial. Yet they were no closer to securing a conviction than they had been before. Still, the state

• 37:44Vanessa Richardson?

  wasn't ready to give up. And so about two months later, Kelly was tried a second time. This time, the result was even clearer. After deliberating for less than a day, the jury found Kelly not guilty. The state's case had effectively collapsed. The man the authorities had spent years pursuing walked free. And despite years of investigation, Reverend Kelly remains the first and only person ever indicted and tried for the Villisca murders. No one else would ever face a jury for the crime.

• 38:18Tristin Engels?

  That ended the case from a legal standpoint, but that doesn't mean it's over psychologically for the town of Villisca, or for people in general, because here we are, over a century later, doing a deep dive on serial killers and murderous minds. Cases like these captivate people because of their case factors, but also because they're unsolved. We don't like unanswered questions, especially in tragedies this horrific. Without answers, our brains are going to keep looking for them.

• 38:47Vanessa Richardson?

  Do competing theories sometimes become part of a mystery's appeal?

• 38:51Tristin Engels?

  Absolutely. In fact, I think competing theories become part of the mystery itself. And because no single theory can be definitively proven or disproven, each generation has an opportunity to reexamine the evidence and reach its own conclusions. And each generation may have new technology, concepts, or techniques at their disposal. And psychologically, I think people enjoy trying to solve puzzles. We weigh the evidence, we test different explanations, and some people like to imagine what they would have concluded had they been there, and they been the detectives on the case. And in this case, where there were multiple plausible suspects, so many different theories about how it could have been done,

• 39:33Tristin Engels?

  with the railroad depots, a hitman, et cetera, what the evidence in the scene may have meant, we talked about blankets on the mirrors, the bacon, some theorized it was a ritual or witchcraft, but with no definitive answers, it's still a mystery. And because of that, it continues to invite discussion like this, and reinterpretation, and of course, curiosity.

• 39:55Vanessa Richardson?

  More than a century later, the mystery of the Villisca Axe murders remains unsolved. Some people remain convinced of Reverend Kelly's guilt, especially since he kept finding ways to act with nefarious intent. After leaving the Midwest, he eventually settled in New England, and at some point, got involved with the KKK. Little else is known about his life after that. And in the 1950s, Kelly died in a psychiatric hospital. With him, he took whatever knowledge he may have had about what happened inside the Moore family home. Reverend Kelly wasn't the only suspect whose story kept raising red flags. Henry Moore, the railroad worker who federal investigators thought was a serial killer, went on to kill

• 40:38Vanessa Richardson?

  his own mother and grandmother. He did this because he was pursuing a love interest, a 16-year-old girl, and he was fixated on inheriting his family's property. With his mother and grandmother gone, the house would pass to him. He eventually received parole and was released before dying in 1963, and the authorities never found enough evidence to charge him with any other crimes. Over the decades, the Moore house has been restored to look the same as it did in 1912. Visitors can walk through the same rooms where the murders occurred, stand beside the beds where the victims slept, and trace the path investigators

• 41:18Vanessa Richardson?

  followed on that June morning. For some people, it's a historic site, a solemn place where tragedy occurred. For others, it's something else entirely. In recent years, the Villisca Axe murder house has become one of the most famous haunted houses in America. Social media influencers often spend the night there, hoping to document evidence that the victims' ghosts haunt its halls to this day. Just like in the immediate aftermath of the murders, people still can't seem to fight their own morbid curiosity. And as a result, the people of Villisca relive the tragedy each day.

• 42:10Vanessa Richardson?

  Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time for a deep dive into the mind of another murderer.

• 42:16Tristin Engels?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at @CrimeHouse. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

• 42:40Vanessa Richardson?

  And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page.

• 43:05Vanessa Richardson?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team: Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pritzowski, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Ines Renike, Sarah Bachelor, and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening.

• 43:39Vanessa Richardson?

  If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.