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The Killing Fields

by Christopher Hudson

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Aug 28, 2026 03:13PM

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A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

by Tia Levings (Goodreads Author)

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Aug 28, 2026 03:12PM

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Morning Ran Red: The Villisca Axe Murders

by Stephen Bowman

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TE said: " I'm not sure why the title includes a subtitle, "The Villisca Axe Murders," as the novel isn't actually set in that actual town. This fictional novel is at least based on the notorious case, which the book follows at least somewhat closely. If you've I'm not sure why the title includes a subtitle, "The Villisca Axe Murders," as the novel isn't actually set in that actual town. This fictional novel is at least based on the notorious case, which the book follows at least somewhat closely. If you've come across this review, you're probably already familiar with the premise. On the night of June 9th, or in early morning hours of June 10, 1912, in the small town of Villisca, Iowa, six members of the Moore family and two young, female houseguests were bludgeoned to death inside the Moore residence. All eight victims, including six young children, died of severe head wounds inflicted with an axe.

That evening, the visiting girls and the Moore family had attended a Presbyterian church event where they had participated in a Children's Day Program, which Josiah Moore's wife Sarah had helped to coordinate. After the program ended at about 9:30 PM, the Moores and their two guests, Ina (8) and Lena Stillinger (11) walked the short distance back to the Moores' house, arriving between 9:45 and 10 PM. It appears as though their killer was waiting for them, lying in wait, in hiding, either inside their adjacent barn, or possibly in an attic space inside the house. Two spent cigarettes found there suggested that the killer hid in the attic until the family was asleep.

At about seven AM the following day, June 10, as described in the novel, a neighbor, Mary Peckham, became concerned when she noticed that the Moores had not emerged to do their morning chores. She knocked on their door and attempted to open it, but discovered that, oddly, it was locked from the inside. Even more strangely, it appeared that all their windows had been covered over with fabric to prevent anyone from seeing inside. Peckham then let their chickens out and called Ross Moore, Josiah's brother. When he, too, received no response when he knocked on the door and shouted, Ross unlocked the front door with his copy of the house key.

What Ross discovered was the stuff of nightmares: a scene that would haunt the town for more than a hundred years and leave a stigma that persists to the present day. When Ross opened the guest bedroom door, he found Ina and Lena Stillinger's bodies on the bed. Ross immediately told Mary Peckham to call Henry "Hank" Horton, the primary peace officer. It was Horton's search of the house that led to the discovery of the rest of the victims, each of whom had had been bludgeoned to death. The apparent murder weapon, an axe belonging to Josiah, had been left in the guest room where the Stillinger girls were found.

Investigative methods were crude and rudimentary, but it was believed that the killer probably began in the room where Josiah and Sarah Moore were sleeping, a loft area just at the top of the stars, that wasn't an actual "bedroom" per se. Josiah seemed to have born the brunt of the attack and the most vicious assault: he received more blows than any other victim. His face had been disfigured and crushed to such an extent that his eyes were completely liquefied. The ceiling had a gouge mark caused by the murderer's frenzied swinging of the axe, which remains to this day.

It appears that the four Moore children, all sleeping in the same room - Herman, Mary Katherine, Arthur, and Paul - were next attacked, in a similar manner as their parents. It is believed that the killer first dispatched the Moore adults, then the children, and on his way back down the stairs, he returned to the adults to inflict more damage on them, once they and the children were deceased. The killer then proceeded downstairs to the guest bedroom to kill Ina and Lena.

Subsequent investigators believed that the two Stillinger girls were killed last, and that all of the victims except for Lena were asleep at the time of the attack, suggesting that the killer moved swiftly and quietly. It was suggested by some that Lena had awakened at some point, and may have even tried to fight back, as she was found lying crosswise on the bed with a defensive wound to her arm.

And here's where things get weird. Lena's nightgown had been pushed up, leaving her exposed, with one of her legs positioned in such a way to reveal her external genitalia. This led to speculation that the killer had either molested her or attempted to do so. One of the more odd discoveries was a 4 lb slab of bacon, which had been removed from the icebox and laid next to the axe. Some investigators suggested that the killer, rather than assaulting Lena directly, had used the bacon as some kind of "substitute." They also found food and a basin of bloody water on the kitchen table, where it appears that the killer had attempted to wash his hands or clean himself up.

What we know today is that the Villisca axe murderer was a HIGHLY ritualistic killer with an already-highly-evolved, almost perfected method, almost certainly indicating prior experience. His M.O. involved covering the heads of his victims with cloth, either to prevent blood from splattering him or for some other psychological purpose. The killer also covered all the windows with cloth or blankets, either to prevent people from eventually seeing in, to buy himself more time to make a getaway, or, alternatively, for privacy, to avoid seeing even himself in the glass. That would explain why he also covered all the mirrors and, in one case, even a telephone. I've always wondered if he was so insecure that he didn't want any audience, including even his own reflection or the dead victims "watching" what he did to them, during and after).

Another ritualistic practice involved removing the chimneys from the lamps he found in the house to effect very low lighting, almost like moonlight. The killer left lamps around the house with wicks altered, as well as a vessel such as a bowl or bucket of bloody water behind, with which he ostensibly washed his hands. He also left the axe at the scene of the crime, almost like a signature.

These specific elements have led some modern researchers, most notably Bill James, a baseball writer and statistician, and his daughter Rachel McCarthy, who made a decent case in a 2017 book "The Man from the Train" that the Villisca killer was actually one of the deadliest serial killers in American history, and the Moore family was only ONE of many families he destroyed. They argue that between 1898 and 1912, multiple families across the US were found bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. The murders were almost certainly not robbery, as money and valuables were left in plain sight. Bodies were found piled together, faces covered with cloth. At the time, few people believed the crimes were related, if they knew about them at all. No one apparently realized that all the families lived within walking distance to a train station.

More than many others of the period, the novel seeks to explode the notion that the early twentieth century wa ssome kind of "Golden Age," even in small-town America, where people were almost universally accepted as virtuous, religious, chaste, and thoroughly law-abiding, with some stark exceptions, like the Wild West, or crime-ridden areas of inner cities.

By and large, people often associate rural and small-town life with a lack of the violence and vice that plagued more heavily populated areas of the country. However, I don't think that small-town vice existed anywhere to the extent that's portrayed in the novel. In the first thirty pages, we have infidelity on the part of just about every married character, male and female, an abortion, and, of course, a brutal murder. Yes, that may have occurred to some degree, but not everyone was bed-flopping with everyone else, in a small town of about two thousand people. This novel would have been infinitely better if there hadn't been so much gratuitous smut, almost to the degree that it's some soft-core p*rn novel - it's that heavy. ...more "

Sep 12, 2026 05:41PM · see review

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