Paranormal activity and history collide at Villisca Ax Murder House
By McKenzy Parsons
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VILLISCA, Iowa (KETV) — In the tiny town of Villisca, Iowa, one house carries a sinister secret.
Stepping inside 508 East Second Street takes you back to June 12, 1912, when the home belonged to the Moore family.
That fateful night, two neighbor girls, the Stillinger sisters, made the unfortunate choice of sleeping over.
None of them would ever wake up again. That night, all eight would be murdered with an ax.
Decades later, brave souls enter the house to learn the story and to experience the paranormal.
My curiosity brought me to a tour of the home led by property manager Kelly Mattson.
“This is where the Stillinger girls were found. Sadly, they were unrecognizable. The only way they could be identified was that their names were in their Bibles,” said Mattson.
A walk through the halls will send shivers down your spine and give you the feeling that time stopped when the murders took place.
“There’s actually a mark here in the wall. This one led authorities to believe the killer was left-handed. This is the way the upswing of it is,” said Mattson.
Even more chilling than the mark was entering the area where the murderer waited to strike.
It’s believed that the killer hid in this attic that very night when eight different murders were committed throughout this house, going room by room, person to person — and to this day, over 100 years later, we still don’t know who was behind it all.
What we do know is that visitors swear they come into contact with the paranormal.
“If you think of haunted, it happens. It’s gotten to the point that footsteps and voices are normal — which is really crazy to say,” said Mattson.
KETV’s assignment editor and paranormal investigator in her own right, Victoria Holley, came along to help me identify possible spirits in the house.
“If you hear a word, that might be a ghost trying to pick it out,” said Holley.
She came prepared with equipment that would put the Ghostbusters to shame.
“This is called a REM pod. The idea is that spirits can manipulate energy, so if something gets close to it, it’ll tell you how close and how strong the electromagnetic field is,” said Holley.
Almost instantly, energy was picked up, setting off the REM pods throughout the house—from the baby’s crib to the attic where the murderer waited to strike.
Now that there was a sign that spirits might actually be in the house, it was time to try and communicate.
“Is anyone in the room with us?” I asked.
We grabbed more advanced tools. This device is believed to allow souls to communicate by manipulating energy in a room to pull words from radio frequencies.
At first, our conversation seemed promising.
“Should I leave the house?” I questioned.
“Slowly,” answered the machine.
But as I moved throughout the house, I stopped getting answers.
“Do you want me to leave?” I questioned again.
I was left with the sound of static.
I was down to one last tool. Similar to the radio, I’d ask a question, and it would talk back.
“Do you know what happened in this house?” I asked.
“Friday,” said the machine.
“What happened Friday?” I asked
“Help,” the machine replied.
Again, it seemed like we might be making progress, sending me the signal that something was important.
“What’s important?” I asked
At the very same time, the REM pod we left in the crib beeped off.
Just when we thought we were going to get an answer related to the murders, I stopped receiving answers from the devices.
While we may not have actually seen any ghosts during our stay at the house, we felt their presence in every room.
A place where eight innocent souls continue to rest to this day.
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