Unfortunately for the six members of the Moore family, we are entirely sure that what happened to them actually happened. And what happened is particularly gruesome. At some point between the evening of June 9, 1912, and early morning of June 10, 1912, the family and two house guests were bludgeoned to death in their rural Iowan home. All eight victims, including six children, suffered severe head wounds from an axe. And the murderer is still on the loose. Well, possibly not. They're probably elderly and/or dead by now, but still, they got away with it. The affluent family had a pretty good social standing in the Villisca community, friendly with all their neighbours. If they weren't, then they might not have been discovered so quickly; on member of the town thought it strange they hadn't appeared to do their morning chores, as they did every day outside the house at 7am sharp, and it's that neighbour who raised the alarm of the horrific scenes inside. The killer - or killers - had methodically gone from room to room, killing each member of the household in their sleep with an axe - or axes. There have been numerous suspects, from a hobo passing through town to a travelling minister to an elaborate conspiracy theory involving an Iowa state senator hiring a serial killer to do the family in, because the elder Moore had stolen business by opening a more successful tool store than the senator had. The reverend was tried twice, and acquitted each time. The Villisca Axe Murder House, as it has been delightfully redubbed, has since been renovated and is now a tourist attraction, as a company gives guided tours and talks up the possibility of the house being haunted. It probably isn't haunted, but the town still is, because despite being such a grizzly murder and in such a small town, the killings have never been solved.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
