I Spent a Chilling Night in the Infamous Villisca Axe Murder House — This Is What Happened

Mar. 15, 2025

I’d heard about the Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa, for years.

The killing still stumps investigators to this day: six members of a beloved family in the small community along with two young sisters, who were neighbor friends, were bludgeoned to death as they slept in their home.

Rodney White-USA TODAY NETWORK

In between our day jobs and kids' sports and activities, we regularly travel to haunted locations around the country. Still, we were admittedly terrified over the idea of spending the night alone in a house with such a gruesome history.

But the unsolved mystery intrigued us more.

Here’s what we knew: On the night of June 10, 1912, at least one suspect attacked the victims in their sleep sometime after midnight. The family had returned from a Monday evening church service and it is believed the killer may have hidden in the attic of the home before the murders.

We’ve actually spent a night in the home twice over the years. The first time in 2020, we’d just started ghost hunting and honestly had no idea what to expect.

The house itself is very small. Downstairs is a simple kitchen, living room area and bedroom where Lena and Ina had been sleeping. Upstairs, we found two bedrooms where the whole family slept and the attic. We set up a motion detector under one of the beds in the kids’ room. We also placed a REM Pod, which measures changes in an electromagnetic field, in the doorway.

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As we sat in the dark in Josiah and Sarah’s room, it was quiet for a while. Then the motion detector was triggered. After we recovered from the jump scare, we immediately looked under the bed and could see no reason why it would be going off.

When we watched the night vision video of that moment, we realized we’d captured an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) as well. Even though we were the only ones in the house, we clearly heard a child’s voice say “Mommy” when we were listening back to the digital audio. We didn’t hear the voice with our own ears in the room.

Courtesy Julie Jordan

While we were sitting in the attic, which was creepy enough, the REM Pod in the doorway of the kids’ room started alarming. When the battery is low, the green light blinks. Not only had we just installed a new battery taken directly out of the package, but all the colored lights on the REM pod were flashing non-stop. We then watched as the battery was completely drained within a few minutes.

During our second visit two years later, we set up shop upstairs in the nursery. In what felt like no time at all, two motion detectors on opposite ends of the room were triggered: one under the bed and one facing into the attic. A quick flashlight check with shaking hands showed nothing to be amiss.

After the murders, the mirrors in the house were all covered. There are marks on the wall where the axe struck as well.Courtesy Julie Jordan

Later when we were sitting in the attic, we heard our motion detector on the stairwell go off. I can’t quite describe the terrifying feeling that something you can’t see is coming up the stairs toward you in the dark.

One popular theory over the years claimed that Rev. Lyn George Jacklin Kelly, who was a traveling preacher passing through Villisca at the time, might have committed the crime. According to reports, he left town the morning after the murders and a week later, he’d sent a blood-stained shirt to be laundered.

Kelly was reportedly acquitted in court twice even though he once seemingly confessed to the murders, saying God had told him to kill the family.

If you’re a lover of true crime mysteries or the paranormal and you’re brave enough to visit the house, you can book a tour or an overnight stay atmurderhouse.com.

source: people.com