Tourists Look for Ghosts at Iowa 'Ax Murder House' It's been a century since Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children and two visiting children were hacked to death with an ax while they slept, and the tiny town where they lived in Iowa has never been the same. What remains the state's worst mass murder divided the community in 1912 between those who suspected a prominent businessman and others who blamed a traveling preacher or thought it was someone else going through the area. The case was never solved, and in some ways, the mystery still haunts Villisca. The 100th anniversary of the killings, the multi-year investigation and the uproar they caused will not be officially remembered there, but in Red Oak, a larger city with better meeting space about 25 miles away. That's partly for convenience, but residents say there's also reluctance in Villisca to delve into the killings. Many are bothered by the tourists and ghost hunters who come to the two-story white frame building dubbed The Villisca Ax Murder House for tours or even to stay overnight. "I would like it to be over," said Susie Enarson, a former mayor of the town of 1,200 about 80 miles southwest of Des Moines. I would like the people to rest in peace and not have all this ghost discussion. Owner Martha Linn said she doesn't understand why some question whether her tourist attraction is respectful. I don't have any qualms about that. It was 100 years ago," Linn said. I get a little tired of people actually asking that. The killings happened in the early morning hours of June 10, 1912. The Moores and their four young children, Herman, Katherine, Boyd and Paul as well as two of the children's friends, the sisters Lena and Ina Stillinger, had returned from an evening church service at which children in the community read Bible verses. It's believed all were asleep when someone entered the house, killed the parents first with repeated ax blows to their heads and then killed the children, each with one massive blow. The children were from 5 to 12 years old. "It's undoubtedly the worst crime that took place in the state," said David McFarland, director of the Montgomery County History Center. But the crime may have been largely forgotten if not for an incompetent investigation that divided residents over who was guilty and created a statewide uproar. In 1912, Iowa had no uniform police standards or statewide criminal investigation agency. Local police allowed local residents to traipse through the house for hours while the blood-stained bodies were still in the beds. Amateur historian Ed Epperly, who has studied the case since the 1950s and for years owned the ax used in the killings, said one local pool room operator is believed to have walked away with part of Josiah Moore's skull. More than a year after the crime, state authorities hired a private detective to investigate the killings, and for a month he posed as a real estate developer to secretly follow leads. The detective, James Wilkerson, accused a prominent local businessman who served as a state senator of hiring a hit man because he believed Josiah Moore was having an affair with his daughter-in-law, but the investigator's theories were later largely discredited. A traveling pastor, George Kelly, confessed to the crime but then withdrew his admission and was acquitted at a murder trial.