True Crime Time For August 31, 2026 | The Villisca Axe Murders: Eight Dead, a Contaminated Crime Scene & a Mystery That Never Died

Woody takes a deep dive into the 1912 Villisca Axe Murders, one of America’s most infamous unsolved crimes. Eight people—including six children—were bludgeoned to death inside an Iowa home before a chaotic investigation, a badly contaminated crime scene, competing suspects, and a recanted confession left the mystery unsolved. Woody examines Rev. Lyn George Jacklin Kelly, Frank Jones, William Mansfield, Henry Lee Moore, the serial-killer theory behind The Man from the Train, and the haunted house that still draws visitors more than a century later.

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