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FILE 092 · VOL XVI · They Were Never Caught

Eight Dead. Every Mirror Covered. Now We Know Why.

Cover the mirrors when someone dies. Nobody remembers that it was never for the dead.

Based on: The Villisca Axe Murders

Intake record

Recovered file

On the morning of June 10, 1912, in the small town of Villisca, Iowa, a neighbor noticed that the Moore family house was too quiet. [1]

The Moores were a well-liked family. Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, and their four children. The night before, they had gone to a children's program at their church. Two young sisters, Lena and Ina Stillinger, friends of the Moore children, had come home with them to spend the night. [2]

When the house was finally opened that morning, all eight people inside were dead. All had been killed with an axe while they slept. [3]

The investigators found strange details. The killer had covered the windows. The killer had placed cloths over the mirrors. [4] A kerosene lamp had been turned down low, its chimney removed. A plate of uneaten food and a bowl of water were left on the kitchen table. [5] A piece of bacon was found in the downstairs bedroom.

Hundreds of people came to the house that day and walked through it before the crime scene could be secured. [6] Evidence was ruined.

Several men were suspected over the years. One was put on trial twice. Neither trial produced a conviction. [7] The murders have never been solved.

The house still stands in Villisca. People pay to tour it. Some pay to spend the night. [8]

Covering the mirrors is an old custom in many cultures. When someone dies, you cover every mirror in the house. Most people who still do it today say it is out of respect, or because the grieving should not have to look at themselves.

But that is not where the custom started.

The old reason, the one grandmothers once whispered, is that a mirror in a house of death is a door. The soul of the dead person might get lost in it. Or something else might use the reflection to look in. To see who is left.

Whoever killed the Moores covered every mirror before they left.

The police never asked why.

Jolene Harker picked antiques for a living, mostly furniture, and she knew a good dresser when she saw one. Solid oak, carved, from around 1900. The mirror on top was still wrapped in a linen sheet, tied with twine, the knots gone brittle and brown.

The auctioneer said the dresser had come from a house in Montgomery County. The family had owned it for more than a hundred years. The old woman who died last spring had made her children promise never to unwrap the mirror.

"Superstition," the auctioneer said, and laughed. "Who's going to want a dresser with a bedsheet on it?"

Jolene paid sixty dollars. She was going to make six hundred.

Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.