Villisca Iowa, Axe Murder House. April 10TH 2011.
We have been hearing the stories for years. What really happened? Who really killed all of those people? Who is still hanging out at the house? These are all questions we tried to answer. I’m not going to go into detail about the history of the place, here is a short run down of what happened. 8 people were murdered, the Moore family of 4 and 2 of their children’s friends, it is an unsolved case. If you want to get caught up click here for some more information. For the official site click here
We began setting up in the afternoon, running cables and checking camera’s all the boring stuff. We were doing a live internet feed so people could tune in and watch live. Soon it was time to start investigating. We began with a group EVP session in the parlor. It seemed to be another quiet night but little did we know what we were actually capturing on our audio recorders and video cameras. We carried on throughout the night doing EVP sessions whenever we could taking short breaks here are there to maintain our energy.
Early into the night a few group members were upstairs in one of the kids rooms. Kristy and Jodi had their hands on the crib and for some reason the crib started to shake. Soon after that the closet door popped open and then shut itself. We then looked into the closet and saw there was a large hole in the ceiling which could let air in and out, possibly opening the door as a result. As for the crib, we still can’t explain how that happened.
A group of us photo-bombed the house, taking as many photos we could as fast as we could. The other Brian was in the head of the pack as we went up stairs. He starts stuttering that he saw a shadow person about the size of a young child in the doorway. He was too startled to take a picture of it, unfortunately he was the only one that had seen it.
It was now time for both Brians to investigate the upper floor. It was quiet at first but then I heard what sounded like a person talking in the parlor. I went to the staircase and asked if anyone was there, it wasn’t until I asked the third time that Kristy came into house and asked if I had heard the voice as well. She was in the cellar at the time. The cellar is directly below the kitchen, the voice I heard sounded plain as day coming from the parlor which is adjacent to the kitchen. Sadly non of us caught the voice on any of our equipment.
From time to time we bring trigger objects with us. I brought along a glow in the dark rubber ball. My hopes were that we could leave the ball on the floor in one of the kids rooms and hopefully they would move it for us. That wasn’t going as planned so I picked up the ball and went into the kitchen. In the video Brian and I are talking about the night occurrences and I put the ball on the floor. The ball rolls a little bit, I push it back to me with my foot then it looks like the ball shoots towards the camera BUT I then bend down and pick up the ball. That’s a bit strange!
*NEW UPDATE* While planning the ParaCon presentation for 2015 we reviewed this clip. After much discussion, we are pretty certain the the “ghost ball” is likely a reflection from a moving flashlight. We are disappointed in this revelation. In an effort to never mislead anyone on purpose we often go over old clips to make sure they hold up. Watch the clip and see what you think. Paranormal or another IR created false hit?
We continued investigating in small teams going room to room asking questions the whole time. It seemed quiet but we would later find our recorders heard otherwise.
The team of two Brians went into one of the kids rooms on the first floor armed with a video camera and a bunch of mug shots of suspects from the the unsolved case. We laid them out on the bed in hopes that that either the killer would identify himself or one of the victims could point them out for us. The other Brian saw that his computer was getting low on battery life so he was going to run upstairs and get his power cables. So in order to do that I had to move the tripod, while moving about I thought that he had mumbled something, turns out it was someone/thing else that had done the talking.
When I replay the clip I hear “why would you do that to me” as to why would you try to get me caught. That is one of our rare AVP’s, Audio Voice Phenomenon. Brian was able to get his computer charger hooked up and we continued carrying on. It wasn’t long after that that we caught another EVP
After our attempt at identifying the murderer we decided to take a short break in the adjacent building which we dubbed our base camp. While we were watching the DVR system, the front door flung open and we saw a giant gust of wind blow throughout the house. Starting from the kitchen and up to the second floor, kicking up dust the whole way through. The weird thing is that at base camp there is a big bell on the peak of the roof that did ring from time to time when there was a strong breeze. The bell did not make a sound as the giant gust of wind went through the house.
These events were the main highlights of our investigation. We did catch a lot of evidence both audio and video please check out more below. Let us know if you have any questions.
Here we bring in a stuffed toy that when squeezed makes a noise. Listen for a child’s reaction when we stop talking after the toy gets squeezed.
WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE. Brain H. was doing some provoking. We don’t ever do that style of investigating elsewhere. This was different though. By the response he got, it didn’t seem to provoke anyone.
The group was outside getting some sleep in their cars. A recorder was left in the house. It was silent till this happened