Editor’s note: Whether or not you believe in ghosts and hauntings, this is one of several spooky tales of local lore that Shaw Local News Network will be sharing with readers in the spirit of Halloween.

On a Friday morning in June 2019, I stashed a bag of snacks, a change of clothes and a “101 Dalmatians” sleeping bag (the only sleeping bag I could find in my house) into the back of my friend Cathleen’s SUV.

I was ready.

Just a month earlier, I was out with a group of friends when Cathleen beckoned to me from across the room: ”Char!! I’m going to the Villisca Ax Murder House next month. You have to come with me!”

Now, I knew Cathleen had been interested in the supernatural and had been on past ghost-hunting trips, mainly spending time in the countryside skimming through old cemeteries. I, on the other hand, had never done such.

I’m the one who flips right past TV shows about supposedly haunted locations and stories from those who’ve allegedly seen a ghost or two. I’ve never seen one, heard chains rattling, doors slamming or felt the cold breeze that is said to rush in and accompany a misty visitor from beyond the grave.

So when she asked me, exclaiming that I needed to go with her and a couple of her younger relatives, I was looking forward to the ride, visiting with friends and learning more about what happens on one of these excursions. I also was eager to see the house, a well-known structure people visit because of its alleged hauntings.

My answer: “OK, when? What do I need to bring? You do understand that I’m a skeptic?”

“Oh, Charrr, this is going to be great!” she exclaimed.

We loaded our gear into Cathleen’s vehicle. Her cousin Casey was in the front seat, wearing a Rosary around her neck. We picked up her nephew, Matt, who brought various cameras, voice recorders and heat and electromagnetic detectors.

Then it was off for a drive across Iowa to the Villisca house.

The crime

According to https://www.villiscaiowa.com, Lena and Ina Stillinger, the daughters of Joseph and Sara Stillinger, left for church early one Sunday morning, June 9, 1912. They planned on having dinner with their grandmother after the morning service, spending the afternoon with her and then returning to her home to spend the night after the Children’s Day exercises concluded.

However, 9-year-old Katherine Moore invited the girls to spend the night at her home instead. Before leaving for the exercises, Mr. Moore placed a call to the Stillingers to ask if the girls could stay overnight. Blanche, Lena and Ina’s older sister, told Mr. Moore that her parents were both outdoors but she would pass the message along to them.

The Children’s Day Program at the Presbyterian Church, an annual event, began about 8 p.m. June 9. According to witnesses, Sarah Moore coordinated the exercises while the Moore children and the Stillinger girls participated. Josiah Moore sat in the congregation. The program ended at 9:30 p.m. The Moore family and the Stillinger sisters got home about 10 p.m.

The next morning, about 5 a.m., Mary Peckham, the Moores’ neighbor, stepped into her yard to hang laundry. At 7 a.m., she realized the Moores had not been outside nor started their chores, and the house seemed unusually still.

Between 7 and 8 a.m., Peckham knocked on the door to the Moores’ house. When she received no response, she tried opening the door, but it was locked. After letting out the Moores’ chickens, Peckham called Josiah’s brother, Ross Moore.

Based on the testimonies of Peckham and those who saw the Moores at the Children’s Day exercise, it is believed that sometime between midnight and 5 a.m., someone entered the home and brutally murdered everyone inside, according to the website.

Ross Moore tried to look in a bedroom window, knocked on the door and shouted, trying to raise someone inside. When that failed, he produced his keys and found one that opened the door.

Although Peckham followed him onto the porch, she did not enter the parlor. Ross went no further than the room off the parlor.

When he opened the bedroom door, he saw two bodies on the bed and dark stains on the bedclothes. He returned to the porch and told Peckham to call the sheriff.

The two bodies in the room downstairs were Lena Stillinger, 12, and her sister Ina, 8.

City Marshal Hank Horton found the remaining members of the Moore family – Josiah Moore, 43; Sarah Montgomery Moore, 39; Herman Moore, 11; Katherine, 9; Boyd Moore, 7; and Paul Moore, 5; in the upstairs bedrooms.

Their skulls had been crushed by someone wielding an ax as they slept.

I say “someone” because the murders were never solved.

Our visit

We knew the entire story before our visit. To be sure, it was creepy walking into the home. Wooden floors creaked, a calendar from June 1912 was hanging on the kitchen wall, and it was decked out with furniture from the time period.

A tour of the house introduced us to the layout and where the victims were found.

After that initial creepiness wore off, I wasn’t convinced that the house had spirits. We visited the nearby cemetery, where the victims are buried, and back at the house got out the meters to detect activity, which we think surged briefly because of our cellphones.

We also set up audio recorders. On playback, it sounded like we had captured voices of little girls whispering.

Maybe.

Strangely, we were locked out of the house a few times when we were out in the yard.

If it had ended there, I would say I wasn’t convinced.

But there was this one thing.

A few hours after our arrival, as I went to get into the SUV to go to a nearby Casey’s, I clearly heard the “Dukes of Hazzard” theme song, Waylon Jennings and all. I asked Cathleen if she had changed the radio station from what was playing earlier. I even put my head down by the speaker to listen.

But the music wasn’t coming from the speaker. It was coming from the iPhone in my pocket, which somehow had been triggered to open my music app, which I never use but had downloaded my library into a year before.

Weird.

Then Matt replied that a couple minutes earlier, as he left the house to get into the SUV, he had said loudly: “Come on out, we don’t mean you any harm.”

If you know the song, you know the lyrics. And my phone was spilling out the words “Never meanin’ no harm.”

And it was shortly after he had said those words in the house.

Was it a reply? Maybe a sign?

I don’t know.

But I sure haven’t forgotten it.