Would You Spend The Night At A House Where A Family Of EIGHT Were Slaughtered With An Axe?

Bussin With The Boys Spooktober is now in the last day of its fourth and final week -- yes, it’s Halloween! The Boys are coming off an eventful week, having dropped an incredibly insightful podcast detailing Taylor’s injury as well as an incredible documentary about the history of the Bussin’ podcast. 

One of the things the Boys love about Spooktober is haunted houses. I, for one, just do not understand the appeal of paying to get scared. There’s enough scary shit out there on a daily basis I don’t need to spend my hard-earned cash just to get the same level of anxiety I can get riding the subway with a group of strangers who are not wearing masks. 

But Haunted Houses are BIG business, especially around Halloween, so along those lines, I thought I’d give a little background on one of the most horrifying murders in American history -- killings so gruesome that they gave rise to an absolutely TERRIFYING haunted house you can visit yourself in Villasca, Iowa.

Here’s the short background. Josiah and Sarah Moore were a farm family living in the small town of Villasca, Iowa with their four children. On June 9, 1912 the family invited a pair of playmates for their kids to sleep over for the night. They went to church and were last seen at 10:00 that night. The next morning, a neighbor noticed they had not done their morning chores. Probably because, I don’t know, ALL EIGHT OF THEM HAD BEEN MURDERED IN THE NIGHT. WITH A FUCKING AXE.

Holy shit. Eight people murdered in one night, with an axe the killer left behind. The murderer started with the father, using the blade until “his face had been cut to such an extent that his eyes were missing.” Then he used the blunt end on the seven other victims. And then, just like that, the murderer VANISHED.

The village rounded up every vagrant (read: everyone not from there) and put them through a diligent background search, but despite bringing one of them to trial (twice) no one was held accountable for these murders.

Which brings us to the main point: the Villasca Axe Murder House is OPEN FOR TOURS RIGHT NOW. Seriously. 

Let’s break this down. You’re really going to visit a place where a family of six and two little neighbor kids were SLAUGHTERED in order to scare yourself? To think about maybe a ghost of one of those dead people coming after you, just for fun? Best case scenario, you get scared because of the spooky, creepy, morbid vibes emanating from the house. And trust me, there’ll be PLENTY of those. Worst case? I don’t fucking know but it’s not good. Not fucking good at all.

And guess what? You can even stay overnight in a house where 8 people were brutally murdered by an unknown serial killer! Date night even. Overnight pricing is $428 for groups of 1 to 6 people, $75.00 each additional person. 

I have questions. 

WHO in their right mind would willingly PAY to have a sleepover where SIX, count them, SIX children were murdered along with their parents? 

More importantly, aren’t there enough scary things about the world that keep you up at night? Do you regularly sleep SO WELL that you want to know what paralyzing fear feels like? 

Best case, an eerie and morbid night with bae in a home where 8 people were killed.  Worst case, maybe a recreation of the “Haunting of Hill House” or perhaps the axe murderer will hear about the idiots that decided to return to the scene of the crime and give them their money’s worth. 

You want some more terrifying thoughts? Guess what? There were FOUR other major axe murders right around the same time as the one in Villasca, Iowa, as well as a spree of axe murders at the same time around the Southern Pacific Railroad:

Nine months before the murders at Villisca, a similar case of axe murder occurred in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Two axe murder cases followed in Ellsworth, Kansas, and Paola, Kansas. The cases were similar enough to raise the possibility of having been committed by the same person. Other murders reported as possibly being linked to these crimes include the numerous unsolved axe murders along the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1911–1912, the unsolved Axeman of New Orleans killings, as well as several other such murders during this time period.

Insane. And the really scary thing? BILL FUCKING JAMES, yes the SAME Bill James famous for his baseball writing, wrote an entire book (The Man From the Train--2017) in which he theorized the serial killer was a German immigrant named Paul Mueller, who James believed murdered 59 people in 14 separate incidents, including the one in Villasca and Colorado Springs. 

FUCK ME. 

So yeah, if you want to end Spooktober with a bang, go get yourself a room at the Villasca Murder House and have yourself a night. 

Not me. I’ll have a hard enough time sleeping tonight just thinking that a serial axe murderer Paul Bunyaned his way across America and never got caught.