Never go to this place

I've previously posted about places in Iowa that you should definitely go to, but today I'm going to write about a place you should not go to.  This is because I love my readers. 

When I was a kid, my Dad told me a story about a murder in Iowa where 8 people were killed with an axe and the crime was never solved.  This absolutely fascinated me.  I love true crime stories and used to get in trouble for watching them as a kid.  I regularly watch Dateline and 48 Hours Mystery and I know more about serial killers than most human beings would likely admit.  I knew I had to visit the house. 

So when I found myself unemployed and looking for work while living in Omaha, I knew I had the perfect opportunity to go.  I roped my friend Rebecca into traveling with me on a southern Iowa adventure by promising her the future chance to shop at outlet malls.  Worked like a charm.  We visited quite a few places, including the Glenn Miller birthplace.  I'll write about that another time, but the important thing you need to know now is that we almost didn't make it to the Axe Murder House because the Glenn Miller birthplace was incredibly consuming.  I was so freaked out that we wouldn't make it that I practically started hyperventilating, but we finally got to Villisca, IA, the home of the heinous crime.

Villisca is a small town and from all accounts always was.  That's part of what makes the crime so fascinating.  But despite the microscopic size of the town, it's surprisingly difficult to find the Axe Murder House.  Apparently the town isn't to keen to advertise gruesome crimes as tourist sites.  Rebecca and I drove around and finally saw a woman mowing her lawn.  I asked her where the house was using it's formal, PC name, and she looked at me strangely until I finally just sighed and said "The Axe Murder House."  Her face brightened and she said "Oh!  I used to live next door!" then gave us directions.  We showed up at the house and no one was around, but the back barn was unlocked.  Kinda weird.  We went back to town and stopped at the museum where we saw a note on the door that said 'John' and a phone number.  So, I called it.  The man on the other end, John, said that the museum was technically closed but he'd still show us around anyways.  How awesome is that?!?!?  Iowans are great people.

John showed up and I was instantly a little taken aback.  He was a big guy, not fat, just stocky, and he had a giant tattoo of Jack Nicholson in The Shining on his leg.  Clearly not a man who's blending in comfortably in small-town Villisca, IA.  He told us details about the crime and politely answered my 8,000 questions, then took us back to the house. 

Here's the thing about the house, it's completely original and decorated 100% the way it was when the crime occurred.  Right down to birds' nests on the piano that the mom used to collect with the kids for fun.  None of the furniture is original because it was all burned after the murder, but everything comes from that time period.  It's super creepy.  And the house in incredibly tiny.  It's difficult to give a comparison that everyone will be familiar with, but think of a one room schoolhouse with two stories.  That's about how big the house is.  After the crime a variety of people lived in it and the house was added on to and included fancy things like plumbing and electricity, but after the current owner bought it he stripped everything down back to the original home. 

John took us through the home and told us more about the crime, and I must say it was really really eerie.  It didn't help that Rebecca, who I totally thought would be the kind of person who refused to believe anything about haunting and ghosts and general creepiness was the exact opposite.  We went upstairs where he detailed even more gruesome facts, and I made the stupid choice to touch one of the axe gouges that's still in the wall.  That's right, 99 years later, the axe gouges are still in the wall.  And I touched one.  I don't know why!!!  But it was definitely creeptastic.

We then went into the children's room and I continued to ask a bajillion questions (like I do).  While I was running my mouth Rebecca saw the closet door move, then once I took a breath to stop talking I saw it close as well.  I then insisted that we had to go downstairs immediately and bolted out of the room.  Once we made it downstairs I said we had to get out of the house altogether so we went to the back barn.  The barn isn't original, it was built as a replica to house visitors who choose to stay overnight but don't want to stay in the house.  We stayed outside for a while and John answered more questions and told us more creepy stories about the house, then we went on our way.

Needless to say, Rebecca and I didn't sleep very well that night.  I couldn't help but run every single story and scenario of the crime through my mind!  And still when I want to tell a super scary story, I bust this one out and watch as people's eyes get wider and wider.  If you want to know more about the crime, you can read it here, but I don't recommend it. 

Lesson:  Don't go to creepy, possibly haunted houses and touch axe gouges or risk losing sleep for two days.