Hitched 2 Homicide

The Villisca Axe Murders of 1912: Eight Victims, One Axe, and a Killer Who Was Never Caught

On a quiet Sunday evening in June 1912, the Moore family attended a children's church program in the small, close-knit community of Villisca, Iowa. Afterward, Josiah and Sarah Moore returned home with their four children and two young sisters, Lena and Ina Stillinger, who had been invited for a sleepover.

It should have been an ordinary summer night.

Instead, it would become one of the most horrifying chapters in American true crime history.

Sometime during the night of June 9 and the early morning hours of June 10, an unknown killer entered the Moore home and brutally murdered all eight people with an axe. Six of the victims were children, the youngest just five years old.

When the bodies were discovered the following morning, the scene was almost beyond comprehension. Mirrors had been covered, the murder weapon was left inside the house, and the investigation quickly became a spectacle. Curious townspeople flooded the property, potential evidence was compromised, and accusations began flying.

Was the killer a traveling stranger? A respected local businessman with a grudge? Or a minister whose suspicious behavior would place him at the center of one of Iowa's most sensational murder trials?

Despite multiple suspects, investigations, and courtroom battles, nobody was ever convicted.

More than 114 years later, the Villisca Axe Murder House still stands, attracting historians, paranormal investigators, and true crime enthusiasts. But behind the ghost stories and chilling legends is the very real tragedy of eight innocent lives stolen in their sleep.

In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, we examine the victims, the crime scene, the suspects, the investigation, and the enduring mystery of the 1912 Villisca Axe Murders.

Who entered that house in the darkness? And how did a killer responsible for eight deaths escape justice?

Listen as we revisit one of America's most infamous unsolved mass murders.

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They believed Nelson Rehmeyer had cursed them. Their solution was murder.

Blymire and his accomplices, John Curry and Wilbert Hess, sought Rehmeyer’s copy of The Long Lost Friend or a lock of his hair, believing these could help break the alleged curse. Their quest ended in a fatal attack and an attempt to burn the evidence.

In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, Kris and Rob explore Nelson Rehmeyer’s murder, the beliefs behind the crime, and the trials that brought national attention to Pennsylvania’s powwow tradition. We examine how a healing practice became entangled with accusations of witchcraft—and how one man paid for those accusations with his life.

Listen to the story behind Hex Hollow, where the fear of a curse became a reason to kill.

Timestamps:

00:00-05:19 Welcome

#HexHollow #NelsonRehmeyer #Hitched2Homicide #SpookyTrueCrime #Powwow

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Do not copy, reproduce, or distribute any part of this content without express written permission.For licensing, press inquiries, or collaboration requests, contact: [email protected]For more true crime episodes, visit: www.Hitched2Homicide.com Thanks for listening and remember… Southern charm won’t save you from true crime.

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The Greenbrier Ghost is the name given to Elva Zona Heaster Shue, a young bride murdered in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, in January 1897.

After only a few months of marriage to blacksmith Edward “Trout” Shue, Zona was found dead in their home. A local doctor called it heart disease. She was buried the next day at what is now Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery near Smoot. Her husband had dressed the body, packed her neck in a high collar and scarf, and discouraged a full examination.

Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, refused that story. She later testified that her daughter’s spirit came to her bedside four nights in a row and described how Trout Shue had flown into a rage and broken her neck. Mary Jane took that account to the prosecutor. Zona was exhumed. The autopsy found the neck dislocated between the first and second vertebrae, the windpipe crushed, and finger marks on the throat.

Edward Shue was tried in Lewisburg in the summer of 1897. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder. He was sent to the West Virginia Penitentiary at Moundsville and died there in 1900. A state historic marker still stands near I-64: the only widely cited American case in which a spirit’s reported words helped open a murder investigation that ended in a conviction.

On this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, Kris and Rob go through the marriage, the scene, the inquest, the courtroom, and the folklore that grew up around it — without losing Zona Heaster Shue inside the ghost story.

Content note: intimate partner homicide and historical autopsy detail.

CHAPTERS

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In March 1954, 25-year-old Constance Fisher was living with her husband, Carl, and their three young children in Waterville, Maine. In part one of this case, we look into Constance's struggle with severe mental illness following childbirth. Following a voice she believed was God's, she drowned her three children–Richard, 6, Daniel, 4, and baby Deborah in the family home before attempting to take her own life. She was committed to Augusta State Hospital, where doctors treated her for serious psychiatric illness.

Five years later, Constance was released and returned to her husband. The couple rebuilt their life and had more children. Then, on June 30, 1966, history repeated itself.

Constance again drowned her three children: six-year-old Kathleen, four-year-old Michael Jon, and nine-month-old Natalie Rose.

She was sent back to the Augusta State Mental Hospital to live out the rest of her life. But in 1973, with no hope of ever leaving the hospital, Constance wandered off the grounds of the hospital and into the Kennebec River where she drowned herself.

Her husband, Carl, never remarried and buried his wife next to the bodies of their six children.

This episode of Hitched to Homicide discusses suicide, postpartum depression, severe mental illness, and the deaths of children. Some listeners may find these topics distressing. Please take care of yourself and consider skipping this episode if you are feeling vulnerable.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger or may act on thoughts of self-harm, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day. For pregnancy and postpartum mental-health support, call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA—that’s 1-833-852-6262—for free, confidential support.

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In March 1954, 25-year-old Constance Fisher was living with her husband, Carl, and their three young children in Waterville, Maine. In part one of this case, we look into Constance's struggle with severe mental illness following childbirth. Following a voice she believed was God's, she drowned her three children–Richard, 6, Daniel, 4, and baby Deborah in the family home before attempting to take her own life. She was committed to Augusta State Hospital, where doctors treated her for serious psychiatric illness.

Five years later, Constance was released and returned to her husband. The couple rebuilt their life and had more children. Then, on June 30, 1966, history repeated itself.

This episode of Hitched to Homicide discusses suicide, postpartum depression, severe mental illness, and the deaths of children. Some listeners may find these topics distressing. Please take care of yourself and consider skipping this episode if you are feeling vulnerable.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger or may act on thoughts of self-harm, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day. For pregnancy and postpartum mental-health support, call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA—that’s 1-833-852-6262—for free, confidential support.

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Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt looked more like retirees than ruthless killers, but prosecutors said the two women spent years building an elaborate life insurance murder scheme in Los Angeles.

Their victims, Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid, were vulnerable men living on the margins when Golay and Rutterschmidt entered their lives with offers of food, housing, and help. Behind that apparent generosity, the women secured multiple life insurance policies, fabricated personal and financial relationships, and waited for the policies to mature.

Then both men died in separate apparent hit-and-run incidents.

What first looked like two unrelated tragedies eventually unraveled into a chilling case of fraud, greed, and murder. Insurance records, surveillance footage, towing records, forensic evidence, and DNA beneath a Mercury Sable helped investigators connect the women to both deaths and expose a scheme worth millions.

Known as The Black Widows of L.A., Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt were ultimately convicted of murdering Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

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In September 1921, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was one of the most recognizable figures in American entertainment: a silent-film comedian, director, and major Paramount star. Virginia Rappe was a model, designer, and working actress with ambitions of her own in the young film industry.

After both attended a Labor Day gathering in Arbuckle’s suite at San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel, Rappe became critically ill. She died four days later from peritonitis associated with a ruptured bladder. What happened in the hotel rooms—and what caused her fatal injury—became the subject of competing accounts, disputed medical testimony, and one of the most sensational criminal cases of the 1920s.

Arbuckle was charged in connection with Rappe’s death and faced three manslaughter trials. The first two trials ended in hung juries. In April 1922, the third jury acquitted him and issued an extraordinary statement arguing that he had been treated unjustly. But the legal verdict did not end the public scandal. Newspapers had already circulated lurid allegations, including claims never established by forensic evidence, while Rappe’s private life and reputation were publicly attacked in ways that reflected the era’s deep misogyny and victim-blaming culture.

In this episode, we reconstruct the party at the St. Francis Hotel, trace Virginia Rappe’s life before the scandal, examine the accusations made by Maude Delmont, follow the contested medical and courtroom evidence, and explore why Arbuckle’s career never recovered despite his acquittal. We also investigate how the case helped fuel anti-Hollywood outrage and strengthened calls for the movie industry to regulate its stars and public image.This is not a story with a neat conclusion. It is a case shaped by a woman’s death, disputed testimony, unreliable reporting, celebrity power, public prejudice, and the enduring difference between a courtroom verdict and historical certainty.

Sources used for this podcast

#RoscoeArbuckle #VirginiaRappe #TrueCrime #HollywoodHistory #SilentFilm #OldHollywood #HistoricalTrueCrime #TrueCrimeDocumentary #1920s #FilmHistory

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On August 23, 1987, teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives were struck by a Union Pacific freight train near the Crooked Creek trestle in Alexander, Arkansas. The first official explanation was shocking: authorities said the friends had become incapacitated by marijuana, fallen asleep on the tracks, and died in a tragic accident.

Their families did not accept it.

Independent medical opinions challenged the THC-intoxication theory, the original accidental finding was changed to “undetermined,” and a Saline County grand jury later classified the deaths as a probable homicide. Yet despite the finding, no one was ever charged.

In this episode, we trace the timeline of the “Boys on the Tracks” case—from the early-morning train collision and disputed forensic evidence to the allegations of drug trafficking, local corruption, witness deaths, disappearances, and the later Mena and political conspiracy narratives. We also examine what is documented, what remains allegation, and why the murder of Don Henry and Kevin Ives is still one of Arkansas’s most haunting unsolved true-crime cases.

Boys on the Tracks documentary, Don Henry and Kevin Ives case, Alexander Arkansas murder, Arkansas unsolved case, true crime podcast episode, Saline County cold case, railroad tracks homicide, Crooked Creek trestle, Fahmy Malak, Mara Leveritt, Boys on the Tracks book, Arkansas crime history, drug trafficking allegations, Mena Arkansas conspiracy, true crime investigation, unsolved double homicide

#BoysOnTheTracks #DonHenry #KevinIves #ArkansasTrueCrime #AlexanderArkansas #SalineCounty #UnsolvedCase #ColdCase #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #UnsolvedMystery #CrimeHistory #RailroadMystery #MaraLeveritt #JusticeForDonAndKevin

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On December 10, 2003, the Whitaker family sat down for what they thought was a graduation dinner. By the time they got home, a masked gunman was waiting inside their house — and two of them wouldn't survive the night. On the surface, it looked like a burglary interrupted. But within days, investigators discovered that the "victim" sitting in the back seat, 24-year-old Bart Whitaker, had actually orchestrated the entire attack — and that this wasn't even his first attempt.

In this episode, we dig into the disturbing timeline of the Whitaker family murders in Sugar Land, Texas: the failed 2000 plot involving a Baylor roommate, the aborted 2001 murder-for-hire scheme that a former classmate walked into a police station to confess, and the final, successful conspiracy that took the lives of Bart's mother, Tricia, and his 19-year-old brother, Kevin. We trace Bart's troubled teenage years — including a string of school burglaries at 17 — through the recruitment of at least four separate accomplices, the frantic days-long investigation that unraveled his lies about college, his years as a fugitive in Mexico, and the courtroom battle over what actually drove him to try to erase his own family, not once, but repeatedly.

We also spend real time on what happened after the conviction: Kent Whitaker, the father who survived being shot in his own family's ambush, publicly forgiving his son and spending over a decade fighting to keep him off death row — a fight that came down to the final 40 minutes before a scheduled execution. It's a case that asks hard questions about motive, memory, and what forgiveness can look like when the person you're forgiving is the one who took almost everything from you.

Sources used for this podcast

Bart Whitaker, Sugar Land Murders, Whitaker family murders, Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, Sugar Land Texas murder, Bart Whitaker family murder, Fake graduation murder, Sugar Lakes subdivision murder, Kent Whitaker, Tricia Whitaker, Patricia Whitaker, Kevin Whitaker, Chris Brashear, Steve Champagne, Steven Champagne, Pappadeaux dinner murder, Sam Houston State University fake graduation, Murder for inheritance, Murder-for-hire Texas, Texas true crime, Family murder, Inheritance murder, Murderous son, Suburban murder, Capital murder Texas, True crime podcast, Family betrayal murder, Deadly family dynamics

 #BartWhitaker, #SugarLandMurders, #WhitakerFamily, #SugarLandTexas, #TexasTrueCrime, #FamilyMurder, #MurderForHire, #Hitched2Homicide, #TrueCrimePodcast, #TrueCrime, #TrueCrimeCommunity, #CrimeJunkie, #TrueCrimeAddict, #InheritanceMurder, #MurderousSon, #FamilyBetrayal, #SuburbanNightmare, #DeathRowStories, #TexasCrime, #RealCrime, #CrimeStory

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FROM THE H2H VAULT:

On June 27, 1977, one of Minnesota’s grandest mansions became the scene of a brutal double murder.

Inside Glensheen, the sprawling Congdon family estate overlooking Lake Superior in Duluth, 83-year-old heiress Elisabeth Congdon was found smothered in her bed. Her night nurse, Velma Pietila, had been beaten to death nearby. What followed was a sensational investigation involving family money, inheritance, an adopted daughter with a troubled history, and the son-in-law prosecutors believed was willing to kill for a fortune.

Suspicion soon centered on Elisabeth’s adopted daughter, Marjorie Congdon Caldwell, and Marjorie’s husband, Roger Caldwell. Roger was convicted of murdering Elisabeth and Velma, but his conviction was later overturned. Marjorie was tried separately—and acquitted. Years later, Roger would plead guilty to the killings, while questions surrounding exactly what happened inside Glensheen that night continued to haunt the case.

This is the story of Elisabeth Congdon and Velma Pietila, the extraordinary Congdon fortune, and the 1977 Glensheen Mansion murders—a case filled with wealth, family dysfunction, courtroom drama, and a legacy that remains inseparable from one of Minnesota’s most famous homes.

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