public

Heavily Investigated

Eight people went to sleep in this modest Iowa home on the night of June 9, 1912, and never woke up. Visitors who linger after dark swear the children are still here — laughter drifting from empty rooms, small shadows crossing doorways. But the children aren't what unnerves people most. The attic is where the killer is believed to have crouched and waited, and those who spend the night say that old patient darkness never fully left — a presence up there, still watching, heavy, unmoved by more than a century of daylight.

On June 10, 1912, Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, their four children, and two young houseguests — Ina and Lena Stillinger — were bludgeoned to death in their sleep in this small Montgomery County home, in what became the most notorious unsolved murders in Iowa history. The case spawned nearly a decade of investigations, two trials, and even a confession, and yet the killer was never officially identified. The house has since been restored and opens for daytime tours and overnight stays — because apparently some real estate appreciates with the body count.