Editing Villisca, Iowa (section)

==Villisca axe murders==
{{main|Villisca axe murders}}

On the night of June 9, 1912, the Moore family and two guests were brutally murdered with an axe, though it was only on the morning of June 10, 1912, that they were found in their home by a neighbor and Ross Moore, the brother of Josiah Moore.<ref>{{cite web |title=Villisca Axe Murder House |url=http://www.villiscaiowa.com/the-crime.php |publisher=villiscaiowa.com |access-date=October 7, 2013 }}</ref>

Josiah B. Moore and Sarah Montgomery were married on December 6, 1899. They had four children: Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul. Joe was a prominent and well-liked businessman. By 1912, the Moore Implement Company (a [[John Deere]] Company franchise) was a solid competitor with other Villisca and area hardware stores, including the Jones Store owned by his former employer, [[Frank Fernando Jones|F.F. Jones]]. Sarah was active in the Presbyterian church and assisted with Children's Day exercises. On the morning of June 10, 1912, Joe (43) and Sara (39), their four children, and two visiting children (Lena and Ina Stillinger), were found bludgeoned to death with the Moores' own axe. Their unsolved murders began a chain of events that split the [[borough]] of Villisca and forever changed the course of the town's history and the lives of its inhabitants.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ramsland |first=Katherine |title=Villisca: Mass Murder in Iowa |url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/villisca/1_index.html |publisher=TruTv.com |access-date=July 19, 2012 }}</ref>