We’re a few days beyond the “official” anniversary of this event, but it’s still worth posting since some people believe the house is tragically haunted. Funny thing is, though, I knew someone years ago who went to stay over night at the house with her daughter and a few other girls for a 16 year old birthday party. Nothing happened.
I am a member of a pretty active forum that has a paranormal section and someone recently posted about how neighbours of the home feel the latest owners aren’t respectful of what happened there because they are allowing “ghost hunts” and investigations to go on. I don’t think there is a problem allowing tours and such as long as the visitors/tourists are respectful of not only the Axe Murder House, but the neighbouring houses and property as well.
Shortly after midnight on June 10, 1912—one hundred years ago this week—a stranger hefting an ax lifted the latch on the back door of a two-story timber house in the little Iowa town of Villisca. The door was not locked—crime was not the sort of thing you worried about in a modestly prosperous Midwest settlement of no more than 2,000 people, all known to one another by sight—and the visitor was able to slip inside silently and close the door behind him. Then, according to a reconstruction attempted by the town coroner next day, he took an oil lamp from a dresser, removed the chimney and placed it out of the way under a chair, bent the wick in two to minimize the flame, lit the lamp, and turned it down so low it cast only the faintest glimmer in the sleeping house.
The Witching Hour 