3 Creepy Houses with Horrifying True Crime Stories (#87)

I’m going to talk about some of the creepiest houses that are still here today and have some very spooky stories. I didn’t intend for this to be a true crime episode, but there’s definitely going to be an element of that. If you want an episode similar to this, I’d recommend episode 34 about Lizzie Borden.

Villisca Axe Murder House, Iowa

On a quiet residential street in this small town sits an old white frame house. On a dark evening, the absence of lights and sounds are the first indication to visitors that this house is different from the other homes that surround it.

Upon closer inspection, you'll notice it's doors and windows are tightly closed and covered. An outhouse in the backyard suggests that this house does not occupy a place in the 21st century but somehow belongs in another era.

To some, the house seems to be speaking. Visits by paranormal investigators have provided audio, video and photographic proof of paranormal activity. Tours have been cut short by children's voices, falling lamps, moving ladders and flying objects. Psychics have confirmed the presence of spirits dwelling in the home and many have actually communicated with them, and skeptics have left believers.

In the early 1900's, Villisca, Iowa, a midwestern town of 2500, was flourishing. Businesses lined the streets and several dozen trains pulled into the depot on a daily basis. According to some, Villisca meant "Pretty Place" or "Pleasant View."

Unfortunately for the citizens of this close-knit community, on 10th June 10 1912, the tranquility of this "Pretty Place" was shattered by the discovery of the Villisca Axe murders. The Moore Family, well-known and well-liked Villisca residents, and two overnight guests were found murdered in their beds. Little known to its residents was the possibility that their town was named, not after a "pretty place" but for the Indian word "Wallisca" which means "evil spirit."

Sometime around midnight between Sunday 9th June, and Monday 10th June 1912, a person or multiple entered the house with an axe and bludgeoned to death eight people sleeping there: 43 and 39-year old Josiah and Sarah Moore, and 6 children aged 5 to 12.

By 7:30am on 10th June, Mary Peckham, an elderly neighbour, became concerned that the Moore house seemed quiet and deserted. She called Joe’s brother Ross, who arrived at around 8:00am to look around. His inspection of the downstairs revealed two figures covered with a sheet in the back bedroom, and he also saw blood on the bedstead.

Ross stepped away from the crime scene and called Joe’s hardware store, asking an employee to fetch Marshal Hank Horton, because something “terrible had happened.” Hank arrived about 8:30am, went through the house, and found “somebody murdered in every bed.” The partially cleaned murder weapon was left leaning against the wall of a downstairs bedroom.

The killer had added two bizarre touches to the murder scene. The first was a four-pound slab of bacon leaning against the wall next to the axe. The murderer has also searched dresser drawers for pieces of clothing to cover the mirrors in the house and the glass in the entry doors. On the kitchen table was a plate of uneaten food and a bowl of bloody water.

All the victims were found in their beds, their heads covered with bedclothes, and all had their skulls battered 20 to 30 times with the blunt end of an axe. The ceiling in the parents’ bedroom and the children’s room upstairs showed gouge marks, apparently made by the upswing of the axe.

Ninety-seven years later, the unsolved murders remain a part of Villisca's past that continues to haunt its future. While several of Villisca's historic buildings have been demolished, the Axe Murder House, as it is known, has been placed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings. Owners Darwin and Martha Linn have returned the home to its original condition in the hope that the renewed interest in the mystery may somehow help heal Villisca’s wounds and rejuvenate the economy.

If you want to visit the Villisca Axe Murder House, you can do a daylight tour or an overnight stay. For history buffs, the faint-of-heart, schools or clubs, the house is open for daytime tours. This is perfect for people who aren’t ready to tackle the house after dark.

Overnight tours are by reservation only and the owners suggest that you limit your group to 10 or less… any more than that and the small house gets even smaller. Bring your sleeping bags and pillows, and if it’s cold, heavy blankets or coats because the house doesn’t get a lot of heat. Photographs, videotapes and audio recordings are encouraged, and the owners appreciate people sharing anything they catch on film.

Skirrid Inn, Abergavenny

I’m going local with this next one, and by local, I mean very local: it’s about 30 minutes away from Newport in South Wales, where I’m from. The Skirrid Inn in Abergavenny is the oldest, and many would say most haunted pub in Wales. With a history dating back to the Norman Conquest, this building has seen executions and possibly witchcraft during its long history.

The Skirrid Inn has a long history of violence against humanity and is now revered as one of the most haunted places in the UK. So many ghostly happenings have been reported here that it has earned a reputation for being a terrifying and intimidating place to spend the night. 

Guests who stay there have reported a sinister atmosphere around them and in some of the rooms they have felt fearful and unwilling to enter them. Glasses have been seen flying across the bar, cackling laughter has been heard from empty rooms, and extreme drops in temperature are not uncommon. People have reported menacing shadows, the heavy thump of feet from the upper floors and some have felt such extreme fear that they have fled and vowed never to return.

The historic Skirrid Inn is now over 900 years old and claims to be the oldest pub in Great Britain. In 1110, a man named John Crowther was awarded the death sentence for stealing sheep. He was executed in the inn by hanging from one of the beams. This was just the beginning — during its time, there were approximately 182 executions at the inn with the last one occurring in or around 1658.

It is thought that the first floor of the building was the courtroom, and the prisoners holding cell (now a store room) is found off a landing halfway up the stairs. Popular belief states that the executions (by hanging) were carried out by throwing the noose over a wooden beam above the staircase.

There is a beam in the inn which still bears the rope marks of the hangings carried out in the Inn and there is also the hallmark of a courtroom on the first floor and of a cell where the condemned may have spent their last nights before facing death the following morning.

According to the brochure at the Skirrid, people were very superstitious centuries ago, and it tells of two rituals that used to occur at the Inn each night. Firstly, the innkeeper would pour a jug of ale for the ‘Devil’ and set it on the mantelpiece so that he could join the crowd at the inn. Then, when the last guests had left for the night, the innkeeper would set a Pwca (Welsh fairy folk Goblin) on the doorstep to ward off evil during the night.

It also claims to be the home of several ghosts or spirits as well as the scene of numerous supernatural occurrences or paranormal activities. A number of paranormal investigators have visited the inn over the years, and some have said it’s one of the most paranormally active venues they have ever investigated. Some of the alleged phenomena include:

• Visitors to the inn have felt like there was a noose being slipped over their heads and tightened around their necks. Apparently, marks have been left on the skin around their necks for days afterwards.
• There have been reports of soldiers being heard in the courtyard of the inn.
• Sometimes there is a powerful scent of perfume in the inn.
• Glasses have been said to fly off the bar unaided - apparently ten to fifteen glasses are broken like this every week.
• Guests have allegedly been overcome with dizziness, nausea, and fear whilst on the stairs.
• Doors in the inn have allegedly been seen to slam spontaneously or shake violently before opening on their own.
• Apparently, a guest taking a bath in a room on the second floor came down the stairs, dripping wet, screaming “She tried to drown me! She tried to drown me!”

World’s Fair Hotel (H. H. Holmes Hotel), Chicago

Next up is one you might have heard of — the World’s Fair Hotel, more commonly known as the H. H. Holmes hotel, or the “murder hotel”. As one of America’s first known serial killers, H. H. Holmes became infamous not only for his crimes but also for his legendary “murder hotel” in Chicago. Sometimes called a “murder castle” or a “murder mansion,” this mysterious building was initially believed to be a normal hotel — and just a way for Holmes to make money during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

But a police investigation later revealed something far more sinister. While it remains unknown how many people Holmes murdered in this house of horrors, he once boasted of killing 27 people. However, some estimates claim the actual number may have been as low as 9 — or as high as 200.

It turned out that the 100 rooms of the H. H. Holmes house were allegedly filled with trapdoors, gas chambers, staircases to nowhere, and a human-sized stove. You might run up a flight of stairs and find that it led to nowhere. You’d open doors and see only solid brick. You’d enter a bedroom and suddenly smell gas seeping in. You’d try to run, only to realize you were locked in. Even if you could open the door, you probably couldn’t find your way out of the house. And before long, you’d meet your gruesome end.

In recent years, some historians have cast doubt on whether the H. H. Holmes house was really a “murder castle” at all. While there’s no doubt that Holmes was a serial killer, experts have suggested that some of the most sordid details of his home — like the homemade gas chambers and trapdoors — may have been mere products of yellow journalism (journalism that has no legitimate, well-researched news but instead uses eye-catching headlines for increased sales). But even so, only H. H. Holmes himself ever knew all of the home’s secrets — and how many people died within its walls.

A quick bit of background about the guy himself. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, previous scandals H. H. Holmes a good reason to change his name. In college, he worked in the anatomy lab and mutilated corpses to defraud life insurance companies. He was the last person to have been seen with a missing little boy in New York. He worked as a pharmacist in Philadelphia and a customer died after taking his pills.

After all these incidents, Mudgett skipped town and eventually changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes. Soon after his arrival, Holmes got a job in a drugstore, using his knowledge of medicine and his charming personality to secure the position. Holmes was fashionable, bright, and likable. In fact, he was so likable that at one point in his life, he was married to three unknowing women at once.

In 1887, he bought an empty lot across the street from the store where he worked and began construction on a three-story building, which he said would be used for apartments and shops. He planned for the first floor to contain an entire block of storefronts that he would be able to rent out to the flood of new businesses opening up in the city.

The third floor would contain apartments for new residents. Little did they know, some of those unsuspecting residents may have eventually become Holmes’s victims. Those victims got to see the second floor — one that was allegedly full of “asphyxiation chambers,” mazes, and hidden stairs. The especially unlucky victims made it down to the basement, which hid the elaborate horrors that the H. H. Holmes house is now famous.

The house was completed in 1892, and by 1894, police would be exploring its winding passages while Holmes sat behind bars. At first, authorities were confused by what they found. There were hinged walls and false partitions. Some rooms had five doors and others had none. Secret, airless chambers were found underneath floorboards, and iron plate-lined walls appeared to stifle all sound.

As for Holmes’s own apartment, it had a trapdoor in the bathroom, which opened to reveal a staircase that led to a windowless cubicle. In the cubicle, there was allegedly a large chute that tunneled through to the basement. One notable room was lined with gas fixtures. Here, Holmes would apparently seal his victims in, flip a switch in an adjacent room, and wait for the horror to unfold. Another chute was found nearby.

(It should be noted that these descriptions have been met with some skepticism by historians, especially in recent years, so it’s worth keeping in mind that at least some of the designs may have been exaggerated or even invented by the newspapers of the era.)

When cops started uncovering clues, the first thing they found was a pile of bones - mostly animals, but some humans - some so small they must have belonged to a child. In the cellar, beside a blood-soaked operating table, they found a woman’s clothes. They found an array of medical tools, a bizarre torture device, and shelves of disintegrating acids. After dropping his victims down through the chutes, he reportedly dissected them, cleaned them, and then sold the organs or skeletons to medical institutions or on the black market.

Ultimately, theft and poorly-planned financial schemes were what led to the arrest of Holmes in Boston on November 17, 1894. After decades of criminal activity, H. H. Holmes was behind bars. Though he boasted of committing at least 27 murders, he gave three different confessions while imprisoned — all with contradicting numbers. The true number of victims was impossible to corroborate because the home was specially equipped for Holmes to disintegrate leftover body parts in acid baths or to burn them in a human-sized stove. (In one pile of ashes, investigators found a small gold chain from a woman’s shoe.)

“I was born with the devil in me,” Holmes would later explain. “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.”

As for the murder castle itself, it is no longer standing today. In 1895, the mansion was gutted by a fire — which may have been started by two men who were seen entering the building at night. The remaining structure was torn down in 1938. And today, it’s the site of an unassuming post office.