Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Villisca, IA

Villisca is a city in East Township, Montgomery County, in southwestern Iowa.

The settlement was first founded under the name 'The Forks,' and Villisca was platted in 1858 by pioneer D. N. Smith.

Villisca was incorporated as a town on September 3, 1869, and its name is traditionally said to come from a Native American word meaning 'pretty place.'

Villisca had 1,132 residents at the 2020 census, living in 487 households — a fraction of its peak population of 2,211 people in 1900, when it was a thriving railroad and retail center.

Villisca is known around the world for the Villisca axe murders: on the night of June 9, 1912, Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, their four children, and two visiting girls, Lena and Ina Stillinger, were bludgeoned to death with the Moores' own axe.

The Villisca axe murders remain unsolved more than a century later, despite investigations, suspects and trials that split the town for years afterward.

At the time of the murders Villisca was a bustling town of about 2,500 people where more than two dozen passenger and freight trains stopped at the depot each day.

The Moore family home still stands at its original location; restored in the 1990s to its 1912 condition, it operates today as the Villisca Axe Murder House museum and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Villisca's National Guard armory, built the same era and funded entirely by local residents, was the first of its kind on American soil, and its Company F served from the 1916 Mexican expedition through both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.

Villisca's motto is 'There's Only One…' — a nod to the fact that there is only one Villisca in the United States.