Axed PT 2

Summary

Buried Bones: "Axed Part 2" (January 21, 2026) – Detailed Summary
Hosts: Kate Winkler Dawson (journalist), Paul Holes (retired cold case investigator)

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Overview

This episode is a continuation and in-depth analysis of the infamous 1912 Villisca Axe Murders in Iowa, where the Moore family and two visiting children were killed. Through a 21st-century lens, Kate and Paul dissect suspects, forensic evidence, and psychological profiles to reconsider who may have committed these brutal crimes. The episode focuses on the top suspects: Reverend Lynn George Jaclyn Kelly, local businessman Frank Jones (and his son, Albert), and briefly, Henry Lee Moore—aiming to piece together old clues with modern investigative thinking.

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Case Recap & Initial Discussion

• (02:30) Kate recaps the Villisca case: In 1912, the Moore family (parents Josiah and Sarah, four kids aged 11 and under) and two visiting girls were murdered in their home. The crime scene featured oddities: the bodies and mirrors were covered, there were slabs of bacon left around, and Josiah's axe was used in the killings. Notably, 12-year-old Lena showed signs of sexual assault and was posed post-mortem.
• There'd been a spate of similar axe murders in the Midwest, but local authorities mostly treated them as isolated incidents.
• Paul: "Early on I was thinking it was somebody close to the Moore family. Now I'm unsure about that." (02:10)

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Suspect 1: Reverend Lynn George Jacqueline Kelly

Background & Behaviors

• 04:10 – Reverend Kelly is a 5'2", 119 lb. itinerant English preacher, staying three blocks from the Moore house the night of the murders.
• He left on an early morning train (5:19 am) after the killings, before the bodies were discovered.
• Kelly made frequent contact with police and investigators post-murder, offering peculiar and conflicting statements.
• He claimed to observe a suspicious man entering the Moore house and to hear "thuds" (possibly axe blows) while in proximity, despite inconsistencies in his story.

Notable Moments

• Kate: "This guy’s five foot two, he’s 119 pounds... a traveling preacher from England." (04:36)
• Paul: "It’s almost as if he is inserting himself into the investigation." (06:50)
• Reverend Kelly inserted himself into the crime scene, claiming to find a vial, and styled himself both as a minister and a 'Scotland Yard-trained detective'—possibly leveraging his accent for credibility (08:53).
• He theorized the killer was a relative, but this seemed to change according to context.
• Paul's profiling: Victims' faces and mirrors were covered—possibly pointing to a murderer with religious guilt or self-disgust. "If he truly has any type of faith, but then is a killer of this magnitude, you could see the contradiction in the psychology..." (10:44)
• Investigators later learned that Kelly's alibi was shaky (no train witnesses confirmed his story, and environmental details—like the absence of working street lamps—disprove key claims).
• Multiple odd behaviors: Kelly confessed to the crime on several occasions, demonstrated inappropriate sexual behaviors, was institutionalized multiple times, and had a history of sexually harassing girls and requesting nude photographs under religious justification.
  • "He explodes into profanities...offers to perform sexual acts on his cellmates. He sexually harasses another prisoner. He tries to hang himself. He admits to murdering the Moore family and the girls in Villisca." (34:12)
• Paul: "It's showing that he's a child molester. He's actually purposefully engaging with underaged girls for sexual purposes...this is now direct overlap with the offender who is now sexually assaulting an underaged girl." (41:28)

Proximity to Crime & Suspect Status

• Strong circumstantial evidence: Shirt with blood taken to cleaners, consistent with crime scene cleanup; admissions of guilt, sexual deviance, and proximity at the time of the crimes.
• Grand jury proceedings featured multiple witnesses describing Kelly's sexual predations, voyeurism (peeping on girls), and grooming behaviors.
• Despite numerous confessions and "sex pest" evidence, Kelly was ultimately acquitted at trial, as his confessions were excluded and evidence was largely circumstantial.

Memorable Quote

• Paul: "With Reverend Lynn...if he's the Villisca killer, then there's a strong chance that he is responsible for the prior homicides in the other states." (37:11)

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Suspect 2: Frank Fernando Jones (and Albert Jones)

Motive & Evidence

• 15:45 – Frank Jones was a prominent Villisca businessman and Iowa State senator. He had a bitter professional falling out with Josiah Moore—Moore left to start a rival business, taking the prized John Deere account.
• There was reputed animosity, and rumors (never fully substantiated) that Moore was conducting an affair with Jones’s daughter-in-law, Donna. Town gossip, fueled by telephone operators, fed suspicions about various men contacting Donna, but actual evidence of a link to the murders was sparse.
• Josiah Moore endured the most violence in the attack, possibly suggesting he was a specific target.
• Bloodhounds allegedly trailed from the Moore house to the Jones mansion, generating suspicion.
• Albert, Frank's son, also became a suspect due to a known violent altercation and a bloody suit allegedly cleaned after the murders.

Critical Analysis

• Paul: "To me, it doesn't make any sense...the unusual aspects within this crime scene, the sexual assault, it doesn't add up as well, with, you know, this financial motive, this beef over the affair, versus you have somebody that potentially is a sexually motivated predator." (25:49)
• The hosts note that although motives exist (business, sexual jealousy), neither Frank nor Albert are as well-aligned to the psychological aspects of the crime as someone like Kelly.
• Alibis for the Joneses are weak, but hard evidence is lacking.

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Suspect 3: Henry Lee Moore

• (Briefly discussed, 28:29) – Moore (no relation to victims) was convicted elsewhere for a double axe murder against family members. An FBI agent speculated about a link, but solid alibi evidence put Moore in Missouri at the time of the Villisca murders. He is dismissed as a viable suspect.

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Additional Crime Scene & Investigative Notes

• The contamination and mishandling of the Villisca crime scene haunted the case, likely preventing resolution.
• Families of the victims hired a private detective, but he complicated the investigation without producing results.
  • Paul: "This case was messed up from the very beginning...inexperienced agency, inexperienced investigator, contaminated crime scene." (31:30)
• Forensic analysis discussed: Discussion of the bloody shirt, potential use and meaning of the bacon found with the weapon, and the possibility the perpetrator cleaned up intentionally. Paul speculates about sexually motivated offenders sometimes being unable to perform and using objects (like bacon) in their crimes.

Memorable Quote

• Paul: "I would not dismiss the idea that [the bacon] was used. And this was a fairly sizable piece of bacon that somehow, you know, it was used. But I would say that's probably as good of an explanation for that bacon being in that room next to the murder weapon as any." (49:12)

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Outcome: Reverend Kelly’s Trial(s) and Aftermath

• Kelly was indicted and tried, but the first trial ended with a hung jury; the second excluded his confessions, and he was acquitted (49:30–50:08).
• He spent years in and out of psychiatric institutions. He died in 1959 in New York, after being deemed chronically insane for many years.
• The case remains officially unsolved.

Paul’s Final Thoughts

• "I think Reverend Lynn appears to be a very, very solid suspect that I would even say is likely responsible for the Valeska homicides. However, I can't quibble with the acquittal just based off of the types of evidence being presented to the jury...They moved before they should have. They needed to build a stronger case." (51:41)

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Highlighted Timestamps

• 02:30 – Case recap
• 04:10–13:22 – Reverend Kelly’s story, behaviors, and inconsistencies
• 15:45–26:21 – Frank Jones, the Jones family, and evidence against them
• 28:29–29:54 – Henry Lee Moore and his exclusion
• 32:02–44:42 – Kelly’s confessions, mental health, criminal sexual history, trial details
• 45:26–49:12 – Bloody shirt, bacon theory, defense and verdict
• 51:41–53:12 – Paul’s take on the acquittal, Kelly’s later years & open case

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Notable Quotes

• "It's almost as if he is inserting himself into the investigation." – Paul Holes (06:50)
• "With Reverend Lynn, you know, one of the things I would be also pursuing is can I place him in these other towns where axe murders occurred?" – Paul Holes (13:22)
• "It's showing that he's a child molester... this is now direct overlap with the offender who is now sexually assaulting an underaged girl." – Paul Holes (41:28)
• "I think Reverend Lynn appears to be a very, very solid suspect that I would even say is likely responsible for the Valeska homicides. However, I can't quibble with the acquittal..." – Paul Holes (51:41)

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Episode Tone & Conclusion

Kate and Paul’s tone is engaged and analytical, with both expressing frustration over the state of early 20th-century investigations and horrified fascination at the bizarre and disturbing aspects of the case. Paul’s modern forensic insights raise compelling arguments, especially regarding criminal psychology and physical evidence, but both hosts lament the limits of historical inquiry. The case remains an enduring mystery, but with Kelly as "prime suspect" in their modern analysis.

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For further details, case images, and listener discussion, follow Buried Bones on social media at @buriedbonespod or visit exactlyrightmedia.com.

Transcript

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is exactly right.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

[Paul Holes]

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Each week I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

[Paul Holes]

And I weigh in, using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

[Paul Holes]

Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is buried bones.

[Paul Holes]

Hi, Kate, how are you today?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm well, Paul. I told you the most God awful story I think last week, the Villisca axe murders. Have you been thinking about the offender, whoever did all of this horrible stuff?

[Paul Holes]

You know, it is a horrific crime and of course, you know, it's one of those things. As I was sitting down and saying, okay, we're going to be hearing more about this case. I'm going through the details in my head going, who would do this? You know, and is it somebody I know? Early on I was thinking it was somebody close to the Moore family. Now I'm unsure about that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, we've got some interesting suspects, but let me go through the case really quickly. So it's 1912, Villisca, Iowa, a prosperous but small town, 2,500 people. We're looking at the Moore family. You've got four kids, all 11 and under, three boys and a girl. We have Sarah and Josiah. More, no enemies that we could tell. Everybody's been murdered, including the two little girls who were sleeping in their Guest room on the first floor of their farmhouse. The 12 year old appears to have been posed and sexually assaulted, but we don't know 100% sure yet. There's some really weird things in the house. Slab of bacon laying on the floor in a sack in the bedroom and then some more raw bacon, it sounds like on the floor in the kitchen. Looks like somebody's eaten there, somebody's washed off there. You know, there's an axe that's been taken that was owned by Josiah. And we have a series that you were really interested in of murders that seem similar. More than just people taking an ax throughout the Midwest and killing people. There are some real interesting correlations between what happened, especially with Lena, who was the 12 year old girl who seemed to be sort of the person that was homed in on versus, you know, everybody else. And so we've been talking about that. The Colorado Springs sheriff says, I think this is a series, but it doesn't seem like other people will agree with him. And so it sounds like they're being investigated separately, which probably could be a mistake. We don't know yet. Is that a pretty good summary?

[Paul Holes]

No, that sounds perfect as normal, Kate.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

See, that's what I like to hear. Okay, let's run into some suspects. So the first one is I mentioned that we were going to be talking about a reverend. Here's our reverend. His name is Lynn George Jacqueline Kelly, but we're going to call him Lynn. Okay, so this is a guy who catches their attention. He is petite, he's five foot. I don't know if I've ever called a man petite before, but he's slight. You want to go with slight? I don't know.

[Paul Holes]

Petite, slight, it, it works for me.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This guy's five foot two, he's 119 pounds.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And a traveling preacher from England. Here's what they think is interesting about Reverend Lynn. The night of the murder, he was being hosted at the church that the Moores went to, the Presbyterian church. So this is three blocks away from the Moores farmhouse. He was staying at the parsonage. He left Villisca for Macedonia, Iowa, which is about 40 miles away on the 5:19am westbound train the very next day. So two hours before the neighbor discovers the Moores, he is on a westbound train. But since then he has been in frequent contact with the Villisca detectives and the county and state attorneys and Josiah's brother Ross, who was the one who showed up and first discovered all the bodies. In a lengthy and meandering statement, you get all of those. Reverend Lynn wrote that spied a man's shadow, which was illuminated by a street light, as the man crept into the Moore house while they were at church, an accomplice put in air quotes, waited nearby, and he later heard the thuds of an axe. And on the train the next morning, he noticed there was a suspicious stranger. And there are just flat out weird things about Reverend Lynn, but give me your impressions so far.

[Paul Holes]

Well, I guess I'm confused as how. Where is Reverend Lynn? Is he. I mean, how is he spotting somebody creeping into the Moore house and hearing, you know, thuds? Where is he at at this point?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So my understanding is, because the church is so close, he might have been outside. You know, you can see the house, I believe, from the church. And so his argument is that he's kind of been in the area and he could see from three blocks down somebody creeping in. Now, the thuds, that's another thing that is odd. But, you know, and then, of course, the generic suspicious stranger. It's a weird story, and I think that's what gets the attention of investigators in Vesca.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, no, it's got my attention because this is. It's. It's almost as if he is inserting himself into the investigation.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

You know, even though the church is near the Moore's house, you know, he is observing the Moore's house at a point where seeing the offender supposedly going in and then is hearing thuds. And are these thuds, you know, the ax striking the victim's heads? Are these thuds, the ax striking, you know, the ceiling? You know, and. And this might be in some ways how, you know, when people are trying to give statements where they're. They're trying to prove their innocence, but they end up pulling in details of the crime because they think that law enforcement, the interrogator, is going to suspect them up front. And so they have to kind of say, well, I saw this, or I heard this, just to at least give them some distance from being the actual person committing the crime. So I'm. Right away, I'm suspicious of Reverend Lynn myself.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, and, you know, what's interesting is, based on the description of the contamination that happened at the crime scene, I was thinking there is no way that anybody who walked into that house or even was on the outside of the house probably did not know every single detail that happened in that case. I just wonder if there's anything to withhold when people have walked through the house. So they know it's Josiah's axe. Otherwise, he would have said, I saw the guy carrying an axe, you know.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. You know, but even though you have all of these, let's say, I. I'll just call them civilian witnesses that are. Are making observations, I would say probably all of them don't know what they're looking at.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay.

[Paul Holes]

Right. When it comes to, you know, the. The blood patterns and the defects and the injuries, you know, so they may draw certain conclusions that are just not factually accurate with, you know, having an expert taking a look at this crime scene.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

For some reason, Reverend Lynn seems to be credible to investigators because he comes back two weeks later and he goes to the Villisca house with a group of investigators. So I don't know if he says, you know, I have experience looking into things like this, but they let him walk around the house, and he says he found a glass vial in a closet in the room where Lena and Ina slept. And he doesn't say what the vial they think the vial was for, but he's saying, oh, I'm investigating too. So. So he starts introducing himself as a minister and a Scotland Yard trained detective. Cause he's got that English accent. He thinks the killer was a relative, like the estranged brother in laws that were cleared by police that were kind of sketchy, but they provided alibis. So, you know, he says, well, I think that, you know, that these guys had a grudge for some reason against their family and did that. So he's throwing this kind of stuff out there.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, well, you know, the. A relative kind of adds up with, you know, my initial thought with the Moore's heads all being covered. But this is a very odd scenario that he. Reverend Lynn sounds like a narcissist in. In some ways because of his status as. As a reverend. He's kind of hiding, if I use the term hiding behind the cloth, potentially. If he's the offender, he, you know, as a narcissist, he believes that his occupation, you know, is sort of a shield against suspicion.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

But if Reverend Lynn is the killer in this case, wouldn't the covering up of the faces and the covering up of the mirrors indicate it could have been a religious man who also did this?

[Paul Holes]

When you think about that covering of the mirrors, the covering of the heads, you know, the mirrors, as I mentioned before, he doesn't want to see himself. And if he truly has any type of faith, but then is a killer of this magnitude, you could see the contradiction in. In the psychology where he could be struggling with compulsions, where he goes out and. And commits these crimes and is not wanting to look at himself as this religious figure that is committing these types of this homicide, the sexual assaults of a underage girl. So there's. There's an aspect to it where it. It adds up, you know, that's, you know, very much. He would be diametrically opposed internally, having a, let's say, a strong religious faith, but then committing this type of crime and then that could account, you know, for this oddity of the covering up of the mirrors.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, he has that theory. I told you. He says he witnesses this man casting a shadow from the street lamp, and he sneaks into the house and there was a stranger on the train. He had described a stranger on the train to the investigators, and the investigators say they checked with the folks on the train. I mean, it's 5:19 in the morning. It's not a crowded train. And they said there's nobody who is shabbily dressed and is tall and kind of a transient type person. Also, they said that the night of June 9, the night that he says the man was creeping around and there was an accomplice, it was a really cloudy night, so there was not a lot of moonlight. And the power company had shut off the city's power, so there were no street lamps. I don't know what is happening in Reverend Lynn's head, but the theory that he's thrown out, as well as I'm sure the glass vial, is all bs. The question is, is he, to use the unscientific term, loony, or is he the person involved in this?

[Paul Holes]

So a lot of it has to do. Could he have seen what he claims to have seen? And then how rigorous was the interview of him to nail down aspects of whether he was involved or not? Does he make any admissions of any specialized knowledge that only the killer would know right now? I mean, this is the first suspect you're presenting to me, but, you know, off the top, I'm going, wow, he sounds kind of interesting to me. Just with Reverend Lynd, you know, one of the things that I would be also pursuing is can I place him in these other towns where axe murders occurred?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Absolutely.

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[Chelsea Handler]

Started this season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. We've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani. Let's start with your cat. How is she?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She is not with us anymore. She is.

[Ross Matthews]

Okay, great, great, great way to start.

[Chelsea Handler]

So this is a great beginning and hopefully you'll be able to, I don't know, maybe you will cry. Amanda Seyfried.

[Amanda Seyfried / Elizabeth Olsen]

Life is so short. If you feel something like that, you have that fire in you for this experience, it's not for a guy. It's for the experience of being in love. And like, it's bigger than a guy.

[Chelsea Handler]

Elizabeth Olsen.

[Amanda Seyfried / Elizabeth Olsen]

I love swimming naked so much. And I know you love taking pictures of yourself.

[Chelsea Handler]

I love to be naked. I just want to be in my bra underwear all the time. Ross Matthews.

[Ross Matthews]

You know what kids always say to me? Are you a boy or a girl?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, my God.

[Ross Matthews]

All the time.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I know.

[Ross Matthews]

So I'm always like, hi. I try to butch it up for kids, you know, so they're not confused.

[Chelsea Handler]

Yeah, but you're butching it up.

[Ross Matthews]

It's basically like an angry woman.

[Chelsea Handler]

Doris Day, right?

[Ross Matthews]

No, I turn into Bea Arthur.

[Chelsea Handler]

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, suspect number two. So this is in fall of 1912. Frank Fernando Jones. And I told you to kind of remember that because that's where the bloodhounds stopped short. Right when they were sniffing the blood at his mansion. He's a very wealthy man. He's in Villisca. I mean, that's, this is his hometown or this is where he's been living. The bloodhounds had stopped. So that was reason number one. They turned. They didn't forget about Reverend Lynn, but they're Trying to cover all their bases. They look at Frank and I think that was the one of the main reasons why. But there's another good reason. Frank is a prominent citizen, He's a merchant, he's a banker, he's part of the Methodist community, and he's also a senator, an Iowa State senator. So there was a lot of well known animosity between Frank Jones and Josiah Moore. Sometime before 1907, Frank had hired Josiah to sell farming equipment at his store. And when Josiah resigned to establish his own store, which was the John Deere kind of franchise, it was in direct competition to the Jones store. And Frank was very upset because it sounds like Josiah took the company's contract with John Deere Plow Company with him. And Frank was furious. And by 1912, the two men were no longer on speaking terms. So this is the year they were murdered. In fact, they couldn't even walk on the same street. So now we're talking about, is this revenge? There's a little something deeper I'll tell you about, but just on the surface, what do you think? A business conflict. These two guys hate each other, but there doesn't seem to be a recent inciting incident that we know of.

[Paul Holes]

Well, I think, you know, going back to the crime scene, you have, you know, the most violence was inflicted on Josiah, you know, so that possibly could indicate, you know, that he was the intended target, which could be consistent with this animosity that Frank has for him. It's also possible he's the biggest threat to the offender. And there's no additional animosity that the offender has for Josiah versus the other victims in the house. When you start talking about prior relationships, you know, sometimes these things fester. And even though there wasn't any type of recent issue between Frank and Josiah that anybody knew about, there could be something simmering inside of Frank to go and commit this crime now. You know, it seems like it's a, a bit up and beyond, just a vindictive style homicide over a business transaction, you know, taking out an entire family as well as two unrelated little girls. I mean, that is a, you know, that's really taking things to an extreme for this type of motive, you know, but I wouldn't discount it, but there's some inconsistencies. Why would Frank be covering the mirrors? There's some aspects of this which you go, well, this seems not necessarily in line with this type of scenario, but I couldn't discount it entirely for sure.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, so I will tell you that there are three suspects and it Sounds like even today the camps are split between two. One is Reverend Lynn and one is Frank. Here's one of the things about Frank. There is a rumor that has been going around that I don't believe was verified that Josiah was having an affair with Frank's daughter in law who is married to Frank's son Albert. So it becomes personal and there's a whole kind of write up about what is involved with that. So let me tell you about that. She is 22, her name is Donna. And this all goes man sign of the times. This all pops up because of the telephone company operators. So Mutual Telephone company has operators who obviously connect houses to houses. So they connected Josiah to Donna at least a dozen times in the months leading up to the murder. And there doesn't seem to be a reason why, especially because he's arguing with his father in law. Josiah's not the only one who's been calling her of the male persuasion. I don't know, I wouldn't call it that. But she was speaking more frequently to a doctor named Dr. Lomas. This was not because they were having an affair. The speculation is that she was looking to terminate a pregnancy. Then the guy that was definitely having an affair with her is this guy named Albert Davey. He's a local real estate and insurance salesman and he dialed her number a lot. According to the operators. This is a kind of a juicy bit of gossip if we want to, you know, take this as for what it is. Albert, Davy and Donna were caught in bed by Donna's husband Albert. So Frank's son. There was a scuffle and they knocked the phone off from the receiver. The operators could hear what was happening. Okay, so the operators say they heard the husband, Albert shoot the boyfriend and he did lose part of his thumb. So this is why Frank is a really, really viable suspect. Or Frank and Albert together. If Josiah is really having an affair with the son's wife, the son has already proven that he's violent. He tries to shoot the other guy and this is what leads us to Frank Jones.

[Paul Holes]

Obviously there's a lot of churn in terms of Frank and Josiah with the business, with the affair. You know, I'd be digging into Frank in terms of, okay, I mean we have a, we have a young girl that's sexually assaulted in this, this homicide. She's, you know, she may have been killed first and. Sexually assaulted or sexually assaulted and then killed. I don't have any information to be able to determine the sequence, you know, so I'd be wanting to know you know, Frank's past. What are the rumors about Frank? You know, is. Is he, you know, molesting other kids over the course of his ad? You know, is he somebody that does seem to have a preference for children as for sex? You know, and that would further elevate Frank in my mind, you know, potentially as a suspect, you know, now it does come down to you've presented two suspects and one is traveling around the countryside and the other is, you know, stationary and has a personal beef with, with the adult male victim, Josiah. So is there any information that I could discern that those other cases are related? You know, not having the capability in 1912 to use modern technology, you know, now it's going to be that investigation. This is where you have to look at these cases. As we talked about in the first episode, you can't just dismiss the possibility of a series, nor can you dismiss the possibility that the more homicide is, is a standalone. So you have to look at both. And so I've got these two suspects and as I mentioned before with Reverend Lynn. Can I place Reverend Lynn in. In these other locations where we have other similar homicides. And of course with Frank, it's now Investigation 101 as a standalone case. And a lot of it is going to be having to do with, well, where were you that night?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep.

[Paul Holes]

Right. What, you know, were you. Is he just saying, well, I was asleep at home with my wife, you know, which. Okay, you don't have a strong alibi, but you know, you have to start building that type of database on, on details from Frank to see what's adding up and what's not.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I don't believe Albert has a strong alibi, otherwise they wouldn't focus on him this much. Why they are really looking at him besides the whole affair, rumor and all of that and his propensity for violence is the morning that Reverend Lynn is on a train at 5:19 in the morning, at 6:50 in the morning, just an hour or so before the Moore family's discovered, Albert had been seen leaving out of town with a guy named WB Burt McCall. And he is a local pool hall manager. And inexplicably later, somebody displays a piece of Josiah's skull, probably the bit that was stolen, I imagine, put on display in Burt's pool room showcase. And there is a tailor in town that says that he cleaned blood from one of Albert's suits shortly after the murder. But that is really it.

[Paul Holes]

So Albert is the one that is being looked at as a suspect and not Frank.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So I Mean, it's kind of pick or choose. The guy who's being cheated on or his father who has been ripped off. And so the moors, you know, Josiah Moore, specifically, if this is true, has pissed them both off for different reasons, but there's still a sex assault or a po. I mean, it just, to me, doesn't make any sense. No.

[Paul Holes]

You know, and. And, you know, wearing a suit. Let's say you're going to wear a suit and you're going to be hiding behind bales of hay in the barn and sneaking into a house and, you know.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Right.

[Paul Holes]

I'd want to know, okay, what kind of, you know, blood patterns were seen on this suit? You know, because I could venture a guess that there would be something that would indicate, okay, now you've got a bludgeoning or you have, you know, the use of an ax or some cast off on the back of the suit. Cast off droplets, I should say. You know, there. There'd be aspects that I'd want to note. Does the. Whatever. What was he. You said he was a tailor.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, it was a tailor who said he cleaned this suit after the murders. But, I mean. And we don't know how much blood. It doesn't sound like it was covered with blood, so.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I just. I'm not sure I'm buying any of that.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, that's. That's kind of tough. I don't know. I think that the. The unusual aspects within this crime scene, the sexual assault, it doesn't add up as. As well, with a, you know, this financial motive, this beef over the affair versus. You have somebody that potentially is a sexually motivated predator.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Right. And you've got Reverend Lynn, who is inserting himself in the case, all over the place and acting like he's Scotland Yard and trying to control things.

[Paul Holes]

It's bizarre.

[Katie Whelan]

If you're feeling exhausted, puffy, anxious, foggy, gaining weight, or just not like yourself, you're not imagining it. Women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are experiencing massive hormonal shifts, and no one is explaining what's actually happening. I'm Katie Whelan, co founder of Joy. I built Joy because I lived this. The fatigue, the mood swings, the weight changes, the confusion. Your symptoms are biological, not personal, and AI generated lab reports won't fix them. Every Joy lab, including a visit with a licensed clinician who specializes in women's hormones and connects every biomarker to how you feel. Energy metabolism, mood, sleep, skin weight, everything. Then we personalize real solutions. Hormone therapy, peptide therapy, supplements, and lifestyle protocols. Get [e-mail] today. This month, new customers get 50% off labs. And you can add our estrogen face cream for just $1 or with clinician approval. Use promo code [e-mail] this season on.

[Chelsea Handler]

Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. We've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani. Let's start with your cat. How is she?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She is not with us anymore.

[Ross Matthews]

Ok, great, great, great way to start.

[Chelsea Handler]

So this is a great beginning and hopefully you'll be able to, I don't know, maybe you will cry.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Amanda Seyfried, Life is so sure.

[Amanda Seyfried / Elizabeth Olsen]

If you feel something like that, you have that fire in you for this experience. It's not for a guy. It's for the experience of being in love. And, like, it's bigger than a guy.

[Chelsea Handler]

Elizabeth Olsen, I love swimming naked so much.

[Amanda Seyfried / Elizabeth Olsen]

And I know you love taking pictures of yourself.

[Chelsea Handler]

I love to be naked. I just want to be in my bra underwear all the time. Ross Matthews, you know what kids always say to me?

[Ross Matthews]

Are you a boy or a girl?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, my God.

[Ross Matthews]

All the time.

[Paul Holes]

I know.

[Ross Matthews]

So I'm always like, hi. I try to butch it up for kids, you know, so they're not confused.

[Chelsea Handler]

Yeah, but you're butching it up.

[Ross Matthews]

It's basically like an angry woman.

[Chelsea Handler]

Doris Day, right?

[Ross Matthews]

No, I turn into Bea Arthur.

[Chelsea Handler]

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So there's a third suspect who we'll touch on briefly, but he is ruled out basically because there's a fingerprint expert. He says that there is a guy named Henry Lee Moore, no relation to the Moore family, but spelled the same way. This fingerprint agent with the FBI says, I think it's this guy. And this is the last primary suspect. So on March 17, 1913, this guy, Lee Moore, had been convicted and sentenced to life in the Missouri State Penitentiary for the double murder of his mother and his grandmother in Columbia, Missouri. So both of these women had been bludgeoned with an ax in their bedrooms, and the ax was discarded in a ravine behind the house. And in Lee's hotel room, there had been bloody clothes, and that sealed the deal. But Lee is ruled out because it sounds like they can confirm that he was in Columbia, Missouri, during the time period when the axe murders are happening. So that was the only thing. And the FBI agent, I'm not quite sure why he thought that this guy was the guy, but they throw him out there as like a Hail Mary, I guess, but he's in Columbia now. I don't know how you can account for somebody. He's not in prison in Columbia, but I don't know how you can account for somebody in another state the whole time, but they say no.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, I suspect that that fingerprint examiner probably did work on that case and was told some of the details and said, hey, that sounds like the one that's up there in Iowa. Right. Because axes were used in both cases, if that's the only reason why this Henry Moore is even associated with it. And they're saying, well, you know, we can place him down there in Missouri. You know, I don't think it's necessarily an elimination, but he becomes, you know, a far less likely suspect than the other two. Yeah, I think, you know, Reverend Lynn and. And Frank right now are probably 1A and 1B.

[Amanda Seyfried / Elizabeth Olsen]

Mm.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

The Moores are so upset about all of this because they feel like this is being botched, like they don't have a good suspect. I mean, they're looking at suspects, but it's not moving quickly enough for them. So the Moores and the Montgomerys, who is Sarah Moore's family, and the Stillingers, who are Ena and Lena's parents, they hire a private investigator from the Burns Detective Agency. This was not a good thing. The guy did nothing but take their money, essentially, and didn't get anywhere, which is so sad to me. I mean, I've written about that for a long time. Of course, there are families that try to hire the clairvoyants or the mediums or, you know, for any kind of help, or people who turn to cyber sleuths who might not be able to be helpful at all. But, you know, you also have the private investigators who can do a world of good, but you also might get somebody who just mucks up the case, and this guy did nothing for them.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, well, to be frank, this case was messed up from the very beginning.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, yeah.

[Paul Holes]

You know, you just have an inexperienced agency, inexperienced investigator, contaminated crime scene, you know, now let's say, you know, sounds like Reverend Lynn was discovered fairly early, and now they're. The way they're interacting with him does not sound appropriate in terms of. Well, he's a suspect. Let's, you know, dial this in and get him locked into some statements and investigate him.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, get ready. So now we're going back to Reverend Lynn. So in December of 1913, so this is, you know, about a year and a half after the murders, Lynn went from Villisca to Winter, South Dakota. And he has become known as just, like, a crank and a loudmouth. He frequently rants about the Villisca murders. He's ranting about how Sarah Moore had woken amid the chaos and how the killer, you know, of course, used an ax on everybody, but had taken his bloody shirt to a Council Bluff laundry to be cleaned. How this murderer was, you know, unable to control his fiendish mania. And on multiple occasions, he confessed to having committed the crime himself. And then I have his background.

[Paul Holes]

Reverend Lynn is a nut job. Let's just put it out there.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Is he a murderous nut job is the question.

[Paul Holes]

There's some red flags coming up here, right? He's, you know, making some statements, you know, such as Sarah waking up. Only the killer would know that. Now, why is Reverend Lynn throwing that out there like he has some sort of clairvoyant insight as to what happened or like what I talked about before when he's, you know, kind of inserting himself into the investigation and saying, I saw this, you know, guy sneaking into the house, and I heard thuds. You know, there's. There's leakage about what he really does know about the case. And it's. He's expressing that. And. And if he's, as a reverend, you know, confessing, I'm assuming, to, you know, private parties about, you know, having committed these crimes. Well, why is he making those statements? Is he just trying to impress whoever he's talking to or, you know, are these moments of truth, you know, where he's talking? Is he under the influence and is going, hey, you know, I'm. You know, the tongue is a little free at this point.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let me tell you more about him. He had been posting advertisements for a female stenographer who is also willing to pose nude.

[Paul Holes]

Oh, so he's trying to hire somebody like that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. And he is arrested for sending multiple obscene letters to one of the ad's respondents. Then the investigators are trying to figure out his mental health status, which is not good. He explodes into profanities when he is brought in by the Sioux Falls jail. He is crying, and he offers to perform sexual acts on his cellmates. He sexually harasses another prisoner. He tries to hang himself. He admits to murdering the Moore family and the girls in Villisca. And then they hold a sanity hearing for him because now he's confessed to all this stuff. So they say, okay, well, I mean, we're going to charge you. There's a sanity hearing that is about two years after the murders. He can't Remember his name? He says he seemed delusional, paranoid, psychotic. And he's transferred to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in D.C. and after undergoing psychotherapy with God knows what techniques, I don't know what that means, but in 1914, it would be questionable, maybe he is deemed sane and he's released in January of 1915. Over the next year and a half, this happens two more times. So he ends up in Sioux Falls jail because he's arrested for sending these obscene letters. And then that's when what we had just talked about started, where he's willing to perform sex acts on cellmates. He just starts to sort of fall apart once he's put in jail, but then he goes to a psychiatric hospital and then he's released. And then it happens two more times. And there you go.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. So the kind of this, if you want to call them psychotic breaks that he's demonstrating, there is some churn in terms of his psychology, his personality, with the type of offender that I would imagine would be committing the, you know, the Valeska acts, homicides. But you still have to show his involvement in the case, which these things that are happening afterwards, it's like, has nothing to do with. With the homicide. It's just, okay, you know, this guy's. He's. He's a little bit on the strange side. But we can place them in Valeska at the time of the homicides. We can place them at the church where the victims spent the entire day. So there is proximity. But you still now have to put them inside the house. He's made confessions. Okay, but what are the details of those confessions? And can we use those details of those confessions and correlate those with details that only the killer would know? You know, and I haven't heard anything yet along those lines, but if it is Reverend Lynn, if he's the. If he's the Valeska killer, then there's a strong chance that he is the responsible for the prior homicides in the other states.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

You know, and how much investigation went into those?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, and they're independent because they decided not to investigate them as a series. So let me tell you about this. So at this point, Reverend Lynn is in the wind. It's been now three years, but just about 100 miles from where he was last. We're in Omaha, Nebraska, and there is a woman named ADA Swanson. She's a Swedish domestic servant. She's found bludgeoned to death with a hatchet in her employer's basement. The entire back portion of her skull is Crushed traces of blood on her lower legs indicate that her body. Murderer moved her body after she died. And the coroner describes the killer as a moral pervert. I don't see face covered or some of that other stuff, but the reason they're interested is because Reverend Lynn's mentor is part of a seminary that is right across the street from where this woman lived.

[Paul Holes]

Can we put Reverend Lynn at that seminary around the time frame of the homicide?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

He's in the wind. He's gone. Nobody knows where he is right now.

[Paul Holes]

I mean, it is interesting, for sure. When I've worked cases where multiple suspects are involved, you know, eventually somebody rises to the level of a prime suspect. And, And. And the. The media often misuses how law enforcement uses the term suspect. You know, the media, you know, says, well, if somebody's named a suspect and we're going to, you know, run with that name and put it out into the public, and it's like, no, no, no. We're just classifying this person as a suspect because there's something suspicious about them that we have to kind of resolve. And most of the time, you know, we're able to eliminate these people that we designate as suspects. But every now and then, somebody rises to a level where you go, okay, there is enough going on where I cannot ignore this person. It's not just suspicious. There is now getting to a point to where, you know, in. In a law enforcement kind of parlance, this person is now approaching reasonable suspicion. And I may be developing probable cause. Right. You know, and so it's now getting this person that is suspicious and going, oh, no, now. Now I have a tie to the nexus, you know, of. Of the crime. There's. There is now a connection, and is this person responsible or not? And that's when you take that next step.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Step.

[Paul Holes]

And so with. With Reverend Lind, I'm going, you know, he's a prime suspect right now. Is he. You know, has he risen above that? But he's got my devoted attention if I'm working this case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, well, let's get into this, because they are able at some point to track him down. There is a grand jury, because now everybody's convinced. And this happens in April of 1917, five years almost later. There's testimony about how wacky he sounds in jail, his erratic behavior, history of sexual harassment and assault, which I have more information about. He had those confessions. The attorney general really talks about Lena and the way that she appeared and that this is the key to what he called a pedophilic Peeping Tom. And that he thinks that that fits Reverend Lynn and the fact that he covered the windows. There is a lot of what I call sex pest testimony. Sex pest is a very old term for, you know, a pervert, essentially. So there's a lot of voyeurism in his background. And there are several families and women who describe encounters that were really uncomfortable for them. A pharmacist said that he caught Reverend Lynn peeping into his living room before the murders. And the jury also hears reports of Lynn luring young girls to his home under false pretenses and asking them to pose naked. And there's a girl from South Dakota who testifies that she had been lured to his house when she was 13. He begged her to pose naked, arguing that there were many instances in the Bible wherein characters are nude. He then showed her his collection of pornography. And the girl says, I have a friend. And the same thing happened with this friend. So it's not just. I mean, when you're talking about churn, that's more churn, I have to assume, right?

[Paul Holes]

It's showing that he's a child molester. He is actually purposefully engaging with underaged girls for sexual purposes. You know, whether it be deposed nude. He's. This is all part of this, what we call grooming, you know, in terms of, hey, come take some photographs. Oh, the. The Bible says it's okay. Oh, now, hey, let's engage in some sexual activities. You know, he's. He's conditioning these girls. And this is now direct overlap with the offender who is now sexually assaulting an underaged girl. So Reverend Lynn is demonstrating this sexual preference that I'm now going, okay, he's checking a massive bull box. You know, this. This idea of. Of voyeurism or the. The peeping, you know, on. On these. These young girls that they. They're at least suspecting that Reverend Lynn was. Was involved with. You know, I have a feeling that, let's say Reverend Lynn is our killer in this case. He's at the church. His target is Lena. The mos just happened to be where Lena ended up for the night, and that's why they were killed. It's sad.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

That makes sense to me. Let me give you a couple of more details. He ends up being indicted. I don't think there's any mystery about that. One thing that's interesting, there are witnesses that describe material evidence that connects Lynn to the murders. So remember, he went ranting about the Bluff City Laundry, College Bluffs, Council Bluffs Laundry, where the killer had his shirt washed. A clerk says she. She received an unlabeled package of laundry containing a bloody shirt after the murders. She says it had the appearance of having a lot of blood, quite a lot of blood. And the shirt had the appearance of having been soaked in water and attempted to be washed out. Reverend Lynn picked it up. It was his shirt. And that's what he had said before. Now, let me shorthand something like really shorthand something. Because, you know, anybody who knows this case is gonna say, kate, how come you didn't cover this? I'm not covering this. Cause I think it's quite frankly, stupid. So this PI who had inserted himself, you know, on. On the behest of the moors, he is hell bent on getting Frank Jones. He ends up being the one who tracks down Reverend Lynn because he wants to use Reverend Lynn to trap Frank Jones. Because he's convinced Frank Jones is the one who did this, either on behalf of his son or because of the grievance or whatever it was. So this PI is really mucking stuff up. Reverend Lynn had been in Nebraska. He reconnected with his wife. I don't know who's married to this guy, but Laura Kelly is. And they went to Illinois, and that's where the PI ended up tracking him down. And there's just a series of. Just stupidity. The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office tries to entrap Reverend Lynn because the FBI agent had believed, I think, that the person holding the ax was left handed, based on the margin marks on the ceiling. So they ask lyn, do you want to go out and chop wood while you're being held in jail? And he said, sure. And he's left handed, so, you know, there's that.

[Paul Holes]

I wouldn't put any weight on that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I know. So I'll tell you about the shirt. I know you want to talk about the shirt, but let me get to the trial. Also, there's a big series of interrogations. Once they finally get Lynn. He has been indicted. He says, On August 31, very early in the morning, I felt God wanted me to sleigh utterly. Then, driven by the Bible verse, suffer little children to come unto me. He says he took the axe and sent those children somewhere. Three hours later, he makes another confession. This one differs in the order that he killed the victims. But, you know, I mean, this is where they stand. And then they. They're going to put them on trial. So what do you think? The shirt is the most interesting thing to me out of all of that. Even more than confessions.

[Paul Holes]

Well, we Know, at the crime scene, you have a bowl that appears to have been used by the offender to clean up. Is that just him washing his hands, or is he recognizing that his clothing is soiled with blood? You also have outdoors on the back porch, another bowl with dirty water in it. So the shirt coming in, per the. The cleaners saying, you know, it looked like there had been previous attempts to wash it. Well, that could have occurred. You know, if he's recognizing, I've got blood all over me, I need. Before I start walking out of this house, I need to kind of clean up and try to get rid of this blood on my clothing that could be consistent. It's a circumstantial piece of evidence. Back in 19, you know, 1912, 1915, whenever this actually is being stated, you know, today, if we could find that shirt, we could actually turn it into physical evidence, you know, to. To say, yes, this has victims, you know, dilute victims. Blood on it. The timing of this bloody shirt coming into the cleaner, the condition of that shirt, it does seem to be consistent with the circumstances within the crime scene. I think that that is, you know, it's, it's. It's significant circumstantial evidence, but they probably never recovered that shirt. Am I correct about that?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You're correct, yeah.

[Paul Holes]

So now, you know, you would think that the cleaner wouldn't have any type of motive to lie, but that is a massive. Where's the shirt? You know, we never recovered it. And we go to Reverend Lynn, where's the shirt? You know, you know, so it's, it's something that, you know, it's. It's finger pointing at best, saying, well, at least, you know, you have somebody who really has no motive to make something up, to say, hey, this is what we. We experienced. And then was there a receipt? Is there, is there any way to recover that through business records that it was actually Reverend Lynn that picked up the shirt? So. But it is interesting for sure, you know, and, and things, you know, Reverend Lynn, you know, I've already said, yeah, he's a prime suspect. And there's churn, you know, there's no question there's churn. It's. Now, can you prove. Can you prove that he is the actual killer?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

And, and this is where, you know, I don't know how this case ended, you know, but right now I'm going, God, it seems like they got the right guy.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

All right, well, let me tell you about something that's really disturbing, and then we'll get to what happens. Because you've already heard all the evidence. You know, there's nothing new. There's a theory about the bacon. So the DA thinks that Reverend Lynn was impotent and he used the bacon to masturbate. I don't even know what to say about that.

[Paul Holes]

I wouldn't dismiss that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

With these sexually motivated offenders, it's not uncommon for them not to be able to become erect or, you know, so they can't penetrate. But sometimes what they will do is they will masturbate over the victim or while looking at the victim. And this is something where, when I'm talking to law enforcement, whether you're as. As an investigator or you're a csi, don't just think that the evidence is in or on the body. It is potentially in the area around the body. You have to be taking a look for that ejaculate. And it is a known phenomenon with these types of offenders. So I would not dismiss the idea that, you know, and this was a fairly sizable piece of bacon that somehow, you know, it was used. But I would say that that's probably as good of an explanation for that bacon being in that room next to the murder weapon as any.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. Okay, you've heard everything. Essentially the defense is he's crazy, but he's not a killer. So he should be in an insane asylum. He should not be in prison. Okay. And they say, of course he's not the killer of these people. What do you think is the verdict?

[Paul Holes]

Not guilty by reason of insanity is.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

What I'm guessing hung jury for the first one.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Then they retry him. The judge in the second one omitted his confession from evidence because of the coercion accusations. 5:30 in the morning, he says this was horrible. So the focus for the state becomes his proximity to the crimes, his history of mental illness, the lewd conduct, all of that stuff. And ultimately it is a four and a half hour deliberation. Not guilty. So he walks.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. And I'm not sure, you know, most certainly in today's day and age, I don't think they've got a case that should have been taken to trial.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

Or even necessarily charged. I think they're on the right track. You know, back in 1912, with the limitations that they had, you know, now they're relying on some circumstantial evidence. I'm not, I guess I'm not surprised that you now have an acquittal just because it's not. They. They can't prove, you know, he has confessions. Confessions being thrown out. You Know, you know, I don't know what these confessions, what kind of details these confessions had, but you have an agency, you have probably a prosecutor. They don't know what they're looking at at this crime scene. They don't know how to interpret this crime scene. So can they truly correlate details in his confession to facts at the crime scene that only the killer would know and be able to articulate that? They probably can't. So in some ways, with the information that you've presented, I think Reverend Lynn appears to be a very, very solid suspect that I would even say is likely responsible for the Valeska homicides. However, I can't quibble with the acquittal just based off of the types of evidence being presented to the jury. I think they. They moved before they should have. They. They needed to build a stronger case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. So after he is acquitted, he and his wife go to Chicago and they go to New York. But there's, you know, other stuff that follows them around. He's a patient from 1930 until 1942 at a mental state hospital for the chronically insane is what they called it. Then his wife dies, and in 1957, he goes to another hospital in Long island, the Central Islip State Mental Hospital. And then a couple of years later, he dies at age 80. So I don't know if he talked about these murders or what happens after that, but officially, the case is still unsolved in Iowa.

[Paul Holes]

No, that's crazy. Was he ever investigated for the other cases?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Nope, not that I know of. Because they split him apart thanks to that Illinois guy.

[Paul Holes]

Now, I'd wonder if there's any public records that would be in existence today that could place him in one of those jurisdictions. I just need one.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We can look. I mean, he's dumb enough probably to use his own name. I can poke around and see.

[Paul Holes]

Well, you think about some of these. Like, some of these churches, they'll have. What do you want to call them, guest logs?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, and they.

[Paul Holes]

They archive those. You know, does he show up at a church in Colorado Springs and sign a guest log? And it's around. It's contemporaneous with. With that X murder that happened, you know, where I live. You know, maybe I need to figure out what church he would have been at.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, I mean, I think we can definitely dig around and look, and I think that would be really interesting. I don't know what DNA would be like from. From back then, what they collected, what's still there, if there's something on display. But Anyway, this is a great case. I think it's really upsetting and sad, but also I think you learn a lot from a case like this, especially with the profiling part, which I know you enjoy too. But I think we got a little smattering of everything in this case. A lot of discussion about the victims, a lot of, you know, talk about blood, this and you know, what this means and what slab of bacon, which I really didn't want to know about. But a well rounded case, I would say. Paul. Holes.

[Paul Holes]

Nope. For sure. You know, and it just reminds me, the one Iowa case that I actually did get involved with was basically an axe murder. Couple hatcheted to death. Probably not an axe, but a hatchet in their hotel room in Iowa. And the likely suspect was a transient guy that I think was involved in, in other hatchet murders of, of men, you know, in other states. So it's very similar. But this case happened in 1980 and so obviously no overlap with a 1912 case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Probably not.

[Paul Holes]

But something's going on in Iowa. What's. What's up with Iowa in axes?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

What's up with California, Paul? I mean, don't you have murderers there too?

[Paul Holes]

California is, is a busy area.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. Next week we will probably not have a California story, although I would welcome a good California story. I don't know if we've had one for a while.

[Paul Holes]

It has been a while.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We'll see. And I will see you next week.

[Paul Holes]

All right. Looking forward to it, as always.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Me too. This has been an exactly right production.

[Paul Holes]

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com buriedbones sources.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi, research.

[Paul Holes]

By Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

[Paul Holes]

Our theme song is by Tom Breyfogle.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac, executive.

[Paul Holes]

Produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook @BuriedBox.

[Paul Holes]

Buried Bones Pod, Kate's most recent book, all that is A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And Paul's best selling memoir, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

[Paul Holes]

Listen to Buried bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Katie Whelan]

If you're feeling exhausted, puffy, anxious, foggy, gaining weight, or just not like yourself, you're not imagining it. Women in their 30s, 40s and 50s are experiencing massive hormonal shifts and no one is explaining what's actually happening. I'm Katie Whelan, co founder of joy. I built JOY because I lived this. The fatigue, the mood swings, the weight changes, the confusion. Your symptoms are biological, not personal. Personal and AI generated lab reports won't fix them. Every Joy lab includes a visit with a licensed clinician who specializes in women's hormones and connects every biomarker to how you feel energy metabolism, mood, sleep, skin weight, everything. Then we personalize real solutions hormone therapy, peptide therapy, supplements and lifestyle protocols. Get [e-mail] today. This month, new customers get 50% off labs and you can add our estrogen face cream for just $1 with 20 clinician approval. Use promo code podcast at joyamblokes.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Com.