Sometime during the night of June 10, 1912, a person or persons unknown bludgeoned to death Josiah B. Moore, his wife Sara, their children Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul, and two overnight guests Lena and Ina Stillinger. The sensational crime in Villisca, Iowa led to nearly 10 years of investigations and trials. The small Southwest Iowa town split over the guilt or innocence of a local businessman and State Senator. A traveling minister from England with a history of window-peeping was charged and tried. Investigators and reporters across the country speculated that the axe murders were the work of an early serial killer. Similar crimes had been committed in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Ellsworth, Kansas; and Monmouth, Illinois. This book represents the definitive written account of American's greatest unsolved mystery. Fiend Incarnate is a companion to the award-winning documentary feature film Villisca: Living With a Mystery. Author Dr. Edgar V. Epperly has been researching the 1912 Villisca axe murders for over 60 years. He has written dozens of articles and blog entries, and appeared on CourtTV and other radio and television programs. He is a popular guest speaker at colleges, universities, historical societies, museums, libraries, and book stores. He resides in Decorah, Iowa. Epperly's research journey was the subject of the award-winning short documentary film AXMAN.

Reproduction of the original.

On June 10, 1912, the village of Villisca, Iowa awoke to discover a mass murder had occurred while the town slept. An entire household of eight people had been axed to death in their beds. Within 24 hours, in spite of limited mass communications, the story was national and international news, knocking the White Star Titanic off the front page and captivating the general public. The mass murder became a catalyst to a growing nation starting to realize the 20th century, with all of its advancements, held new forms of terror and insecurity. If the mass murder could happen in this idyllic little village, it could happen anywhere. Author Stephen Bowman's version of the story has been compared to Capote's IN COLD BLOOD mystery as it recreates the gruesome murder and the aftermath in an expose of rural family strife and local mores toward bigotry, superstition and caste system which still exists in rural America today. The suspenseful mystery brings to life a vivid cast of characters. Through the main characters, the themes of rural life and prejudice are revealed as they each struggle with conflicts between self-respect, family honor and justice. The crime remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th century