I appreciate them being very “last season” in a lot of their decisions and what their responses are to each other. It makes you feel like they’re just as invested as we all are 😅🥺
I'm kinda surprised no one's mentioned this but in the Victorian era, it was common practice to draw the curtains and cover the bodies after death. They would also cover mirrors to prevent spirits from being "trapped in the looking glass". They murders were only a decade after Victoria died, so the practices were likely still common, even in America. If anything, it sounds like the murderer did these funerary practices to prevent the spirits from coming after them.
@@PamelaLynnHowell Jewish practices do it for the sake of the living so you don't have to feel self-conscious during your grief. Seems a bit far fetched for the killer to think "Oh these people might have Jewish relatives, better cover the mirrors."
@@style_1023 wow you're so cool bro it was so cool how you mockingly pointed out an insignificant mistake someone made even though it did nothing to detract from your understanding of what they were saying. wow you're like, really smart. were you in AP classes in middle school? not to imply you ever left middle school
@rosatic…. I agree… I think Shane has ONE foot in… and two arms… hands and one head😂… already out … and only one foot in Buzz-feed Supernatural 🤣😂 But really glad Ryan is all in and enjoying the final season!!! Thank u Ryan!!!…. A TON of people have loyally fallowed this channel and I am sure like me… they look forward to each episode!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼❤️
Here's something extra disturbing. A TV show called Ghost Lab went to the house, and the ghost hunter asked "Why'd you do it?" And, they got an answer: "For fun".
This is possibly the most coherent the spirit box has ever been, which is really interesting. It doesn't mean much, but it *is* fun. Poor Shane losing his mind trying to explain why the lights don't work.
so many killer quotes in this episode, my fave being - “he just seems to have no fear, which I used to think was courageous but now I just think he’s an insane person.”
For postmortem: isn’t it possible that the town Marshall was the killer and brought everyone into the house to intentionally ruin the crime scene and add loads of fingerprints to the weapon?
Or he knew who did it and wanted to cover it up also I belive the killer had an uncontrollable urge to kill and that they were ashamed of what they did judging by they're use of sheets also the bacon wrapped in a towel strikes me as something someone would use for a bad bruise or swelling. I also believe the killer was a man because of force needed to kill by blunt force although it could've been a very angry or crazy woman .
Fingerprints were just starting to be used so a rural cop probably just didnt know any better. Its likely the work of a serial killer as there were several other murders committed the exact same way in the region at the time
that’s exactly my train of thought. i thought it was very strange how a marshal would let people contaminate a very very gruesome and tragic crime scene if he wasn’t some who involved. i do think if he’s haunting the house he’s doing something like la lerona had to do, find the souls of the people he killed and set them free to heaven or to be reincarnated or however afterlife is predicated in the family’s religion that they affiliate with
Man such a shame this is unsolved. I wish I knew like why them? Can you imagine being the parents of the girls that let them sleepover? There lives never be the same again and family members just crying for years. So horrible.
There's a book called the man from the train that argues this case is part of the pattern of a single serial killer (I wasn't convinced by the books theory personally after looking further into it). However what I did learn from that book was that there were a surprising amount of family annihilations with an axe from 1908 to 1914. This same scenario happened way more than you'd want to believe. Like way way more. There was a lot of "why them" going on when I read that book
the fact that dozens of people treated such a tragic event like an amusement park attraction is truly horrifying i genuinely can't imagine something like that happening
If you lived at that time, everything was boring, people lived very small lives. Also blood and gore was not a huge issue, people know how to slaughter their own animals, and as they said the killer covered up the faces with clothing. So a gruesome murder in your very own home town! Call a neighbor and go take a look!
Every famous location where a tragedy happened once is treated as an amusement park nowadays. You can go to London and get a tour of places where Jack The Ripper victims were found and stand on those exact spots... Why do things like that exist? Because you can cash in on that and that's the whole point of capitalism.
@@please_im_a_staaar it's one thing to be treated as an tourist spot in a place where crime happened 100 years ago, but the people of the town treated it like a show and inflitrated the crime scene when the bodies were still in the house, and the Sheriff let them. It's truly horrifying.
I’ve heard theories that the murderer hid inside the attic. There were cigarette butts found inside next to an old wooden chair. That’s the most terrifying part to me. The killer was waiting in the house the whole time and nobody realized.
@@carnuatusThere's actually a theory that the same guy committed both crimes. It's detailed in a book called The Man From The Train, highly recommend.
Its not that hes less scared of ghosts, its that he believes in them a lot less. As in hes already seen the light do this a bunch with nothing happening after. Now if he could actually see the figure turning it off, he wouldnt have been laughing
The spirit box session in the attic had some of the most compelling evidence since the start of the series: the fact that the "I'm in here" was crystal clear and a direct and immediate answer to the question gave me chills, as did the fact that it answered the "what year is it" question with a number
@@神林しマイケル Yup but I don't think they all are scams but you could obviously buy them where they just spit out random words pretty sure that's what they use in this show.
Spirit boxes aren’t a scam designed to spit out words but they do demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of how radio signals work. If you’ve ever been tuning a radio manually, you know that you start to pick up a signal before it is clear and it takes some fiddling to really get the station in clear especially on AM radio. Some stations have very powerful signals which cover a lot of frequencies, some have quite weak signals and can be overwhelmed by stronger ones. So even though the box is ticking through radio station frequencies very quickly the fact you can get a word or two just means they’ve hit a major station with a powerful signal.
@@marshmllwbunny I've gone from semi-northern Ontario, mid Ontario, and southern Ontario. No matter what house I've lived in, they've all been haunted. So maybe Ontario is Canada's Iowa
I've now seen about 10 of these episodes and this is the creepiest one to me, just because of how clear and relevant the answers were on the spirit box. 'Hard to stop' gave me chills...
Ryan: Wondering how the killer could sneak around such a creaky house. Me: Well it probably helps that it was 100 years younger at the time of the event...
Some houses are just creaky. My childhood home was only 20 years old when we moved in but it's always been super creaky. However, when you live in a house like that, there's so much random creaking from the house settling that if someone were moving around (carefully) you'd probably not wake up because you're so used to the sound.
Interesting theory: it's noted that a number of axe murders at the time were committed near train tracks. A man and his daughter writing an investigative book on the subject theorized that this was because the man was a traveler, but here's another possibility: perhaps the killer's movements (and murders) weren't heard because they timed their attacks to when trains were passing by, using that noise as cover?
The wildest part of them all sleeping through the slaughtering isn’t that the house is so small, it’s that many of them not only shared rooms but BEDS. How do you not wake up when the person lying next to you is being murdered with an axe???
This is considered basically solved!! You've GOT to read Man from the Train by Bill James & Rachel McCarthy James, about this case and others. Basically, the guy was a prolific axe murderer of families across the United States for decades, but never caught because of the way information wasn't shared then like it is now. At the end of the book, the authors think they've solved it. I read it over a year ago and I still think about it at least once a week.
when ryan asks "why did you do what did you here" at 31:55, it actually really sounds like the spirit box says "envy." could be a good explanation on why they killed an entire family.
Shane doesnt believe in ghosts, he does believe actual evil people exist, he's not going against his own nature to make sure theres no serial killers in his house, he just is confident that the likelihood is so low that he only checks for Sara's sake
This is one of the very few cases that makes me feel paranoid and sick to my stomach every time I watch it. I’ve seen it only twice, and it’s affected me both times. But the only thing that I enjoy is Shane saying, “You do what you do to make your girlfriend feel safe.” That’s the only thing about this video that is nice.
I don't know why horses with horns are less realistic to Ryan than floating clouds in the shape of a person who knock stuff out of shelves for some reason.
the way ryan is so casual about the torches turning on and off when once upon a time he would've been pissing his pants and crying out of fear. that's called growth!
I'm so proud of him so far this season ngl I thought his walk through was gonna be old city jail 2.0 especially when they mentioned that sometimes the house has an effect on some people's minds I went 👀 "oh no, Ryan." But that 'i am not my fear' mantra he's go seems so be working for him.
The only flashlights that have seemed compelling were the Sally House ones, as far as I remember. It actually seemed to have meaning behind the turning on and off.
The fact that Shane is more focused on hating Iowa than the investigation is so funny to me I feel like I have to make it clear that I do not hate Iowa and the fact that I am British
I grew up only 60 miles from this place and had no idea about it until just last year. You'd think I'd hear about it at least once in the 15 years I lived in Iowa.
Wow, that amazing. There's a paranormal group called Charmed City, who did an excellent investigation on the house, along with the history. You won't be disappointed. 😉🧡🍂🍁❤🎃
For postmortem: On the topic of the killer covering all of the faces, mirrors, and windows, covering mirrors after death was also a common tradition around the time to prevent spirits from getting trapped in them. It was almost like the murderer was mimicking the rituals of a family member, respecting them enough to try and ease their souls’ passage into Heaven. So in addition to the killer being ashamed, the mirror thing could also suggest that the family was murdered by someone who knew them personally (or maybe they were just afraid of the spirits coming back for revenge).
The face covering thing is also a common thing for killers who know their victims personally to do. So, I definitely think it was either a family member or someone like a neighbour or good friend of the family who did it.
This is considered basically solved!! You've GOT to read Man from the Train by Bill James & Rachel McCarthy James, about this case and others. Basically, the guy was a prolific axe murderer of families across the United States for decades, but never caught because of the way information wasn't shared then like it is now. At the end of the book, the authors think they've solved it. I read it over a year ago and I still think about it at least once a week.
#postmortem The creepiest thing about Villisca is the train whistle! The train goes through every night at 2am, he waited for the train whistle to start killing to hide the sound! The train STILL goes by at that time. Did you hear the train? Love you guys
Also, the covering of the mirrors in the home suggests that the killer was oddly being respectful of the souls. Throughout History, it is known that people liked to cover mirrors as a religious belief that souls may be inadvertently trapped if the mirrors weren't covered up when a death occured. They also had a tendency to stop clocks at the time of death.
i thought the opposite, i thought mirrors are portals so maybe they would be stuck there. I mean why would a muderer want to be respectful of the souls he just killed anyway?
I thought that too, but there is evidence that the killer got off to one of the girls' bodies which makes me think he really thought of them as nothing but bodies.
@@AmnaFarook Yeah, the guy used a slab of bacon like some sort of prehistoric Fleshlight... Disgusting. It's too bad that DNA evidence and forensic science didn't exist yet, because I'm positive they would have found semen and nailed the bastard.
Shane's little breakdown over the Maglite thing was priceless. You can literally see his brain shut down and reboot as he realizes he is once again having to explain this lol
Obviously Shane yelling when Ryan proclaims unicorns aren't real was him hamming it up for the bit, but I LOVE the moment just after Ryan says it where you see him genuinely bluescreen
I did a course in criminal psychology and there is a lot of things that does not make sense in this case but what stands out the most to me is: Covering up the victims is a classic move done by killers who knew them personally and/or instantly regretted it after doing it. Very common in crimes of passion. The fact he entered and exited the house easily also adds to the fact that the family probably knew the murderer. Also adds to the things heard in the spirit box like "Stop me" and "I'm miserable". I don't think who did this was the "murder is fun" kind of person. If I had to guess: a very troubled man who was in love or had an affair with the wife - it would explain why the husband was killed in a more violent manner when compared to the others.
There's also a possibility it could've been the other way around. Husband was having an affair and mistress's husband or close relative found out. Would also explain why Josiah was attacked more brutally
Personally I think the husband got the easy way out death. I mean think about it. He got directly hit with the sharp side where the others were probably hit over and over with the blunt end. I could very much be wrong but it just seem like the other deaths were more brutal.
It was most likely a visiting pastor. The morning of the day the family was murdered they went to sunday service and there was a visiting pastor there. There is a theory that they might have invited the pastor over which apparently was a common thing to do. That explains why it was easy for him to enter and exit and maybe even why the doors were locked. The pastor who visited the town was also known to be a weirdo and possibly a pedophile. The mirrors being covered up also makes sense since it seems like it had a religious intent. The pastor later admitted to murders saying god whispered him to do it but he acquitted somehow cause they didn’t have evidence against him. Oh also he left the town the next morning of the murder and he apparently told people in the train station “there are bodies murdered in (the name of the town i don’t remember) and he said that before the bodies were found apparently.
Well, yes, but considering the time of the crime, it might’ve been superstition. Back then they covered mirrors and reflecting surfaces, so the soul wouldn’t be trapped. There’s also something about the eyes being windows to the soul, so the murderer might have tried to make sure the spirit didn’t go anywhere by covering their faces. One of the victims even had their eyes gouged out, so it doesn’t really come across as regret, but rage and superstition to me at least.
TW: necrophilia and child abuse additional case detail: in the room of the Stilinger sisters, they found seminal fluid on the floor of that bed room and the oldest girl was stripped of her lower garments, was pulled to pose with her hands above her head and the found a bloody handprint on her upper thigh (can't remember which side) the guy was truly a sick minded individual but as horrible as it sounds, I'm glad she wasn't alive to witness that being done to her.....
There’s a part of my brain that thinks the same thing when I hear this was done to them AFTER they’d died, like it’s a terrible thing that happens to them but the smallest of mercy was they weren’t alive
@Gaming With Atik Probably has to do with how our brain works. Recorders can pick up a lot of background noises that were not picked up by human ears. Our brains are pattern recognising machine, when replaying those unintelligible backgrounds noises got pick up by our brain and we hear those "words". You have to understand how visual and other illusion works and how our brain perceive the environment.
@@shengloongtan229 Thank you, for your work as a fellow Shaniac. Also those flashlights switch on and off due to expansion and retraction of the reflector around the bulb by heat. Sometimes you can see them screwing off the top of the flashlight until it slightly touches the contact to the battery. Then the expansion and retraction happens and that's why its turning on and off. And those EVP-"detectors" that are common in the ghost hunting community might as well be disfunctional detectors that are not calibrated well to static noise.
@Gaming With Atik it's not pre-recorded, the spirit box uses the radio frequencies but in a faster speed so the words you sometimes here are probably from other channels
My favorite is when it comes from the owners of the various haunted attractions. "Oh yeah I totally saw this, and I, the owner of this place who directly financially benefits from you believing it, have no cause to lie".
Ryan saying that the killer couldn’t have snuck around because the floorboards are squeaky. My good sir, the house is now probably 120+ years old. It was new back in the day lol
@@luisechevarria186 Yes. Or electronic glitch. Or other staff working on the production. Etc. etc. (Personally I do believe they're EVP but that's what he'd say. I don't think there's anything that would ever get Shane to think otherwise. He's pretty set in his worldview.)
I have a theory: What if the murderer was someone close to the family and was invited to their house? The murderer might've used some kind of untraceable poison in their food/drink which settled in and knocked most of the family out in their sleep. Except for Lena, who didn't have as much as the rest of the family. After the murderer did whatever he did, he covered up the mirror because he was superstitious. Anyways, as a Boogara myself, I don't think this house is haunted. There's a lack of strong/clear evidence that can show proof of ghosts. Also, 1912 really was NOT the year. Villisca Ax Murder House, Titanic sinking...
As entertaining as these Buzzfeed Unsolved episodes are to watch, I find myself hoping that ghosts aren't real because I just find that an awful way to spend the afterlife. My hope is always that the victims are resting peacefully wherever they are now, because I couldn't imagined being trapped for eternity in the place where I was brutally and senselessly murdered. I hope this whole family and the two Stillinger girls are in a good place now.
I wonder if the person was possessed or something like the guy from Amityville. The fact that he covered the mirror and how in the beginning of the video he said “F*ing Brain” “switch” and then those worlds “hard to stop”
That's true, the serial killer theory IS really solid - the book "The Man From The Train" by Bill James links the Vilisca murders to a whole string of frighteningly similar axe murders all over the country, following a distinct pattern, and following the trains. It's scary how many people this single madman might have killed, and although it reaches sometimes, the book's worth a read.
This is the Mystery that needs solved. The whole town deserves closure and for people to be respectful and polite and not constantly bring this up to them
I somehow feel that Sara is a woman who is quite capable to take care of herself. But she probably let Shane act as the manly man to boost his confidence a bit.
Yeah I was wondering why it was assume the killer would haunt there. I mean it’s a tragedy but doesn’t seem like any other factors to make it seem like it would be haunted
Some people say that your spirit doesn't necessarily haunt where you died but where you had the most connection to. So if you believe that line of thought then it would "make sense" that the house where he killed was where he chose to haunt.
The sequence where they give the "ghost" specific instructions and the blue flashlight just keeps going on and off randomly is the best evidence that the flashlights are useless.
9:25 I COULDNT STOP CACKLING WHEN RYAN SAID “but unicorns aren’t real” AND SHANE JUST PAUSED COMPLETELY. LIKE THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT HE’S MAKING. AND THEN RYAN ADDS “but ghosts are real” AND I CAN JUST FEEL THE GENUINE FRUSTRATION WHEN SHANE SCREAMED LMAOOOOOO
For #postmortem: The Villisca Ax Murderer is actually most likely an uncaught serial killer. A few years prior to Villisca there was an ax murderer killing families along the train line from california to texas, it went on for years and he was never caught, and one day he just seemingly stopped for no reason. That was until a few years later when the ax murders picked up again in small towns in the midwest. Both murder sprees have similarities like the killer using the victim's own ax and sticking around after the murder and making a meal in the kitchen.
Yes! Thank you! I'm glad someone mentioned that. Also it doesn't make sense they're trying to contact the k*ller when the k*ller clearly escaped and if ghosts are real it would just be the ghosts of victims in the house. And since he k*lled so many more people like why would the k*ller be stuck hunting this particular set of victims house?
I was hoping someone would say something about this! I just listened to an episode of Morbid and they talked about it! It seems like the most plausible theory to me considering the similarities.
If Criminal Minds has taught me anything, its that the fact that they were a "picture perfect family" is a huge possible motive. Look for someone who may have resented them for being a happy family, someone who didn't have one of their own.
For #postmortem: Shane, what is the most plausible/hardest to disprove piece of evidence that you guys have collected? What couldn’t you just dismiss as the wind?
I would have to thing it was the, (I think it was the Waverly hills hospital? the one with that tunnel too hell.). While Shane is in the tunnel, near the top and Ryan is at the bottom Shane hears a whooshing sound and freaks out.
fun fact: when a murderer covers the face of their victims it usually means they know who they are on a personal level. It also explains why they covered the mirror so they didn't have to see it but also for the time period - when a death happened in the family people covered the mirrors and closed the curtains when in mourning.
Curtains were closed and mirrors covered until after the funeral so that the deceased's image wouldn't get trapped in a looking glass. It was thought that you might be next if you saw yourself in a mirror at a house where someone had recently died. To prevent bad luck, all clocks were stopped at the time of death ....Itd be interesting to know if they stopped the clocks too
However, the older girls body was dragged down on the bed and her lower half exposed. In the same room, the bacon was left. There was seminal fluids on the bacon, implying the killer pleasure himself while viewing the girls corpses. That doesn't sound very remorseful to me. They also fixed themselves a meal and ate it, in the kitchen of the house in which just minutes prior, they bludgeoned and chopped apart 8 people. That's very psychopathic behavior. Not to mention they chose not to leave one of the girls alive even though she woke and fought back. Someone with remorse might've fled or given a less deadly injury to simply disable her, instead of killing her. The murder killed many small children as well.
Honestly how messed up would it be for the person who murdered everyone in that house to haunt it after they died? Instead of the murderer haunting the place where they died, they're just like, nah I'm going back to that house, as a ghost, to terrorize ghosts
when you put it like that, that’s horrifying. “i already killed those people but i’m not gonna let them have peace in the afterlife either” oh my god ???
Please please cover West Virginias Mad Butcher next. My grandfathers Father gave Micheal Rogers rides to town for groceries, one evening never returning to the vehicle for his ride home. Days later they found what remained in plastic bags. I grew up hearing that story from my grandfather when he wanted us kids to stay out of the deep woods behind our home.
17:17 find it hysterical someone put a Booh-Bah doll into the closet, a show that wasn’t made until 2003. Whoever looks after the house definitely just finds the most haunted looking toys possible for added effect.
it might just be me, but when the murderer was saying 'stop it' and 'stop me', im almost certain i heard the words 'it won' shortly after from the spirt box, this makes me wonder if the killer had mental health issues and perhaps a voice or hallucination continuously bothered them with intrusive thoughts until they snapped and couldnt take it anymore, they seem genuinely sorry as well so i wonder if it was indeed psychological issues that prompted this killing spree anyway, have a good day
@@please_im_a_staaar exactly. i never hear anything until they replay it, and then i can kinda hear it bc they've told me that's what i should be hearing.
As an Iowa native living a little over an hour away, Villisca has always fascinated me. I've been to this house, but I wouldn't chalk it up as haunted in any sense. It's definitely an interesting story.
"It doesn't feel right being in there alone." Hearing that from Shane is terrifying. Not necessarily because it means that ghosts or a malicious spirit is there, but because it confirms what the housekeeper said about the house having a negative effect on people's mental states.
I think the *Marshall* did it- I mean who purposely lets a bunch of onlookers come in to mess up the crime scene unless they were trying to hide something?
Ohhhh that's a good theory for #postmortem! 🙊 That makes a lot of sense. Even the worst police officer on Earth would know better than to let people even enter the crime scene, let alone HANDLE the murder weapon.
@@GenaFrancooo olden times were boring. there wasn't much entertainment. today, we have true crime podcasts and shows, and that's how most people get their fill of the macabre, but old timey people didn't have similar outlets.
@@GenaFrancooo lol yeah basically. I mean, people used to choose to go to beheadings and other executions in ye olde times. it's not because people were necessarily worse back then. they just didn't have the internet lol
I mean in fairness I think it would be way worse getting murdered with the sharp end of an axe, you would probably have more of a fighting chance as well.
@@andrewshepherd1198 But with the sharp end wouldn't it be more or less a clean cut whereas with the blunt end because it's not actually cutting you're essentially just getting brutally beaten
I have a theory that the reason why the father was the only one to be killed with the sharp end is because he was the only other guy so he could've probably fought back easier so he wanted it to be quick
@@shengloongtan229 not sure who that's directed at, but i'm pretty sure it works as a normal am/fm radio, only switching really fast between channels to create an almost seamless background noise. i don't know if your comment was meant to be skepticism or not, but if yes, (while i myself wouldn't regard myself a firm believer in the paranormal) it's still quite strange that a full sentence / good few words were able to be heard through the spirit box, considering the extremely fast frequency. the odds that 3-5 radio channels would exactly line up to create a sentence are highly unlikely. if i took your comment the wrong way, i apologise and have a nice day :) (the last part goes for either option lmao)
that moment when ryan feels the bed move, u can kinda see the bedding dip down a bit like someone sits down right where ryan shows shane where he felt it 😭
I have a sort of theory that the killer not only still resides in the house, but they're in some sort of limbo where they're stuck killing the family over and over again. Endlessly. It would explain the responses: "It's hard to stop" "Stop me" and "Help me". Perhaps now they're finally regretting what they did and they're begging to be released?
