From Troubled Young Man to Suspected Serial Axe Murderer: The Strange Saga of Henry Lee Moore
In 1913, Henry Lee Moore was convicted for the brutal murders of his mother and grandmother. Investigators and historians now believe he may have been a prolific serial killer
Background
On the night of December 17, 1912, an assailant snuck into an unassuming cottage and spied his next victim, 63-year-old Georgia Moore. Georgia was sitting in an armchair, applying ointment on her sore joints when the perpetrator crept up behind her and struck her multiple times on the back of her neck and head.
The murderer then found 83-year-old Mary Wilson, Georgia’s mother, asleep in her bed; the killer raised the axe and hit Mrs Wilson repeatedly as she slept.
The bodies of Georgia and Mary Wilson were found the following day, bloodied and hacked in their beds.
Henry Lee Moore
Henry Lee Moore was the eldest son born to Enoch and Georgia Ann Wilson on November 1, 1874, in Boone County, Missouri. Little is known about his childhood, but as an adult, Henry Lee Moore worked as a Blacksmith's helper and was described by people as a “friendly-looking man”—but Henry reportedly also had a dark side.
Moore is said to have had a morbid interest in visiting morgues within St. Louis to observe the bodies that resided there - although Moore claimed that this was untrue. He also served a one-year sentence at Hutchinson Reformaty for forgery in 1910 and was released in 1911.
Another “hobby” of Moore’s was corresponding with numerous women via letters. He began communicating with 16-year-old Queenie Nichols and eventually confessed his feelings for her, but the romance didn’t exactly go according to plan.
Queenie is said to have rejected Moore because he did not have his own home and lacked money, but Henry had a plan and informed her that his mother's house would soon be in his possession.
“Discovering” the Bodies
When Henry Lee Moore arrived home from work to find the bodies of his mother and grandmother butchered, he immediately informed his neighbors and the police. However, it didn’t take long for the police to see through his story.
Henry claimed he returned home from Moberly to celebrate Christmas when he found the bodies, but the police were able to trace Henry's whereabouts to a hotel in Columbia. At the Central Hotel, he is said to have checked in the night before the murders under an alias ‘L. Smith,’ and within the hotel, the police found towels stained with blood, along with clothing and bedsheets.
The police believe Henry had traveled to the hotel and returned the same night to ensure he could make good on his plans to acquire the family house. They believe Henry returned to the house and quietly snuck up on Georgia, and with a blunt, rusty axe that was on the premises, slammed it repeatedly into his mother's skull before turning and repeating the gruesome act on his sleeping grandmother.
Arrest
Henry was arrested on suspicion of murder. While in jail, Henry refused to talk or comment on the murders and instead was more interested in proclaiming his ‘stand-up character’ and his love for writing poetry while protesting his innocence.
A string of witnesses placed Henry near the scene of the crime just before the bodies were subsequently ‘discovered’ by Henry himself. One witness in particular, Dr. Jordan, stated that Henry told him he struggled with money and paying the bills as he would have to support his mother, and had also told him that his mother had promised to leave the house to him, should anything happen to her.
Trial and Sentencing
The proprietor of the Central Hotel, Chas Roberts, also took the witness stand and testified that Henry arrived at his establishment at 4 p.m. and signed in as “L. Smith” - he then ate supper and returned to his room.
Roberts stated that he did not see Henry until 7 a.m. the next morning. However, he also testified that there was a back stairway that Henry could have used to slip out of the hotel. Though under cross-examination, Roberts stated that using the back stairs would have been more noticeable than if he had passed through the front of the hotel.
On March 14, 1913, After a 4-day trial, Henry Lee Moore was convicted of the first-degree murders of his mother and grandmother - a crime punishable by the death penalty, but the jury spared him, and instead, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Possible Involvement in Other Murders
After the sentencing of Henry Lee Moore, he soon became a possible suspect in the infamous Villisca Axe Murders of the Moore family (no relation) and the Stillinger sisters.
He was seen as a person of interest due to the matching murder weapon used and his ability to travel from place to place with ease. The Father of the two slain Stillinger sisters believed he may have employed a man in April 1912 who resembled Henry Lee Moore about a week before the Villisica murders.
Henry Lee Moore was also suspected in what people had begun to assume was a spree of axe murders, including the Villisca murders, due to the timing of his release from prison in 1912 following his forgery conviction, which is about the time the spree is said to have begun, and then stopped not long after he was sentenced for the murders of his mother and grandmother.
Aftermath
There are many unanswered questions surrounding the murders of Georgia Moore, Mary Wilson, and the numerous other axe murders around that time. Henry was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 1949 after serving 36 years.
Henry Lee Moore died in 1956.
Sources:
Murderpedia, “Henry Lee Moore”, https://murderpedia.org/male.M/m/moore-henry-lee.htm
“Henry Lee Moore”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lee_Moore
Dash, Mike, “The Ax Murderer Who Got Away”, June 8th 2012, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ax-murderer-who-got-away-117037374/ Moberly Weekly, Monitor Moberly, Missouri, “1912 AX Murderer Henry Lee Moore killed Mom and Grandmother”, Tue, 31 Dec 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/article/moberly-weekly-monitor-1912-ax-murderer/35604567/
Chronicling America, Rock Island Argus, December 19, 1912 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92053934/1912-12-19/ed-1/seq-1/
Chronicling America, The Topeka State Journal, December 27, 1912, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016014/1912-12-27/ed-1/seq-2/
Chronicling America, Potosi Journal, May 14, 1913 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90061371/1913-05-14/ed-1/seq-2/