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Please do not suffer in silence. Morning Light came late to Velisca, Iowa on June 10th, 1912.

The sky was clear, the air already warming, and yet the Moor House sat still and sealed as

though the night had not passed at all.

Curtains drawn, doors locked from within, no sound.

When Ross Moore finally forced the door and stepped inside with Marshal Hank Horton,

they were met with a silence that felt wrong, the kind that seems to listen back.

The parlor smelled faintly of kerosene and something heavier beneath it,

the scent of iron and rot, and days-old heat.

They climbed the narrow staircase first, the martial leading, revolver drawn. In the front

bedroom they found Josiah and Sarah Moore in their bed. The coverlet was pulled up neatly,

almost politely, but the shape beneath it told the truth.

The axe had struck Josiah first, splitting through flesh and into the ceiling above him.

He had been hit with such force that his eyes, jaw, and nose were gone.

Sarah lay beside him, struck again and again.

The ceiling above them bore the marks of each swing,

small circular dents of blood and wood grain that no one would ever scrub out. In the room down the

hall, the children all slept together. Catherine 12, Boyd 7, Herman 10, and Paul 5. The killer had moved methodically, one bed at a time. Each child's

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