In my column at BoA last week, The Treachery of Images, Part II: This is not a Killer, I wrote about a strange old photo of a baby we found in an old Victorian-era album. The haunting look on the baby's face made me think it could possibly be a postmortem photo, so I typed in the only words found on it--the name and location of the photography studio: Van Alstine, Red Oak Iowa.
The search brought up the Villisca Axe Murders--nothing to do with my photograph, but curiously, there was a suspect arrested for the eight grisly homicides named Van Alstine, from nearby Red Oak Iowa.
The search brought up the Villisca Axe Murders--nothing to do with my photograph, but curiously, there was a suspect arrested for the eight grisly homicides named Van Alstine, from nearby Red Oak Iowa.
Serendipitously, the same day my column was published, there was a link at The Anomalist to Troy Taylor's page, A Haunting Mystery: The Ghosts of the Villisca Ax Murder House. I just got around to checking that out yesterday, and I was pleased to find some photos I hadn't seen before.
There was even a photo of some of the victims--a couple with 2 children. The youngest one bears a striking resemblance to the infant in our album photo...see what you think.
Detail of image at Troy Taylor's site (left) and our photo.
