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Photography courtesy of David Carson and Lyons Press
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When St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nick Pistor covered Chris Coleman’s murder trial in 2011, friends urged him to write a book about the case. “Not enough mystery to it,” he replied. He already had his story—a grisly family murder that happened in 1874, on a farm in rural Illinois. Pistor’s book was just published, and apparently the mystery’s still very much alive: 300 people showed up for one signing of The Ax Murders of Saxtown.
A grandfather, father, mother, baby girl, and 3-year-old boy, massacred. What possible motives were there? Heirship, feuds, the lust for land.
And just plain greed? There was some money taken, and maybe gold. For a long while, people would go out to the farm with metal detectors, thinking gold was buried, which Germans were known to do.
Maybe it was the guy who sold them their Newfoundland. Five people were slaughtered, but the dog was locked up and left alive. That’s not an insignificant clue.
Some suggested a conspiracy of three men. Plausible? The idea’s tantalizing. But for somebody to be willing to wipe out an entire family in such rage? Almost always it’s someone who is bitter and upset.
What was your most exciting research find? Tracing the brother-in-law who’d refused to go to the crime scene and later vanished. I picked up his trail in Nebraska.
How did this horrific unsolved murder affect the community? They had to live for decades knowing that the person who did this was living amongst them, and fearing it could happen again. That fear would produce a culture very guarded about business, very guarded about money.
You researched the book on and off for 10 years. What was hardest? I was doing all the raw research, and these people were nobodies. It’s not like they left behind diaries and news clips. And the investigative file and grand-jury papers were stolen.
You tell more than a single crime story; it’s a picture of an entire time and way of life. It reminded me just how tough people were back then. And I don’t think we’d recognize Millstadt and Belleville—they were German enclaves, and everyone spoke German.
Was there more violence then? We always think it’s worse now. But Arkansas’ state capital was under siege at the time I was writing about, and looking through old newspapers, there was much more violence. Still, a crime against an entire family was fairly rare. Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden came years later—and she was acquitted.
Does the case still haunt you? Not as much! Except when I go out to the crime scene. The original barn the Stelzriede family built was all wood, even the nails, and it still exists. I don’t believe in ghosts…but you do feel the presence of something out there.
