The Ax Murders of Saxtown

The Unsolved Crime That Terrorized a Town and Shocked the Nation

Nicholas J. C. Pistor

An entire household massacred. A family feud. A sheriff found dead. Neighbor turned against neighbor. Reports of ghosts, bounty hunters, deathbed confessions, and legacy fortunes.

In 1874, the Saxtown massacre rocked a nation reeling from economic depression and shattered a small German immigrant farming community in Illinois. The murder of the Stelzriede family led investigators through the forests and farmland, chasing footprints, bloody tobacco leaves, and the marks of an ax dragged away from the scene.

Nicholas J.C. Pistor’s The Ax Murders of Saxtown is a gripping tale of suspense and suspicion that exposes brand new information about the century-old crime and showcases the flaws of the nineteenth-century justice system.

Globe Pequot / Lyons Press

Pages: 256 • Trim: 5¾ x 8¾

978-0-7627-8860-6 • Paperback • July 2015 • $16.95 • (£12.99)

Subjects: True Crime / Murder / General, History / United States / 19th Century

The Ax Murders of Saxtown

The Unsolved Crime That Terrorized a Town and Shocked the Nation

Paperback

Summary

An entire household massacred. A family feud. A sheriff found dead. Neighbor turned against neighbor. Reports of ghosts, bounty hunters, deathbed confessions, and legacy fortunes.

In 1874, the Saxtown massacre rocked a nation reeling from economic depression and shattered a small German immigrant farming community in Illinois. The murder of the Stelzriede family led investigators through the forests and farmland, chasing footprints, bloody tobacco leaves, and the marks of an ax dragged away from the scene.

Nicholas J.C. Pistor’s The Ax Murders of Saxtown is a gripping tale of suspense and suspicion that exposes brand new information about the century-old crime and showcases the flaws of the nineteenth-century justice system.

Details

Globe Pequot / Lyons Press

Pages: 256 • Trim: 5¾ x 8¾

978-0-7627-8860-6 • Paperback • July 2015 • $16.95 • (£12.99)

Subjects: True Crime / Murder / General, History / United States / 19th Century

Author

Nicholas J. C. Pistor is a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who has broken stories on some of the biggest crimes in the Midwest and has been a consultant for CBS’s 48 Hours true-crime series. He has appeared on nearly every major news network, including NBC’s Today Show, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN’s Nancy Grace. He grew up a few miles from the Saxtown murder scene, where talk of the crime kept him awake as a boy. He currently lives in downtown St. Louis.

Features

[Setting] -
Near St. Louis, Missouri (Millstadt, Illinois)

The “In Cold Blood” murder of its time—a family of five killed in a small Midwestern immigrant town, destroying a community and exposing the flaws of 19th-Century law enforcement