Before Villisca

3/22/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Almost a year to the date before the infamous Villisca Axe murders in Iowa, a family of four were killed in Ardenwald, Oregon in a similar manner, and like that crime this one remains unsolved until this day.

Victims: William Hill, Ruth Hill, Philip Rintoul, and Dorothy Rintoul

On the morning of June 9, 1911 in a community close to Portland, Oregon four victims were found bludgeoned to death with an axe. The two females in the household were sexually assaulted, one after being killed. Initially the authorities suspected it was a sex maniac.

The family had moved only a few months before to Ardenwald, Oregon to a two-room cottage built by William Leonard Hill (1878-1911). He brought his wife Ruth (1878-1911), and her two children by a previous marriage, Philip Rintoul (1902-1911) and Dorothy Rintoul (1905-1911) to live in the small rural community.

Only the day before their murder, Ruth visited her father Thomas Cowing and her brother Tom at their law office in Portland. They described later she seemed "disturbed about something" but didn't go further with the details.

The discovery of the bodies was made by a neighbor, who noticed that William did not leave to catch the streetcar that would take him to his job at the Portland Natural Gas Company. He knocked on the door, and when there was no answer he looked through the front window and saw the body of 4-year-old Dorothy on the floor. He left and notified the sheriff.

The killer had covered most of the windows with garments and other clothing in order to conceal the crime. Later it was also determined the perpetrator had washed up before leaving. A broken clock in the cabin coincided with the estimated time of the murder which was 12:45 A.M. Another neighbor described that his dog started to bark around this time as well.

The bodies of Ruth and William were found entangled in the bedclothes. Both had been bludgeoned to death. Philip, only 8 years old was killed in a similar fashion; the last was Ruth. The murder weapon, was found propped against the foot of Dorothy's bed. It was later found to have been stolen from the front porch of Joseph Delk who lived less than a mile from the murder scene. Delk was employed by Nathan Harvey, which was to figure later in the investigation.

The very morning of the crime, a vagrant named Edward Ramsey was arrested. There were years of complaint by those who lived in the area of an unknown man who lurked in the nearby woods. He was a drifter who lived by trapping animals and stealing food. He was found while trying to leave on a makeshift raft. In the end he was cleared of suspicion.

The sheriff determined that even though some jewelry was missing, other valuables and money were left untouched, and the motive was not robbery. He suspected the motive was sexual in nature, and the murderer was a pedophile. Bloody fingerprints were found on some of the bodies. A bloodhound brought to assist in the investigation produced no leads. Examination by the coroner of Ruth's body found she had been raped after death, while Dorothy had been assaulted prior to her murder.

All of the those killed had severe skull injuries.

Nathan Harvey was accused of killing the Hill family c.1911

Another suspect was 55-year-old Nathan Harvey who lived only 100 yards from the murder scene. He'd been involved in a land dispute with William Hill. Most disturbing of all was the discovery that Harvey was indirectly connected to other serious crimes.

In 1877, one of his brother, Willard Harvey, 26, was found drowned in the Willamette River in 10 feet of water. He was employed by Seth Lewelling (Luelling). It was never determined if he drowned by accident, intentionally or by someone else's hand.

In 1890, one of his other brothers Isom Harvey Jr., killed their mother Mary Ann than turned the gun on himself. His widowed mother had remarried, and he lived with her and his stepfather. He shot his mother in the temple while she slept next to her husband. When his stepfather awoke from the gunfire, they were both dead.

In 1892, Mamie Walsh a 13-year-old was raped and murdered. Her body was found in a heavy growth of brush between the houses of the Lewelling family and Frank Wilson. Mamie Walsh had gone berry picking for Mrs. Lewelling the day she was killed. This was the same family who once employed Willard Harvey.

George Wilson was accused of Mamie's murder. He had arrived from Iowa only a month before. His brother James Frank Wilson was married to Nathan Harvey's sister, Jemima. George hung himself in his jail cell before going to trial. The search for Mamie's killer ended with his death, and with him the truth as to whether he was Mamie Walsh's killer.

Nathan Harvey was arrested for the Hill family arrest, but was subsequently released

There were reports where several women complained of "improper proposals" made by Nathan Harvey. He then insulted them when they refused.

He was charged with murder of the Hill family on December 20, 1911.

Clackamas County sheriff, Ernest Mass claimed that he had "absolute proof" that Havey took the last train to Ardenwald from Cazadero arriving there at 12:25 A.M., only a short time before the murders were committed. Two other witnesses also saw him exit the train at the same time.

However Harvey had supporters and 500 signatures were gathered asking for the charges to be dropped. They stated that he belonged to a Quaker family, and had no direct responsibility for the unfortunate deaths in his family.

An anonymous landowner explained to a reporter of The Oregonian the possible reason for this was: "except by his friends, Harvey is feared... There are those possessed of evidence in the case that could incriminate Harvey. If fears of possible retribution from the man are allayed I think they can be induced to tell what they know." On December 27, the charges against Harvey were dropped, and in February 1912, a judge formally closed the investigation.

Nathan Harvey, the youngest of 11 children, continued to live in the area and died in 1940 at the age of 80.

William Riggin (mugshot) c.1917

Six years later in May 1917, William Riggin an inmate at the prison in Salem, Oregon confessed to shooting William Booth in Willamina. This murder was committed in 1915, and Mrs. William Booth and William Branson were serving a life sentence each for the crime.

Riggin who was known as a "pervert and sadist" by the local police, had a history of arrests for burglary and had been to reform school since he was a boy. Authorities believed he was only seeking notoriety with his confession.

After implicating himself in the Booth murder, he confessed to being a witness of the Hill family massacre. He described where he met a Mexican man nicknamed "Brown" and a man named William Flynn (a.k.a. Edward Ramsey or Alexander) in Oregon City. They planned robberies and looting of local homes.

Riggin said that he waited outside the Hill's cottage 30 minutes while Brown and Flynn entered with an axe, supposedly to only rob the occupants. He said he heard children screaming. The men than left the home with $1400 worth of gold and silver, and for his participation as a lookout they paid him $100. He then changed the story, describing where he actually entered the home with Edward Ramsey to rob and murder the family. But the two accounts were filled with inconsistent descriptions of the interior of the Hill's cabin. He did however pinpoint the location of the house, which had been demolished after the murder.

In 1918, Riggin was declared insane and transferred from the prison to the hospital. He spent the rest of his life at the Oregon State Hospital and died in 1957. On his death certificate it indicated his parents were unknown, and he had never married or had children.

The murder of the Hill family remained technically unsolved.

An anonymous blogger posted the following in 2019:

Tom F. Cowing, Ruth Hill's brother, was my grandfather. He died in 1958, when I was eight. The only part of the story that was told to me by my grandmother, his wife, was the following. As you stated, Ruth's family was convinced that Nathan Harvey was the murderer, and that he paid off the prosecutor. As the story goes, my grandfather was so sure that Harvey killed his sister, that he went to Harvey's office with a pistol, intent upon getting justice by killing him. When he pulled the trigger, the gun misfired, and Harvey ran off. My grandfather never attempted again to murder Harvey, and I got to be born!

Nettie Coble, 17, was murdered with her husband Archie, 26, by an unknown assailant c.1911

On July 10, 1911, a month after the Hills were killed, Archie and Nettie Coble were murdered in their Rainier, Washington home with a double-bitted axe. Like the Hill murders, Nettie, 17, was sexually assaulted after she was dead. The killer entered through the back door, and then exited through a window. Valuables were were left behind.

George A. Wilson, who worked as a section man on the railroad that traced the path of the Northwest Pacific's route through towns that were stops for the timber industry, accused another man of the crime. But he became a suspect when a piece of paper with what was believed to be blood was found inside his home. The liquid later turned out to be dirty water.

However, at the time of the Cobles' murder he lived in a tent cabin about 200 yards behind their home. He had a troubled marriage, and his wife Martha in a fit of jealousy took their children, and went to a friend's home in Tacoma the day before the murders.

It was a strange coincidence indeed that he had the same name as the man accused of killing Mamie Walsh almost 20 years before.

Wilson was charged with the crime, based on his confession where he said: "My conscience tells me I did it, but I don’t remember." This statement was remembered by Sheriff George Gaston and the court stenographer because no written copy was produced. The defense demanded that a written copy purported by the sheriff to exist be presented to the courts, but eventually the judge refused to compel the prosecution to produce it.

Archie Coble (1884-1911)

The story ran in all the local newspapers, making it impossible to produce an impartial jury. As a result of the trial Martha Wilson ended up leaving her five children in a Victoria, B.C. orphanage. She had sought to drop them off in a Seattle orphanage, but she went further afield when they required she stay there and live with her children.

Now childless Martha headed to California where she married a younger man named Carlo Jensen. She occasionally wrote to her children, some who were taken in by the Moore family. She died in 1949, age 65.

George was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in the state penitentiary in Walla Walla. He split his time between the prison and the mental hospital throughout his sentence. He was paroled in February 1925, and gained full release in 1928. He went on to become a barber in Victoria, B.C. and died in 1965 a resident of Alberta.

In the end it is doubtful the George Wilson was the murderer of the Cobles in their honeymoon house.

First referenced in 1911, could the murders all have been the handiwork of one man dubbed "Jack the Axeman"? (Source-Morning Register)

Could the perpetrator have been an unknown psychopath who harbored a hatred of newly wedded couples? Someone who kept on killing years into the future?

In 1911, the press made reference to "Jack the Axeman". They described him also as the "Roving Maniac" responsible for 14 murders. Police in central and western cities were notified to watch for this criminal, who had claimed victims from Colorado Springs to Monmouth, Illinois.

His attacks were characterized by annihilation of entire families while they slept. He would use a blunt instrument like an axe to bludgeon their skulls. The families lived close to a railroad, and it's believed he used this method of transportation to escape shortly after committing the crime. Another common signature of his deviancy was covering the victims' faces, and posing the female victims to make it apparent he had sex with them, before or after death.

On September 17, 1911, he claimed five persons: Mrs. A.J. Burnham, two children, J.C. Wayne and his wife and child.

On June 10, 1912, a year after the murder of the Hill family in Ardenwald, an axe-toting stranger entered a two-story house in Villisca, Iowa through an unlocked door. He left six bodies strewn in the house, four of them children.

From 1911 to 1912 similar crimes, possibly the handiwork of the same person claimed 24 to 30 victims.

In retrospect, murders that were committed in Texas and Louisiana during 1911 and 1912 have also been considered to be committed by the same person. As in other massacres, entire families were targeted and killed with an axe. The only difference was these families were black or multi-racial.

It's been theorized that perhaps this killer had left a trail of bodies long before the ones that were attributed to him, considering how well organized he was, which points to an experienced perpetrator. No fingerprints were found at the crime scenes. Was this someone who was worried about a match being made to prison records?

All these murders are unsolved.