A household massacred. A family feud. A sheriff found dead. Neighbor turned against neighbor. Reports of ghosts, curses, deathbed confessions, and legacy gold fortunes. 

The never-before-told story of the 1874 Saxtown massacre that 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 forests and farmland, chasing footprints, bloody tobacco leaves, the branches of a family tree, and the marks of an ax dragged away from the scene.

Nicholas J. C. Pistor's The Ax Murders of Saxtown is a true murder-mystery that warns of the dangers of greed and jealousy and anger; 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.