The Caretaker
True Legend
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Joined: Aug 2006
Gender: Male 
Posts: 114
Location: Missouri
Karma: 100 |  | The Legend that started it all.
« Thread Started on Sept 11, 2007, 11:49am » | |
THE LEGEND:
This chilling tale takes us to America’s heartland, deep into the Midwest, where a small town cradled by farm land and woods – the home of Edgar Tinsley. Back in the 1890s just outside of Willow, Missouri, when a downward spiral of events struck the small town of about 700.
Edgar and his family lived about 15 miles outside of the town Badger, Missouri. Willow Creek ran through the Tinsleys’ property where hundreds of willow trees grew on the banks. Edgar and his father built the house, stables, and workshop when he was only 10 years old. Edgar was raised Baptist but stopped going to church after his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just 13.
From a very young age, he helped his father a modest farm, mostly raising horses and cattle. They sold the cattle and bred horses to people passing by weary for a horse during their travels. Edgar often spent his hot summer days tending to the barn stables and befriending the horses that he cared for daily while his father was in the workshop.
His father was often times abusive in nature, but at the end of the day, he was all Edgar had after his mother died. Most of the Tinsley’s family lived in Virginia, hundreds of miles away. Edgar’s family had always hard-workers, but sometimes took it to the extreme – being very strict on young Edgar. He did have a few friends that lived in the town of Badger, but it was a stretch to call them his "friends" .
Edgar lived on the land most of his life and decided to stay there after his father followed his mother to the grave from what was thought to be liver failure, likely a product of many years of hard drinking. Edgar was 35 when his father died and inherited the land and a little bit of cash he and his father had worked so hard to accumulate. But it didn’t stop Edgar from continuing to work hard. It’s all he knew.
Shortly after his father’s death, Edgar met his wife on a trip to Badger's General Store. Hazel Jenkins worked their in town square, and Edgar very quickly took a fancy to her. Not long after, Hazel moved in with Edgar at the family farm, and they were married at the courthouse a mere 6 months later.
Edgar turned the old workshop into a Blacksmithing business. With all his knowledge of horses accumulated from watching his dad fit horseshoes as a child, it was only natural to follow in his father’s footsteps. But instead of it just being part of raising top-notch horses, he focused on blacksmithing as his primary source of income.
Night after night Edgar worked in the stables with his horses, and Hazel cooked dinner, picked apples in a nearby orchard, sang old gospel songs while doing house work and shelling walnuts she picked up from a tree just outside the house. She was a very religious woman and loved Edgar very much. She reminded him a lot of his mother.
They seemed destined grow old together at the very house Edgar helped his father build almost 35 years ago... but Edgar not only inherited his father's money, business and home, he also inherited his father's temper and drinking habits. The longer he was with Hazel the more he grew irritated with her, and it eventually tore apart their happy home.
One day in the summer of 1890, Hazel was carrying in a basket of apples from a nearby orchard and knocked over some pots and pans as she placed the apples on the kitchen counter. Edgar stumbled out of bed to see what all the noise was about – still in the clothes from the night before, an empty whiskey flask lying next to him covered in ash and soot from the blacksmith shop.
Edgar proceeded to argue with Hazel, escalating to the point of no return. Edgar went out to the workshop, grabbed a blacksmith hammer and returned to the house with ill intentions. With one blow to the head, Edgar sent his lovely wife to an early grave, just like his mother and father. Startled by what he had done, Edgar began sobbing and went to town for help – filled with remorse.
Edgar told the doctor Hazel tripped on apples and tumbled into the stairs, hitting her head on the railing. The official cause of death on Hazel’s death certificate read "fracture skull due to fall down stairs,” but Edgar knew the real truth. The nagging in Edgar’s conscience led to even heavier drinking than before, and at this point, horses and whiskey were the only companions he had left.
Edgar worked tirelessly day and night around the house and in the shop for his. During this period, Edgar started having hallucinations in which his wife appeared to him and flashbacks to his childhood playing with his mother in the fields. He longed for their company and love so much that he started turning his customers into permanent visitors.
Edgar drew many people far and wide due to his reputation as one of the best blacksmiths in the region. He started kidnapping his customers and keeping them in either his dirt cellar or barn. After he tortured them for days, he hung some of his victims high up in the willow trees on the banks of Willow Creek. Other he burned to ash in his blacksmith workshop. Body parts were found in vegetable preservative jars in his dirt cellar.
Edgar’s devices of torture included wood clamps, chains, whips, animal traps, sickles, pitchforks and a well that he sealed up near the cornfields. Nineteen victims would be found in the willow trees, but it's uncertain just how many people Edgar killed in the one-year, two-month span he collected his victims.
The Ashgrove family from Douglass County, Kansas was among Edgar’s victims. The family of five came to Edgar looking for a fresh pair of shoes for their weary horses – but that's the last anyone would see of the Ashgroves. Edgar took Stanley, Virginia and their 3 children to his cellar and chained them to the walls. He made sure baby Dean always had something to eat, but he wasn't so caring with the rest of the family. He eventually took the parents out to his barn and killed them.
It's not known how Stanley and Virginia met their fate, but Edgar hung their bodies on the banks of Willow Creek in Badger Woods. He didn't take the children out to the creek for almost another week. Edgar made sure they had food but left them in the cold, dark cellar night after night. Baby Dean cried every night, which eventually got on Edgar's last nerve. He took all of the children out to the woods where at this point 17 other unfortunate souls hung in the trees like a twisted garden on display, including Stanley and Virginia Ashgrove. And their children would soon follow.
Edgar chained them to a tree growing from the creek and made sure the chains were long enough to place the girls in water up to their shins. Two mornings later the children were dead from hypothermia.
Viginia’s mom contacted sheriff Andrew James Francis as she grew concerned about the family. When she told the sheriff where she thought the family was headed prior to its disappearance, he went to Edgar’s farm. At first, the sheriff didn't find anything, but after another plea from Virginia’s mother, the sheriff stumbled upon Edgar’s garden of bodies and dark secrets the town couldn’t have imagined. He uncovered a nightmare.
Most of the victims weren't local but merely people coming through to have blacksmith work done. Edgar was immediately placed under arrest and taken to Badger. He stayed in custody for only a week before he was convicted of 19 murders. Numerous other victims were later discovered in his cellar. He was sentenced to hang, just like his 19 victims did.
Pyschiatrist that have reviewed the case say Edgar might have developed split personalities on top of his depression and alcoholism. Tinsley admitted to the killings before his death, saying, "I beat them unmercifully, and I would do it again. The bodies kept me company when I was lonely strolling through the woods.” He later quoted a nursery rhyme that he is said to have read to the three Ashgrove children he chained up near the creek bed.
“It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray,
Unto a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails, side by side,
All hung in a tree to dry.”
VARIOUS PHOTOS & ITEMS FROM THE TINSELY HOUSEHOLD:
![[image]](http://www.wickedwillow.net/Blacksmithhammer.jpg "[image]")
One of Edgar's Blacksmith hammers.
![[image]](http://www.wickedwillow.net/OldAnvil.jpg "[image]")
Replica anvil that Edgar used.
![[image]](http://www.wickedwillow.net/WhiskeyFlask.jpg "[image]")
Whiskey Flask
![[image]](http://www.wickedwillow.net/BarnOld.jpg "[image]")
The barn that sit a few acres behind the house where he did a lot of his work. It has since been torn down.
![[image]](http://www.wickedwillow.net/EdgarHousePresentDay.jpg "[image]")
This is the Tinsley household present day - the location cannot be disclosed.
![[image]](http://www.wickedwillow.net/MissouriMap.jpg "[image]")
This is said to be the general area where the murders took place - we cannot give you the actual location in order to avoid vandalism.
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The Caretaker
True Legend
member is offline
Joined: Aug 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 114
Location: Missouri
Karma: 100 | | Re: The Legend that started it all.
« Reply #1 on Sept 26, 2007, 10:48pm » | |
I've been asked by a lot of people if the Tinsely murders actually took place. They did indeed occur and Edgar Tinsley is a very distant family member of mine. These are actual photos that were collected from my grandmother and other relatives that allowed me to use them if I changed the names of the people involved and made sure not to disclose the actual locations. With that being said the general area was Northwest Missouri but out of respect to those involved I cannot give any further details on the whereabouts of the murders.
I have been granted access to interview certain people to discuss what went on at the actual locations but we will be changing the names to protect our family.
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