MURDER ON SAXTOWN ROAD

History & Mystery of the Millstadt Ax Murders

The small town of Millstadt is located just a few miles from Belleville, a long-established and prosperous town that is located across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Millstadt has always been known as a quiet community. It was settled long ago by German immigrants who came to America to work hard, be industrious, and keep to themselves. It was a place where nothing bad could ever really happen – or at least that’s what the residents there in the latter part of the nineteenth century believed. However, the murders that occurred on Saxtown Road forever shattered that illusion. When a local German family was brutally slaughtered in 1874, it created a dark, unsolved mystery – and a haunting that continues today. 

On March 19, 1874, Carl Stelzenreide, age 70, his son, Frederick, 35, Frederick’s wife, Anna, 28, and their children, Carl, 3, and Anna, 8 months, were found brutally murdered in their home on Saxton Road, located outside of Millstadt. The grisly crime was discovered by a neighbor, Benjamin Schneider, who had arrived at the Stelzenreide home early that morning to collect some potato seeds from Carl Steltzenreide. As he approached the home, he found that the area was eerily still. The horses and cattle that were fenced in the front lot had not been watered or fed and no one was taking care of the morning chores.

Schneider knocked on the front door, but no one answered. He called out and looked in the window, but it was too dark inside the house for him to see anything. Finally, he turned the knob and pushed the door open. As he stepped in, he looked down and saw the body of Frederick Steltzenreide on the floor, lying in a large pool of blood. The young man had been savagely beaten and his throat had been cut. Three of his fingers had been severed. Panicked, Schneider began looking for the other members of the family. He found Anna and her children lying on a bed. All of them had been bludgeoned to death and Anna’s throat had been cut. Her infant daughter, baby Anna, was lying across her chest, her small arms wrapped around her mother’s neck. Her son, Carl, was found next to her. His facial features were unrecognizable because of the brutal blows that he had sustained to his head. All three of them had apparently been murdered as they slept. In a separate bedroom, Schneider found Carl Steltzenreide. He had been struck so many times, apparently with an ax, that he was nearly decapitated. His body was sprawled on the bloodstained floor and it was later surmised that he had been roused from his bed by noises in the house and been struck down as he attempted to come to the aid of his family. 
As Schneider looked frantically around, he realized that blood was on the floor, had sprayed wildly onto the walls, and even stained the ceiling of the house. He saw chips and indentions in the plaster that were later determined to have been made by a “maddox,” a combination tool with the head of an ax and a large blade resembling a garden hoe. 

The only survivor of the carnage was the family dog, Monk. He was found lying on the floor next to Anna’s bed, keeping watch over the bodies of the mother and her children. Monk was known to be very protective of the family, and downright vicious toward strangers. This fact would lead investigators to believe that the killer, or killers, was someone known to the family. They also believed that the killer entered the house through a rear door, killing Anna and the children first. Carl was killed when he heard the struggles in the bedroom and Frederick was killed last. He had been sleeping on a lounge near the front of the house and had been murdered after a hand-to-hand struggle with the murderer.
Schneider quickly left and summoned help. The authorities called to nearby Belleville for assistance and several sheriff’s deputies and detectives answered the call. Soon after arriving, Deputy Sheriff Hughes discovered footsteps leading away from the house. As they were examined, it was noted that the prints had been made by boots that were cobbled with heavy nails, making them very distinctive. Hughes also found indentions in the ground that looked as though they had been made by someone dragging a heavy ax. He followed the tracks for about a mile and at the end of the trail, he found a pouch of partially chewed tobacco that was covered with blood. He deduced that the killer had been wounded during his attack on the family and had attempted to stem the bleeding with chewing tobacco, a popular folk remedy that was believed to draw the infection from a cut. The footprints, and the bloody tobacco pouch, led the police to the home of Frederick Boeltz, the brother-in-law of Frederick Steltzenreide. 

Boeltz was married to Anna Stelzenreide’s sister and there had been a dispute between Boeltz and Frederick Steltzenreide because $200 that Boeltz had borrowed and never repaid. The two had quarreled over the debt several times. Boeltz was friends with an itinerant farm worked named John Afken, who had once worked for the Steltzenreide family and who also harbored a grudge against Frederick. Afken was a large and powerful man who made his living as a “grubber,” a backbreaking occupation that involved clearing trees and rocks from farm lots. He was considered an expert with an ax, as well as other hand tools, and was feared by many because of his quick temper. He also possessed another characteristic that was of interest to the investigators – he had a full head of light red hair.

Carl Steltzenreide had died clutching a handful of hair that was exactly the same color.

 The bodies of the Steltzenreide family were prepared for burial by ladies from the Zion United Church of Christ in Millstadt. This gruesome task was carried out in the Steltzenreide barn, which still stands on the property today. The corpses were in such horrific condition that a number of the women became sick while washing them and had to be relieved. The killer had savaged the bodies so badly with his ax that the adults were nearly decapitated and the children were bloodied and pummeled beyond recognition. It was brutality like nothing these small town folks had ever seen before.

The family was laid to rest on Sunday, March 22, at Frievogel Cemetery, located just a few miles from their home on Saxtown Road. The news of the horror spread across the region in newspaper accounts and even appeared on the front page of the New York Times. The terror and curiosity that gripped the area brought more than 1,000 people to the Stelzenreide’s funeral service.
Immediately after the burial, Deputy Hughes arrested Frederick Boeltz and John Afken on suspicion of murder. Boeltz, initially resisted arrest, but then demanded to be provided with a bible while locked away in the Belleville city jail. Afken, on the other hand, was said to have displayed an uncanny lack of emotion. He accompanied the officers to jail, and remained silent while in custody. During the coroner’s inquest that followed the arrest, Boeltz refused to face the jury and when shown photographs of the victims’ bodies, he refused to look at them. The two men were brought before a grand jury in April 1874, but the jury was unable to indict them. They believed there was insufficient evidence to connect them to the murders. Both suspects were released a week later. 

Although the authorities had been unable to indict their main suspects in the case, the investigation into the two men’s activities and motives did not come to an end. Investigators believed more strongly than ever that Boeltz was somehow involved in the murders and they based this on the fact that the cash and valuables inside of the Steltzenreide house had been undisturbed. They believed there was a motive that was darker than mere robbery for the crime – and that Boeltz was definitely involved.

Just a few days before he was killed, on March 16, Frederick Steltzenreide confided to some friends and neighbors that he had just received a substantial inheritance from relatives in Germany. He was at an auction at the time he broke the news and he was seen carrying a large willow basket that was covered with an oilcloth. Rumor had it that the basket contained the inheritance, which Frederick had collected at the bank just before attending the auction. 
The Steltzenreide estate was reportedly worth several thousand dollars at the time of the murder. Investigators surmised that the wholesale slaughter of the family might have been an attempt to wipe out all of the immediate heirs to the estate. They believed that Frederick Boeltz, motivated by his dislike for Frederick Steltzenreide and his belief that he would inherit the money because of his marriage to Anna’s sister, had hired John Afken to commit the murders. It was a viable theory to explain the massacre, but the police were never able to make it stick.

Boeltz later brought suit against the Steltzenreide estate in an effort to collect whatever money he could. He was eventually awarded $400 and soon after, he and his family moved away from the area and vanished into history.
John Afken remained in the Millstadt area and legend has it that he was often seen carrying a gold pocket watch. When asked where he had gotten such an impressive timepiece, because it seemed much nicer than anything he could afford, Afken would only smile. Some whispered that the pocket watch looked exactly like one that Carl Steltzenreide once owned.

The Steltzenreide home was torn down in August 1954. According to a report that appeared in the Millstadt Enterprise newspaper at the time, the owners of the property, Leslie Jines and his family, were “glad to tuck the tale out of the way with whatever ghosts are there.”  The owners found it easy to get rid of the cursed, old house but the ghosts that lingered there were not so easily dismissed. 

A more recent owner of the property, and a house that stands at the site, was Randy Eckert. In 2004, he told a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he believed the land where the murders took place was haunted. His first experience occurred one morning when he and his wife were awakened by strange noises. They both heard the sounds of doors opening and closing in the house, although nothing was disturbed. They weren’t the only ones to hear something. The family dog, which had been sleeping at the foot of the bed, was also awakened by the mysterious sounds and was terrified and shaking. Eckert added that the sounds were repeated many times over the years, always around the anniversary of the murders.

Chris Nauman, who rented the house from Eckert in the early 1990s, reported his own chilling occurrences: “It was 6 o’clock in the morning, and there was a loud knock on the door. At the same time, my girlfriend heard someone walking up the steps in our basement.” Nauman, startled by the sounds, quickly checked the front door and the basement stairs, but found no sign of visitors or intruders. The next day, he shared his story with Randy Eckert, asking him about the anniversary of the Steltzenreide murders. Eckert confirmed it for him – the ghostly happenings had taken place on March 19, the anniversary of the murders.

Nauman still remembers the effect this had on him, “A cold shiver ran up my spine.”

To this day, the slaughter of the Steltzenreide family remains unsolved. While many suspects have been suggested over the years, there is no clear answer to the mystery. The area where the house once stood along Saxtown Road has changed very little since 1874, and it’s not hard to imagine the sheer terror of those who lived nearby after news of the murders began to spread. It’s a lonely, isolated area and, if the stories are to be believed, a haunted one. 

But what ghosts still walk in this place? Are they the tragic spirits of the Steltzenreides, still mourning the fact that their deaths have never been avenged? Or do the phantom footsteps and spectral knockings signal the presence of the killer’s wicked wraith, perhaps forced to remain here as a penance for the crime that he never answered to while among the living?
We may never really know, but for now, the haunting continues and the people of Millstadt continue to remember the day when horror visited their little town.

"Something is Up There!"

The 2000 UFO Invasion of Illinois

I don’t write much about UFOS. Frankly, flying saucers and litter green (or gray) men have no interest to me outside of old episodes of The X-Files. But something happened in Illinois in January 2000 that has never really been explained. A number of UFO sightings occurred in the southwestern part of the state – where I was living at the time – and got a lot of attention. And it wasn’t just in Illinois. The sightings gained national attention because there has likely been no other time that so many people witnessed something so unexplainable that it managed to perplex people all over America.

The incident involved a number of reliable witnesses, which consisted mostly of police officers from a number of small towns in the area, and led many to believe that something very strange was going on in the skies over Illinois. Even more convincing than mere sightings, the officers maintained radio contact through most of the event, which carefully tracked the progress of a huge UFO that passed over the area. Adding to this, Scott Air Force base was only a mile or so out of the flight path of the anomalous craft and this helped to focus media attention on the event for weeks after it actually occurred.

Something very strange visited southwestern Illinois on January 5, 2000 –--- but what it was remains a mystery to this day.

The first person to notice anything strange during the early morning hours of that day was Melvern Noll, the owner of a miniature golf course in Highland. During the winter months, Noll worked as a truck driver, making deliveries at all hours of the day and night. He was just returning from a delivery at around 4:00 a.m. and before returning home, he decided to make quick stop at his miniature golf course, just to make sure everything was in order during the off-season. He parked his truck in the back of the building and as he climbed out, he looked up and noticed what he thought was a bright star in the northeastern sky. He didn’t give it much thought at the time and went into the building.

 After a few minutes inside, he left and locked the door behind him. As he walked back to the truck, he again noticed the bright light. This time, he stopped and looked at it more closely. It was then that he realized that the “star” was actually moving in his general direction. As he watched it, he began to realize that the light was a part of a much larger object. It looked like a giant rectangle in the sky that was roughly the size of a football field. It was very tall and had a set of “windows” that ran down the side. There were two floors with windows that emitted a very bright light, Noll saw, and as the object got closer, he also spotted a number of dim red lights on the bottom of it. The entire object was black or dark gray in color and he later described the thing as a “two story house” in the sky.

Noll watched as it moved silently across the sky and as it passed to the southwest, he also spotted more windows across the back of the object. As the ship passed over him, Noll realized that it was moving much slower than a conventional aircraft and it certainly did not look like one. The entire sighting lasted almost five minutes.

As the object vanished from sight, Noll promptly climbed into his truck and drove to the Highland police station. He was sure that no one would believe him but hoped that whoever was on duty might be open-minded enough to at least contact a neighboring town’s police department and see if the strange object in the sky could be verified. The dispatcher in Highland was skeptical of Noll’s account but because he did appear to be rational, agreed to put a call into the police in Lebanon and ask them to be on the lookout for anything unusual.

Officer Ed Barton received the call in Lebanon at around 4:15 a.m. Not surprisingly, he was dubious of the report and first asked the dispatcher if he was joking. When he was assured that it was a serious call, he drove to the north end of town, past Horner Park, and onto Widicus Road. He saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary but followed the road as it turned to the north and the east toward Illinois Route 4. A short distance along this road, Officer Barton looked up and saw two, large brilliant white lights in the sky. Curious, he now began to drive a little faster. When he arrived at Route 4, he turned south and headed back towards Lebanon, watching the lights from his driver’s side window as he sped along. At some point, he stated that the two lights seemed to merge into one and he turned on his overhead emergency lights, convinced now that the lights in the sky were part of a low-flying aircraft that was experiencing mechanical problems.

The more that Barton drove, the more he started to notice details about what he was observing. He first noted that one of what he thought was a round light was actually somewhat long and cigar-shaped. He also saw that the object was not really moving but sitting stationary in the sky above the neighboring town of Summerfield. A few moments later, it began to move again, this time in his direction and Barton stopped his car. He turned off his lights and then turned off his car radio in order to hear the any sound the craft might be making. As far as he could tell, though, it was completely silent.

As the dark shape got closer, he could make out more details. It appeared to be a massive, elongated, narrow triangle and at each corner, he could see a bright, white light. The lights never wavered in their intensity and appeared to be pointing straight down. They did not light up the ground, but they were, Barton noted, still very bright. Amidst them, he also saw a smaller red light that was flashing. The ship moved closer and the officer realized that all of the sky above him had now been blotted out by the shape. Even at this close distance, which he guessed at no more than 1,000 feet from the ground, the object made no noise. He continued to watch as it turned in a southwesterly direction, never banking like a normal aircraft would but rotating in the sky, always remaining completely level.

Barton now scrambled for his radio and called in to describe what he was seeing. In between transmissions, he saw the aircraft start to pick up speed and travel away from him. As it did, he saw the back portion of it for the first time and would later describe it as rectangular and illuminated with white light. By the time he finished his last call, he told the dispatcher that he estimated the object was now above the town of Shiloh, about eight miles to the southwest.

At this time, Officer David Martin of the Shiloh Police Department joined in on the sighting and radioed back that he could indeed see something in the sky. He had been driving along the southern end of town when he saw the mysterious object, which he saw moving to the west. Martin saw the three brilliant white lights, as well as the flashing red one, before he actually saw the dark mass of the ship’s body. He thought the object resembled a wide triangle or an arrowhead and as he chased after it, he stuck his head out the window to see if he could hear any sounds coming from it. Like the other witnesses, he heard absolutely no sound. Finally, the craft picked up speed and moved out of the area.

By this time, the weird radio transmissions were attracting the attention of other officers on early morning duty in surrounding small towns. While a number of officers would eventually be involved in the sighting, one has to wonder how great the numbers may have been if the craft had appeared in the sky over a large Illinois city rather than a series of sleepy little towns with only a  few policemen on duty.

One officer who became curious about the affair was Craig Stevens, a cop in nearby Millstadt. After hearing the other calls, he drove to the east end of town in an attempt to see this thing in the sky. He drove around for a time, seeing nothing, and then ended up at Liederkranz Park on the north end of town. He was looking out the windshield of his squad car when he spotted a large, triangular shaped object in the sky. He described it as moving very slow and he said that it made no noise except for a "low decibel buzzing sound" that he could barely hear. As he watched, it moved to the north and he saw the white lights and the single red light on the bottom. Stevens called his dispatcher to report that he had seen the object  and then grabbed his Polaroid camera  and jumped out of the car. He aimed the camera at the object and took a photo. Unfortunately, the cold morning air and the dark of the early morning hours produced only a murky and barely discernible image.

Not long after the events that occurred that night became public, the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office released copies of the dispatch tapes from January 5. The transmissions between the officers and dispatchers from the various towns make an eerie addition to the story:

Dispatcher: Lebanon, this a call from Highland P.D. in reference to a truck driver who just stopped in. He said there was a flying object in the area of Lebanon. It was like a two-story house. It had white lights and red blinking lights, and it was last seen southwest over Lebanon. Could you check the area?

Lebanon officer: Did they say the truck driver was DUI or anything? 10-4, I'm out. . . . Just a quick question. If I happened to find it, what am I supposed to do with it? If I see it, I'm not saying a word. . . .Also be advised the last thing that went over Lebanon -- this was approximately five minutes ago -- was a military cargo plane. It looked like a C-5.. . . Be advised there is a very bright white light east of town. It looks like it's just east of Summerfield, and it keeps changing colors. I'll go over there and see if it looks like an aircraft. It doesn't look like an aircraft, though. . . . It's not the moon, and it's not a star. If you would, will you contact Scott Air Force Base and see if they have anything flying in this area please? Whether it's a plane or not, it's heading westbound now. It should be really close to Scott now. . . . As a matter of fact, if the Shiloh officer looks up, they can probably see it by now.

Shiloh officer: I see something, but I don't know what the heck it is. . . . It's probably heading to Lambert (St. Louis Airport).

Millstadt officer: I've got that object in sight also.

Dispatcher: Are you serious?

Millstadt officer: It's huge.

Dispatcher: . . . Does it look like a -- What does it look like to you?

Millstadt officer: It's kind of V-shaped. It looks like it's possibly headed toward Lambert.

Dispatcher: 10-4. That's what Shiloh said when it was heading towards Fairview Heights.

(One of the officers hums theme song to "Twilight Zone" over his radio.)

Millstadt officer: Really. Millstadt officer: Does Dupo have a Polaroid?

Dispatcher: That, I don't know.

Dupo officer: 6004, this is 3923 on County (radio channel) 2.

Millstadt officer: 6004, go ahead.

Dupo officer: I'm not sure what you're seeing. It appears to be pretty high in the area. When I could first see it with binoculars, you could see it was different colors. Now it appears to be white.

Millstadt officer: Is it very large?

Dupo officer: It's hard to tell. It's pretty far off in the distance.

Millstadt officer: This object was above me about 500 feet. And it was huge.

Dupo officer: This thing appears . . . it's probably 20 or 30,000. It's about where planes usually are. It's not low at all.

The Dupo officer mentioned in the transmission reports was the last police official to report seeing the object that morning. After hearing Officer Steven’s radio traffic, he decided to have a look for himself as to whether or not a huge craft was passing over the area. About five minutes after Stevens’ sighting, the Dupo officer also saw the array of lights over his town. However, he stated that the lights were at a fairly high altitude and were heading to the north and northeast. In fact, they were now so high that he likely would not have noticed them if not for the radio calls that he had been listening to. He watched it through binoculars but because of the distance, he really couldn’t make out anything other than the red and white lights. He could see nothing of its shape or size.

After that, the object disappeared from the sky but landed firmly into the mysterious history of Illinois.

What was this bizarre ship? Was it really a UFO that would have passed over Illinois without incident if not for the watchful eyes of a miniature golf course owner and a few small town police officers? If it was, one has to wonder how it could have passed within one mile of Scott Air Force Base without causing some grave concerns on the part of the military. They would later state that they knew nothing of the large ship, leading many to believe that perhaps their denials only hid the fact that this was some sort of test plane and not a mysterious vessel at all. But those who might suggest that the craft came from Scott Air base can forget about that. My brother was in the Air Force for many years and spent a few of them stationed at Scott. He told me flat out that not only are there no test planes kept at Scott but there would be no place to land anything like what was described that would be away from the public eye.

UFO? Secret test plane? Or something else altogether? No one knows but one thing is certain, those officers certainly saw something in the Illinois sky that night. For now though, what it may have been remains unexplained.

For more about UFO sightings and other general weirdness in Illinois, see Troy’s book WEIRD ILLINOIS, which is now available in autographed, paperback editions!