00:00As Kate entertained the guest with conversation, or held a mock seance to keep their attention completely fixed,
00:06a male member of the family, usually Pa or John, would step up softly behind the curtain.
00:13Armed with a heavy iron sledgehammer, they would strike the traveler over the head through the canvas.
00:19Once the victim was incapacitated, they were dragged into the back, their throat slit,
00:24their money and belongings stripped, and their body dropped through a trap door into a blood-soaked cellar beneath the
00:30cabin floor.
00:33Under the cover of prairie darkness, the bodies were buried in an orchard out back.
00:40Between 1871 and 1873, dozens of travelers vanished along the Osage Trail.
