This article is out of sequence with the series.   Chronologically, this event occurred after the murders of the Meadows family in Hurley, Virginia, but before the murders of the Zoos family in Byers, Pennsylvania, and before the murders of the Bernhardt family in Johnson County, Kansas.    I was unaware of this event until I stumbled across it while making another effort to find out more about the murders of the Zoos (Zaus, Saus, Czaus) family.

                Laurel, Iowa, is, we should note, not especially near the railroad; the railroad runs not through Laurel but through Gilman, about five miles to the east of Laurel, or through Marshalltown, which is to the north, or Newton, which is to the south, or Melbourne, which is to the west.   There may have been an old railroad spur that ran through the town at some point in the past; I do not know.   Laurel, Gilman, Melbourne and Newton are northeast of Des Moines, near Grinnell, Iowa, where there is a very good private college, and Marshalltown, which was founded by Cap Anson’s father, Henry Anson.

                James Hardy, aged 64, had a farm between Laurel and Van Cleve, Iowa, which was a yet-smaller town halfway between Melbourne and Laurel.   On Sunday morning, June 5, 1910, James Hardy and his son went to the barn and discovered that one of their horses, a bay horse named Old Kit, had been saddled and bridled, ready for a trip, although no one in the family had done this.   They were alarmed by the incident, which strongly suggested that someone had intended to steal the horse, and they decided to sit up that night and keep a watch on the barn.

Hardy’s 19-year-old son, Raymond Hardy, was planning to be married on the following Wednesday (June 8) to a lady named Mabel Starne, who lived three and a half miles away.   After supper on the evening of June 5, Raymond went to visit his fiancé at her home.  He told her about the bridling of the horse.   He was there until sometime after midnight, at which point he returned home, presumably on horseback.

Hardy reached his home about 1 AM.   The house being dark he struck a match to light a lamp.    In the match-lit darkness, before the lamp was lit, he saw a large pool of blood, and discovered the body of his mother, Lavina Hardy, lying half-way on and half-way off a couch.     She was 57, or not; differing ages are reported for all the members of the family.   Moments later he discovered the battered body of his brother Earl, aged 29.   He ran to the phone and cranked the handle vigorously, a distress signal to the neighbors who shared the party telephone line.  A neighbor, C. W. Preston, was the first to respond, sometime before 1:30 AM.  By the time Preston arrived at the Hardy farm Raymond had called the county sheriff, A. A. Nicholson, who lived in Marshalltown.    Sheriff Nicholson arrived at the farm about 4 AM, but before he did neighbors had found the body of James Hardy in the barn, where he also had been beaten to death.   A leaded gas pipe, taken from the barn, was discarded near the body of James Hardy, perhaps indicating that he had been the last to die.   According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette (June 6, 1910), the neighbors "found the bodies cold, as though they had been dead for some time.   All three had been killed with a piece of gas pipe and the brains beaten out."    The gas pipe, about 30 inches long, had been sharpened on one end; it was used in the winter for prying frozen manure off the ground.  The Waterloo paper says, yet more graphically, that their skulls had been beaten to a pulp; another newspaper ups the ante to "mashed" to a pulp.   All of the victims had been struck from behind on the right side of their heads, near the top of the head.    On the wallpaper above the couch where Mrs. Hardy died was a hand print in blood, the hand pointing toward the ground as if the killer had braced himself against the wall while beating Mrs. Hardy to death. 

                Raymond Hardy was arrested and held "on suspicion that he knows more than he has told" about the tragedy.    The sheriff’s first theory was that Hardy’s family had objected to his marriage, but this was shown to be untrue; the two families had known one another for years, and had co-operated in planning the wedding.   

                There had been "tramps" seen in the neighborhood, and an alternative theory was that the murders were committed in order to facilitate a robbery.    An Associated Press story dated the same day (June 6) states frankly that "a motive for the crime is lacking."

                The funerals of the Hardy family were in Marshalltown on June 8, the day that was supposed to be Raymond’s wedding day.   They were buried in Colfax, Iowa—yet another of the ring of small towns that surrounds the murder site.

It’s a map I created on a spreadsheet; don’t hold me to the details.   It is about sixteen miles from the Hardy farm to Marshalltown. 

Raymond Hardy was still in custody, and a newspaper reported that "he will be placed on trial tomorrow."   The "trial" was actually a proceeding of a coroner’s jury, presided over by Mayor Bollenbacher of Melbourne, who was acting as the county coroner.  Hardy was kept in custody after a search by the sheriff found bloody overalls and a bloody hat hidden on the property.   Hardy claimed that the blood was chicken blood, but acknowledged that he had hidden the items.   He did so, he said, out of fear that he would be accused of the crime.   (A different newspaper says that the Sheriff believes Hardy "made an effort to hide the overalls in the house, but was discovered and gave them up.")

                The Atlantic Evening News (Atlantic, Iowa) wrote that "the father’s body in the cow barn indicates that the murder took place early in the evening, probably about chore time", paralleling my own supposition about the murders of the Bernhardt family.   The sheriff also pointed out that the father, murdered in the barn, had not been carrying a lantern, which indicated that the murders had been committed in daylight, which had ended about 8:45 PM.   This, again according to the sheriff, pointed to the son as the assailant, although an equally plausible theory is that the murderer stole the lantern to help him make his getaway.    I do believe, however, that the murders may have been committed in daylight.   The murderer had probably been watching the family from a hiding place in an out building all day, trying to puzzle out—as in the Bernhard murders—how he would be able to overpower three adult men.   When the only one of those men who was strong and healthy left the farm about a half hour before sunset, he probably sprang into action almost immediately.

                Milk cans carried in from the barn were scattered near Earl Hardy’s body, as if he were attacked on returning from the barn.   The most likely scenario is that the murderer entered the house after Earl Hardy headed to the barn, and murdered Lavina Hardy in the otherwise-empty house, then waited for Earl Hardy to return.    After they were dead he went to the barn, and attacked the senior Hardy, who was a small man with severe arthritis in his left arm.   The article in the Atlantic Evening News, June 7, is worth quoting at more length:

Friends of the boy and family declare it is impossible that he could have committed the crime. The bureau drawers of the house were all opened and the contents strewn on the floor. Otherwise nothing about the house was disturbed. The bodies of the young man who was killed and the father had watches on them and money in the pockets.  This was undisturbed, so that robbery apparently was not the motive.  All the bodies were fully dressed and the father's body in the cow barn indicates that the murder took place early in the evening, probably about chore time.

                All of the members of the family had been in poor health, other than Raymond, who was described by all who knew him as likeable and good-natured.   The murders were the front-page story in the Des Moines News (June 7), which described the case as "the most profound mystery in the criminal annals of the state of Iowa", and reported that hundreds of people had come to Van Cleve to view the bodies of the slain family.  Here is a longer quote from the Des Moines News account:

The family was respected for the love and consideration shown each other.   Earl, the murdered son, was weak and not able to do heavy work, and the younger boy, always strong and rugged, did double duty on the farm to save his brother.  The family were renters and had but little means, but they had portioned the hardships, share and share alike. No trouble had been heard of in the family circle at any time. None had an enemy in the community.

                The theme of the impoverished family carries through the newspaper coverage of the case despite constant bubbling bits of information to suggest they were not all that poor.   Raymond Hardy was arrested with $35 to $40 in his pocket, which was six weeks wages at that time, and John Hardy apparently had more money than that in his pockets.   The house in which they were murdered was decent and substantial, rather comfortable, and they at times had hired help.    The family owned at least two horses, maybe more, and various other livestock, and we see constant references, in accounts of the crime, to things like pistols, telephones and carpets which were not things that everybody owned. 

                Anyway, the sheriff continued to insist he had a case against the boy, mentioning inconsistent statements and that the boy had changed his story under questioning.  

                Such as?

                How he got blood on his hat.   He was wearing a grey felt hat when he visited his girlfriend.   The next morning the hat had blood on it.   He first said that it must have gotten blood on it when he hung the hat up on the south wall of his house, but there was no peg on the south wall, so he said he had hung it on the east wall, near where his mother’s body had been found.   He said that it must have fallen off and gotten blood on it, but the sheriff said that the peg was a good two feet from the sofa where the blood was.   Hardy finally said he didn’t know how the blood got there.   The county attorney thought that the inconsistent stories about the hat were critical evidence.    

                The sheriff now asserted that Hardy’s motive for the murders was to inherit the family’s property—their livestock, machinery, and household goods—and to have a place to live with his new bride.   

                The sheriff asserted that Hardy changed small details in his story about finding the bodies—but we will note that the sheriff himself has now changed the very essence of his story three times, alleging first that the murders were committed because the family opposed the marriage, then that Hardy had quarreled with his father over chores, then that he had committed the murders in an effort to inherit the family’s modest possessions.   And, oh yeah, what bride doesn’t want to move into a rental house that has recently been the scene of three grisly murders?

                It is immaterial how the blood got onto his hat, since a) the blood was not on the hat at the time he had visited his girlfriend, and b) the bodies were cold by the time they were discovered.     If Raymond Hardy committed the murders, he had to have committed them before he visited his girlfriend, not after.    That would mean that, if the blood got onto the hat as he was committing the murders, it would have been there when he visited his girlfriends’ family.   Since the blood had to get onto the hat after the visit, it cannot be evidence about the crime.

                A note was found in a drawer in Raymond’s room, giving $1,000 from James Hardy to each of his two sons, Earl and Raymond.   It was just a gag, said Raymond; the note was a forgery, but it was just a joke.   It had nothing to do with the murders.   The story about the bridled horse could not be true, said the sheriff, because he had found the bridle and saddle in the barn, covered with dust as if they had not been moved for some time.  Raymond Hardy was arrested with money in his pockets; he could not adequately explain, said the sheriff, where the money had come from.  Another spoke in the wheel of evidence surrounding him was a gun.   Earl Hardy’s pistol had been hanging on a peg near where he was murdered.    After the crime it was missing from its holster, but the gun was later found in a locked suitcase in Raymond Hardy’s room.   It wasn’t the same gun, said Raymond.   He and his brother had purchased identical pistols.   This was his.    

                The newspapers were now certain that Raymond Hardy had murdered his family.  The Watertown Courier reported on June 8 that "Developments since Monday.. ..have strengthened, rather than weakened, the belief of Sheriff A. A. Nicholson and his officers and County Attorney J. H. Egermayer that Raymond Hardy, the youngest and only living member of the family, committed the crimes."

Yesterday, the day before what was to have been his wedding day at Newton, Raymond submitted to a three hours' examination and grilling in his cell by County Attorney Egermayer.  Under the examination which at times, Egermayer said, was as racking as could well be imagined, Raymond stood calm, and unflinching.  Without, speaking figuratively, "batting an eye," and in a calm and even tone of voice he answered every question put to him. Cool and collected, without ever once losing his temper he told and retold details of the tragedy, of the Sunday it happened and of his past life and conduct. Back and forth, crossing and re-crossing and jumping here and there, first touching one detail then another, the prosecutor led him. But the lad faltered but little, although the county attorney said that in details he tripped in his story.

This, again, from the Watertown Courier.    On the morning of June 9, the day after the funerals, Hardy was found unconscious on the floor of his cell, bleeding heavily from the nose.   It appeared that he may have broken his nose in a suicide attempt, banging his head against the walls.   Hardy refused to explain what had happened to him, and the sheriff insisted there had been no suicide attempt.   A paragraph quoting neighbors in support of the beleaguered boy—and containing no other information--was headlined ominously "Raymond is an enigma."

                500 people crowded into Melbourne to learn what they could from the inquest; teams of horses were tied up along the street in every conceivable place.   Mabel Starnes was the first witness.   She was several years older than the accused, about 24, and in point of fact she was pregnant, although the newspapers never alluded to this, and always referred to her, throughout the ordeal, in very respectful terms.  She had worked on the Hardy farm, for Mrs. Hardy, in the past.   She said that the last time she had seen Mrs. Hardy, a few days before the murder, she had helped Mrs. Hardy feed the chickens, and Mrs. Hardy had told her that once they were married half of the chickens would be theirs.   Mrs. Hardy had never expressed any opposition to the marriage, and did not advise them not to get married.  She said that Raymond Hardy seemed in every respect normal throughout the evening.   Raymond Hardy was asked whether he sounded the alarm over the telephone before or after finding his brother’s body.   He said that he couldn’t remember; the entire sequence of events was like a dream to him, and he had no firm hold on it.  On June 10, 1910, the coroner’s jury failed to find sufficient evidence to hold Ray Hardy, and ordered his release.   

On June 11, Governor Carroll of Iowa offered a $300 reward for the apprehension and conviction of the murderer(s).   A Professor Macy of Highland Park College in Des Moines (now part of Drake University) examined the blood-stained clothes to attempt to determine whether the blood was human blood or chicken blood, but he made no public statement as to his findings.   The wallpaper with the hand print in blood was peeled off the wall; this also was to be submitted to experts in an effort to prove that it matched Raymond Hardy’s hand.   Experts concluded that there was insufficient ridge detail for the prints to be usable.

Within days after the murders, neighbors had moved in and scrubbed the crime scene clean, washing the blood off of and out of anything that could be cleaned.    Two days after his release Raymond Hardy returned to the scene of the murders and, assisted by his neighbors, boxed up all of his belongings and cleared out, going to stay with relatives in Des Moines.    Sheriff Nicholson was there as this was being done, and newspaper reporters.  

Another small town in Marshall County is Luray, Iowa; Luray is to the southwest of Marshalltown, which makes it to the northeast of Melbourne, and less than five miles straight north of Van Cleve; I’m sure you have all got that straight.  Anyway, a man named Frank Wickersham, who lived in Luray, came forward belatedly with the information that, on the morning of June 6, he was riding the train north toward Marshalltown, when two men got on the train in Melbourne.   No one knew them, and they spoke to no one.  One of them had a good deal of blood on his coat, and several of the other passengers remarked on it.   However, since none of the passengers knew that the murders had occurred the previous evening, no effort was made to identify the man, who rode the train on north when Wickersham debarked in Luray.  

By the end of June the reward fund for the apprehension of the murderers had been increased by donations to $885.    By mid-July Raymond Hardy had moved in with the Starnes family, and was helping the Starnes family to tend to the crops on his old farm.    Being only 19 years of age he needed the consent of a guardian to marry Miss Starnes.   A neighbor was named his legal guardian, and they were married in Newton on or about August 12, 1910.

On September 12 the possessions of the Hardy family were sold at a public auction.   Prices were inflated, as people turned out to bid on relics from the infamous crime.  Neighbors pressed for a grand jury to investigate the murders, but officials decided that would be a waste of money, since there was no new evidence to present.   

A baby boy, Otis Herbert, was born to Mabel in early October, five months after the murders.   The couple moved to Minnesota, where they had two more children and raised a family. Mabel Starnes Hardy died in 1951, and Raymond Hardy passed away on May 24, 1969. 

The house where the murders occurred still stands, and is occupied today.   The Web Site "Iowa Cold Cases" has a photo of the house, dated 2012.  

Addendum

                Some information from the web site iowacoldcases.org was useful in wrapping up the last two or three paragraphs of this article, and I appreciate their help.   The site identifies the mother as "Mary" Hardy, which is apparently the name on her gravestone, at least according to iowagravestones.org.  Her first name is hardly ever given in accounts of the case, in which she is generally referred to only as Mrs. Hardy.   I saw her name given as Lavina, Levina, Nevina, and in other variations; however, in reviewing all accounts of the case that I could find, I never saw her referred to as "Mary".  

The Cold Case web site states, incorrectly, that Raymond Hardy found the saddled horse that night, when he returned from visiting his girlfriend.   The Web site ticks off all of the newspaper allegations against Hardy—failing to note that most of these were clearly demonstrated to be baseless—and basically suggests that Raymond Hardy was guilty of the murders:

The community wanted and needed another explanation for the murders.

The web site then states, incorrectly, that Hardy was released in large part because of the story of the bloody stranger on the train.   In fact, the story of the bloody stranger on the train never surfaced until several days after Hardy was released.    The first printed report of this account specifically notes that this might have been something the coroner’s jury would have wanted to know about.   Hardy was released because there was no real evidence against him, and there is virtually no reason to believe that he committed the crime. 

Some newspapers said that the funeral services for the Hardy family were held in Marshalltown; others, that they were held in Van Cleve.  I do not actually know which is correct. 

In many of the cases which are a part of this series, the first line of attack for investigators was to bring in bloodhounds.    In most of these cases, this could be described as a futile gesture.   Not only did it never lead to the identification of the murderer, but in many of these cases it is extremely difficult to understand how authorities could have imagined that it would.

This is the one case in the series, however, in which bloodhounds might have been useful, had they been employed.   This is true for two reasons.   First, the murders were discovered within a few hours, unlike most of the others in the series, so the murderer had less time to get distance between him.    And second, the railroad was a little bit further away this time, so the murderer had further to go before he reached the safety of the rails.