Henry Lee Moore (1874 – 1956) was an American forger, murderer and suspected serial killer who was convicted of killing his mother and grandmother with an axe in their home.

[1] Born and raised in Boone County, Moore lived on the outskirts of Columbia with his mother and grandmother, but worked as a blacksmith's helper at various car shops in Moberly, along the Wabash Railroad.

He also denied all the claims made by the newspapers about his nighttime morgue visits, proudly stating that nobody in his family had even been convicted of a crime and that this was his first time in prison.

[3] Upon further investigation, Prosecuting Attorney E. C. Anderson quickly debunked Moore's explanations, stating that there were witnesses and enough circumstantial evidence to connect him to the killings.

He also noted that the accused's claim of being a student at the Kansas State Agricultural College was simply untrue, and concerning his prison sentence, Anderson said that Moore was most likely a drug addict.

[10] Livingston suggested that the prisoner could have something to do with the string of axe murders, which, coupled with the coincidental timing that Moore had just been released at the start of the spree, led McClaughry to propose this theory.

[1][10] According to it, Moore was possibly responsible for these murders:[1] McClaughry's theory was overblown by the contemporary media, who claimed that he was stating it as fact and not speculation.

[10] An inquest was even started by Police Chief Burno, of Colorado Springs, into the Burnham-Wayne murders, as a man resembling Moore was seen in the city following the grisly killings, but had quickly left and was never seen again.

[11] However, this was later discredited by M. F. Amrine, Superintendent of the Kansas State Reformatory, who reported that Moore was corresponding with him at the time of the murders, and that Henry was at home in Columbia.