A terrible history haunts the peaceful, country setting of Lazy P Adventure Farm in Grass Valley outside of Winnemucca. The Petersen family would like locals to believe the legend of Elias Slaughter is really just that: a legend. It's just a story that they dreamed up to sell tickets to their yearly haunted house. A trip to the Humboldt County Museum and a perusal of the archives show the story of Old Eli is no fairy story. It's the stuff nightmares are made from.
Oct. 31, 1864 was the day Nevada entered the Union. It is also the day Elias Slaughter entered the world. Though few know it, Slaughter became one of the worst serial killers Nevada has ever known.
Slaughter was the only child of Elizabeth and Ceneth Slaughter. The Slaughters were severe as parents and young Eli was often punished, said one newspaper account of the boy's upbringing.
After his parents died in the late 1890s, the young Slaughter boy married Norah Howard, the daughter of a neighboring farmer. The marriage was not a happy one and the couple was childless. When Norah's father died and left his farm to the couple, things did not improve. The rapid expansion required the hiring of transients to work the fields although a long period of drought left the cornfields barren.
One day, Norah and one the hands vanished, and the rumors in Winnemucca - yes, even then - were that the two were lovers. The townspeople said the two had run away together, and that Norah was pregnant.
After the departure of his wife, Slaughter's fortunes began to turn for the better. His harvests were bountiful and his livestock fat. It was said his corn grew taller and sweeter than of any other farmer in the county, although it had a peculiar red color.
Even though most of his farmhands were transients, so many of them disappeared that questions were raised. When the children of local farmers went missing, the authorities finally investigated Eli Slaughter and his farm.
Sheriff's deputies found human remains in the feed troughs and throughout the barn. The scarecrows in the cornfield were discovered to be the corpses of the field hands and the one female figure was that of Norah Slaughter.
The newspaper account of the investigation said Eli Slaughter was last seen at the edge of his cornfield, covered in the blood of his victims. He held a grass knife and laughed maniacally as he slipped from sight, and the clutches of the law. From that grim October night to today, no one has seen nor heard from Old Eli.
The Lazy P Adventure Farm celebrates the Fall Farm Festival every autumn, and the Petersen family still sells the red corn that returns every October harvest. It is popular with passing tourists, but not with locals.
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Although there have been cases of prolific serial killers - some with origins in Nevada - the preceding tale of Eli Slaughter is entirely fictional, as are the reporter's "newspaper findings."[[In-content Ad]]
