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Kate Galbreath
Daily Egyptian

Nearly 77 years after the unsolved double murder of a former Carbondale mayor and his philanthropist wife etched it in infamy, the Hundley House is again for sale.

The bullet hole in the stairs tells only part of the story.

Years of paint and an emerald-colored carpet cover the hole under the ledge of one step on a back, private staircase where Luella Hundley was shot dead. Only yellowing newspaper clippings, aging photographs and secondhand accounts are left to tell the story of the rainy night in December of 1928 and the unsolved double murder.

The room where J.C. Hundley, the former Carbondale mayor, was shot in his bed is starkly white and sun-filled. The only suspect in the killings died years ago.

Most significantly, the Hundley House, at the corner of Maple and Main streets, is again for sale after five years as a privately owned gift shop and apartment complex - and the only house in the West Walnut Historical Society open to the public.

Whether the spirits of the slain mayor and his wife are at rest is debatable. Rumors suggest two ghosts wander the hallways, but the only answers lie in the experiences of the people who have passed in and out of the doors of the Hundley House.

The History

John Charles Hundley was the mayor of Carbondale in 1907 and 1908. He and his wife, Luella, bought the lot in 1915 and moved the house that was originally there to make way for new construction.

The former house was split into two parts on different lots; one half burned down, one is still on Maple Street.

In the year of the murders, 1928, prohibition was in full swing in the United States and the times were violent. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic, the Yankees and the Cardinals were in the World Series, and Mickey Mouse debuted in moving cartoons.

On Dec. 12, near midnight, J.C. was in his bed, preparing to go to sleep and Luella was on the back stairway that connects the master bedroom with the kitchen when someone shot them both with .45 caliber bullets. The night was rainy and tumultuous for police, who arrived five hours later because of washed-out roads. Bloodhounds couldn't find a trail to follow.

Some speculate that J.C.'s son from a previous marriage killed his father and Luella for the inheritance money, which he received. He was never charged with the murders.

The house sat vacant until 1930, when Edwin William Vogler, Sr., bought it and everything inside from the Hundley estate.

In 1972, after Barb Vogler's siblings were grown and she was 16, her parents decided the house was too big for just two people and sold it to the Simonds family, who converted it from a single-family residence into a gift shop and apartments.

In 2000, Millie Simonds McElheny sold the house to Victoria Sprehe because the operation of the gift shop was taking too much time away from her young son. Sprehe is also selling it because of the demands of retail.

The House

On the outside, the sprawling brick house has parking for 10, a covered porch with a swing and several entrances, including one with French doors. A pink cement sign surrounded by flowers bears the Hundley House insignia, drawing passersby from the always-busy Main Street.

Every day, people stop to ask the price - $350,000 - or take tours without the intent to buy. It's the "nosy factor," as Pankey calls it. People want to see the house, both as a historic landmark and a haunted stomping ground.

"We have people from out of state who want to walk through and 'feel the aura,'" Sprehe said.

Sprehe and Pankey agree the basement is perfect for a wine cellar, and the first floor would be ideal for a tearoom.

Remnants of Sprehe's now-closed gift shop are still scattered throughout. In the front room, Waterford Crystal vases and other delicate trinkets still stand on a fireplace mantel with mirror-paneled shelves on either side. Christmas trees in bags still stand in the dining room, next to framed articles about the murder.

"I think I'll leave those," Sprehe said about the clippings.

In the same room, one wall holds a mysterious safe that has not been opened since the Hundleys' time. Sprehe said opening it would break it.

Vogler remembers a sun porch, now modified into an apartment's living room, with walls of louvers that allowed a soft breeze in the days before air conditioning. She said the Vogler children used to sleep in the room on hot nights.

Though Vogler had numerous different bedrooms during the time she lived there, in junior high she lived in the room diagonally across the hall from the master bedroom - the room in which J.C. was murdered.

The Haunting

The question: Are the house's spirits an urban legend or supernatural phenomena? McElheny said in her almost 30 years with the house, she never suspected any spooky ghosts or goblins of popular folklore.

"I never had any reason to think it was haunted," she said.

Vogler recounted one night when she was in fifth or sixth grade and came home from spending the night at a friend's house. Her parents told her they heard a loud knocking coming from her room throughout the night, but there were no pipes that could have been settling or other explanation.

"I said 'Thanks for telling me. I'm going to sleep real well tonight,'" she said, joking. As a young girl, Vogler was also often confused by the faint sound of the player piano randomly starting and stopping in the night. Years later, her mother said she often played the piano during the night when she couldn't sleep.

"A lot of these stories, we were hearing each other in the middle of the night," she said. However, Vogler said occasionally the family could hear footsteps up and down the hardwood front stairs and across the floor, and once a book fell from a bookshelf.

Bredina Haden, an apartment tenant, lives in Vogler's old bedroom across from the master bedroom.

"I like to get people to come over," she said. "One of my friends just stood at the door and waited for me to get ready, but she's a big chicken."

Haden said she doesn't know if she believes in any sort of spirits or not.

"There could be, but just as soon as I admit it, I'll start freaking myself out," she said. An upstairs tenant, Karen Bontrager, said she was told a witch came to the house and said some kind spirits were afoot.

However, for Halloween one year, Sprehe and a radio station had a contest in which the four winning couples could stay the night in the house. Only one couple stayed through the night - the other three left in fear.

Every year during the Halloween season, the rumors of a haunting crop up again. Are there some mysterious spirits at work in the house, waiting for justice for their murders?

Only J.C. and Luella know, and they aren't telling.