The History:
John Charles Hundley, retired shop clerk and one term mayor for the city of Carbondale, shot and killed a local music teacher, after accusing him of having an affair with his wife, Luella Harrison Hundley.
Victor Alden Hundley, Charles' son with first wife Myrta Alden Pervcival, shot and killed his stepfather for allegedly beating his mother.
Victor's half brother, Henry Neill Percival, was shot and killed during a race riot in Ohio.
And of course, John Charles and wife Luella were both shot and killed December 12, 1908, in their Carbondale home by an unknown assailant.
For our first investigation of the year, SIGG joined with Team Free Will to spend the evening in the Hundley House.
J.C. Hundley was murdered while sitting upon his bed, getting ready to retire for the night. It was twelve days before Christmas. Rumor has it the still-unknown assailant was hiding behind the eight foot tall headboard of the mayors' bed, but this has never been confirmed. It is simply a theory to explain how Mr Hundley was shot, pointblank in the back of the skull (twice, I might add) without seeing his attacker. The only other thing I personally could think of why he did not make move to turn or run, would be the obvious, that he knew and trusted his assailant. Clearly he did not think that the person was a threat.
Ella Harrison was shot in the kitchen, at the base of the back staircase, three times. She would have either been running away from someone, or running up the stairs after hearing the shot from J.C.'s room. Oddly enough, Mr Hundley died on the way to hospital, despite being shot point blank, whereas Ella was pronounced dead on scene, being shot once in the heart and twice in the head. There is still a bullet hole in the staircase towards which she was running, so she, also, was clearly shot from behind. This could have easily been done by the same person, though. The main staircase is directly across from J.C.'s room, and one could easily and quickly run down the front stairs in time to catch her running up the back.
The main suspect, both then and now, is Victor Hundley. Conveniently, he lived right next door. The killer managed to turn off every light in the house before fleeing...how would he have known where the switches were located? We were in the house and I can tell you, they are not easy to find, centrally located switches. It took us several minutes to find the switch for the kitchen area. Rumor has it Ella and Victor had had an inappropriate relationship....I can't say that I buy in to this theory, as she was born in 1869 and he not until 1888. While J.C. was nineteen years her senior, I don't think Ella would have been with a man nineteen years her junior. While in 1014 it was be a fairly accepted occurrence, I can assure you in 1928 it was not. Victor left town shortly after the murders, but returned within the year. He was reclusive upon the return, and never lived in the Hundley house. It was sold to Edward Vogler, SR less than a year after the murders. Bloody clothing was found in Victor's home, but a lab in St Louis determined it not to be human. Victor did stand to gain a considerable amount of wealth from his parent's deaths, Mrs. Hundley's family was extremely wealthy, being the founders of the city of Herrin. Add to that the $300,000 she would have inherited from Mr Hundley upon his death, and you have quite a large sum of money, even by today's standards. Victor was none to happy with his father, either. J.C. had dissolved a mining contract between himself and Victor in the weeks leading up to the murders, which the Carbondale Free press dubbed "the most shocking crime in a generation."
A drifter by the name of John Call was brought in for questioning. He had escaped from an Alabama chain gang and stolen a .45 pistol, the same caliber used in the murders. His gun turned out to be clean, though, and the gun used in the Hundley's murder was never found.
Carbondale residents didn't have much sympathy for their one time mayor. At the time of their slayings, the home (which is now in the middle of town) was located on the outskirts of the city proper. Francis Deacon designed the home, who was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Deacon and Hundley didn't hire local contractors to supply labor or materials, much to the chagrin of said locals. Labor was brought in from Chicago and St Louis, while mahogany used int he home was imported from Brazil. Mr Hundley was not very well liked, which is more than likely why he served only one mayoral term.
Most of the evidence from the cold case is gone, along with the hope of ever really solving the murders. Had technology been then what it is today, this probably would have been solved quickly. Since that day will never come, the Hundley House will continue to draw history buffs, paranormal investigators, and the curious alike.
The Legend:
Paranormal activity is often recorded as happening within the home. People have reported hearing screams to 'get out', residual gunshots, and footsteps. Dan Jones, current owner of the home, says he as a good relationship with whoever still resides here. "I don't bother than and they don't bother me," he has been reported as saying. He's heard piano music (there is no piano on the residence) and seen a rocking chair in the living room rock on it's own, even when placed against the threshold of the fireplace to make it immobile.
Many different teams have gone in to investigate, although while doing research I've found a notable lack of information on findings. Yet somehow, this building is listed as one of the 25 most haunted places in America. So why can't I find anything on findings?
The Pre-Investigation:
Unfortunately, by teaming up with Team Free Will, we were not privy to our location until about a week before. We had no idea where we would be going, and without express consent of Mr Jones, would have had no way to view the home before hand. Therefore, a daylight walk-through wasn't able to be conducted before the night of. We did, however, get several hours to roam freely and explore the areas of the home we were permitted to enter.
While out of doors, I had a strong pull to the home, most notably to the second floor. As of yet I had done little more than see what and where the Hundley house was, so at the time I had no idea Mr. Hundley's room was on the second floor of the home. (Once we got inside though, I felt nothing other than the satisfaction of being on that particular floor, and felt nothing out of the ordinary in the room itself.)
The Investigation:
10:30 Me, Tina, and one of the (many) other 'investigators' (Team Free Will is open to the public, so we had at least 25 people total. This was reduced from twice as many when the owner rightfully had a problem with so many being within the house at one time and was split into two different sessions) where in the dining room, each in different area but all within the confines of the room. No one was anywhere near the hall closet, when we all heard a big boom. I was under the impression someone had tripped. What actually happened was the vacuum had fallen against the door and thrust it open. Tina picked it up, and mentioned the cord was wrapped around the door handle. We found out sometime later that someone had opened the door to peek in when we first came into the home (around 9:30) and the cord was not wrapped around the handle at the time.
11:55 Lights out. In my notebook I had written "calm, collected, don't feel a damn thing."
12:27 Battery pack drain on camera, went from 1/2 to flashing red with no warning. (I have no backup pack.) Turned off, then on a few minutes later. Back to 1/2 power? Keep having the feeling to watch the stairs. Another 'investigator' had a cell phone that froze at the same time. Digital recorder set on chair in living room turned off, also.
12:44 Camera pack drains again. Bright orb on stair. Camcorder turns off again, Tina's iPhone freezes.
12:50 Tina's emf detector spikes to 11. Flash stops working on my camera.
1:00 I move from living room to sit at base of stairs. Move to landing at 1:20.
1:30 I go to foyer to talk to Tina. Camera dies for good. Hear small, quick creak, clearly from the middle set of upper stairs, followed by a cold chill.
1:40 Another 'investigators' camera dies.
2:48 Tina's flashlight pulses and flashes when pointed at flag. We point it up, down, away on same level, no pulse. When pointed back at flag, it resumes flashing. Another 'investigators' flashlight dies.
3:00 Move to upper rooms, but are not able to investigate. We leave the premises.
The Conclusion:
Honestly, The Hundley House does have the potential to be a haunted house. BUT, we weren't able to get anything substantial. This could be due to many different factors, not the least of which were the fact that there were just so many people in one place at one time. But I will get to that.
The fact that there isn't much I could find anywhere where any one else who has investigated could find anything either, I am going to say that while there is potentially something there (owner stories do in fact sound like an intelligent haunting) we weer doomed from the beginning from finding anything. If it ever possible for us to be in the home as SIGG and with no one else (besides the residents) I wholly believe we would find much more.
I have not received any findings from Team Free Will, and must assume that ultimately I will not.
all original light fixtures throughout the home.
Gorgeous original stained glass window.
Bullet hols in stairs from the death of Ella.
The hearth and rocking chair that supposedly rocks by itself.
The view from landing above where Ella was killed. The second stair down has bullet hole.
A proper Tiffany :)
Mrs Hundley's room.
Real crystal chandelier hanging in the 'smoking room.'
View from the landing in front of Mr Hundley's room.
Weird mark leading out of Mr Hundley's room.
The floor in front of Hundley's room. It appears to have been resurfaced and hastily stained.
The couch Tina and I sat against most of the evening.
We faced the hearth.
A Note From SIGG:
We just want to say that in the beginning, we were really excited to be working with another paranormal investigative group, but that turned sour long before we even knew where we were going. We had nothing but problems with the leader of the group, everything from massive disorganization issues, going back and forth four times on whether or not she'd received my payment check (which I sent out three weeks early) bringing WAY too many people onto the investigation (even with the group ultimately split into two sessions and reduced by half, there were far too many in the home to get any results whatsoever) changing itinerary (which she admitted was just in her head anyway) multiple times, her general air-headed and blowhardness, less than five proper investigators in the whole group (to be honest, only one seemed remotely interested in actually collecting evidence, but I really did enjoy his company) her own unprofessionalism makes us look just as bad, and I hate to say we are even distantly associated with her 'paranormal group', changing meeting locations last minute (a third of the group had to meet us at the restaurant after not getting the change) taking the group to mandatory dinner at an expensive restaurant which was NOT included in the $30 a piece we had to pay just to be a part of this. Again, we knew (and were proved right) that we wouldn't get any real evidence, there were too many people in the house, but we were supposed to be assigned to certain areas, go dark (and QUIET) gather evidence for a while, and rotate. That never happened. Not to mention we weren't even able to investigate the upstairs, the 'leader' and her groupies camped out in Mr Hundley's room, and all the other rooms upstairs were occupied by sleeping 'investigators.' No special equipment was either set up or even shown to us, as promised. We were not the only ones to leave. I am not even going to go into the fact she did NOT know the history of the home or what happened, the ages or even NAMES of the deceased. ("I think his name was J W Hundley" and "He was old and she was only like 30".)
Here's a complaint from another woman who had 'investigated' with us, who (like everyone else) will remain anonymous.
"The Hundley House investigation was a disaster! Wayyy to many people! Hardly no silence! Rules say one thing yet no one enforced them. Two couples left (yep. One of them was us) just because it was pointless. We didn't get to trade spaces. Half the house was off limits. Dinner was supposed to be at most $35 for my group of 5. Cost me $75.00. Big waste of money! Multiple histories on the house. All different and no proof of but one occurrence. Forty people were on the reservation! $1200 was paid on the night and it was all crap.Yeah its haunted! You will never see it though with groups this big. Guaranteed bust! Group lead offered to do multiple things....did none of them. Disorganized! Oh my. If you haven't gone yet make sure you get what's offered! None of my five were happy with the outcome even though we had activity. We can't hear any of it over the blabber mouths from up the stairs, as anyone who went. My group is not the only ones who feel scammed!"
She was dubbed a 'troublemaker' by the group leader and her gang. Well, then so are we, because everything said here has been truth. If you ever feel the need to work with a paranormal group, or see postings online for overnights offered by Team Free Will (I signed a waiver saying that all my finding had to be credited back to them. But they didn't expect my findings to be like this!) DO NOT GO.
If nothing else, I have learned a valuable lesson. In the future when we want to team up with other local groups....investigate them first.
