 Welcome, weirdos. This is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and the unexplained. If you're new here, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Android so you don't miss future episodes. This is a special 12 Nightmares of Christmas episode. Each day from December 13th through December 24th, I'm posting a new episode of Weird Darkness featuring material from the new book The Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays by Sylvia Schultz. Be sure to come back every day from December 13th through the 24th for more holiday horrors. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The middle years of the 19th century were a time of great advances and great optimism. Social reforms were the order of the day and many people felt they could change the world for the better through their ideas. It was not only in New England, cradle of the young nation that these changes were taking place. Even in the Midwest, at that time still considered the wild frontier, social reformers sought to spread their ideas. Judge Wade Loefboro purchased over a thousand acres of land bordering the Ohio River in Claremont County and in 1844 he found a village he called simply Utopia. Loefboro and his followers were supporters of the philosophy of a Frenchman named Charles Fourier. Fourier envisioned a society based on agriculture, far removed from the evils of mechanization where people would live and work together. Work would be assigned to people according to their natural inclinations and abilities. In short, he envisioned a commune where every person's need would be provided for and where people would help one another. Loefboro and his group were eager to try out this social experiment for themselves. They built a two-story brick building with 30 rooms for everyone to live in. Unfortunately, communal living is not always the easiest way to run a society and within two years it became obvious that the community was not going to be a viable option. In 1846, Loefboro, seeking a way to make at least some of his investment back, sold the land and house to John O. Waters, the leader of a group of 100 spiritualists. The spiritualists too were seeking a better way to a perfect society. Spiritualism was intensely popular during the mid-19th century, gaining even more followers during and after the Civil War. Spiritualists believed that human beings don't really die. Although physical bodies might decay, the spirit lives on in the afterlife. Spiritualists sought to communicate with the shades of the deceased with the help of mediums. The souls of the dead, they believed, could speak with those they'd left behind through many avenues such as manifestations, written messages, spirit photography, trance speaking, automatic writing, even music. Waddles was a medium blessed with the ability to converse with the spirits. He was not, however, a builder. When the spiritualists bought the house that Loefboro's group had built, they decided for some reason not to leave it where it was. Instead, they moved it closer to the river, adding a basement and a third story. The housewarming party for the reconstructed building and the spiritualist's grand experiment was planned for December 13, 1847. The house was filled with people, all gathered to mark the beginning of a new adventure. For most of the partygoers, though, it was not the beginning, but the end. As people mangled and chatted sipping cups of punch, no one suspected the insidious danger that stopped the new building, drawing even closer. Eventually, though, someone noticed that water was trickling across the floor in a slow but steady stream. Suddenly, the trickle became a torrent. Water from the Ohio River pushed its unstoppable way through the house, flooding everything in its path. It's been said that only six people survived the calamity. The house is still home to several spirits, according to reports going back to the early 20th century. The spirits, including a lady in a blue dress and bonnet, always appear soaking wet. Families have lived in the Waddles House since 1917. The second floor bedroom is believed to have been John Waddles' room, as many people report having a peculiar experience there. People say they feel an unnatural sense of drowsiness there, almost like a trance state. In this twilight dose, people say they experience a vision of six travelers coming up a dirt road, entering the Waddles House and walking up the staircase to the bedroom. As they come closer to the room, the visions fade away. The woman in blue is invariably a part of the group in the vision. Witnesses sometimes see her accompanied by a young boy and a man in Amish-style clothing. If this bedroom was once used by John Waddles, these witnesses might be experiencing a hint of the trance state used by that long ago spiritualist when he communicated with phantoms in his own time. Richard Crawford, a historian and writer who has made the study of the Waddles House's passion, described an odd experience he had at the house. He was there with a film crew to shoot an annual Halloween show. The owner's daughter, says Crawford, who couldn't have been more than three or four years old, just started jumping up and down, saying she wanted to be on television. Understandable behavior for an excitable little kid. The girl's mother shushed her, telling her she had to stay out of the way and leave the film crew alone while they were working. Of course, you can tell a kid a hundred times to stay out from underfoot, but making sure she does, it is another thing entirely. Filming was delayed several times because of the girl's interruptions. The mother insisted that the crew keep quiet about the ghost stories associated with the home. She didn't want her kid freaked out by the thought of ghosts. Finally, the crew was finished shooting and ready to wrap. They were in John Waddles' bedroom when the door burst open and the little girl came barreling into the room yet again. The mother, exasperated, asked the girl what she wanted. Crawford says that the girl asked her mother if she remembered what had happened just a couple of nights earlier. The mother recalled aloud that she had been baking and had asked the girl to stop bothering her. I'm beginning to see a pattern here. The girl nodded agreement and, according to Crawford's recollection, said, Yes, and I didn't bug you anymore. I didn't even let the people who came to the door into the house. There were six people outside and there was a lady in a blue dress with a blue bonnet and they were all wet. Mother and film crew sat, stunned. The girl's mother had been vigilant about shielding her young daughter from the unsettling stories of the house's history. But all on her own, the girl had just described the apparitions people had been seeing for years down to the smallest detail. They say children are more receptive to seeing spirits, simply because they haven't yet learned that they can't. It seems the little girl was picking up on the psychic echo of that long ago tragedy. The morning of December 12, 1928, dawned bright and brisk in Carbondale, Illinois. Before midnight that evening, the town would be rocked with news of a horrific double murder. One of the victims was John Charles Hundley, who had been mayor of Carbondale in 1907-1908. He was a wealthy, well-respected businessman who had many friends and business associates in the area. Also dead was Hundley's second wife, Luella. Although he had the respect of his peers, John Hundley had made some mistakes in his life. In 1893, he had killed a man. Hundley had murdered a music teacher but was acquitted by the jury after he explained his reason. The man had been sleeping with Hundley's wife. By invoking the unwritten law, Hundley gained the sympathy of the husbands and brothers sitting in the jury box. After this incident, Hundley divorced his unfaithful wife. This caused a family rift between Hundley and his son Victor. The spat has supposedly been smoothed over years before John's murder, but there were those in town who hadn't forgotten the bitter feelings between father and son. Hundley remarried a few years after his divorce, choosing Luella Harrison as his new bride. Luella herself came from a business-minded family. Her father was Ruffin Harrison, one of the founders of the town of Heron, Illinois, and the owner of numerous coal mines in the region, and she was sister to George Harrison, president of Heron's First National Bank. In 1915, John and Luella Hundley bought a lot at the corner of Main and Maple streets and built a lavish, luxurious home for themselves. John was the model of a gilded age tycoon, partnering with his son Victor in the younger Hundley's coal business. Luella, as benefiting the wife of an upper-class businessman, was very active in charity work and was an accomplished musician besides. Luella in particular was regarded as having no enemies, which made her murder even more shocking. A family friend, Job Goodall, visited the Hundleys on the evening of Wednesday, December 12. The Hundleys were planning a motor trip to their winter home in Florida, and they were looking forward with high spirits to their departure on Sunday. Goodall left the house around 8 p.m., and Luella locked the back door behind him. Just before midnight, Olga Kasper, the Hundley's next-door neighbor, heard several pistol shots ring out into the night. Peering out her window, she saw the lights in the Hundley house go out. Later, she heard someone running past her house, coming from the Hundley's home and heading towards Victor's house just 200 yards away. In response to phone calls from the neighbors, police were on the scene in minutes. The investigation determined that John Hundley was murdered first. His body was found in an upstairs bedroom, dressed only in a night shirt and socks. He had been shot from behind, six times with a .45 caliber revolver. Luella Hundley had been killed, it seemed, on a rear stairwell, attacked as she went to investigate the earlier shots. She had been shot twice in the head and once in the heart. From the stairs, her body had rolled into the kitchen. A pencil lay on the floor next to her left hand, and an unfinished letter was still sitting on the table in the next room. Luellas was a life suddenly interrupted. At first, Chief of Police Joe Montgomery told the press that robbery seemed to be the motive for the murders. However, there was only the slimmest evidence for this theory, an empty pocketbook on the floor near Luella's body. Other than that, nothing in the house was disturbed, not the valuable artwork, not the expensive furnishings, and not the considerable amount of cash. The police quickly focused their investigation elsewhere. On the morning of December 13, investigators thoroughly searched the Hundley house. They discovered that the back door that Joe Goodall said Luella had locked behind him after his visit was unlocked at the time of the murders, with no sign of forced entry. That hinted strongly that the Hundleys knew their attacker. Perhaps Luella even got up from her letter writing to let him into the house. Tracking dogs were brought in and put on the trail of the killer. Four times the dogs led their handlers straight to the home of Victor Hundley, John's son. This did not look good for Victor. Even worse, investigators from the Jackson County Sheriff's Office searched the route between the two houses along the path. The investigators found several slips of paper that seemed to have been dropped unnoticed, perhaps as the killer fled the Hundley house. One paper, dated December 5, was a notice of the termination of partnership of Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Hundley with Victor Hundley, dissolving their support of Victor's prominent coal business. Another paper was a blank deposit slip. On the back, a note in Luella's handwriting figured the interest on a loan in the amount of $532. At the top of the slip, also in Luella's handwriting was the name Vic. All of this was enough for Sheriff William Flanagan to bring Victor Hundley in for questioning. Things began to look even bleaker for Victor when investigators found a bloodstained khaki shirt during their search of his house. Victor claimed he'd been wearing the shirt when he'd been told of his father and stepmother's murders. Police had come to his door, Victor said, and had woken him and asked him to come to the elder Hundley's house. He had picked up his stepmother's body while he was wearing the shirt, and that is where the blood had come from. Investigators countered with the fact that Victor hadn't touched the body. Victor immediately changed his story. He remembered suddenly that he'd been wearing the shirt while out hunting quail, and that's where the blood had come from. Sheriff Flanagan hammered on Victor for seven hours. Victor told investigators that on Wednesday night, the night of the murders, he'd been home all evening, reading and playing with his son. He had gone to bed early. Then he'd been awakened by the police. He admitted that he owned a .45 caliber revolver, but he claimed he had recently loaned it to his father. Police searched both houses for the gun, but found nothing. To this day, the murder weapon has never been found. All of Victor's protestations did not prove his innocence. He was put under house arrest as the investigation continued. At the inquest, Job Goodall testified that John Hundley had recently told him that he planned to ride up a new will. John planned to disinherit Victor because he was no good. If this was the case, Victor stood to lose a lot of money by being cut out of his father's will. John Hundley's estate was worth over $350,000, but Victor was faced with having to settle for just his trust fund, worth less than $15,000. Victor was arrested for the murders of John Charles and Luella Hundley on December 15th immediately after their funerals. The state's attorney, Fletcher Lewis, felt sure he could prove Victor's guilt in court. Incredibly, though, Lewis was wrong. In an amazing display of the accused being innocent until proven guilty, Lewis was forced to let Victor go free on December 31st. After the hearing, the disappointed prosecutor made a statement to the press. While the facts and circumstances learned from the investigation amply justified the holding of Victor Hundley and the filing of a complaint charging him with murder, I have decided to prosecute this case no further. As if washing down this bitter pill, Lewis added, I feel quite sure that the atrociousness of this crime will compel the conscious of the person who committed it to someday make public his guilt. But if Lewis thought to shame Victor or anyone else into confessing to the double murder, it didn't work. The shooting of JC and Luella Hundley has never been solved. Maybe that's why the house in which they died still echoes with their presence. The mansion sat empty for two years after the murders. The only physical evidence of the tragedy was a bullet hole in the wall near where Luella's body was found. But the community's memory was long, especially when it came to murder. In 1930, Edwin Vogler Sr. bought the mansion and its contents from the Hundley estate. In 1972, the house was sold to the Simmons family, who converted the mansion into a gift shop with apartments upstairs. Several of the past owners and tenants have reported oddities in the building. One resident heard the piano downstairs playing faintly by itself. Her family also heard footsteps going up and down the stairs. Former owner Victoria Sprayhee felt that Luella's ghost followed her home from work at least once. Sprayhee ran the gift shop in the Hundley's house for five years. One evening, as she let herself into the empty house, she noticed that the kitchen lights were on and she heard pots and pans clanging. She wasn't spooked by the industrious spirit, though. It's a very peaceful vibe. Sprayhee's daughter, Nina Bucciorelli, had her own odd experience with the ghosts of the Hundley house. She and her husband have both seen the porch swing move by itself, even when there was no wind. I think Mr. and Mrs. Hundley still liked to swing at night, she said. A trucker named Mark L shared an eerie experience he had that stretched out over two Christmas seasons. In late autumn of 1996, Mark's father had gone to a friend's house for a visit. As soon as he walked into the house, he clutched his chest, dropped to the floor, and died of a massive heart attack. The police called Mark and asked him to go take care of his mother. Mark rushed to his mother's side and made all the necessary phone calls. As evening faded into night, family began to gather at the house. Mark needed to go out for cigarettes, so knowing his mother now had the comfort of family around her, he left the house for a quick trip to the gas station. As he pulled into the gas station parking lot, Mark said he just had the strange feeling that his father's soul just wasn't where it should be. He couldn't explain the feeling, even to himself. Mark got out of the car and started to walk to the convenience store. Spare some change, mister? Could I maybe wash your windshield for you? The bum looked harmless enough, but Mark wasn't in the mood for much interaction. Instead, he pulled out a five-dollar bill, gave it to the guy, and asked him to pray for his dad. The bum happily took the fiver and started praying, loudly. Mark gave the guy a good hard look. It was then that he noticed the bum's eyes or a penetrating shade of blue. So piercing blue they could stop you in your tracks. Mark thanked the guy for his prayers and asked him his name. The bum replied, I'm Irish. Chaking his head, Mark went into the convenience store, bought his cigarettes and headed home. Several months later, the encounter with the bum stuck in Mark's mind, and every time he went to that gas station, he kept an eye out for the guy. A few years later, Mark saw the man again. Mark asked the guy if he remembered him, and if his name was Irish. Yeah, I'm Irish, but nah, I don't remember you. Mark realized with a jolt that the guy's eyes were a brown, so deep they were almost black. They were not the startling blue Mark had seen the night his father had passed away. But that was only part of Mark's story. Much of Mark's driving took place on I-80 in all kinds of weather. Mark grew up in California, so he didn't have much experience with driving in snow and ice. Once though, he was teamed with another driver who managed to jackknife the truck during a blizzard in Kansas. After that, Mark had a healthy respect for driving in winter conditions. Christmas was fast approaching, and Mark was doing short hops from Chicago to California, making his way home for Christmas. On December 23, he pulled in to the Alamo truck stop for a break. Donner Pass was before him. Mark was toying with the idea of trying to get a little sleep before tackling the pass, but he was so exhausted he knew an hour nap might turn into eight hours of solid sleep. A storm was blowing in, and Mark still wasn't sure what his next move should be. He climbed down from the cab of his truck and headed in to use the restroom. Mark was walking about ten feet behind a group of other drivers when one of them turned around and spoke to him. If you're trying to get home, you better go over the pass right now. Mark didn't know this guy and had never talked to him, but the man had the same brilliant blue eyes Mark had seen the night his father had died. Mark turned on his heel and went straight back to his truck. He gunned the engine and headed up Donner Pass. The Seabee crackled with incoming weather reports as Mark drove. He made it all the way through the pass and stopped at a rest area when he was safely through the mountains. As Mark pulled out of that rest area, the snow was falling thickly and he heard over the radio that Donner Pass had been shut down and it stayed closed for a day and a half. He had made it through the pass just in time. If Mark hadn't followed that unknown trucker's advice, he'd have been stuck at the truck stop over Christmas. As it was, he made it safely home to Los Angeles after delivering his final load. My mother had a smile for the first time on Christmas since my father had passed away the Christmas before, Mark said. Mark has never seen anyone with blue eyes quite like that again, but he's always on the lookout for them. To this day, if I see piercing blue eyes like that, he says, I listen to the words being spoken. Madison County, Illinois in the southern part of the state is a quiet rural area. In 1879, Timothy Grouse built a home for himself in the town of Highland. A hundred years later, in the early 1980s, Ken and Judy Ernst rented part of the house for use as a small bakery. Within a decade, Judy's baked goods business had become so popular, the couple bought the entire house. For a while, they lived in the house and ran a small restaurant business, but by the end of the 1980s, the restaurant had grown to fill the entire building, and the couple made their home elsewhere. The house of plenty restaurant is thought to be haunted by the spirit of the original owner, Timothy Grouse. The story goes that Grouse hosted a party in his home in honor of the town's early Swiss settlers who were planning a trip back to Switzerland to visit their families. The plans for a joyful reunion turned to tragedy though. The ship carrying the travelers sank, claiming the lives of over 300 passengers. According to Chad Lewis writing in Illinois Road Guide to Haunted Locations, some people believe that after losing so many of his friends in the sinking, Timothy Grouse continues to wait for their return. The restaurant building is notorious for having things mysteriously go missing. One day, Judy Ernst was in the kitchen making an angel food cake. She left it on the counter to cool. Several hours later, she came back to find that the cake had vanished. Neither the cake nor the pan was ever found. Well, you might be thinking to yourself, a missing cake, that's not so bad. Someone left an angel food cake unattended in my kitchen for several hours, of course it would be gone. But try this on for size. Someone who had once lived in the home stopped by for a visit. She asked Judy if she had ever had anything go missing and Judy mentioned the story of the cake and the pan. As she spoke, the visitor's face blanched a ghostly white. Then the visitor shared a story of her own. Years before, her mother had been boiling potatoes on the stove in that same kitchen. Her husband had come home and Bama went into the living room to greet him. She gave him a quick kiss then came immediately back to the kitchen to check on the food. The mother was stunned to discover on her return that the pot of boiling potatoes had vanished into thin air. The dining room of the restaurant is the scene of a strange phenomenon that happens every Christmas. There was a fireplace in the dining room with several tables for guests dining that are arranged near the hearth. Every year around Christmas, Ken Ernst would notice a small pile of charred pipe tobacco on the corner of one of the tables. How it got there was a mystery until a former occupant of the home brought in an old photograph of the Graz family, the home's original owners. Standing in the photograph was a young man who was smoking a pipe. He was identified as Graz's son and it is believed that he liked to spend his winter evenings in that very room smoking a pipe while sitting next to the fireplace. The house of plenty is now closed and the good smells of home-cooked food no longer fill the air. However, as Christmas approaches, maybe the scent of good pipe tobacco still lingers in the dining room and Timothy Graz's pipe-loving son still knocks his spent ash onto a handy table near the fireplace. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with others and help build the Weird Darkness community by converting your friends and family into weirdos as well. This special episode is part of my 12 Nightmares of Christmas series, a collaboration with paranormal blogger and author Sylvia Schultz. The stories I used in this episode are all from her book, The Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays, and you can find a link to that book in the show notes. Also in the show notes, you can find a link to Sylvia Schultz blog, also a big thanks to everyone who continues to post reviews about the podcast. Thank you all for rating, reviewing and subscribing to Weird Darkness. Do you have a dark tale to tell? Share your story at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode. Music in this episode is provided by Midnight Syndicate. Find a link to purchase this dark Christmas music in the show notes. I'm your creator and host Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Bye for now.