TLDR
The former Munger House on Hannibal's Millionaires' Row is tied to the unsolved 1888 ax murder of Amos Stillwell, a frequent card party guest whose ghost may haunt the place where he was happiest. Tenants and investigators have documented a translucent figure, a self-opening closet, voice mimicry, and a child entity named Nathanial.
The Full Story
Arif Dagin was alone in the laundry room at LaBinnah Bistro when someone called his name. The voice sounded exactly like his partner Jim, right down to the rolled R in "Arif," except Jim doesn't roll his Rs. And Jim wasn't in the building.
LaBinnah Bistro occupies the former home of W.A. Munger, a one-time mayor of Hannibal, at 207 North Fifth Street on what locals call Millionaires' Row. The name is Hannibal spelled backward, a quiet nod to the town that shaped Mark Twain. The 1870 Victorian served as one of Hannibal's most prominent social gathering spots, hosting card parties and dinners for the town's elite. One of its most frequent guests was Amos J. Stillwell, a wealthy pork packing businessman who spent countless evenings here playing euchre with friends.
On the night of December 29, 1888, Stillwell attended a card party at the Munger house with his wife Fannie, their family physician Dr. Joseph C. Hearne, and several other guests. Hours later, someone entered the Stillwell bedroom with a double-bladed ax taken from their own barn. Fannie told the coroner she woke to a figure crouching at the foot of the bed, heard the singular whirr of the ax, and fainted. The blow severed Amos's carotid artery. He died instantly.
The investigation went nowhere until the following December, almost exactly a year after the murder, when Fannie married Dr. Hearne. A grand jury indicted both of them. Prosecutors argued that Fannie struck Stillwell with the ax while Hearne aided and abetted her. After a sensational trial in Bowling Green, Missouri, in December 1895, the jury returned a not-guilty verdict. Fannie was released on bail and never tried. The case has never been solved.
The ghost story centers on the Munger house, not the Stillwell residence. Local lore says Amos haunts the place where he was happiest, not the place where he died. His former home was actually demolished at some point in an attempt to stop the disturbances there, which only seemed to concentrate the energy at the Munger house instead.
A former tenant from New Orleans living in the second-floor apartment witnessed a translucent figure moving hurriedly across the dining area. Before she could process what she was seeing, the figure transformed into a glowing blue dot and vanished. She moved out shortly after. A later guest photographed what appeared to be a child-like figure looking out through the front door glass, bearing a striking resemblance to what the tenant had described.
The upstairs closet off the living room area has its own pattern. The door opens and closes by itself, sometimes several times in a single day, then goes quiet for months before starting again. Multiple psychics who have visited the building independently identified a child entity they call Nathanial, describing the energy as positive rather than threatening.
Paranormal investigators Gary Hawkins, Larry Wilson, and independent filmmaker Paul Robinson conducted a formal investigation of the property. Co-owner Arif Dagin, who ran the restaurant until selling to Funda Ozbek and Guney Yilmaz in October 2023, had his own theory. He described the phenomena as "reverberations from the past" rather than traditional hauntings. His dog Milo seemed less philosophical about it. During a movie night in the upstairs apartment, Milo suddenly bolted from his resting spot and ran playfully through the hallways, interacting with something nobody else could see, before trotting back to his spot like nothing happened.
The Stillwell murder remains one of Hannibal's most infamous unsolved cases. The book about it by Minnie T. Dawson, "The Stillwell Murder, or A Society Crime," is digitized and available through the Hannibal Library. Nobody can say for certain that Amos Stillwell haunts the old Munger house. But the ax, the unsolved murder, the glowing blue dot, and a closet door that won't stay shut all exist in the same address. That's a lot of coincidence for one Victorian on Millionaires' Row.
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