Haunted: Bobby Mackey's Music World

The shriek of an animal startles you from your days as you nearly trip over a rock, The cool, crisp air burns against your face and you can see your breath form in front of you as you exhale a sigh of relief. The last thing you needed was to show up in front of your mother with yet another bruise. It's almost nighttime, and you know that if you don't turn back now, you may not be able to find your way home at all. But now curiosity has overtaken you. Something sounded just off about the shriek you heard. It wasn't the predatory sound of a bird, more like the crying sound of something in pain. With a new determination, you decide to trude forward through the snow until you come across old railroad tracks. They seem to lead nowhere, and you're just about to step over them and leave them far behind you. Then you hear it again, the paint cry of an animal, but this time it's louder, so you decide to follow the tracks. The farther you walk, the louder the christ get. Just when you think your body can't take any more of the freezing cold, you see it right next to the old tracks you had been following. SIT's a large building. The outside appears old and almost factory like, but you notice some stains on the side. Slowly inching closer to get a better look, you feel your heart start to beat faster and faster as you realize that the stains are a dark maroon color, the color of blood. You slowly lift up your hand to inspect a suspicious stain, but stop yourself when the shriek of an animal wrings throughout the night air, now the loudest they had ever been years tuned in for any other sign of life, you make your way around the large building until you reach a window with just enough light coming out of it for you to see your hands shivering in front of you. Oh wait, they're not shivering, they're trembling with fear. Right when you're about to get your answer about the strange sound piercing through the night, you finally notice your fear, which have come this far. Now you need to know, so you steady yourself and reach your head around to peek inside the softly glowing window. The stench of blood quickly assaults your senses as you notice a few animal carcasses lying in the corner of the room, you finally remember this was the old, abandoned slaughter house that your parents need to tell you stories about before. Then you notice the well in the middle of the basement, but it seems a lot more sinister than just a well. Just as you feel yourself being drawn in by it, the door to the room swings open and you feel all of the blood drained from your face when the realization hits you that the screens you were hearing were not an animal at all, but the screams of a person. Person that now lays lifeless is being dragged closer and closer to the well by a couple of people in hooded cloaks. You want to run, you want to scream, but your body is paralyzed with fear, and all you can do is close your eyes and wish for it to all go away as you hear a sickened, loud splash. Wilder, Kentucky is home to many things, and one of them being Bobby Mackeie's Music World, a bar and nightclub that features a mechanical bull. So how could anything sinister be associated with this place? When country singer Robert Randall Mackie or Bobby for short, bought this large building to fulfill an old dream of his to play live at his own place. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, because deep below the building lurked a dark basement with the well many called the gateway to hell. From a slaughterhouse to a bar, this building was certainly no stranger to tragedy. Satanic cults and mobsters had both made their homes in the building. At one point, the basement had been the site of one too many suicides. With all of the dark history that this building contains, it is no surprise that Bobby Mackie's is now one of the most haunted places in America. My name is Edwin, and here it's a dark memory. Wilder, Kentucky is just like any small town in rural America, but it holds a surprisingly dark history, and in the center of it is Bobby Mackie's, located next to a railroad track. The outside of the building looks like every other bar or restaurant you may visit in a small town, with white paint on one side and breaks on the other. The outside lulls you into a false sense of security. Once you enter your senses are overtaken by the dimly lit red lights that run over the bar red light on the walls, and a red Bobby Mackie sign. Your sense of security slowly starts to recede after walking around a bit. Any chance you had at having a normal night goes out the window when you read the sign that the staff put up that says warning to our patrons, this establishment is purported to be haunted. Management is not responsible and cannot be held liable for any actions of any ghosts or spirits on this premises. That's one heck of a welcome sign, isn't it. But with all of the gruesome deaths surrounding the land, it sits on who can blame them. In eighteen fifty a slaughterhouse and meat packaging plant was constructed on that land. It was very large and in the basement of the buildings sat a well. At the time, this well was used to dispose of the slaughtered animals, blood, guts, and waste. Later in the eighteen nineties, for reasons unknown, the slaughter house was shut down and the well was just left to sit there day after day, year after year, until it was made a key part in ritualistic sacrifices by many different Satanic cults. Many of these rituals involved what researchers say to be both animal and human sacrifices, possibly even disabled children. The Satanists would do this in order to prove their loyalty to the devil himself and gain his favor. A lot of this had been rumors and stories passed around town in order to scare children at the time, but it wasn't until the town saw a truly horrifying crime in eighteen ninety six they start to believe their own stories. Let's step into the story of what happened to Pearl Brian. Pearl Brian was a young woman who was living in Greencastle, Indiana in eighteen ninety six, growing up in both a religious family and community. You can imagine how scared she was when she became pregnant by her boyfriend, William Wood. And to make matters even worse, he was a son of the local Methodist minister. Being scared for his reputation as well, would convinced her to get an abortion. He contacted his friend Scott Jackson, who was a dental surgery student in Ohio, in hopes that he would be able to help with the procedure. Unknown to him, though Jackson was rumored to have ties to a Satanic cult, the practice in the torn down slaughter house and wilder. Pearl left her home on February first, eighteen ninety six, and told her family that she was going to go to Indianapolis. That was the last time they would ever see her alive. She was actually meeting Jackson and his roommate to Lonzo Walling in Cincinnati. At the time, she was already five months pregnant. Unfortunately for her, Jackson's skills were much more incompetent than he had led Wood to believe. The first thing he and Alonzo had tried was to induce an abortion using cocaine, and unsurprisingly, it didn't work. Then they tried to use dental tools and ended up botching that as well. Nearly an hour later, they found themselves in a hole too deep to crawl out of. They had a crying, frightened, and bleeding young woman on their hands and no idea what to do. With little to no options left, they decided to take her across the Ohio River to Kentucky and snuck away to a secluded area near Fort Thomas. It was there that they committed a grave sin and killed Pearl by severing her head from her body with dental tools while she was still conscious. And yes, you heard correctly, she was still conscious when they did it. Afterward, they dumped her body about two miles from the abandoned slaughterhouse, but kept her head. In fact, they were only able to identify her body by her shoes. This is because the company's imprint was on the shoes she had been wearing at the time, and they were able to confirm with the authorities that they had sold them to her. As I said earlier, they did not dispose of her head with her body. And even more disturbing is the fact that some of her blonde hair was later found instead of Valise in Jackson's room. So where did Pearl's head go? Many believed that it was used in a satanic ritual and dumped in the well at the old slaughter house due to the rumors about Jackson. Luckily, this story at least ended with some sort of justice. In eighteen ninety seven, Jackson and Walling were put on trial and sentenced to death by public hanging. Her boyfriend would made a deal with the authorities to save himself, but he had to testify against the two of them. Even though the two of them were also offered a deal life sentences for the location of Pearl's head, they still refused. Perhaps they were afraid of Satan's wrath if they revealed the location because a cult was involved. It is said that as the noose was being slipped around Waling's neck, he said he would come back and haunt the area for all eternity. It seems that he has followed through with his promise. But apparently Walling isn't the only man that intents on staying there, because decades later, a new man would cast yet another shadow on the building's history. After standing for almost half a century, the old slaughter House was finally torn down and in its place stood a brand new casino, a nightclub. Only this wasn't just any ordinary nightclub. It was also a speakeasy. You see. It was in the nineteen twenties, which meant that prohibition was just put into effect and everyone who was looking for a good time would have to find a speakeasy, or in simpler terms, an illegal bar. With the establishment doing well for itself, it's no surprise that someone would want to get in on the action, and so entered Buck Brady. He purchased the place in nineteen thirty three and renamed it the Primrose. Things went smoothly for about a decade and business was booming. But it seems that all good things must come to an end when one of the frequent patrons, a shady mobster named Red Masterson, decided that he too wanted a piece of the prophets. So he did what mobsters did best. He tried to muscle his way into the business. Buck wasn't having it. He refused to sell anything to Red or his men, and soon things escalated. The mobsters began to threaten and harass the bar's customers, to the point where he decided to take matters into his own hands, and he drew a gun on Red. With his bad luck, the mobster, of course, ended up surviving, and poor Buck was charged with attempted murder and was forced to sell his bar in nineteen forty six. That was the last anyone heard of him for a while. Most people assumed he left town on his own, ashamed to ever come back, but it wasn't until authorities found his body in the building's basement, right next to the well, but they knew they were wrong. Coroners ruled it death by suicide, another body to add to the land's casualties. Fast forward a few years, and it seems like everyone has forgotten all about Old Buck because in the nineteen fifties the bar was bought by a new man and renamed the Latin Quarter. Not much as known about who the man was himself, but his daughter, on the other hand, well that's a whole different story. Johanna was her name, A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. You see, her father was very protective of her, so she was never allowed to go near men. Oh. Yes, as unfair as it was, that doesn't mean it stopped her. For Johanna soon caught the eye of a performer at the bar that worked for her father. Her long, soft locks and the sweet smell of roses she left behind was enough to tempt any man, With Johanna returning his affections, they began their forbidden love affair. Soon after she became pregnant with his child. Both terrified of what would happen if her father found out, they quickly made plans to run away and begin to new life together. Only it wasn't that easy. Someone else had found out, and the first thing they did was well tell the father. Of course, he disapproved of the singer, but that wasn't all. He was angry, and no, not just to go to your room and think about what you've done angry, but really angry. He was furious. With fury and betrayal clouding his mind. The father quickly made his daughter's nightmare become a reality. He had her lover murdered. Now it was Johannah's turn to feel angry. How could her own father ruin any chance she had a happiness. Grief stricken, she did the only logical things she could think of at the time. She poisoned her father. Now left with no one in her life, she decided that life was no longer worth living. Apparently even her child wasn't enough to change her mind. To the same night that she killed her father, Johanna ended her own life. And you can guess where, of course, it was in the basement, right next to the well, leaving nothing behind but the smell of her rose perfume. One sweet but was now bitter with death. With how tragic her ending was. I'm not surprised that Johanna finds it difficult to leave the bar even decades after her death. In fact, there are a number of people who claim to have seen her or felt her presence. One employee who worked there said that they have seen a woman who calls herself Johanna behind the bar, and when she disappears, apparently the sweet smell of roses lingers. But she wasn't the only one who has had an experience with her spirit, because Bobby's wife, who would help run the bar, claims that she would all often be overcome with the scent of roses whenever she was in the basement. Not too bad, right, at least compared to what Else's wife experience. That would gladly take Johanna any day. According to her, when she was pregnant, she would still stay at the bar and helped her husband manage the place. Then one day, while she was vacuuming the stairs of the building, she felt the arms of a man wrap around her waist. Her first thought was, oh, it's probably Bobby, but when she turned around there was no one there. Panic set in when she felt the arms pick her up, and the next thing she knew she had been thrown down the stairs. When asked what happened, she described the spirit as a man who fit the description of Alonzo Walling, one of the students that killed Pearl. She said he screamed at her, get out, get out. Well, that was no problem for his wife, because she refused to step foot in that bar. Ever, again, not everything that happens at the bar is as sinister as what happened to Bobby's wife, with multiple patrons coming forward constantly and describing the experiences that they had in the bar. One patron claims to have experienced multiple things over a span of time, including feeling a suffocating heat, seeing a trash can fly across the room, and seeing a man with a handlebar mustache yell at him die game, Die Game in the men's restroom, which is Latin for dying. Well. Perhaps slightly more scary is a claim by the former caretaker of the building. According to the man, he was possessed by a demonic spirit when he was living there. Even according to Bobby, he witnessed his exorcism on site by an ordained minister. Other staff had also come forward and shared their experiences with Bobby as well. Although he remains skeptic himself. According to one of his managers, she too has experienced unusual things in the bar. She said that when she normally closes the place for the night, she goes around the property to lock all of the doors and turn off all the lights and appliances, But sometimes when she would return to open again, she would find all of the lights turned on, the doors unlocked, and the jukebox on playing the song an adversary Waltz, a skeptic, would say that maybe someone else had just arrived before her and opened the business, which could be true, but it still doesn't explain how the jukebox could be playing a so it doesn't have for playing at all when it isn't even plugged in. Some other ghosts that have been known to frequent the establishment to are Buck Brady, the former owner of the night club before he killed himself, and the headless spirit of poor Pearl is still wandering around looking for her head, wondering if she'll ever find it again. If you want to visit the place and try to see one of these lost souls for yourself, then good news. This place is open to everyone, just like a normal bar. One time this place was featured on an episode of Ghost Adventures, and in the episode, they had the staff lock them inside overnight so they could make sure that they were getting the full experience. Once night fell, they started to taunt the spirits in order to get a reaction to capture on camera, and they were most certainly not disappointed. The member of the crew who was leading the investigation ended up with three claw marks going down his back with no explanation, asks how they got there. Bobby Mackie's Music World a great example of something that hides among us and feigns innocence before it sucks us into our waking nightmare. A wolf in sheep's clothing, a place that has a history more bloody than some of us can stomach, animals and humans being sacrificed, a woman being decapitated while she was still conscious, the suicides in the basement. Perhaps this place will never be able to outgrow the dark shadow cast upon it. That doesn't stop people from visiting every chance they get. But who knows, maybe one day someone will venture too far and find themselves right at the edge of the gateway to help. This episode of a Dark Memory was written by Medel Inguera and produced by me Edwin Komaruez. Visit adark memory dot com to find her premium ad free feed, as well as links to our other shows. Please don't forget to tag us if you share this episode, links will be in the description until next time. Thank you very much for listening.