Pearl Bryan Murder
A Excerpt from Troy
Taylor's book NO REST FOR THE WICKED (2001) THE MURDER OF PEARL BRYAN
History & Hauntings of Bobby Mackey's Music World
Wilder, Kentucky
Wilder, Kentucky is a small town that is located just south of Cincinnati,
Ohio. For many years, the town has been subject to visits from
curiosity-seekers, tourists, paranormal investigators and media reporters. They
come here in search of a place called Bobby Mackey's Music World, a night club
and tavern that may be one of the most haunted, and most sinister, locations in
America!
The building where the nightclub is now located has a long and bloody history
in the area, from its origins as a slaughterhouse to its tangible link to one of
the greatest ghost stories of southern Indiana. It was constructed back in the
1850's and was one of the largest packing houses in the region for many years.
Only a well that was dug in the basement, where blood and refuse from the
animals was drained, remains from the original building. The slaughterhouse
closed down in the early 1890's, but legend has it that the building was far
from abandoned. According to the lore, the basement of the packing house became
a ritual site for occultists. The well was used to hide the remains of small
animals that were butchered during their ceremonies.
The Bryan Home in
Greencastle, Indiana
Apparently, a small satanic group made up of local residents gathered at
the empty building, managing to practice their rituals in secret. However, they
were exposed in 1896 during one of the most spectacular murder trials ever held
in northeast Kentucky. It was so large that tickets were sold to the hearing and
more than 5,000 people stood outside the Newport, Kentucky courthouse for
information about what was taking place inside. The trial, and the murder that
spawned it, has become an integral part of Bobby Mackey's haunted history.
Pearl Bryan, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, was an attractive, young woman
who lived in Greencastle, Indiana in 1896. She was the youngest of 12 children
from a prominent family and by the age of 22, was one of the most popular girls
in the area. She had graduated from Greencastle High School in 1892 and had more
than her share of suitors. Unknown to her friends and the polite members of
Greencastle society, Pearl was pregnant. Her cousin and close friend, William
Wood, had recently introduced her to Scott Jackson, who was then attending the
Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati. He and Wood, who was then
attending medical school at DePauw University, became close friends but
unbeknownst to Wood, Jackson was an alleged member of the occult group that met
the former slaughterhouse in Wilder. Jackson's family was as well-to-do as the
Bryan's and so he was immediately accepted as a suitor for Pearl. He soon
seduced her however and she became pregnant. Pearl turned to Wood, who in turn,
informed Jackson of the problem. He made arrangements to remedy the situation
with an abortion in Cincinnati.
Pearl left her parent's home on February 1, 1896 and told them that she
was going to Indianapolis. Instead, she made plans to meet with Jackson and his
roommate, Alonzo Walling, in Cincinnati. It would be the last time that her
parents would ever see her alive. She was at that time five months pregnant.
Jackson's medical skills were apparently much more inept than he had
led his friend William Wood to believe. He first tried to induce an abortion
using chemicals, apparently cocaine. This substance was later discovered in
Pearl's system during an autopsy. After that, he tried to use dental tools, but
botched that as well. After an hour or so, Jackson and Walling has a frightened,
injured and bleeding young woman on their hands and that's when the story takes
an ever darker turn.
The three of them left Cincinnati and traveled across the Ohio River and into
Kentucky. Jackson took them to a secluded spot near Fort Thomas and here, he and
Walling murdered Pearl Bryan. Using dental instruments, they severed her head
from her body. It was a "clean cut", according to the testimony of the doctor
who later examined the body. He also determined that Pearl had been alive at the
time because of the presence of blood on the underside of some leaves at the
murder scene.
Pearl's body was found about two hundred feet off the Alexandria Turnpike
and less than two miles from the abandoned slaughterhouse. As her head was
nowhere to be found, Pearl was identified by her shoes. They bore the imprint of
Louis and Hays, a Greencastle shoe company that was able to confirm that they
had been sold to Pearl Bryan. During the trial that followed, Walling testified
that it had been Jackson's idea to cut Pearl up and distribute her body in the
Cincinnati sewers. Only the head was taken, for which Jackson apparently had
other uses. Pearl's luxurious blond hair was later found in a valise in
Jackson's room.
Pearl's head was never found and legend has it that it was used during a
satanic ritual at the slaughterhouse. It was then dumped into the well of blood
and was lost. Jackson and Walling were brought to trial in 1897 and were quickly
found guilty and sentenced to death. William Wood was later arrested and charged
as an accomplice. Charges against him were dropped when he agreed to testify
against the other two men. According to reports, Jackson and Walling were both
offered life sentences instead of execution if they would reveal the location of
Pearl's head. Both men refused. They went to the gallows behind the courthouse
in Newport on March 21, 1897. It was the last public hanging in Campbell County.
The stories spread that Jackson and Walling were afraid of suffering
"Satan's wrath" if they revealed the location of Pearl's head. The
slaughterhouse was then a closely guarded secret and other occultists would have
been exposed if the two men had talked. One reporter commented later that
Walling, as the noose was being slipped over his head, threatened to come back
and haunt the area after his death. The writer also stated a few days later, in
an article in the Kentucky Post newspaper that an "evil eye" had fallen on many
of the people connected to the Pearl Bryan case. Legend has it that many of the
police officials and attorneys involved in the case later met with bad luck and
tragic ends.
After the trial ended, the slaughterhouse fell silent and remained empty for
many years. It was eventually torn down and a roadhouse was constructed on the
site. During the 1920's, the place became known as a speakeasy and as a popular
gambling joint. Local lore has it that during this period, a number of murders
took place in the building. None of them were ever solved because the bodies
were normally dumped elsewhere to keep attention away from the illegal gambling
and liquor operation.
The Nightclub Years
After Prohibition ended in 1933, the building was purchased by E A Brady,
better known to friends and enemies alike as "Buck". Brady turned the building
in a thriving tavern and casino called the Primrose. He enjoyed success for a
number of years but eventually the operation came to the attention of syndicate
mobsters in Cincinnati. They moved in on Brady, looking for a piece of the
action. Brady refused offers for new "partners" and outright bids to buy him out
of the Primrose. Soon, the tavern was being vandalized and customers were being
threatened and beaten up in the parking lot. The violence escalated until Brady
became involved in a shooting in August 1946. He was charged and then released
in the attempted murder of small-time hood Albert "Red" Masterson. This was the
last straw for Buck and he sold out to the gangsters. It was said that when he
left, he swore the place would never thrive again as a casino. Brady committed
suicide in September 1965.
After Brady sold out, the building re-opened as another nightclub called the
Latin Quarter. Several times during the early 1950's, the new owners of the bar
were arrested on gambling charges.. In 1955, Campbell County deputies broke into
the building with sledge hammers and confiscated slot machines and gambling
tables. Apparently, Brady's promises had come to pass.
It was also during this period that the legends of the building gained
another vengeful ghost. According to the stories, the owner of the club's
daughter, Johanna, fell in love with one of the singers who was performing here
and became pregnant. Her father was furious. Thanks to his criminal connections,
he had the singer killed. Johanna became so distraught that she attempted to
poison her father and then succeeded in taking her own life. Her body was later
discovered in the now infamous basement... and according to the autopsy report,
she was five months pregnant at the time.
Bad luck continued to plague the owners of the tavern. In the 1970's, it
became known as the Hard Rock Cafe, but it was closed down by authorities in
1978 because of some fatal shootings on the premises.
Bobby Mackey's Music World
Finally, the building was turned into the popular bar and dance club
that it is today. Bobby and Janet Mackey purchased the building in the spring of
1978 with the intention of turning it into a country bar. Mackey was a
well-known as a singer in northern Kentucky and had recorded several albums. He
actually scrapped his plans to record in Nashville in order to renovate the old
tavern. Once the bar was opened up, it immediately began to attract a crowd.
Despite a number of years success with the place though, the good times
have never been able to erase the "taint" caused by the history of murder and
death. The haunting at Bobby Mackey's Music World remain stained with blood.
Carl Lawson was the first employee hired by Bobby Mackey. He was a loner who
worked as a caretaker and handyman at the tavern. He lived alone in an apartment
in the upstairs of the building and spent a lot of time in the sprawling
building after hours. When he began reporting that he was seeing and hearing
bizarre things in the club, people around town first assumed that he was simply
crazy. Later on though, when others started to see and hear the same things,
Lawson didn't seem so strange after all.
"I'd double check at the end of the night and make sure that everything was
turned off. Then I'd come back down hours later and the bar lights would be on.
The front doors would be unlocked, when I knew that I'd locked them. The jukebox
would be playing the 'Anniversary Waltz' even though I'd unplugged it and the
power was turned off," Lawson told author Doug Hensley, who has written
extensively about the haunted tavern.
Soon, the strange events went from strange to downright frightening! The
first ghost that Lawson spotted in the place was that of a dark, very angry men
that he saw behind the bar. Even though others were present at the time of the
sighting, they saw nothing. A short time later, Lawson began to experience
visions of a spirit who called herself "Johanna". She would often speak to
Lawson and he was able to answer her and carry on conversations. The rumors
quickly started that Lawson was "talking to himself". Lawson claimed that
Johanna was a tangible presence though, often leaving the scent of roses in her
wake.
Odd sounds and noises often accompanied the sightings and Lawson soon
realized that the spirits seemed to be the strongest in the basement, near an
old-sealed up well that had been left from the days when there was a
slaughterhouse at the location. The lore of the area, Carl knew, stated that the
well had once been used for satanic rituals. Some of the local folks referred to
it as "Hell's Gate". Although he wasn't a particularly religious man, Lawson
decided to sprinkle some holy water on the old well one night, thinking that it
might bring some relief from the spirits. Instead, it seemed to provoke them and
the activity in the building began to escalate.
Soon, other employees and patrons of the place began to have their own weird
experiences. They began to tell of objects that moved around on their own,
lights that turned on an off, disembodied voices and laughter and more. Bobby
Mackey was not happy about the ghostly rumors that were starting to spread
around town. "Carl starting telling stories and I told him to keep quiet about
it. I didn't want it getting around, because I had everything I own stuck in
this place. I had to make a success of it," he said. He was not one to believe
in ghosts or the supernatural and he didn't want his customers believing in it
either. But when Janet Mackey revealed that she too had encountered the resident
spirits, Mackey was no longer sure what to think!
Janet told him that she too had experienced the strange activity. She had
seen the ghosts, had felt the overwhelming presences and had even smelled
Johanna's signature rose scent. She also had a very frightening encounter in the
basement. While she was there, she was suddenly overcome by the scent of roses
and felt something unseen swirl around her. "Something grabbed me by the waist,"
Janet later recalled. "It picked me up and threw me back down. I got away from
it, and when I got to the top of the stairs there was pressure behind me,
pushing me down the steps. I looked back up and a voice was screaming 'Get Out!
Get Out!'"
At the time of this terrifying encounter, Janet was, like Johanna and Pearl
Bryan before her, five months pregnant. A coincidence?
Once Janet admitted that she had seen the ghosts in the building, other
people began to come forward. Roger Heath, who often worked odd jobs in the club
remembered a summer morning when he and Carl Lawson were working alone in the
building. Heath was removing some light fixtures from the dance floor and Lawson
was carrying them down to the basement. Just before lunch, Lawson came up the
stairs and Heath noticed that he had small handprints on the back of his shirt.
It looked just like a woman had been hugging him!
Erin Fey, a hostess at the club, also confessed to encountering Johanna. She
had laughed one day at Lawson when he was talking to the ghost. She stopped
laughing when she also got a strong whiff of the rose perfume.
Once the stories starting making the rounds, they caught the attention of a
writer named Doug Hensley. He decided to investigate the stories and started
hanging around the club, striking up conversations with the regular customers.
No one was anxious at first to talk about ghosts. "When I first talked to these
people, almost every one of them refused to be interviewed," Hensley said. After
he talked to Janet Mackey though, many other people came forward. Soon, Hensley
had thirty sworn affidavits from people who experienced supernatural events at
the club.
He continued to collect stories and sightings, intrigued by the various
spirits who had been seen, including a headless ghost who was dressed in
turn-of-the-century clothing. Strangely, independent witnesses provided matching
descriptions of the phantom, never knowing that she had been seen by others.
That was when Hensley turned to historic records to shed some light on the
building's past. He was stunned to discover that events of the past were closely
connected to the hauntings of the present. In old newspaper accounts, he found
the story of Pearl Bryan and photos of Buck Brady that matched the description
of an often seen ghost. None of the witnesses to the present-day paranormal
activity were even vaguely aware of who these people had been or what
connections they had to the building!
Hensley has since compiled his stories into a book and has been a part of
many of the investigations at the club, including a 1994 exorcism of the place
that failed miserably. The activity continues to occur and several individuals
have even been physically assaulted by spirits. One customer even tried to sue
Bobby Mackey in 1994, claiming that he was attacked in the restroom by a ghost
wearing a cowboy hat! The case was later dismissed.
Bobby Mackey's Music World remains perhaps one of the strangest haunted sites
in the Midwest and one that has proven to be a major attraction for ghost
hunters and enthusiasts alike. Few go away disappointed from a tavern where
"spirits served" has another meaning altogether!
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