Ghosts Make Bobby Mackey’s Nightclub Famous Subject of Book, Television Shows: A Bizarre Story of Murder, Hauntings
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Ghosts Make Bobby Mackey’s Nightclub Famous Subject of Book, Television Shows: A Bizarre Story of Murder, Hauntings
Covington, KY…November 15, 2001 … An unassuming historic building on the banks of the Licking River in Wilder, Kentucky has become a nationally famous story because of the tragic, strange and paranormal occurrences that have taken place there over the years. The “haunted house” is currently home to Bobby Mackey’s Music World, a local country music hot spot that is owned by the club’s featured performer, Bobby Mackey.
The numerous ghosts that are said to inhabit the nightclub have attracted substantial national attention, with segments about the club appearing on television shows such as “Sightings,” “Hard Copy,” “A Current Affair,” “Geraldo,” and “Jerry Springer.”
Author Douglas Hensley wrote a popular book on the subject (“Hell’s Gate: Terror at Bobby Mackey’s Music World,” Audio Books Plus, 1993). Hensley spent five years researching the bizarre background of the nightclub and the building itself, which has a sordid history that dates back to the 1800s. In the back of the book are copies of 29 sworn and signed affidavits from club employees, patrons, Wilder Policemen and others including Bobby Mackey’s wife, Janet Mackey, who writes in her affidavit that an unseen force threw her down a flight of stairs and tried to harm her in other ways.
Hensley summed up his observations in the book’s introduction: “The phenomena within and about Bobby Mackey’s Music World have yet to satisfactorily defined by any explanation other than: it’s haunted.”
The old building that now houses Bobby Mackey’s was a slaughterhouse for over 40 years during the 1800s. The ample spilled blood from the slaughterhouse and its location on the banks of the Licking River—one of the few rivers in the world that flow north—attracted a hoard of satanic worshippers who used the site for sacrificial grounds.
In 1896, the building became entangled in a sensational and grisly murder when Pearl Bryan’s headless body was found nearby. The young lady’s head was never found, but speculation abounded that it was likely disposed of in the slaughterhouse’s basement well that was used to drain blood into the river when two local men who were active in the occult confessed to the murder. Alonzo Walling and Scott Jackson became the last two people hanged in Campbell County when they were sent to the gallows on March 21, 1897 for the murder of Pearl Bryan. With his last words on the gallows behind the Campbell County Courthouse—located near the old slaughterhouse—Walling vowed to return to torment his executioners.
According to Kentucky Post articles at the time, Walling and Jackson were offered life in prison instead of death if they told authorities where Bryan’s head was located. People familiar with the two murderers’ claim that they refused because they were terrified they would spark the wrath of Satan if they exposed the site of his sacrificial grounds. Reportedly, they offered Bryan’s head as a sacrifice to Satan, most likely in the slaughterhouse well. Local believers claim the well is a “gateway to hell” of sorts, a gruesome legend that lives on to present day.
Bryan (often as a headless figure), Walling and Jackson reportedly have been seen on numerous occasions at Bobby Mackey’s over the years, along with other spirits whose lives were entangled with the building in some way. In fact, several people have died unnatural deaths inside the building, which was accused of several murders at the casino. During the 1950s, it became the Latin Quarter, another popular nightclub whose owners were arrested several times on gambling charges.
Later, the building became yet another rough-and-tumble nightclub, The Hard Rock Café (no relation to the world-famous restaurant chain), which was closed in 1978 by police request after several fatal shootings on the premises. Bobby Mackey purchased the building in 1978 and opened his Music World shortly thereafter.
One of the most frequently seen spirits is a young girl named Johana, a cabaret dancer during the club’s casino days who reportedly poisoned herself and her mobster father inside the building after he murdered her boyfriend, club singer Robert Randall.
Other spirits who have appeared at the club regularly are Ernest “Buck” Brady who
owned The Primrose and who knew Johana, and gangster Albert “Red” Masterson.
According to the sworn affidavits, other witnesses and local legend, paranormal
activity in the club is often preceded by the strong smell of rose perfume.
The juke box at Bobby Mackey’s also has come on suddenly and played old tunes from
the 1930s and 1940s—songs that were not loaded into the juke box. “The Anniversary
Waltz” is a particular favorite, heard numerous times by many people. Chairs
have moved unexplainably, rooms have gone cold and people have heard their names
called, only to turn around and have no one there in the club.
Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the Bobby Mackey’s saga are the claims by several people that they have had spirits enter their bodies while in the club. Some of he sworn affidavits claim they felt cold chills run through their bodies while others claimed to have taken on different personalities and even facial features while inside.
The most celebrated case of possession at Bobby Mackey’s is Carl Lawson, who lived upstairs above the nightclub as a caretaker for the club. Lawson, one of the main subjects of Hensley’s book, claims to have been attacked by several of the resident spirits and actually possessed by some of them as well, including Alonzo Walling. A supposedly successful exorcism of Lawson and the entire building took place at Bobby Mackey’s on August 8, 1991. It was performed by the Reverend Glenn Coe and witnessed by Hensley, who also caught it all on videotape.
For a time, it appeared that the exorcism was successful, but in recent years, strange occurrences have begun once again at the old building. Bobby Mackey, who has refused to believe the paranormal activity was true from the beginning, made plans to tear down the building and construct a new club on adjacent property after viewing the videotape of the Carl Lawson exorcism. However, a piece of the ceiling fell on him one day when he was discussing the demolition, and the adjacent property he purchased for the new club was rendered useless by the sudden appearance of a fissure about six inches wide and 60 feet deep that runs from the old slaughterhouse well to the middle of the adjacent property. Mackey has never built the new club, and he continues to operate at his original club where he regularly performs a special song he wrote, “The Ballad of Johana.”
Bobby Mackey’s Music World is located at 44 Licking Pike in Wilder. The telephone number is (859) 431-5588.
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