One cannot talk about the haunted areas of Kentucky without mentioning Bobby Mackey’s Music World. This place has been featured twice on Ghost Adventures with Zak, Nick and Aaron. Mackey’s is the site of the Pearl Bryan Murder. I should correct myself, it is the site where an alleged satanic ritual with Pearl’s head took place. After the ritual it is said the head was dumped down the well that was used by the slaughter house that formerly stood on the grounds. The head was never found. The murderers, Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling, were hung on the gallows in Newport, KY. That was the last public hanging in Campbell County. Legend has it that everyone involved in the case was smitten with the ‘evil eye’ and fell to bad luck and tragic ends. These two murderers are said to haunt Bobby Mackey’s today, throwing trashcans, scratching people, etc.
The story of Johanna is another sad tale from Mackey’s that involves a previous owners daughter. She fell in love with one of the singers and became pregnant. Her father became furious and had the singer killed. Johanna became so distraught that she tried to poison her father and eventually took her own life. The autopsy revealed that she was 5 months pregnant at the time of her suicide. She is said to haunt Mackey’s as well and you can hear her cries.
Another interesting ghost story comes from Jackson, KY. The site of the railroad tunnel is also the resting place of a railroad worker. In the 1920's, a tunnel had to be dug through a mountain. While the work was in progress, a worker was sawing a board on a high scaffolding. He was constructing a frame that would be used to pour the concrete for the tunnel supports. Below him, more concrete was being poured into a deep trench where the actual rail lines would rest. It would provide a solid support for the steel rails.
Suddenly, the worker on the scaffolding lost his balance and fell into the loose concrete mixture below him. His friends and co-workers tried to rescue him but he was quickly lost in the deep trench as the concrete hardened around him.
As the years passed, on nights of the full moon, it is said that the screams of this railroad worker, falling to his doom, can be heard echoing in the tunnel. Some even claim to have seen an apparition of a saw protruding from the concrete rail bed..... only to see it vanish before their eyes. The Kentucky River lies near the tunnel and even today, fisherman on the river claim to hear the sounds of sawing and then a long, terrifying scream coming from inside the old passageway. Could this poor soul be reliving his death?
Now, one of my favorites is the story of Carl Pruitt and the ‘Killer Ghost’ of eastern Kentucky. Carl came home from work to find his wife in bed with another man. The man escaped, but in Carl’s rage he strangled his wife to death with a thin chain and committed suicide. Carl was buried and his headstone in place. This headstone started to change and looked like a chain was being etched into it in the shape of a cross. This brought some attention to the gravesite by the cemetery workers and rumors spread throughout the town.
A month or so after the chain stopped growing, a group of boys were riding their bicycles past the cemetery one afternoon. One of them, a boy named James Collins, decided to throw a few stones at Pruitt’s "cursed" gravestone, probably just to prove that he wasn’t afraid and had little use for spooky stories. Whatever the reason for his actions, the hurled rocks managed to chip several spots from the stone. As the young men started home, Collins’ bicycle suddenly began to pick up speed, to the point that he could no longer control it. It veered off the road and collided with a tree. Then, in some unexplained way, the sprocket chain tore loose and managed to wrap itself about the boy’s neck, strangling him. Reminds me of the movie Final Destination. Rumors quickly spread about this remarkable occurrence, especially after an examination of the Pruitt tombstone revealed that no marks or chips marred the surface of it. The other boys knew what they had seen however and their breathless accounts only fueled speculation about a vengeful ghost.
Now Mrs. Collins, James mother, was so distraught she took a hand axe and went to beating Pruitt’s headstone till it was shattered in many pieces on the ground. She returned home and was hanging laundry out on the line. Coincidentally, this line was made of thin chain. She tripped, fell into the line, it wrapped around her throat and strangled her. Some people went to investigate the Pruitt headstone, it was back in perfect condition.
The next death linked to the headstone was that of a local farmer. He and three members of his family were driving a wagon past the cemetery. For some reason, the farmer announced that he had no fear of ghosts and fired several shots at the Pruitt stone with his revolver. Chunks flew from the marker and immediately, the horses pulling the wagon began to run. Their hooves pounded faster and faster, until the wagon was out of control. The family members all jumped to safety but the farmer hung on, frantically pulling on the reins. Just as the wagon veered around a curve in the road, the farmer was thrown from his seat and he tumbled forward. His neck snagged on one of the trace chains and the motion of the horses snapped his neck. Once again, Pruitt’s stone showed no signs of the damage that had been done to it.
Now these three deaths should have been enough to convince people to stay away. The townspeople had gotten into such a ruckus about the stone that the congressman sent two police officers to look at the headstone. One of the police officers stated he didn’t believe in curses and ghosts. The officers took pictures and left the area. As they were leaving, the police officer that doubted the curse was driving the car. He noticed a light coming toward them in the rear view mirror from Pruitt’s headstone. He became scared and drove faster and faster. The car veered off the road, the passenger was ejected and only suffered minimal scratches. When he got up and ran to check on his partner, he noticed a chain wrapped around his neck. It was hanging between two posts that the car veered through, it smashed through the window and wrapped around his partners neck. Coincidence? Are you starting to think this is all hooky?
To set the legend to heart, there was one more death. No one would even go near this cemetery anymore, but one man, Arthur Lewis, dared to go there. He was determined to prove that the stories of a "cursed" tombstone were nothing but superstitious nonsense. One evening, after telling his wife what he intended to do, he went to the graveyard with a hammer and chisel and began to methodically destroy the grave marker. The sounds of the hammer and the shattering stone could be heard by all who lived near the cemetery... and they also heard the bloodcurdling scream that filled that night too! Several men grabbed lanterns and went down to investigate. When they arrived, they found Lewis dead with the long chain that had been used to close the cemetery gate wrapped about his neck. Apparently, something had frightened him and he had started running, forgetting about the chain that barred the entrance gate. Oddly, even though ten or fifteen people had heard the sound of the man breaking Pruitt’s gravestone, there were no marks of broken places on it.
After this last death, other bodies in the cemetery were removed and buried again in other locations. People gradually moved away and the small burial plot was forgotten. Since Pruitt had no family left to care for his grave, the site became overgrown and tangled with weeds. In 1958, it was destroyed for good by a strip-mining operation. The five strange deaths, all linked by chains, were never explained.
Like I mentioned early, there are hundreds of other stories I could include in here, but these are some of my favorites.
