Episode 476: Bobby Mackey's Music World | Morbid

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Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix and I just cannot get enough of it.

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I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner, and my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi.

It's mine, not yours.

Just kidding. You can have some too.

This is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.

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My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.

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And this is Morbid.

this is morbid and i am looking at audible books I thought you were going to say, this is Morbid and I'm Alayna.

And I was going to be like, girl, we did that.

We did that already.

We were past that. Girl, we did the intro.

No, I'm just looking at Audible books.

Oh, what were you looking at?

I think I'm going to get Salem's Lot because I just want to hear it now.

That's Stephen King.

And Mikey was just listening to it on Audible and I was like, ooh, huh.

I've read it. I just want to hear it now.

That's cool. Does he narrate it?

Yeah. This isn't one of those ads that like you stick into a show.

No, it's literally not.

We're just actually talking about it.

Oh, he narrates part of it.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, the beginning of it.

Sounds like. Like he's like, the beginning.

The beginning. You should listen to Pet Sematary, because you know who does it.

Who? Michael C. Hall.

Shut up. Dexter. Oh.

I was like. I will listen to that.

All right. I'm on a Stephen King binge recently.

Yeah, you've been listening to the writing.

Yeah, his writing on writing.

He has a very soothing voice, because it's been in the car a few times when I've been like driving around town.

I like listening to him.

You know? I like that.

But that's where I am.

i don't really know where i am right now ain't that the truth for all of us we got some we got some crystals in here that are like helping with that energy but i think what i think why are you laughing at me i think that they're sucking my energy a little bit like not in a bad way you know you know what i'm saying crystal girlies and employees yeah there's crystal girlies and boys that are saying yes yes i feel that i hear you i hear you i see girls gaze and lace there you go i love you guys okay well do we have any like anything going on no um do you what do you have i have the paperback version of my

book coming out july 26th i would say that's something going on you should go buy that go go pre -order it it's fun paperbacks are great you can stick them in your bag and they're you can flop flip flop them around yeah who doesn't love the flip -flop and it's got like a fun little insert in it and what it has the first well a chapter of the sequel in it when i got to actually pick that yeah i like i gave my advice a little bit yeah so it's got a chapter of the sequel in it that's cool that's pretty awesome and it comes out july 26th and we'll be in new york the day that it comes out doing like

a fun little chat right a little event event um i don't even know what we're doing i just i'm just like yeah i'll be there we're just chatting about the book yeah just like by ourselves i can do that yeah by ourselves no i'm just kidding oh i was trying to make it seem like we were just gonna be like hanging out talking about the book in new york happened to be there just vibes yeah but no it's an event uh but you're funny but paperback book has a chapter of the new one and the new one will be coming out in the near future hey oh So I've gotten to read a few sneak peeks because I'm awesome.

Because I'm awesome.

It makes me think of my friend Marissa if you're listening.

Hi, I love you. And it's really fucking good.

It's also really creepy.

And randomly the other day, Alina just sat next to me on the couch and was like, can I try something on you?

And I was like, probably not.

And then she essentially was like, what if I did this?

And, like, manipulated my hand in a weird way.

I just wanted to be able to describe something in an accurate way.

So I decided to do it to Ash.

ash it's me your personal you'll find out once the book is out i'll tell you what scene it was that i cast your vote at what did she do to ash .com oh god what a weird website that would be i don't know why you just gave the world that website i don't know about that website it's not real to ash .com that's a scary right i don't like it came from your head it's like in mean girls but he's like that's a scary mask it's a scary mask bro that's a scary well it kind of works out that we're in uh silly giving man because i have a haunting today a haunting i have the haunting of one bobby mackay's music world world.

Everybody's like, are you guys on drugs today?

No, but it's a crazy day.

Crazy. So I'm just going to start at the beginning.

Does that sound good to you?

That's always an awesome place to start.

Fantastic. This is a fun story.

And it's also a scary story.

And there's also some parts that are not fun.

Awesome. I love all that.

Way heavier on the scary.

Oh, so we're going to start by talking about bobby mackie uh he opened bobby mackie's music world in 1978 and when country singer bobby mackie opened the nightclub that he named after himself his main goal was basically just to make it like a tight -knit small little nightclub where people would come hang out vibe dance just enjoy some country music just like quaint goals quaint goals but by 1978 1978, he had spent more than 12 years traveling around the country, either with his own country Western band or as an employee with the railroad.

And at that point, he was like very, very ready to settle down after those 12 years.

He had been born and raised in a super small town, Concord, Kentucky.

The latest population is literally 19.

Whoa. As of 2022, I looked did that the other day and its latest population again for the people in the back is 19 19 19 that's not even old enough to drink nope nope not at bobby mackie's but so he he was from that small town and he was kind of ready to get back to that small town lifestyle after all the traveling and everything um and there was like a few reasons for that sudden urge to settle aside from the you know traveling over more than a decade he was now married and his wife janet was actually pregnant and like i said he really wanted to open his own nightclub he told producers from discovery

channel it was either move to nashville or get my own place oh but it turned out he didn't have to look too far from home to find the perfect spot for his new club because a couple years earlier an old roadhouse on route 9 in wilder kentucky closed down and as it turned out it had actually previously been used as a nightclub.

So it was already set up for, you know, a nightclub.

A nightclub, if you will.

It was set up pretty perfectly, but at the very least, it was a good start.

So Bobby told reporters, in my mind's eye, I could see it all.

I could see the crowd.

I could see people dancing.

So there was nothing going to stop me.

I had to have the place.

Had to have it. But like, apparently, Bobby didn't see and couldn't sense that the place was totally and completely haunted.

Oh. Haunted as fuck.

So the property, which actually still sits and is like open, at 44 Licking Pike, it has had a very long and very legendary history that started way before it was a nightclub, a roadhouse, or really anything.

When it was first purchased, it was actually home to a slaughterhouse and a meatpacking plant.

That'll do it. In what What was known at the time as Finch Town.

It wasn't even wilder yet.

Oh. Now the plant was built in 1850, so that's how far we're going back.

And it closed a few decades later.

But something about it, like something about the property, kept people in town talking even years after it had closed.

A lot of people felt like the area was either haunted or used by their local Satan worshippers slash occultists.

Oh, my favorite thing ever.

Because duh. Yeah, of course.

and they figured that these groups of people would find it a great spot to use for their rituals because there actually really was a well that had been built back when it was a slaughterhouse um like back when the slaughterhouse was running that collected all the animal fluids specifically the blood oh and that well and the legends surrounding it would later play a huge huge part in actually a murder the night the 1896 murder of one pearl brian oh this is a real story oh damn and this is really sad in 1896 1896 pearl was a 22 year old girl from indiana and late in january of 1896 she told her

parents that she'd gotten a telegram from a family friend in indianapolis i said it i can never say that indianapolis i'm not gonna try again because You did it.

So she got that telegram from that place, and these family friends asked her to come visit.

And she was like, hell yeah, sounds awesome.

So she set off on her trip, and just sadly, days later, on February 1st, her body was found decapitated.

Oh my god. In a large field less than 600 yards from Fort St. Thomas and very close by to the abandoned slaughterhouse.

Oh. So the coroner determined that Pearl had actually been drugged with cocaine just prior to her death.

And the cause of death was obviously the decapitation.

Oh, God. And they believed that she had been killed where her body was discovered in that field.

Unfortunately, the coroner also said that Pearl would have been alive when the decapitation started.

Oh, my God. Yes. Oh.

Oh, so 1896 investigators started trying to put the pieces of the case together.

And they found out that the last time Pearl had been seen alive was on the evening of January 31st. And she was spotted with two men, Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling.

Now, the last time the three of the three of them, excuse me, were spotted was in a cab from Cincinnati that was headed back in the direction of Fort Thomas.

Oh, no. Where she was found.

Now, the detectives are pretty sure that these two guys had something to do with Pearl's murder and they were right on the right track.

When Scott Jackson was arrested, he told the police that he and Pearl had secretly been in a relationship for the past several months and that recently he had found out that she was pregnant and he was not exactly pleased about this.

I just want to put a trigger warning here because this is going to be a little bit tough going forward just for this one section.

Just a trigger warning for loss of pregnancy slash miscarriage stuff.

thanks you're welcome so he was like i said not happy that she was pregnant and suggested that pearl tried to induce her own miscarriage by drinking i think is it ergot ergot yeah ergot which is a fungus and rye mixed together that's what they tried to blame the salem witch trials on oh shit you're right i forgot about that um so she obviously refused this because she was like i'm not gonna do that um and she said she refused it multiple times like he kept being like no this This is what you need to do.

Like, we're not having a baby.

You need to drink this.

And she's like, no, I'm not doing that.

No, she gets to decide there, friend.

Yeah, her body, her choice.

Yeah. And it's like, you don't have to be a part of this baby's life if you don't want to.

Go away. Bye. Bye. See ya.

Never. So she kept refusing, kept refusing.

And finally, he sent her himself to Cincinnati to have an abortion performed.

Now, from the story, it sounds like she either didn't go or did but didn't go through with the abortion.

OK. So on the night of January 31, Scott and Alonzo there invited pearl out and they slipped cocaine into her drink hoping that that would cause a miscarriage oh my god got two fucking assholes now that didn't seem to work as far as they were concerned which i was like how would you really i was just gonna say but they didn't give it any time and they decided their only option left now would be to murder pearl and the unborn baby now the reason that they wanted to decapitate her was because they believed that she wouldn't be be able to be identified without her head um which like i know it's 1896

and like obviously you know certain things aren't available but like wow okay wow and that's just fucked up it's super fucked up and like you loved this girl enough to have a relationship with her my god to get her pregnant like jesus seriously so once they killed her they dumped her body in that field outside of fort thomas but when it came down to it they both ended up giving different different stories about what had happened to Pearl's head, what they had done with it.

One of them said that they threw it into a reservoir on their way back to Cincinnati.

Oh my God, can you imagine?

Which I don't think is what happened.

And the other one said that they had buried her head in a sandbar near Dayton.

Now it doesn't seem like either of those two stories are the case, but they never found Pearl's head.

She had to be buried without her head.

You're fucking kidding me.

Detectives believed and suspected that they had probably destroyed her head in an incinerator because Scott Jackson was a student at a dental school and had access to that incinerator.

Holy shit. It fucked up.

That's wild. So they ended up being executed, obviously, for Pearl's murder on March 20th, 1897.

And you would think that that would put an end to the story.

But people still were talking about the mystery.

surrounding the case ever since.

Eventually, the talk of the case would slow down, but for a while, people were heavily focused on this.

Yeah, this is huge.

Right. So Scott, Alonzo, and Pearl have all been worked into the legends and the stories surrounding the abandoned slaughterhouse and then everything else it would come to be.

Now, some legends claim that they were Satanists and that Pearl had been murdered during a ritual sacrifice, and those legends say that the reason Pearl's head was never found was because it was thrown into the well of the slaughterhouse, which was like super, super deep.

Yeah. But by the 1920s, they decided, you know what, maybe we should fucking tear down that old slaughterhouse because damn, if it really is being used for rituals and decapitations, we should get rid of it.

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Now, like I said, people weren't really talking about the legend of what happened to Pearl as often because they were more focused on modern things like prohibition and gambling.

Yeah. Fun things. Old sport.

Well, Prohibition's not fun.

But in 1933, just as Prohibition was about to end.

Also, I should acknowledge that you said Old Sporks.

That was funny. That's okay.

I felt you understand it in your soul.

I did. I love Gatsby.

But just as it was about to end, a man named Ernest Buck Brady bought the Roadhouse and opened it up as a restaurant and casino. And he ended up naming it the Primrose, which I think is really pretty.

That is pretty. Right?

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is like mine mine money pit i'll take it i'll take it so frank screw andrews yep they called him screw yeah they they did of course don't ask absolutely he managed the now rebranded club that they were calling the latin quarter oh sexy and it gained even more popularity now in the 1950s it was actually the or one of the most popular illegal gambling dens in the area and it went on that way for 11 years wow right an illegal gambling den that's a that's a good run that's a good run i don't know know what the typical run is me neither but that feels like a good one feels pretty great i mean over

a decade yeah let's go like a middle schooler but like let's not go because yeah legalities yeah you know there's that but in 1961 the residents of the town were like hey uh criminal activity is a little too rife here and law enforcement like maybe could you crack down on that a bit yeah and law enforcement was like yeah we should probably do that so they did and they closed down the club all right and so it sat empty for a few more years until it reopened in the 70s as a hard Hard Rock Cafe.

Hell yeah. And it's really funny because like, I feel like everybody's been to a Hard Rock Cafe.

100%. And usually they just have like, you know, cool memorabilia and a good burger.

Yeah. This Hard Rock Cafe was hard rock.

Hell yeah it was. Because if the residents were uncomfy before, they did not realize that things were going to get a whole lot worse.

According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, the Hard Rock catered to a little bit of a rougher crowd of people made up of, quote, all people from out of town with an interest in live hard rock music hell yeah i feel like it's just a bunch of like um barbs from trolls world tour oh my god you are such a mom and i love you for that i was like barbs and then i thought you were going down like a stranger things around i was like i'm not getting it i went trolls world tour on us and i said trolls and then i was like oh and then you knew yeah you knew i fucking love barb it's just a bunch of barbs being like

let's rock we have the rock string hell yeah let's go brothers no so but that was like the weird thing about this property no matter what it was operating as a roadhouse the primrose the latin quarter the hard rock there was always some kind of criminal element attached to it you know it's just it's just like that's that's its thing it was just like like criminal it's this place is just like it's kind of my thing to have criminal elements always it's kind of like alexis from schitt's creek yeah it's a little bit criminal it's a little bit criminal when it drives its car but apparently though it's

time as the hard rock was the most violent oh i didn't see that coming nor did i but i thought the mob would have been you know me too but maybe that was just less reported here i am learning things you know i'm sure that it probably was when it was the mob but we just don't know much about that and i'm not going to talk about it no way but the police anyways they write things down and that's why we know about this reports but they were constantly going down there to break up fights to respond to accidents or worse to investigate crime scenes lots of deaths going on yeah the wilder police chief

now it is the wilder police chief robert uh schindler i believe it is told reporters we We have had an awful lot of trouble down there, but most of it happens in the parking lot.

Oh, now, by the time the club like the Hard Rock Cafe closed at the end of 1977, several murders had taken place in the parking lot.

Oh, wow. And actually, just weeks before it closed its doors as the Hard Rock, a man had been killed with a shotgun.

And a couple months before that, another man had also been shot to death as he was leaving the lot.

damn yeah intense that parking lot just like i think it would close and a lot of bar fights would take place and you know yeah well that's where everybody kind of spills out right exactly and i think it just attracted a rougher crowd geez but all that to say the property had gone through a lot of loss a lot of violence and tragedy by the time bobby laid eyes on it in 1978 1878 but again he had no fucking idea all he saw was the future home of bobby mackie's music world i love that name i do too it's really fun it's pretty intense world music world man world tour world tour it's it's the crystals

crystals i didn't know what was happening like ash just opened her mother went world and like hung on it for a while and i was like where's this going i was doing it to the turn the tune of world star you remember those videos they were always horrible you would be like whoa it's the crystals man it's the crystals they're doing something to you that's ashesrock voice is like world tour it sounds like a ship horn it's like that was a maniacal laugh that just came out of my face i love it all right all right all right back to business building the nightclub bobby might not have had a bad feeling

like i've told you 47 times now but But the first time she got out of the car and laid eyes on the place, his wife Janet sure fucking did.

In fact, the very first time she laid eyes on this place, she said as she closed the car door and turned to look to the building, she swore she saw a person move in the doorway and then she saw the front door close.

But there wasn't anybody supposed to be inside.

Did she tell someone that when it happened or was that like a later recollection?

Fun fact, she told Bobby.

Because I was like, you should tell someone.

She was like, hey, Bob, Bobby, there's a person in there.

She said. But he just laughed it off and eagerly made his way inside.

Yeah, you know, why not?

Whatever. It was the middle of the day.

It was fully light outside.

But still, Janet just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something eerie about this club.

It had an energy that she just did not like.

Eek. And when she got inside, she probably didn't really feel much better.

The place was dimly lit.

All the tables and the chairs were still set up.

There was posters and decorations hung on the wall.

Oh, creepy. it basically looked like whoever had owned the place before just walked out one day and never came back wow because that actually is kind of exactly like that's actually what happened so it was like that because that's what happened yeah but i don't know she just she didn't feel like her and bobby were alone i guess is how i would say it all right she later said it felt like someone was in there and it and there wasn't nobody in there but him and i oh and to make matters worse as she made her way toward the kitchen she started to hear what sounded like like a man and a woman having

an argument but when she pushed open the swinging doors that led to the kitchen it was completely empty oh so she like looked around a little bit more but there was nobody there except her and bobby and they weren't arguing oh weird that's like people will hear i in a lot of hauntings you hear like people having a conversation with each other or something yeah that's so that freaks me out for some reason but like the auditory yeah what is that called um it It is in a...

You talked about it in the lighthouses when the guy was coughing.

It's a... Residual?

Residual. Is that what it is?

Is that what it is?

A residual haunting?

I think you're right.

Where they're just, like, just always having that, like, experience kind of thing?

Over and over and over.

It's freaky. It is.

And, like, your first thought is kind of like, oh, my God, are those people, like, still there having that argument?

Yeah. But I don't think it's that.

I think it's the energy.

Exactly. Oh, so creepy.

But so she was obviously super freaked out.

and she later said i wanted to get out of there as soon as possible yeah i don't blame you but bobby on the other hand he could not have been more enthusiastic and he wasn't hearing any of what she was hearing he's just you know he's he's thinking of possibilities thinking about the future of bobby mackie's music world yeah i mean if i had that in front of me i would probably be plowing ahead too right exactly um he he was very excited he was poking around the building he was singing into himself just checking things out oh yeah he's got a new place and all the while Janet is just standing by the door waiting

to get the fuck out of there and after a while she was like hey I'm can we leave I'm scared as fuck let's go and finally they did but as they drove home she could tell because at this point they hadn't purchased it they were just kind of like scoping locations but she knew that this one like was the one that Bobby had fallen in love with she's not going to get him out of it no one she didn't want to like ruin it and be the damper on it bust his bubble and two she also knew that she was not going to be able to talk him out of it because bobby was the kind of guy who would not be talked out of something

once his mind was made so she's like why even bother exactly she knew how it was gonna go and turns out she was right and just a few weeks later they were now the official new owners of the building at 44 licking pike that what a name haunted ass building licking pike licking pike like that every time you say it i'm like like are you sure no no and the answer is no but it's l -i -c -k -i -n -g no that's licking yeah there's no other way to say that i didn't think so it's just like does that why licking pike licking pike i don't like it i'd like to like pie oh i love pie right sure let's call it 44 pie

pie but a few days after signing the papers that made it official the mackeys were at the club like kind of cleaning out all the decorations that had just been left by the previous owner and all the random junk and they spotted somebody in the doorway of the club now the figure startled janet who probably was questioning whether it was an actual person or not since she'd already seen a weird figure this is an apparition but she called out to bobby to investigate and as he got closer he could see that that figure was actually a real person this person looked to be about 20 years old a little bit

shorter than bobby and just you know casually dressed yeah Yeah.

And he was like, hey, I'm Carl.

Hey, Carl. I'm Carl.

I'm Carl. It's like the monkey before Jimmy Neutron.

There you go. Oh, no. His name is Paul.

Never mind. Close. But there's a Carl in Jimmy Neutron.

So there I am. Anyways, I don't know what's going on with my brain.

But he introduced himself as Carl Lawson.

And he explained that he had worked at the Hard Rock before it shut down.

and ever since it had shut down he'd been out of work and he said you know I figured I'd just come by introduce myself I know this place inside and out if you need any help I'm your guy he said I don't think you have the criminal element yet so like I can help you to come and let you in on all of it he said if there's anything you need to know about this place I'm the man to ask and then he said I even saw a guy get killed here once which I was like I don't know if you had to throw that in there Carl girl what a like flex i feel like you could have left that part out weird flex my guy i saw a guy

get killed he's like i know everything about this place even the murder of him he's like welcome to this building i saw someone lose their life here a lot welcome home it's like okay thanks a lot so much so um probably for that reason janet wasn't so sure about carl at first yeah but again she was five months pregnant at the time and bobby knew that too obviously so he was like i'm probably you're gonna need some extra help around here sooner or later so you know what let's take carl up on the offer yeah and he also figured and janet did too that carl's knowledge about the club would make him

an asset along the way especially once they opened the place for sure so he started right away and he seemed to be over the moon to be back like he loved being there i thought this was a red flag at first it's not okay because i was gonna be like what is going on with carl no carl's like a sweetie i feel like he just really loves this so if you love what you you do you never work a day in your life that's carl actually i think i think carl loved this place and i also think that this place loved carl that was beautiful it's not though oh okay yeah like it sounds profound i don't know this story

so i'm really flying by the seat of my pants here i don't know this i literally don't know this story i don't know what happens i don't know her i don't know her so i thought that was beautiful but apparently it is not so now i'm interested to See why it's not beautiful.

It might be beautiful like in the very end.

But I feel like at this moment in time, the place was like calling to Carl, in my opinion, at least. And not calling like, hey, girl, I miss you.

It's calling like, Carl, get back here, you little shit.

Okay. Yeah, kind of like that.

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, you know. But he also told Janet once he started, he said, don't worry about the ghosts in here.

They're my friends.

Aw. He's adorable. that's really sweet i kind of love it i love him a lot i love you carl i love you but she just wrote the comment off to carl having you know like a bit of an offbeat personality and not much more yeah you know she would probably feel different as her time at the club went on uh -oh and actually a few days later she'd probably feel pretty different uh -oh so a few days later she was cleaning in the main room of the club and she heard arguing again coming from the kitchen it kind of sounded like the same voices that she had heard the first day that she and bobby had had come to

the club so she made her way to the kitchen again very cautiously this time and again she found it completely empty and as soon as she walked in though she heard a weird sound coming from the sink so she went over to check it out and as she peered into the sink it started to fill up with a thick red liquid that looked like blood whoa so she started backing away from the sink completely horrified, but then suddenly she felt a huge hand on her back that started pushing her back toward the sink.

Oh my gosh. And she said the more she struggled, the stronger the force seemed to get.

I don't love that. It seemed to her like whatever was pushing her was determined to force her head under this liquid.

I would want to talk to Carl immediately and be like, are these your friends?

Well, then you would have been happy because because immediately he came running into the kitchen responding to Janet screaming.

And as he walked in, the force lit up.

Later, Janet said, if it wasn't for him, who knows what would have happened next?

Oh, I'd be like, you got to talk to your friends, Carl.

You better set them straight.

You said these ghosts were your friends?

This ghost just tried to kill me.

This is on you. You are who you hang with.

Guilty by association.

You better make this right.

You are the company you keep, Carl.

Carl Paul. That's alliteration right there, Carl Paul.

So Janet and Carl immediately went to Bobby because they were like, bitch, you own this place.

Yeah, this is not good.

They were like, I almost just got drowned in a sink full of blood.

And I also heard phantom arguing just like the first day that we got here.

Which that sounds so like just we don't even need to mention it anymore at this point.

Like I was like, phantom arguing?

That's terrifying. And then the sink filled up with blood and they tried to drown her in it.

And I'm like, oh, score that from the record. I don't think we need to talk about the arguing anymore.

Honestly, forget it.

it well bobby didn't want to talk about any of it he was just like i don't really think there's anything going on here wow which i would have been like invalidating me as fuck yeah i am carrying our child you bitch i'd be like why would i make that up like that's a weird thing to make up i don't know maybe if he thought that like she didn't want the club or something but that's like a weird one to make up yeah i don't know but he said i don't believe in ghosts there's got to be some other explanation something else can't be that yeah obviously let me tell you the wrath drew would face if i had

a ghost hand shove my ass closer to a fucking sink full of red ooze that wanted to put my head under that and he was just like man i'll believe in ghosts so fuck off i'd be man i am angry yeah that's what i would say i'd be i am angry you know what this face is it's the face of an irritated woman angry i'm mad upset so janet and carl they were like yeah i don't really care if you believe us or not there's spirits here bobby yeah and before long long they would not be the only ones to think that.

Because a few nights after the attack on Janet in the kitchen, patrol officer, like literal police officer, Larry Hornsby was doing his rounds and he pulled into the parking lot of Bobby Mackey's just to do a sweep.

Now, while he was parked in the lot, he thought he saw somebody moving around inside the club, which was closed at the time.

So he was like, oh shit, that could be a break -in.

So he called for backup, an additional officer and once that officer arrived the two of them went into the building announcing themselves as they went in the front door inside the club was completely dark and hornsby was actually starting to second guess what he'd seen through the window he was like i don't know like maybe my eyes are playing tricks he's like shit did i just call back up for nothing exactly but just as he was second guessing himself both officers started hearing noises from the backstage area of the club.

Hornsby said, I knew there was a man and woman and a radio playing.

I heard the voices and I heard the music.

So they heard all of that.

And when they reached the area where the noises were coming from, they found that the room was completely empty.

Oh, that's fucked up.

But as they were searching the room, they heard the front door slam shut.

What? So at that point, they were like, I guess if somebody was in here, they just fled.

So maybe there really was someone in here.

No way. So they were reported what they found and they left the club for the night and i'm sure they probably were like damn like somebody evaded us yeah damn no we just got got poop but just a few nights later but just a few nights later hornsby was back at bobby mackie's and this time he was actually responding to the scene of an uh of an accident in the parking lot okay and by this time he and and his partner or excuse me sorry by the time he and his partner were able to get the driver out of the car the guy had unfortunately died oh i know and now was laying out on the pavement so hornsby didn't

want to cause a scene so he started looking around for something in his car that he could use to cover the body like and i guess before the first responders got there and as he was doing that he said this young woman came up to him and offered him a tablecloth like the ones that they they had inside the club so he was just like oh wow that waitress was so helpful yeah excuse me that's great so after she handed it to him she went back inside and you know he just went about his job but later once the scene had been cleared he went inside to go thank the woman for the tablecloth and as soon as he

got to the door he realized it was locked and it didn't look like anybody had been in the building for hours what a nice ghost right wow yeah that was nice and And there were nice ghosts in there that's the thing there's some really fucked up ones but then there's some nice ones.

Yeah that one's nice.

Here's the tablecloth.

I agree. So as spring turned to summer Bobby was doing a bunch of renovations and Bobby and Janet and they were starting to you know come along slowly until a fire threatened to undo everything that Bobby had planned for the club.

Oh no. The fire started on the night of July 8th 1978 and when firefighters got the call they were told that the fire was of an unexplained origin.

origin and that it had started in one of the older parts of the building now according to the fire chief at the time edward sendelbach investigators had no idea and still don't to this day what started the blaze damn but luckily they were able to get it under control and it didn't do too much damage to the club but it did do some damage the damages totaled around two thousand dollars but they were enough to push back the official opening of the club a few more months oh and well then that sucks you're gonna lose some money on that you're gonna lose some money and you were so close to opening so later

that summer things at Bobby Mackey's music world Bobby Magic I couldn't say it Bobby Mackey's music world I almost said magic world why do I want to say magic I don't know it's like spirits it's the crystals it took me three times and I still didn't say it right maybe the fourth time is the charm I'm not meant to I won't try again that made me sad you sounded so defeated cheated i'm not supposed to say that i guess i'll just go fuck myself because i want to say magic instead of music and i don't know why he's music world there you go you say it better for both of us so no i'm okay with it all

right well later that summer things on bobby mackie's music world there it is we're finally coming together and everything was on track for their september opening janet and carl though we're still hearing weird fucking noises in the club good but there hadn't been any more violent encounters even better the one that janet had in the kitchen with the blood in the hand that was violent for everybody very violent yeah uh but that all changed in late august she went a little while without being violently attacked but then she was violently attacked again in late august and this time it was really

scary because remember she's pregnant oh i forgot so this not only threatened her life but the life of their unborn baby oh no this is scary so according to janet she'd been cleaning the office on the second floor and suddenly she got a weird feeling like she wasn't alone in the room and as she swept her way back out of the office and onto the landing at the top of the stairs she felt a man's hand grab her by the arm and the shock of you know that happening and no one being there caused her to cry out and whatever had a hold of her actually let go momentarily but then pushed her and caused her

to stumble forward and then a second push came from behind just seconds later and that one sent her tumbling down the stairs the entire flight of stairs oh my god she fell all the way to the first floor and later she said when she glanced up she thought that she saw the shadow of a man standing on the landing and then it quickly disappeared oh that's fucked up right so obviously that fucking terrified her and at that point she was six months pregnant oh my god and looking back on it she later said i was so terrified because i thought i was going to lose my baby yeah i was angry i was terrified

i was everything so obviously taking a fall like that when you're pregnant is really concerning no matter how far along are you how far along you are so they decided bobby and janet to go right to the er yeah and janet actually ended up having to be induced at six months at six months holy shit so she gave birth to a baby girl who at the The time weighed only 1 pound and 15 ounces.

Little squirt. Oh, my goodness.

Now the baby had to stay in the hospital for weeks, but then she was finally stable enough to go home with her parents.

Oh, my God. She lived?

She lived. Wow. Can you fucking...

That is... Six months.

Like, they were supposed to be in there another three months.

Damn. That's so scary.

That's really scary.

And even though the immediate danger was totally behind them, him janet was done and she refused to step foot in the club again and you know what's scary it immediately made me think of him trying the other guy trying to induce a miscarriage with pearl you're on to something girlfriend okay because i immediately was like yeah what the fuck isn't that so scary that's really scary yep and you are on to something so oh good good good hang following your vibes there good job i just was like good good good she just kept pointing at me good good good good job good job so after janet's fall down the stairs

carl started trying to talk to bobby about what was going on oh yeah he was like hey dude um i tried to tell you before like this place is haunted and like maybe we should try to find somebody who could get rid of these spirits no like janet's not coming back here ever yeah i think it's like that whole part of it but bobby was like there's nothing supernatural going on here um no no bobby i know well one he didn't want any bad publicity or rumors negatively affecting the business because it could mean people love a haunt that's the thing that seemed to be like his thing throughout this whole journey

of like not wanting to affect the business but i was like no people love haunted shit oh yeah people would be there from all over you know how many most haunted things in the world there is oh yeah a million so many but also he hadn't experienced any of the supernatural phenomenon himself and for that reason he still didn't believe in ghosts i don't know about that Bobby's a I -gotta -see -it -to -believe -it kind of guy.

Oh, boy. So throughout trying to open the club, obviously, there was a lot of setbacks, and the last one was a faulty sprinkler system.

Oh. They realized it during the fire, and since that, or, excuse me, and since that posted a serious safety risk, the opening was pushed back yet again.

So Bobby promised to the fire department and to the town that he would have it repaired, and in September, he was finally granted to, blah.

And in September, he was finally granted permission to open on October 27th, 1978.

Now, Bobby Mackey's music world of magic and grandeur had its grand opening with performances by Jack Reno, I think, and Bobby himself.

Oh, cool. He's actually really fucking talented.

but unfortunately the excitement of the grand opening was very short -lived because in early december bobby got a written order of closure from the kentucky fire marshal which gives me coyote uh ugly vibes oh yeah because he failed to fix the sprinkler system oh yeah i'll get that fix you're supposed to do that when you say you will yeah you definitely are i guess he had like a lot of other things can't pinky promise and then go back yeah no takesies backsies bobby but the notice Chris also specified not only would Bobby need to fix the sprinkler system, he would also need to fix any other faulty

wiring. So now they were going to have to go through the whole fucking place and figure it out.

And he was a bit worried because fixing those issues was, one, going to be costly on top of everything else he'd already put into the club.

And for the first time, he was starting to face the fact that he might need to start all over again from scratch. you know he told the cincinnati enquirer if it isn't feasible for me to go on with this place i'm going to try to find another building close by i'll definitely land on my feet the club is something i've been really dedicated to in the last year and three months i believe in him i believe in him too and you know what you should have because fortunately the interruption was only temporary and bobby opened back up just a short time later without having to move the business i love that you

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Now, with the major problems behind them, or so they hoped, Bobby's hard work did seem to be paying off again.

The club was doing really good business, especially on the weekends and it was getting really good reviews.

But the supernatural experiences continued.

When you just said the supernatural experiences continued.

Yeah. I was like, what does that sound?

It continued. I thought it was the roadcaster and I was like, fuck.

I know. I thought we were exploding you thought we were exploding i didn't know what's happening my god something fell off of something else and it made a weird noise and so i stopped and i listened and i watched that's you're just so vigilant over there i stopped and i listened and i watched for real if you thought we were going to explode so you stopped listened and watched i don't know if that was that was quite the way to take care of that i mean what else was there to do what was i meant to do what was i not to do are we keeping this in why not something supernatural just occurred i'm pretty

sure all right well the supernatural experience has continued and now customers were beginning to experience oh shit good thing we don't don't have any customers in here Bobby was really trying to keep these paranormal rumors about the club from circulating because again he thought it was bad for business but Carl would tell anyone and everyone about the ghosts and the building Carl knows like I mean that's like you got to tell them what they're in for your number one selling point I think so one night one of the club's regulars Mike Gruber I think is how you say it was quote making fun of Carl

and his ghost friend oh why would you do that well he found out he fucked around and he found out because he was was making fun of carl and his ghost friend there as he was riding the mechanical bull which is like a really bold time to make fun of someone else very and as he was riding the thing started to speed up out of control my god and it reached full speed oh damn mike called out like slow this fucking thing down carl but carl couldn't control the machine and it got nuts and mike said it was like some force took control of the bull yeah the force you made fun of man listen this is the only

only story that i doubt i don't think this was paranormal i think carl said fuck you asshole thank you i also thought that that's the only one that i told yeah i think carl was like oh my god i can't control this all of a sudden you're such a dick it's like some force and carl's like it's me i'm the force it's it's me hi i'm the force it's me he's got a role hi uh my name is the force of course but beyond the owners and the customers of bobby mackie's even people who came to do work on the place experienced strange happening yeah stay away stay away one afternoon a carpenter johnny france which like

what a fucking name him johnny france i'd be like yeah you are i feel like he was hot johnny france had to have been johnny france has to be hot that would be so disappointing if like i didn't think he was hot yeah yeah because i like opinions i didn't want I didn't want to say like if he wasn't hot because like you might think he's hot, but like I might not.

Opinions, you know.

Johnny France, you know.

But he was alone in the main area of the club and he was doing some repairs.

He was doing some, you know, Johnny France.

Johnny France. I'm just doing repairs.

Oui, oui. We were so like Italian and then you went French. Oui, oui.

Bonjour, Johnny France.

Maybe he's half Italian, half French. yep but he was doing some repairs and while he was working he claimed that he saw quote an entire row of chairs fall over one after the one after another as if they were dominoes maybe they were they weren't they were chairs and according to france the chairs quote fell over as if something invisible was in the room walking between the chairs and knocking them over oh that's spooky isn't that so creepy yeah and carl had actually seen a very similar thing happen just a few weeks earlier so this only solidified his feeling that the club was haunted yeah i'd

say so now while the ghost story circulated among the patrons and the staff at bobby mackie's and the people that did work for them everyone just seemed like amused by them yeah but carl on the other hand was getting increasingly obsessed with these hauntings good for him you know like live in i have an interest live in research yeah now one day while he was cleaning the basement he noticed a loose floor floorboard so he pulled it completely loose and he found a hiding place where somebody had hidden a diary oh jackpot jackpot the dream literally the dream i am dying to stumble across a loose

floorboard loosen it all the way and find somebody's old ass diary an ancient ass diary hell yeah do i think you should read an ancient ass diary probably not but like Like what I, yes.

Probably. Most likely.

All right. So according to Carl, the diary belonged to Johanna.

Johanna. And I sing that because Bobby Mackey wrote a song about Johanna in this whole fucking thing.

And that's the song.

Johanna, Johanna. It's way better than that.

Also, he actually has a really good voice.

He does. I don't know why I said actually, like I doubted him, but.

You know what it is?

I'm not really a country fan.

I'll just say it. I'm not at all.

So I'll absolutely say that.

But he has a wonderful voice.

He does. He almost has like folk.

Yeah. Vibes. But country, too.

Yeah. Anyways, Carl found the diary of Johanna, a former showgirl.

Oh, shut the fuck up.

Which like immediately resonated.

This is so good. I love it.

And she had worked at the club way back when.

And as he read through the diary, the pieces of her life started to come together.

He read that Johanna had been in love with one of the club's musicians.

Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

We love a love story.

but apparently her father was super against her having any feelings for this guy totally disapproved totally just totally did star -crossed lovers star -crossed lovers and he was like you can't have feelings for him and you did like which like you can't like how do you forbid that he was like don't feel things i was like what like i can't help that dad i can't fight the feeling bringing it back to a place okay bring it to frozen he also was like you definitely can't pursue them one you can't have those feelings and two you better not pursue them don't now when he found out that they were carrying

out a relationship secretly you made it forbidden man you made it better yeah and he forbid them again he was like i forbid you johanna johanna from seeing this man ever again and actually i'll fucking kill him if you see him again i'd be like dad i'd be like you're kind of homicidal and it's really weird that's a lot so later this musician disappeared without a trace oh and johanna johanna immediately suspected her father well yeah he said he would kill him i would suspect him as well sandsies so she poisoned her dad and then she took her own life and she vowed she vowed i said to roam the halls

of the the nightclub until forever waiting for the musician to return i'm sorry one what a what a climactic ending there right hot that she wanted to haunt the place not that not that she killed her father obviously you know but also give me that diary right give me that diary because that is a better story than i could ever come up with so like basically i'm trying to go to bobby mackie's music world yeah you want to go yeah i don't have any other reason to go to kentucky other than for bobby mackie's music world of magic but in a pretty short time carl realized johanna was one of the friendlier

ghosts wow yeah maybe she was murderous but only for people that but shit happens he may have been a murderer maybe you know we don't know we allegedly that's the best part of it is maybe perhaps maybe she really took a chance though yeah i bet she knew she rolled the dice you know but he carl was like nah like that's my girl and he even actually started to come to see her as a friend and a protector i love that but at the same time he was like i don't know like maybe she was the one responsible for the attacks on janet oh johanna because he was like maybe she was pregnant at the time of her death

and she she resented Janet's pregnant presence in the club.

I mean, it doesn't sound like you had any evidence to that fact, but like, no, literally not.

But he was theorizing.

Yeah. And he figured that was the motivation behind the attacks.

Now, I should say in the year since Carl supposedly found Johanna's diary, nobody was actually able to find any evidence that she ever existed.

And there's also no evidence of the murder of her lover.

That makes me upset.

But. Not that she didn't murder someone.

someone but that like her dad didn't murder someone but like i wanted johanna the show girl to exist i think she might have like a johanna that wrote a diary and then hid it under the floorboards yeah so i believe in carl is what i'll say i'll believe in carl yeah i think johanna existed i mean i think we're taking that like pregnancy thing to a yeah that to a um speculative place but right i'm like i don't know i don't know if it's her pushing janet down the stairs let's not blame sounds like a man well right i don't think it was johanna johanna but the thing is carl was gonna realize that in due

time okay all right you know carl's smart so a lot of people not including me were skeptical what did i just say a skeptical a lot of people were skeptical you were skeptical no i wasn't skeptical what did i even say i can't even say it again skeptical skeptical skeptical no a lot of people not myself included were skeptical yeah you got it about whether or not joanna ever existed you can't say her name without singing it i can't it's bobby mackie he it's the magic of bobby mackie's music world it overtook me it's the mackie it's the magic so but okay so so they were skeptical about if she existed

or not but there actually is verifiable proof of the other two ghosts that carl believed were haunting the club awesome so the night after he discovered uh johanna's diary carl who was living in a space above the club at that point like a little apartment he woke up from a deep sleep and couldn't breathe oh so he slowly started being able to breathe again but as he got like all of his breath back the power in the entire entire building went out which meant that he had to go down to the basement to reset the breakers no thank you so he did because he was like i have some ghosts up in here that like

me yeah but as he was down there he happened to notice yet another loose floorboard in the basement look at this man i know now when he pulled at that one it revealed a hatch covering that deep well shut up that had been used by the former slaughterhouse to drain the blood and the fluids from the animals oh my goodness and he said as he stared into the well which like in general i would never recommend no don't stare into a well he started to feel an evil presence surrounding him in the basement and it was so freaky to him that he literally fled back upstairs into his apartment i just had this really

scary feeling of falling into that well yeah i don't like that for you that's why i don't recommend looking into walls for a while don't i'm out of there take a quick peek and then say gotta go no i'm not going anywhere near that quick no i don't recommend that i don't want to be anywhere near it do what you have to do take a picture must don't even take a picture not me someone else take a picture i'll look at the picture it'll last longer and that's not necessarily i just don't want to fall in it but oh get out of there i know oh get out of that well i'm trying get out of that well i was listening to

waves by tame impala this morning and miguel um i don't know what happened i don't know what happened i I don't know.

So in the days that followed the discovery of the well, which I never recommend looking into, like I've said.

No. Carl. This is why I don't recommend looking into wells.

Became erratic and unpredictable.

Yeah. Looking back, Bobby recalled, it got to the point where I wouldn't know which Carl I was talking to.

I'd have to talk to him for a little while to figure out how to deal with him because he always seemed to be different.

Poor Carl. I know. He was going through it.

because the thing was when he discovered the well carl became convinced that the stories that he had heard about pearl bryan's head were true which it could be and it doesn't necessarily need to be like satanic exactly it could be they just threw it in the well because they knew no one would ever find it exactly now he was worried about the malevolent spirits in the club and he was worried that they were wait i fucked that up sorry he was worried that the malevolent spirits in the club were actually Pearl's killers.

Yes. Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling.

I agree. And now he figured and understood that they were probably the ones who attacked Janet.

Because remember, Pearl was also pregnant when they killed her because they didn't want her to be pregnant.

Yes. And now Carl was really worried that Alonzo and Scott would not stop until they had driven everyone out of the club for good.

I fully believe this.

Me too. so his instinct was to get the fuck out of there and never come back again yeah but at the same time he was worried about leaving bobby and janet oh because it kind of sounds like he like really thought of them like family carl he was fully convinced that the bit the building and the land were evil but he just cared too much about them to leave them behind that's precious and that's why i love carl and carl we trust now as we all know at this point since buying the property and owning the club bobby had completely dismissed any claims of this place being haunted but in the weeks following

the discovery of the well in the basement he just couldn't ignore the fact that something was causing carl a whole lot of distress or the fact that his wife had never been comfortable at the club and now um refused to return there's that but at the same time he was still mindful or like thought that the rumors could affect the business but he also wanted to cause wanted to relieve whatever was causing carl so much stress yeah so he reached out to his friend doug hensley who was a paranormal researcher and who was actually living in the area at the time he's a good friend i know and doug was like

you know what i will do whatever i can to help you now this is fucking wild oh man i'm strapped in so during his research because you know he likes research just like us and dave hensley came across like numerous stories of the tragedy and the death that occurred on the property where the club once stood.

But the one that stood out to him the most was the murder of Pearl Bryan.

Oh, hell yeah. Obviously.

So he dug deeper and deeper into the story and he found out that while those two killers stood on the gallows waiting for the door to drop out beneath them, one of them vowed that he would come back and haunt everyone involved in the trial and the place where Pearl's head had been left. Guys, her head is in that well.

right her head is in that well i actually don't know if it was no it is it is 100 percent oh i was like i had this to be true i was like no i fully believe that i believe it it makes sense i think they probably just like can't get back there yeah it might just be too deep who knows how far that goes down exactly so between the discovery of the well and the other haunted happenings at the club and the changes in carl's behavior doug hensley became convinced that scott jackson and alonzo walling were haunting the club and were determined to destroy carl lawson specifically damn i think he must have been

like an empath wow like an empath no i think he just was one this is wild so doug really wanted to resolve this issue for everyone involved so he reached out to a local psychic medium patricia michelle yeah right yeah right yep for applause absolutely like of course like patricia michelle what a great name now she claims that she has the ability to communicate with the dead and she has had that ability since she was a child and as soon as she got to the club she told everyone there which i respect that she didn't want to know anything about the property didn't know anything about the history and didn't

want to and she wanted them to stay completely silent while she took a walk around and looked at things.

Hell yeah. So in one room, she actually did get the impression of the spirit of a woman who said her name was Johanna, Johanna.

I knew it. I knew she was coming back.

She was real. Now according to Patricia, Johanna knew that she was dead and said that she wanted to stay at the club to wait for her boyfriend to join her.

Whoa, where's her boyfriend?

So me thinks Carl was right after all.

Yeah, I think so. What if he like actually never died and he just left and went somewhere else?

Wow, that would suck.

that would suck real bad like i think the dad killed him yeah now after touring the upper floors of the club carl bobby and doug went with patricia down into the basement where she got an entirely different and way more aggressive feeling than she had in the room with johanna yep now patricia told them that she could see the room quote like it used to be and she was referring to when it was originally configured as the basement of the slaughterhouse so carl pulled back the hatch on the floor to show her the dark shaft that used to be the well and patricia said that inside she saw pearl's head

floating in the well and she backed away from it like she like visualized holy shit now later she talked about the experience and she said i felt like i was spinning i couldn't wait to get out of there i'm telling you i am telling you they put Pearl's head in that well right I know it so back upstairs Patricia filled everyone in on what she saw as she walked the building and she told them I think what is in Bobby Mackey's nightclub are ghosts that believe there is no place for them to go so they would prefer to live in this nightclub than to go on to a place where they may burn for eternity because they're

assholes exactly some of them some of them like the guys exactly and Johanna's probably afraid because you know like she did kill her dog yeah there's that but she also explained that she did believed scott and alonzo were specifically targeting carl yeah and she said they were using him as a conduit for their rage and causing him mental anguish in the process poor carl i know right so she said the only solution would be uh to have a priest or a minister come out and bless the space and to have an exorcism for carl oh so bobby after all of this y 'all still didn't believe in ghosts i mean one thing

about bobby is that he's gonna stand his ground that's one thing about bobby you're not gonna sway bobby two things about bobby he's gonna stand his ground and write a great fucking song called Johanna Johanna those are two things about bobby two things about bobby three things about bobby though he's a good friend he is i feel that about bobby he is so he agreed to find somebody who could help help them with an exorcism because he was worried about his friend.

Hell yeah. So it took some time and, you know, a few uncomfortable conversations with people.

But eventually he came across this guy that he knew, Larry Kidwell, who thought that he might know someone who could help.

Larry happened to work in television and radio advertising.

And the reason he actually knew Bobby was because they had worked on a commercial for the nightclub together.

Amazing. And they just like stayed in contact ever since then.

They weren't really close by any means, but larry knew bobby well enough to know that he was not joking when he explained what had happened to janet and what was actively happening to carl yeah but like bobby larry was pretty skeptical and had a hard time believing in something he couldn't see or experience himself but at the same time willing to give the benefit of the doubt and willing to reach out to his friend glenn cole who was a local pentecostal minister who might be willing to help oh good so unlike like bobby and larry glenn cole actually had no trouble believing that the club was haunted

that's one thing about glenn that's one thing about glenn for you according to larry reverend cole explained spirits and demons don't possess buildings but they do exist in structures where people live or come and go so they can possess those humans when they choose that sucks now given the history of the property and like the whole fucking myriad of tragedies that happened on the site reverend cole was like yeah i think it's entirely possible that this place is haunted and more importantly he felt a very urgent need to meet with Carl to determine whether he was in spiritual danger or not yeah

so a few days later he got to Bobby Mackey's and he wanted to talk to Carl and kind of take a look around the place just like Patricia Michelle now almost immediately Reverend Cole felt uncomfy and Doug Hensley remembered meeting this reverend for the first time and he said he told me this was the most evil sight that he'd ever stepped foot on in his entire life and it was full of evil whoa that's kind of redundant but like i thought you were gonna say that's kind of evil that is pretty evil though yeah evil well when you think about it when you told me the pearl bryan story it's like they did

they killed her by decapitating her yeah she died getting her head sawed off uh -huh that is the most evil shit you can possibly imagine absolutely so like that is pregnant and she was pregnant and this used to be a slaughter house like animals like there's really bad shit happening right and multiple people have died on this property yeah like yeah there a lot has gone down so after he heard about carl's experiences at the club the reverend said i've been doing this for years and i'm telling you carl lawson is demonically possessed oh man so days later on the evening of july 20th 1982 1982, Bobby Mackie

took the stage with his band because he said, the show must go on at Bobby Mackie's Music World of Magic.

Hell yeah. And he was going to perform for a packed house of country music fans.

Yeah, he was. That's another thing about Bobby.

The show must go on, Bobby.

That's right. Now, the band had been playing for like a little bit when Carl, who was working that night, caught a whiff of smoke from somewhere in the building.

And minutes later, one of the patrons yelled something out about a fire and the band immediately stopped playing.

Oh no. So from the stage bobby was like please just like exit in a calm and orderly fashion like we got to get everybody out of here calmly yeah and to his surprise everybody actually exited the building calmly without the slightest hint of panic that doesn't sound human to me me either now as the patrons filed out of the club carl tracked the smoke to a small fire in the kitchen oh in the wilder fire department were just arriving as carl and bobby were able to put the fire out themselves with extinguishers and just a short time later they were given the all clear from the fire department to just

go on with that night's performance what what where did that fire come from well bobby was surprised but also happy that most of the patrons who had been hiding in the burb hiding waiting in the parking lot they were eager to come back inside because they also believed that the show must go on they were hiding up there then they were like surprise we lit the fire funny we started the fire that's funny little side note fallout boy made a new we didn't start the fire because they thought it needed an update because a lot of shit has happened since the last one that you could say really fast like

billy joel oh my god i saw it on the news this morning and i was like all right that's cool okay i like that i'm excited to hear that my screen name used to be fallout girl 1996 hell yeah word carl on the other hand he couldn't help but wonder if the fire had a more sinister origin than just like a simple kitchen fire i also couldn't help but wonder that me either he wondered if the evil spirits that you know were haunting him were threatened by the reverend's presence a few days earlier and now this fire was them trying to prevent him from coming back to the club yeah carl knows what's up carl

does but a few days later reverend cole did did come back to the club to perform the exorcism that would maybe rid Karl and the nightclub of the spirits that haunted them.

Now Karl was surprised to find that the Reverend was accompanied by a reporter and three cameramen.

Were you surprised?

Not cool. But Reverend Cole said you know they were just there to document things quote, just in case anything happens.

Yeah. If I was Karl I'd be like am I gonna die?

I don't know about this.

So he was worried about the reporters being there and And he told the Reverend that he was also worried about getting hurt.

But the Reverend was like, no, listen, I've done this a ton of times.

Nothing to worry about.

He said, I've been in the ministry for 18 years, and I've come close to seeing it all.

Come close. Close, but you haven't seen it all.

Not quite. Not quite.

There's some stuff I haven't seen.

Still uncomfy with this.

I'm like, that could happen here.

A little bit. You might actually see it all here tonight.

So for that reason, Carl was apprehensive, but he was also hopeful, and he was, like, ready to do this.

So he led Reverend Cole and the reporters to the old kitchen, and that's where the exorcism was going to be performed.

Okay. Now, the room at that point was mostly being used for storage, especially since the renovation, so the men had to push all the clutter out of the way before they could set up.

Now, once they figured they had adequate space, they set up a table, and Carl was to sit just across from Cole, the reverend.

and he started reciting a prayer and asking for the lord's help and cleansing the space of its spirits now within a matter of minutes reverend cole said he started to notice a change in carl's body language i guess his palms were pressed really hard into the table and his head started nodding up and down and he quote began mumbling something under his breath and a low and different tone of voice oh i don't like that i don't like it either it gives me esteban from the sweet life life of Zach and Cody in that episode fucked me up when I was little I have no idea what you're talking about but I imagine

it is um uncomfortable if you're a millennial you know now while Reverend Cole went on with his prayer Carl was having a hard time talking but continued his raspy breathing and I guess um that started like right after Cole began reading from the bible He started like doing a weird raspy breathing.

detail the dramatic investigation and arrest of brian koberger you've never read a true crime like james patterson and vicky wards the idaho four the true story it's finally here now he cole kept going on commanding the spirits trying to guide them out you know la -di -da -do and as he was talking you're not going to perform an exorcism right now no the fuck i'm not but uh no i their spirits here then cool but carl's eyes seemed he the reverend said to be completely fixated on him the reverend and finally carl spoke in a strange voice and told the reverend quote they'll get me while i'm alone in here

oh which like i have goosebumps right now oh now for some like that's the thing that this like really fucking creeped me out but the reverend believed that the voice was intended to trick him and like prey on his sympathy like it was coming from a spirit and not carl oh right so the exchange between the reverend and the spirits that seemed to be inhabiting carl's body went on for what seemed like hours with the reverend praying over call carl who seemed resistant to what this guy was saying but finally carl's body seemed to start jerking and spasming as reverend cole continued to command these

spirits to leave his body and then finally Carl fell limp and moments later he looked up at the reverend and said I feel different something in me has changed.

Oh I hope better. Right so he smiled and he seemed pleased that the exorcism appeared to have worked.

Now outside the kitchen Larry Kidwell watched as the four newsmen walked out of the room and they all had kind of like disappointed looks on their faces I think because they're hoping someone would die exactly you know and you know he understood why he also expected a big spectacle from the exorcism like something you'd see in the movies but instead the whole thing kind of seemed to end with like a whisper and a bang i love it they're like oh man it worked god damn it shit that guy is fine but sensing larry's disappointment reverend cole made sure that everyone was out of earshot and then told

larry it isn't over carl or a spirit was lying to me the spirits aren't gone carl was either protecting them because he's terribly afraid or he doesn't want them to leave oh this was not the end and apparently like in some um like reiterations of the story that's where it ends like with carl like in that moment being cured but then me and dave found other versions of the story where all of this happens so a few weeks later reverend cole returned to bobby mackie's yet again and he wanted to finish what he had started a week earlier.

Now, the second exorcism was said to be a hell of a lot more difficult and taxing than the first one.

According to Doug Hensley, it took weeks with the reverend praying over Carl while he just like writhed around in agony.

Oh, no. And in one instance, after one of the prayer sessions, Carl was alone in his room.

This is really gross and like really scary.

And he noticed his underwear had been soaked in what seemed like blood.

So he went to the bathroom to check himself out and he realized he was bleeding from hemorrhoids that seemingly had developed instantaneously.

What the fuck? Like he didn't have them before he was getting exercised and now all of a sudden he had them and they were bleeding insanely.

Maybe that's like the demons coming out.

Perhaps. Doug Hensley said it was not just ordinary hemorrhoids.

These were tremendous in size, growing and spreading like poison ivy.

Big boy hemorrhoids.

Tremendous. They were big, y 'all.

I'm sorry. It was a tremendous hemorrhoids for me.

Tremendous hemorrhoids.

Growing in size. Like what a shitty way to get possessed.

No pun intended. Like honestly, no pun intended.

That sucks. Right? So Carl was obviously in a full blown panic and started crying out to the spirits.

And he was like, listen, I promise I will keep the Reverend from returning if you just stop hurting me.

Like this is terrible.

Oh my God, I feel so bad for Carl.

I do too. we were not laughing at carl we were not laughing at carl i was laughing at the description of that like tremendous this wild adjective to use i don't know why doug hensley wild man now after a week of no haunting or demonic activity after this because everything like got put to a standstill yeah carl was starting to think that his promise was successful in keeping these spirits at bay but then reverend cole and larry kidwell showed up unexpectedly and apparently Apparently threatened to destroy the little amount of peace that Carl had managed to find for himself.

Oh, no. Now, I guess he, like, Carl was like, for a minute, I was like, not going to let them into my apartment.

And he figured he could run or hide from them until they went away.

But at the same time, he knew that's what the demons wanted.

And as long as he did what they wanted, he was never going to be free from this.

My God. So he let them inside and he walked with them to the kitchen.

Larry set up the cameras and left the room.

now as soon as reverend cole started back up his prayers carl was really really upset and cole was like listen this is going to be the final time like i know it like we're so close just stick with me here but carl said but what about johanna and buck referring to the former showgirl and the owner of the primrose and he told the reverend they don't bother anybody oh my god carl and that's when reverend cole realized that this was what he kind of figured all along there was some part of carl that didn't want the haunting to end oh because he really cared about those two spirits and he'd become attached

to them over the past three years so they got like an argument about it and carl insisted that johanna i missed it the last time and buck wanted to stay with him and reverend cole was like listen they're not gonna find any peace and neither are you unless we let them move on to the next whatever so before they were able to reach an understanding carl's voice changed dramatically first to this weird snarl of a man calling himself sam tucker and then to the rasp of another entity who reverend cole knew to be charlie and that was another one of the spirits inhabiting carl's body now they cycled through

one entity after the other and insisted they didn't want to leave and demanded that reverend cole ceased his attempts to exercise them from carl's body so it went on that way for hours with all of these entities like confronting reverend cole and then he was just in turn praying over carl demanding that they leave and finally after hours of this and shouting carl's body began to jerk and spasm again in response to the reverend's word words and this time he forced his hands on the table pushed the the chair way back from the minister trying to escape the exorcism actually actually but at that point

reverend cole grabbed carl held him tightly finished his prayers one by one and all of the spirits left carl's battered body at this point until all of them were gone damn no i just said yeah now later after the reverend had left carl actually finally felt like he was truly alone in the club for the first time in three years or even more because he had worked there even before now the thought of never feeling johanna's presence though again disappointed him but he remembered what reverend cole had told him reverend cole told him when a spirit or spirits are cast out they search the world over

looking for a new home but if they can't find one they They return to their old house, and if that house isn't clean and filled with another spirit, they'll return with seven more, and that person is much worse off than before.

It's very important that you start going to church. You have to fill yourself with Lord Jesus, and more importantly, you can never entertain these spirits again.

If you ever feel their presence, you have to pray for the Lord to wash it and cleanse you.

You have to resist them.

I was with you for part of that.

As soon as you got to the seven spirits, I was like, oh, shit.

That sounded nice before.

Yeah. yeah because it was like oh it'll come back right and be like hey i'm home but then it was like it has seven assholes with them yeah you don't want that like no i don't want that and then i also don't want anybody to demand that i go to church yeah or that i'm gonna be haunted for the rest like it's fine you can go to church don't tell me i don't demand it of me get out of here reverend cole you've done enough yeah so throughout the late 70s and 80s bobby mackie went out of his way to as we know keep those rumors of demons and ghosts from spreading and negatively affecting the business but by the 90s

word had spread because you know there was a whole ass exorcism him in his restaurant yeah that'll get around or nightclub excuse me word had spread and there was really no way around the fact that now people were actually more interested in the ghost than they were in the country and the western music yeah you know it's fine and in the fall of 1993 bobby mackie's music world of magic yeah was actually sued by a patron who claimed that he was attacked by a ghost while in the club i'm a little obsessed with a real lawsuit oh you just wait babe oh man you just wait babe you just wait babe hang on tight

according to the suit jr costigan went to bobby mackie's and quote walked around the club during a myth daring a mythical ghost that has become legend at the club to show itself he then claimed that he went into the men's bathroom and quote a dark -haired man appeared to him with a rope dangling around his neck and attacked him punching him and kicking him then dissolved into the air this is a real lawsuit suit i love it here so in his suit he was seeking a thousand dollars in damages for pain and suffering and demanded that a sign be posted in the club warning of spectral danger honestly that sounds

awesome a warning sign that says like warning spectral danger well i'm glad you like that because it comes back awesome but before that bobby bobby's lawyer w robert lops filed Wild, one of the most unusual motions to dismiss, written in poetic verse.

Yeah. As follows. Give me some bongos.

The plaintiff claims in his petition he was assaulted by an apparition, injured by a ghostly nemesis on Bobby Mackey's premises.

I'm so obsessed with this.

Where beard and brazen he did blunder by taunting their supernatural wonder, proclaiming loudly his resistance to belief in spiritual existence alas this essence disembodied followed the plaintiff to de men's potty shut the fuck up where the dark -haired haunt with neck and noose soundly clicked sorry soundly kicked complainant's drunk caboose that's really you guys that's for realsies followed the plaintiff to de men's potty soundly kicked complainants drunk caboose caboose i'm pretty obsessed with the men's party this is my favorite part this is reckless this is my favorite story on the planet

but even though the tone was mocking and you know the format of the dismissal was a bit unusual yeah lots insisted he was taking the case very seriously he told reporters someone showed up and filed the suit i was hired to treat it as legitimate i'm convinced that my clients were We're not involved in this.

They're not the ghosts.

So that's fine. So they're not.

Now, ultimately, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that this case was thrown out of court.

The guy just like the guy who filed the lawsuit failed to show up for the hearing.

I think, you know, maybe he had other things going on that day or was maybe embarrassed that he filed a suit against a fucking invisible force.

He hydrated and was like, I don't think I should fall through on that.

He had a liquid IV and thought about his fucking claims. But actually, Bobby did agree to put a sign up behind the bar that reads and it's still there.

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 premise that's amazing I love that he was like you know what fuck it I will yeah I'll put up a sign now so by the late 90s he seemed actually like a lot more accepting of the paranormal activity surrounding the nightclub and in the years since the suit Bobby Mackey's music world has been been featured on a ton of television shows like hard copy heraldo the jerry springer show i don't really know how to fit into there a haunting

and a current affair and like other pods have covered the case actually it was one of the first uh episodes i listened to of and that's why we drink when i'm covered it i love that and i was like oh when i was doing it i was like why have i heard the story before and then i was like oh shit so listen to their episode too because it's fantastic and tons of articles have been written about it but today the club still operates as uh out of its original location on linking bank but customers they can only expect to get a beer and hear some music on fridays and saturdays they can still catch bobby mackie

and his best damn band that's what they're called holy shit play their regular set but only on the weekend i want to go the rest of the week is reserved for haunted tours hell yeah paranormal investigations yes and even sleepovers haunted ones who's in i'm obsessed with the fact that bobby mackie just leaned the fuck in he spent at like 20 years essentially being like no no no no no no no and then was like Fuck it.

Another thing about Bobby Mackey, he's going to lean in eventually.

Eventually. Eventually.

Now, sadly, Carl no longer works at the club, but he does continue to share his experiences of the hauntings.

Janet continued managing the club.

Actually, she did step foot in there again.

Until the early 2000s.

But unfortunately, she did pass away in February of 2009 after a long illness.

Oh, Janet. And she died in the home of their daughter.

oh i know their daughter that was born at six months yes isn't that nuts full circle now bobby maintains that he has still never had a paranormal experience in the bar or anywhere else and he's another thing about bobby he's he sticks to his word he's never gonna have an experience no and he's never gonna believe in ghosts he still doesn't when it comes to the club he says i don't know if the place got a hold of me but if that's a supernatural experience then so be it i'm gonna to stay here bobby fucking mackie a legend a true legend i don't really know much else about him other than his magic

world i literally have never even i don't know a damn thing about him except for this and johanna now johanna johanna it'll stick in your head go listen to it right i'm obsessed with this story a story with more twists and turns than anything and i could could have ever expected and like weirdly fun there's so much fun hauntings the true tragedy is the pearl brian story which like that's not i did not see that coming no right like that is a wild story wild story and johanna and johanna if she exists she does how dare you question her existence but yeah yeah the pearl brian one really shocked me

i mean that's brutal and the fact that the killers got and alonzo they're literally we're like yeah we're gonna haunt this place forever like the gal oh fuck spooky but then i'm also like has anyone opened that well girl it's okay i'm just kidding i was just kidding why has anyone opened that well and like no but i like it's like i wonder i know you know like i've seen i looked up pictures of it it looks like it's sealed off and i'm like someone opened that well someone opened that i put something down there to go like a long camera on a on a string and go tell me what's down there right i want

to know because i want her i want her to also like maybe you could like reunite her i know with her body i know give her like a proper burial yeah like i want to know i want to know hopefully well maybe hopefully i can update it someday let's update we can unseal it and i'm like who is are there descendants of pearl that would be like you know they deserve to have that done i know i need to find this out let's find out let's figure wow that was a wild tale a wild tale and um dave is a big fan of this story so he did like a fucking incredible job on the research with dave and i love him i love

dave too and we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird keep it as weird as bobby i fucking love this guy he seems great yeah i hope i know right © transcript Emily Beynon If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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[The Haunting of Bobby Mackey’s Music World: A Deep Dive into Kentucky’s Most Infamous Nightclub]-[Episode 476: Bobby Mackey's Music World]

📋 Summary

The Origins of a Haunted Landmark

Janet Mackey and the First Signs of Terror

The Legend of Johanna and the Well

Exorcism and Final Acceptance

Legacy and Legal Precedent

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript