Bobby Mackey's Music World. The mere utterance of the name is enough to trigger many of the people who've visited "the most haunted nightclub in America."
Located in Winder, Kentucky, the place (which was originally meant to be a slaughterhouse; a surefire method for opening a gateway to Hell) has worn many faces since it was built in the 1850s. From a hotel, to a casino, to good ol' Bobby Mackey's nightclub, there was even a period when, while abandoned, the site was used for vile purposes.
Based on pictures alone, you might not think the sleepy little club was a portal to Hell. It looks so innocent... a little small-town bar made for lovers of country-and-western. Nothin' to it, right? Well, there are tons of folks who'd disagree wholeheartedly.
The Ghosts Of Bobby Mackey's Followed The Crew Of "Ghost Adventures" Home
In 2008, the crew of Ghost Adventures set out for one their very first "lockdown missions," in which no one is allowed to come or go once everything is in place. After the night was over, Zak Bagans, the show's host, reflected on their experience:
"We've been traveling around the world for years doing this. This is one of the only places where we've had stuff follow us home."
One cameraman claims that the night after the investigation at Bobby Mackey's, he heard pots and pans clanging around in his kitchen in the middle of the night. Then, the faucet turned itself on, as though someone was filling the sink.
Another crew member says he and his wife used to share dreams about Bobby Mackey. In them, the deceased business owner kept knocking on their windows because he couldn't get in.
“This is the only place we had fear of returning [to]," said Bagans.
Cult Members Are Said To Have Used The Abandoned Building For Human Sacrifices
Built in the 1850s, the building that is now Bobby Mackey's Music World originally served as a poorly planned slaughterhouse. By the late 1800s, the place was abandoned, and remained that way until the someone turned the property into a hotel in the 1920s.
In the decades where the building was left to rot, it's said that cult members held frequent rituals in the basement, and used the massive drainage hole (originally dug for disposing of animal remains) to get rid of the bodies they sacrificed.
A Woman Was Decapitated And Left In The Well In The Basement
In 1897, Scott Jackson, a 28-year-old dental student from Cincinnati, impregnated a young woman by the name of Pearl Bryan while he was visiting Kentucky for the summer. Unsure of what to do, Jackson enlisted one of his fellow students of medicine to help perform an abortion on the young woman; an illegal procedure at the time.
The students had access to medical equipment and regularly worked on cadavers, so it stands to reason that they felt fairly confident in their ability to terminate Pearl's pregnancy. However, they panicked at the last minute and instead decided to cut her head off and dump her remains in the well of the abandoned slaughterhouse.
Poor, headless Pearl was left in what became the basement of Bobby Mackey's Music World. Due to the brutal nature of the crime, the story quickly grabbed the attention of the masses. The two men were caught, tried, and sentenced to death by hanging.
While the pair sat in jail awaiting their eventual trip to the gallows, some other inmates attempted a jailbreak. As an onslaught of prisoners fled, Jackson and his cohort stayed in their cells, fearing whatever fate the outraged public might have in store for them.
Bobby Mackey's Music World Was Originally A Slaughterhouse
In the 1850s, the infamous building was built as a slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant. Too bad the interior of the place wasn't well thought out...
The remains of slaughtered animals were supposed to be contained and carted off for incineration, but the building's design wasn't set up to easily facilitate this. Instead, the blood and "remnants" of butchered animals were scraped into a hole in the basement, where they were left to rot.
The building's layout simply did not cater well to the disposing of large quantities of blood and gore. The slaughterhouse closed down before 1900, and remained abandoned for decades. However, a certain group of people continued to use the place for some pretty unsavory undertakings.
Some Ghosts Take Violent Liberties With Patrons' Bodies
Pictured above is what happened to Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures while investigating Bobby Mackey's place.
A patron of the bar once claimed he felt like he was suffocating while a trashcan was thrown around the room. Allegedly, an apparition of a man with a handlebar mustache appeared screaming "Die game! Die game!" which is Latin for "well dying." This cryptic message might refer to the well in the basement that sacrificed bodies were dumped into.
Even Bobby's wife won't set foot in the place after she was grabbed around the waist, lifted, and thrown down the stairs by an apparition that screamed, "get out!" repeatedly.
A former caretaker of the grounds was said to have become possessed by a demon, and later had to be exorcised.
First-Hand Accounts of Paranormal Events Are Pretty Creepy
Regardless of their reasons for entering the club, it seems like pretty much everyone who steps foot in Bobby Mackey's ends up with a creepy story of their own. Check out a few choice selections from an eclectic mix of visitors:
"I was locking up after a tour, which happened to be pretty quiet that evening, and all of a sudden, I hear what sounds like all the windows and door shaking violently. You could actually feel the walls and the floors shaking. It was pretty creepy, so I stuck my head out the door and no one was there." – Laura Roland, Gatekeeper Paranormal
"I had a friend who went one day. I wasn't there, but he told me about his experiences. He said as soon as he walked in there was a sign telling about the paranormal events that have happened, kind of a disclaimer. He told me while he was reading it he started to feel real weird and he was just staring at it. He heard voices that he couldn't make out just drowning out the surrounding sounds. He said he couldn't go anywhere, as he felt like he was being watched.
When he came back he was a different person for weeks, always angry and snippy, everyone could tell there was something off. He started to self harm too, which is when we all knew he needed help. He's fine now, but promises never to return." — Doctorman817
"I'd double check at the end of the night and make sure that everything was turned off. Then I'd come back down hours later and the bar lights would be on. The front doors would be unlocked, when I knew that I'd locked them. The jukebox would be playing the 'Anniversary Waltz' even though I'd unplugged it and the power was turned off." — Carl Lawson, former employee
For my 30th birthday, my wife got some of my friends together and did a Bobby Mackey's overnight [tour]. We all had a blast and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. I [saw] a black figure peeking around a corner when I was in the attic by myself. I spent a lot of time solo on the investigation. I know I saw a figure upstairs in the old caretaker's room behind the bar. When I called out, 'I see you,' it moved and I thought it was going to move from behind the bar but it didn't. I stayed up there for a few moments longer but then I got a feeling of dread and went back downstairs to join my group. I found an old film strip in the basement of a girl screaming (8mm film probably 4 or 5 frames), [and] after I took it home as a souvenir from BM, I couldn't sleep for days. I would be up all night and felt like something was watching me. After a few nights, I threw the film out and the feeling was gone. Idk if something latched on to it or if it was just psychological, but [there] was a weird vibe in my house." — CaptHotPantz
