The building that is now Bobby Mackeys Music World was built in 1850’s and originally served as a slaughterhouse and meat packing operation. Only a well that was dug in the basement, where blood and refuse from the animals was drained, remains from the original building. The slaughterhouse closed down in the early 1890’s, but legend has it that the building was far from abandoned. According to the lore, the basement of the packing house became a ritual site for occultists. The well was used to hide the remains of small animals that were butchered during their ceremonies.

During the mid-1900s, the now restaurant was a crap-shootin’, blackjack-playin’, roulette-wheelin’ casino. It was operated as Buck Brady’s Primrose Club and attracted many customers from Newport’s Merchant’s Club and Glen Schmidt’s Playtorium.

They later renamed it the Latin Quarter and it flourished, along with other Northern Kentucky casinos, until 1961 when Sheriff George Ratterman and the Committee of 500 began the drive to rid Campbell County of organized crime.

After the Latin Quarter closed, several businesses moved in and out of the location.

One, the rough-and-tumble Hard Rock Cafe, opened in 1970 but was shut down in 1977 after several shootings. In 1978, the club reopened as Bobby Mackey’s Music World.

Two of the most popular legends associated with the location feature tragic female figures. The building is said to be haunted by two men who murdered a young pregnant woman, Pearl Bryan, cutting off her head, and depositing the head into one of the onsite drains in what has been described as a Satanic sacrifice. When the old “well” was uncovered decades later by a caretaker, a “portal to hell” was said to have been opened. The caretaker then claimed to be possessed by the freed evil entity. The basement area and the “supernatural vortex” located at the well/drain are promoted as a legendary location of occult activity on the Bobby Mackey website and is part of a paranormal-themed tour of the site.

The basement was also the location of former dressing rooms for performers of the upstairs club. There is a story revolving around a woman named Johanna. She was a club dancer from the 1940s who fell in love with a man whom her father, a mobster, did not approve. When her lover was killed by the mob, she poisoned herself in the dressing room and died in the basement. She wrote a final love poem that is penned on the wall. Neither story stands up to scrutiny in relation to the current building and its well-publicized haunted history.

The current owner of the building is country music aficionado, Bobby Mackey, who bought the club as a live music venue. Paranormal tales regarding the site ramped up since then. Though Bobby Mackey himself never experienced any trouble, others have reported physical and emotional attacks at the location including his late wife Janet who was allegedly attacked by an invisible entity. Other people have claimed they have been assaulted by forces that threw them across the room. Employees, visitors, and paranormal investigators reported experiences with shadow people, mists, disembodied voices, balls of light, strong feelings of other beings present, and recordings of electronic voice phenomenon (EVPs). About 40 different spirits have been identified as inhabiting the site by visitors and self-described psychics. A dark entity is said to be present that is particularly dangerous to women.

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Haunted Places, Legends and Ghosts

Bobby Mackeys : Wilder, KY

Bobby Mackeys : Wilder, KY

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