A large group of "Ghost Adventures" fans and paranormal thrill-seekers were joined by staff at Roadtrippers.com to spend the night locked inside what's said to be the most haunted building in all of America — Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Ky.
The 12-hour overnight adventure Feb. 12, 2015 was part of the Nick Groff Tour, a series of paranormal investigations alongside the star and executive producer of Travel Channel’s "Ghost Adventures" and executive producer of "Destination America's Ghost Stalkers."
It’s been four years since Groff last visited Bobby Mackey’s Music World, thanks to some seriously terrifying paranormal experiences.
While there are many ghosts said to haunt Bobby Mackey's, the most famous of the bunch are Johanna, Pearl, and the infamous Scott Jackson. In 1896, 22-year-old Pearl Bryan’s body was found decapitated in a field on the property. Pearl had been pregnant at the time of her death, and it didn't take long for police to figure out that her boyfriend, a student named Scott Jackson, and his fellow classmate Alonzo Walling, had attempted to conduct their own abortion on Pearl.
For obvious reasons, the procedure went horribly wrong, and after Pearl died, they removed her head with the hopes of throwing the police off their trail. When they were inevitably captured, both men were sentenced to death for their crime, and Alonzo vowed to haunt the property indefinitely before he died.
By the 1950s, the building had become known as the Latin Quarter. Johanna, a dance hall girl working at the bar, fell in love and became pregnant with the child of a singer by the name of Robert Randall. When her father discovered what had happened, he had Randall killed, and so Johanna poisoned him before taking her own life beside what is now known as "the portal to hell".
"Ghost Adventures" filmed for the first time at Bobby Mackey’s in 2008, and returned through the years to continue their investigation. Unfortunately, things took a dark turn after a public "Ghost Adventures" event at the bar, and the cast members, Groff included, began experiencing things in their personal lives they believed were directly linked to the darkness trapped in the bar.
Fast forward four years later, and Nick Groff has finally returned to Bobby Mackey's — the first stop on his nationwide paranormal tour.
The night investigations began with the entire group of thrillseekers heading to the basement for their first taste of what the evening would bring. We huddled in the dark to conduct a series of Electronic Voice Phenomenon tests with the hopes of recording the disembodied voices of the sprits. During the experiments, the digital recorders captured what sounded like an intelligent voice responding to questions, but it wasn’t until the group huddled around “the portal” the responses got truly strange.
At one point, Groff asked the spirit of Johanna if she liked the band playing every night, and clear as day, on the playback, listeners could hear a woman’s voice reply with, “I love it when the band plays.” At another point during the evening the digital recorder captured a very angry voice that seemed to scream not only “Nick!” but also, “Scott Jackson”.
It was truly strange.
The pinnacle of the evening came when a small group (including the writer of this story and Nick Groff) headed to the basement for one last hopeful interaction. As the audio rolled and the cameras snapped, a very large man standing in the back of the room lurched forward, nearly crashing into the group, pushed by a pair of unseen hands. He was visibly shaken by the experience, as was the rest of the group, and all left in big hurry, ready to say goodbye to the ghosts of Bobby Mackey’s.
Event-goers were also treated to mind-bending lectures courtesy of "Ghost Stalkers" star John E.L. Tenney. He'll also be in attendance at an Ohio State Reformatory event April 17.
Groff greeted all of his fans with warm hugs and smiles, and took the time to listen to people’s stories and even share some of his own.
Up next on the tour are in-depth investigations of Ohio State Reformatory, Ashmore Estates and Missouri State Penitentiary, with more events to be announced.
