The Haunting History of Bobby Mackey’s: Pearl Bryan
Imagine an afterlife where you’re stuck in the basement of a honky-tonk bar with the ex boyfriend who murdered you and his accomplice roommate.
Many people believe that’s the fate of Pearl Bryan. Pearl’s murder made headlines in 1896 due to its gruesome nature and the mystery around what happened to her head.
Pearl Bryan was by all accounts, a charming, smart, and kind young woman. At 22, she taught Sunday school and was said to have had all the young men in her hometown of Greencastle Indiana attempting to court her.
But she fell hard for a dental student named Scott Jackson. Jackson was an attractive man with sandy hair and almost pretty features. His family ran in the same respected circles as Pearl’s.
He had a bit of a bad boy reputation after he and a business partner had been accused of embezzling money from their employer. Jackson was home in Greencastle after being acquitted, though his partner was convicted of the crime. Pearl and Jackson saw each other quietly, leading most people in town to assume they were only casual friends.
Jackson returned to dental school in Cincinnati before Pearl realized that she was pregnant. She wrote several letters to him, telling him about her condition but he didn’t respond. With the help of a mutual friend, Pearl was able to contact Jackson and he began sending her abortifacients. Nothing worked. Finally, he told her he would try to get enough money together to pay for an abortion and that one could be obtained in Cincinnati.
By the account of her and Jackson’s mutual friend, William Wood, it seems that Pearl was relieved. She had loved Jackson, but after his refusal to answer her letters and his overall attitude towards her predicament, she had realized what kind of man he was. Her main concern now was to avoid scandal and quietly move on with her life.
She told her parents that she was going to visit friends in Indianapolis but instead, headed to Cincinnati to meet with Jackson.
As Pearl traveled, Jackson was asking questions around the medical school. He wanted to know what poisons killed a person the quickest. He purchased a lethal dose of cocaine from a drugstore before Pearl arrived.
Friday, the night of the murder, Jackson brought Pearl to a saloon run by David Wallingford, located in what was then the red light district of Cincinnati. I can only imagine that this scandalized Pearl just a bit. Not only was she about to undergo an illegal surgery, but she was also spending time in an area of town full of brothels and bars. David Wallingford, the owner of the saloon, told police that Jackson had been there with Pearl and his roommate, Alonzo Walling. He told authorities that Pearl drank a sarsaparilla before leaving.
Jackson’s roommate, Alonzo Walling, was also a dental student who had originally been from Greencastle Indiana. His family didn’t have the means Jackson and Pearl’s had. Instead, he worked to help support his family before his mother managed to send him to dental school.
The three of them left the saloon and got into a carriage.
The carriage drove them to Fort Thomas, Kentucky. The driver later told authorities that Pearl began to moan in pain and was becoming visibly upset on the ride. The three got out and the driver, a black man, debated what he should do. Ultimately, he drove away, afraid to be there any longer in case the woman died and the two men framed him. He came forward with his story though, after seeing the case in the news. It was his testimony that solidified that case against Jackson and Walling as there had been no other witnesses to see them with Pearl in Kentucky.
Investigators determined that for a while, Pearl walked side by side through an orchard with her attacker, before something happened and she began to run. Her attacker and her slid down an embankment. With Pearl face down, her attacker slit her throat and began to cut her head off with the knife from the back, cutting between the fifth and sixth vertebrae.
Afterwards, though the exact details are unclear, as both Walling and Jackson never fully confessed, they took the head back to Cincinnati with them. The night after the murder, Jackson again visited Dave Wallingford’s saloon, this time, with a valise- a small travelling bag. David Wallingford told the police that when Jackson returned to the bar, he looked unwell and that the bag he sat down seemed to have some weight to it, due to the thump it made on the bar.
Pearl’s body was found Saturday, the morning after her murder.
A doctor who was present during the postmortem said, “the post-mortem shows beyond a doubt that Pearl Bryan died by the knife and was conscious when she was killed.”
A specialist was called in to help lead detectives in the direction of the killer, or at least, Pearl’s head. Arthur Carter and his team of famous bloodhounds arrived on the scene. The hounds, Jack, Wheeler, and Stonewall were renowned for helping lead to other arrests in the area and they did their best to sniff out any evidence. Odds were against them though.
Much like today, true crime was kind of a big deal. As far back as the printing press, people have been sharing stories of murder. There were even clubs dedicated to discussing cases, some of whom collected artifacts from the cases. Relic Hunters would snatch anything the police hadn’t yet grabbed. After the police removed Pearl’s body, Relic Hunters cased the orchard, grabbing bloody twigs, pieces of Pearl’s torn clothing, and even lumps of dirt soaked in blood.
Authorities had to figure out who their victim was, a feat made even more difficult without a head. They announced in the papers that her clothes were not of great quality, that they could tell a mole had been removed from her hand, that her fingers showed signs that she was a seamstress, and the make and type of shoe she wore. All they could do was wait for someone to recognize her based on those facts alone.
In the meantime, they drained the Covington Reservoir only to find no trace of Pearl’s head.
On the Monday after her murder, Jackson visited another bar. He left a valise with the bartender, telling him he would return for it the following night. Another valise was left with a barbershop.
While the hunt continued for her head, a salesman in Greencastle recognized the shoes Pearl was wearing and traced the sale back to her family. Her sister and mother came to identify her remains. It was only a matter of time before she was connected to Jackson.
When the announcement went to the paper that police were looking for Scott Jackson, the bartender came to the police with the valise he had been given. The inside was stained with blood.
Jackson was brought in and he immediately began to place the blame on their mutual friend, William Wood. The police released Wood shortly after first interviewing him, confident that he was telling them the truth. Then, Jackson turned on his roommate and accomplice, Walling. Walling was brought in and the two men could never get their stories straight about the incident, nor would they ever confess outright. Walling told police that him and Jackson had taken Pearl’s clothing to various locations, the river and sewers, and dumped them but never said anything about location of her head. Jackson, similarly, told authorities several “possible” locations where “someone” may have put the head but it was never found.
Both men say that Pearl’s death was the result of a botched abortion. I have my doubts about that though. Walling told police that Jackson had been looking for a poison from the time he invited Pearl to Cincinnati. There are no reports of wounds anywhere other than her neck. I believe that Jackson had always meant to murder Pearl, perhaps due to the cost difference between a lethal dose of cocaine and an illegal operation.
Walling and Jackson were hanged for the murder of Pearl Bryan on March 20th, 1987. Jackson continued to change his story until his final moments. Both men died from strangulation.
But what does this have to do with Bobby Mackey’s? During the years that the Pearl Bryan case was making national news, the building that stood where Bobby Mackey’s is now was a slaughterhouse. The basement was specifically designed with an in-ground well, a convenient place to throw out bits no one wanted, blood, and bone. Legend says after the slaughterhouse closed down, that it became a popular gathering spot for the local Satanists. The rationale being that it was a pit that had been fed with blood and bone for years and so they just…kept doing that but with sacrifices. Some people believe that Jackson was part of this local gang of Satanists and that he threw Pearl’s head down the well. Other’s think he just found it to be a convenient spot to dump a head.
At the end of the day though, Pearl was murdered a few miles from the slaughterhouse. Jackson, a Greencastle native and a student in Cincinnati, probably wouldn’t have known anything about a well in a slaughterhouse in Wilder Kentucky. I checked with the local historic society and there is no evidence of anything mildly cult related in the area during this time. I’d be willing to bet that this particular satanic twist was added during the 80’s or 90’s during the Satanic Panic. Witnesses say Jackson had the head with him in Cincinnati, at least at some point. The most logical answer is that it was tossed into the Ohio River. The most morbid one is that it was sold to a fellow student, as the Cincinnati medical college had quite the reputation for body snatching at the time.
All in all, there is no evidence tying Pearl Bryan or her head, to Bobby Mackey’s. It was a sensational crime when it happened and still is, even today. It makes sense that ghost enthusiasts may try create a concise tale to fit into their investigations. But there was nothing concise about this case, and there were no neat endings for Pearl Bryan.
A quote I saw often when researching Pearl’s case was “She loved not wisely but too well.” Most good ghost stories and urban legends are cautionary tales. Pearl was a kind young woman who fell hard for the wrong guy. The tale of Pearl Bryan can teach a lot of antiquated lessons but if we take one thing away from her story, let it be that you should always try to love wisely.
Sources:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29569/29569-h/29569-h.htm
Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 93, Number 27, 21 March 1897 PEARL BRYAN’S MURDER AT LAST AVENGED.
And Jan at the Campbell County Historic Society, thanks Jan.
