threw them down the well. I went into the room and the others claimed that they saw a spirit orb fly around my head. Could this be a spirit from one of the children that had been thrown into the jail room?
Then Matt guided us over to an open doorway on the other side of the room, where stairs proceeded up to nowhere. I thought how bizarre that the stairs just led up to a plastered wall. It’s possible that during Prohibition, bootleggers may have used the stairs to bring liquor up to the bar. They probably brought it up from the river so no one would catch them smuggling the illegal booze. There could have been a door leading to the outside that had been closed off in later years.
I saw that in one corner of the room the floor had been ripped up and the gruesome well opening was exposed. There was a barricade of wooden slats built in front of the well so no one would accidentally fall in. I asked Matt who ripped up the floor, and as he lifted his leg to brace himself on the barricade he answered, “Carl had a dream that Johanna came to him and pointed at the floor. She told him that if he would rip up the floor in the basement, he would find the well and her diary there.”
“Who are Carl and Johanna?” I asked. Matt said that Carl Lawson was a maintenance man who’d been employed at Bobby’s for a long time. He lived in an apartment above the club. He started seeing shadows and hearing disembodied voices shortly after he came to work there. It wasn’t long until he started seeing a full-body apparition of a woman. Later, he claimed that he had conversations with her and that he thought the ghost’s name was Johanna. She was a young woman who committed suicide after her boyfriend was murdered. She found out that her father, owner of the Latin Quarters, arranged to have her boyfriend, Robert Randall, killed so that they couldn’t be together. She had met Robert Randall while he was a singer at the club and had fallen in love with him. Her father begged her to forget him, but she was bound and determined to marry him. Her father took things into his own hands and, with his mafia connection, had one of his gangsters kill him. After Johanna took her own life, they found her body in the basement in the same room that housed the well. She was five months pregnant.
I was struck by the coincidences: two women whose deaths were connected to the site of Mackey’s nightclub and both were five months pregnant at the time of their deaths. Later on, during my interview with Bobby, I found another interesting coincidence. Johanna’s boyfriend’s name was Robert Randall, and Bobby Mackey’s full name is Robert Randall Mackey. Bobby has even written a song titled “Johanna” as a tribute to her life there.
I asked Matt if Bobby and his wife, Janet, had ever experienced any of the paranormal commotion, and he shared another story with me about Janet. Shortly after they purchased the place, Janet, who was pregnant at the time, went upstairs to clean the apartment. She stopped in the middle of her work because she thought she heard voices in the apartment. At first she couldn’t make out what they were saying. When she resumed her work, they started talking again. Again, Janet stopped what she was doing. The voices grew louder and spoke more clearly, and as she listened, she understood them saying, “Get out of here.” She became very upset and started to leave the apartment. All of a sudden, she felt invisible hands take a hold of her, preventing her from leaving. She struggled and pulled away from the controlling force and ran for the stairs. Reaching for the railing, Janet started down the stairs, but the enraged ghost pushed her. She lost her footing and fell down the stairs. As she lay on her back at the bottom of the stairs, she looked up to see a figure looking down at her and then it walked away. The fall pushed Janet into premature labor. The doctor was able to stop the labor, and her healthy baby was born closer to the delivery date. Even though Janet had experienced other strange happenings, such as doors opening on their own, lights flickering with static sounds, and a ladder that walked toward her, being pushed down the stairs was enough for her. She vowed never to return to the place. However, she did return to Bobby Mackey’s Music World two years later to help bartend on Friday and Saturday nights. She would clean up quickly and leave as soon as her shift was over—and she would never stay in the building alone.
We wrapped up our investigation, and two days later I called Bobby Mackey to get his take on all the ghosts at his place. He was every bit a gentleman and so kind to answer my questions. He told me right up front that he did not believe in ghosts. He assured me that nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to him, even though Janet did have some incredible experiences. I asked him how he felt about having the same name as Johanna’s boyfriend. He said that it was a strange coincidence, but nothing more than that.
Unlike Bobby, Janet felt that Johanna was the one who pushed her, since Janet was also pregnant—here again, another coincidence. Janet also married a man with the name Robert Randall, the same name as Johanna’s boyfriend. The ghost might have believed that Janet’s husband, Bobby, was her boyfriend reincarnated. Janet admitted to Bobby that she thought that Johanna attacked her because of jealousy towards her. A couple of days after talking to Bobby, I called R.J. to get a few more details for my story. He told me that Janet had passed away only the day before. I was truly shocked and asked if she had been sick. He explained that Janet had suffered with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) for some time but had it under control with medication. She had gone to her daughter’s house to baby-sit her grandchildren while her daughter and son-in-law went out on a Valentine’s Day date. When they returned, they asked Janet if she was going to bed, and she replied that she wanted to stay up and watch TV for a while. The following morning they found Janet slumped over on the couch as if she had fallen asleep while watching TV. When they tried to wake her, they realized that she had passed away some time during the night. “At least Janet was able to spend her last hours with her grandchildren, whom she loved and adored with all her heart,” R.J. said.
I dedicate this chapter to this loving and devoted woman, Janet Mackey, who was loved by all who knew her. Janet Mackey had been married to Bobby for forty-two years and was only a couple of days short of her sixty-first birthday.
CHAPTER 2
Boone Tavern
BEREA, MADISON COUNTY
WHEN I FIRST MOVED to Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1995, I met a talented and unique young lady of twelve, Shoshana Gross. I was a member of the Bardstown Community Theater(BCT), and Shoshana’s mom, Tova, was also a member there. Once Shoshana and I met, we became instant friends. Occasionally I would arrange to spend time with her on weekends. She was extremely talented, with her musical skills of writing songs and playing the guitar, which kept me entertained on our weekends together. Shoshana is quite the success now as she lives with her husband in Scotland.
One day Shoshana called me to let me know that she had decided to go to Berea College, located in Berea, Kentucky. I was not familiar with the college until Shoshana shared with me the history. The college was founded about 150 years ago by Reverend John Gregg Fee. He was a strong believer in equality by providing interracial and co-educational advantages for students in the Appalachian area. The town literally developed around the college.
“How will you be able to afford to go there?” I asked. Shoshana replied, “This is the beauty of it. Berea offers a tuitionfree education. The money is provided by donations and other monetary means. Because of my good grades and high scores, I qualify to go there.” I congratulated her, and she said, “I have some more great news. There is an old hotel there called Boone Tavern that is supposed to be haunted.” Okay, now she really had my attention. I asked her, “What do you know about it?” “When I got into town I read about it in a brochure I picked up at the hotel. The Boone Tavern was built in 1909 to provide guests with lodging and meals while they were visiting the president of Berea College. As the number of visitors grew, so did the tavern, and it has been offering lodging ever since. During my short stay in Berea, I did hear stories from the students and locals that the tavern was haunted but didn’t have time to listen to all the stories. I knew I had to call you so you could check it out,”
