We give the paranormal community and ghost hunters in general a lot of ribbing here, usually good-natured, and more often than not, well-deserved, but I’m a bit perplexed by this story. Just because Bobby Mackey’s is supposed to be haunted, the two guys who recently robbed the club of thousands of dollars worth of liquor are now suspected of also being ghost hunters?
We’re not saying they’re ghost hunters, but…they’re totally ghost hunters.
WILDER — Wanted: Possible ghost-hunting liquor thieves.
Police are looking for two young white men in their late teens or early 20s who broke into Bobby Mackey’s Music World about midnight Friday, and made off with $3,000 to $5,000 worth of booze.
“From what we can see on the surveillance video, they walked around a little bit, then hopped over the back side of the bar,” said R. J. Seifert, who does marketing for Bobby Mackey’s.
The thieves made off with Crystal Head vodka, Captain Morgan rum, Makers Mark bourbon, Jagermeister hard liquor, Schnapps flavored liquor and several different vodka flavors, Seifert said.
From what the owners could see on the surveillance video, the perpetrators poured some of the liquor into containers, which they stuffed into four backpacks. The thieves also stuffed several 12-ounce bottles of wine in their backpacks.
“We found about 30 to 40 empty bottles on the bar,” Seifert said.
“We checked our sound equipment, our instruments and our merchandise, and nothing else was missing,” said Denise Mackey, the bar’s general manager.
The suspects also pried open the front panel of an automatic teller machine in the Texas-style roadhouse, but there was no money in the machine, Mackey said.
Seifert said the culprits may have been ghost hunters, largely because of the honky tonk nightspot’s reputation “as a ghost place.” For years, people have claimed the Texas-style roadhouse is haunted.
In the 1800s, the building was used as a slaughterhouse. Legend has it that the head of Pearl Bryan, a 22-year-old pregnant woman who was murdered in 1896, was disposed of in a well used to drain blood from the slaughterhouse.
More recently, the nationally televised “Ghost Adventures” and “Ghost Hunters” have hunted spirits at Bobby Mackey’s.
Anyone with information about the break-in should call Campbell County dispatch at 859-292-3622.
“We always tell people, ‘Come for the ghosts, but stay for the music,”’ Seifert said. “We’ll offer a free ghost tour for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the thieves.”
We know, ghost hunters do a lot of bad things in the name of paranormal research. They trespass, they get hurt, and as we’ve seen recently, sometimes they even (allegedly) steal from their fans. But calling these thieves ghost hunters just because Bobby Mackey’s is allegedly haunted? That’s really stretching things a bit, and I think Bobby Mackey’s is trying to get some free publicity from this (Free ghost tours being offered? Check!).
