Murder of Pearl Bryan

Common card · No. 362003

Pearl Bryan (c. 1874–1896) was a 22-year-old pregnant American woman from Greencastle, Indiana who was found decapitated in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, in 1896. Her head was severed below the fifth vertebra. Due to the murder's gruesome nature, it achieved significant notoriety at the time. More recently, there have been claims that her ghost haunts Bobby Mackey's Music World located in Wilder, Kentucky. Bryan had graduated from Greencastle High School, and was working as a Sunday school teacher at the time of her murder. She maintained a secret romantic relationship with a dental student of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. Her lover and his roommate slipped cocaine into Bryan's drink while they were at a saloon in Cincinnati, Ohio, and proceeded to murder her later that night. Both students were convicted of first degree murder and hanged on the morning of March 20, 1897.

Read on Wikipedia · Image "Hunton," Greencastle, IN, photographer, 1896 or earlier, Public domain