The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan; Or, the Headless Horror (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press)

Pearl Bryan was a woman who was murdered in Fort Thomas, Kentucky in 1896. Due to the murder"s gruesome nature, it achieved significant notoriety nationwide. More recently, there have been claims that her ghost haunts the Bobby Mackey"s Music World located in Wilder, Kentucky. Pearl was the daughter of a wealthy farmer in Greencastle, Indiana. Her body was found, headless, just behind what is now the YMCA in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. It is falsely suggested that the neck was cut "clean" with dental tools. Her boyfriend, Scott Jackson, was a dental student and was known to carry a large surgical knife that disappeared after the murder. Pearl was five months pregnant. Cocaine, used at the time as a stimulant and analgesic, and widely available commercially, was found in her system (stomach).