'Ghost Adventures: Aftershocks' Recap: 'Bobby Mackey’s, Brookdale Lodge'

Courtesy flickr
BY ASHLEY ADRIANCE

In the last several years the "Ghost Adventures" crew has investigated many locations. Are the dark spirits still haunting these locations and the people in the them?

Bobby Mackey’s Music World

Bobby Mackey’s Music World, named after owner Robert Randall Mackey, is one location that the GAC refuses to revisit. It was thought to be a portal to hell opened up by a ritual decapitation performed on site, and it’s known for it’s dark activity. The attachments for the crew have become very personal. A former caretaker, Carl Lawson, passed in 2012, and suffered more than most. Bobby Mackey spoke about Carl (regarding his possession and subsequent exorcism) saying he “was his worst enemy." The GAC interviewed Carl on their first visit to Bobby Mackey’s, several years after his exorcism but it was clear his soul was still haunted. When asked about the video footage of Carl’s exorcism, Bobby Mackey stressed that he had seen the footage before but “Carl was not an actor.”

Long time employee, Wanda Kay, continues to lead groups of brave investigators in search of demonic entities. When asked if she thinks Carl is still at the place, she didn’t hesitate to answer. She said he was always begging to come back into the building. Carl was not just a part of Bobby Mackey’s because he was always there, he was the one to discover the well under the building through dreams he had while living in the apartment upstairs. He would have nightmares, about an entity named “Charlie” who would tell him to go downstairs and dig. Carl has even been recorded on an EVP saying “look at the Bandaid, Mickey” as Wanda explains that they caught the recording after a man had cut his finger on his car door, half way through the tour in the area that Carl had the exorcism done.

Zak recalls a time when he met with Carl outside Bobby Mackey’s when he told him that he wanted to be buried there when he died. Why would a man who went through such a horrible thing want to still be a part of it? Wanda thinks that he was never truly apart from what was attached to him. She also said that Zak’s name is used as a form of taunting in her investigations calling him the “Z-word.” If they mention his name, people get scratched.

Missy Bostrom, a paranormal investigator of sorts, is a part of a group of skeptics who go into places to gather their own evidence to be convinced. They brought Bibles to the building and Wanda was afraid of what would happen to the group. Missy felt a strong negative force pick her up off the ground and throw her back. Zak questioned Missy if they brought up his name in the investigation and Missy denied having used it after Wanda said they did.

Zak asks Wanda if he feels it’s safe to bring people down into the basement and Wanda feels that she has an “understanding” with the demons. She feels that she’s doing her job the best she can especially with the new renovations going on in the building which she thinks is causing some of the spirits to act out.

Matt Coates, Director of Security at Bobby Mackey’s, has quit several times and then turns around the next morning and picks up where he left off. He claims the atmosphere in the place changes on a dime. Matt has even had to call up Aaron to get a hold Bishop James Long to give him an exorcism. When Zak asks him if he’s ever beat someone up when it wasn’t provoked he hesitates and recalls an incident that he doesn’t remember what happened where he hurt someone physically and he thinks something was influencing him.

Bobby Mackey himself is a skeptic, calling the paranormal “it," even after hearing Carl’s EVP after his passing. He focuses on his music and putting everything he has into his bar but Zak suspects that he’s begun to think what goes on in his bar is real.

Brookdale Lodge

The Ghost Adventure’s Crew interviewed Denise Dalton, former Head of Household at the Brookdale Lodge about their former investigation. Constructed in 1922, the most famous feature of the lodge is the Brook Room, a dining area built around a flowing body of water where a young girl lost her life. Denise said she lived under constant fear and stress while working at the lodge and once she left she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. When Zak replays the first interview they had with Denise, she breaks down and can’t watch the video anymore. She’s clearly scarred from her experiences at the lodge. Zak doesn’t care about the paranormal anymore, he cares about the people it’s affected.

They interview Marina Marazzo, Denise’s former roommate and skeptic, about the experiences Denise has had at the lodge, especially scratching sounds on the walls at her home which sounded like fingernails going down the wall. They also had unexplained knocking on the walls. Denise also said that she was given two guitars from the lodge that she hung on her wall. They returned one day to find one smashed and the other on the floor and the thick screws they used, bent.

The crew reviews footage on the thermal imaging camera that they caught in the Brook Room that even Marina, the skeptic, couldn’t explain. Denise, even after having all the horrible experiences at the Brookdale Lodge wants to go back. She feels like she has to return and something still has control.

Why do people want to always go back to haunted places after going through horrible experiences? Zak hopes that speaking to him can give her some kind of closure in her recovery from the lodge and he hopes that the people still attached to Bobby Mackey’s will eventually break free of their ties to the haunted bar.