Bryan's body was found headless[5] just behind what is now the YMCA in Fort Thomas, Kentucky on February 1, 1896, by a 17-year-old farm hand named Johnny Hewling.

Allegedly, on January 31, 1896, Jackson and Walling slipped cocaine into Bryan's drink while they were at a saloon in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio and proceeded to murder her later that night.

In response to the location of Bryan's head, Jackson and Walling gave several answers, such as at the bottom of the Ohio River and in a sandbar in Dayton, Kentucky.

When interviewed in 1937, former detective Cal Crim of the Cincinnati Police Department theorized that Jackson and Walling burned her head in a furnace of the dental college that they attended.

[8] Both were convicted of first degree murder and hanged in the morning of March 20, 1897 behind the Newport Campbell County Courthouse on York Street, just south of the Taylor-Southgate bridge.

[5] The case was very popular nationally at the time, provoking citizens to take souvenirs from the crime scene (even branches), and buy Pearl Bryan "merchandise" from a store near the Newport Courthouse.

[9] An episode of Ghost Adventures explored Bryan's murder and claims of supernatural activity at Bobby Mackey's Music World.

The Ghost Adventures crew claim an Ovilus device allowed them to contact the spirit of Scott Jackson and hear him confess to the murder (2008).

[13] Produced by Karga Seven Pictures, the third episode of Travel Channel's Believers entitled Hell's Honky-Tonk dealt with an allegedly haunted country music nightclub, mentioning a 19th-century story of a pregnant woman's dead body that was found headless.

[14] Am episode on the YouTube channel Mystery Archives titled The Untold Story of the Demonic Bobby Mackey's mentions the history of Pearl and her murder (2023).