Haunted Kentucky: Greenwood Mall in Bowling Green

 

Greenwood Mall - Image from Facebook

Many people head to the Greenwood Mall in Bowling Green, Kentucky every day. They want to pick up some new clothing, visit other stores, and swing by the food court for a quick snack. One thing they do not expect is to come face to face with a ghost, but Greenwood Mall has a reputation as the most haunted mall in America.

Work began in 1977 on the mall, which opened two years later. Around 50 stores opened at the same time. While some were new like JC Penney, others like Caster Knott moved from other areas. The Greenwood Mall had the same struggles other malls did over the years as traffic dropped and stores pulled out or closed down. While the mall is still successful today, it had its fair share of incidents over the years.

In 2015, Bowling Green Police responded to an incident exposure call at the mall. A woman in the parking lot reported that a man asked her for help. When she got close to his vehicle, she found his pants down. It seems the man moved on and was never caught. In 2023, Bowling Green Police arrested a man for crashing his vehicle into the mall, which led to the death of another.

The most tragic incident and the one that led to the mall's haunting happened in 1996. Several customers told security guards about seeing a man sitting in an old truck in the parking lot. They were concerned he didn't appear to move, no matter how much time they spent shopping. Security guards called the local police. Officers arrived to find the man dead. They could not determine how long he was there or who he was. All they found was that he stole the pickup. An odd addition to this story is that locals claim they could never determine what led to his death.

The man allegedly haunts his former parking spot. A woman visiting the mall was shocked when she returned to her car to find a man sitting in the passenger seat. She quickly raced to security, but the guard dispatched found her car empty. Not long after, a man came back to his van to see a man resting in the passenger seat. Angry, he pounded on the window but the unknown passenger didn't move. By the time he walked to the driver's side and opened the door, the van was empty. Others had similar experiences since then. Rumor says it only happens to those who park in the same spot where he died.

Bowling Green Police receive the calls so often that they even made a joke. When they get a call about an unknown man sleeping in a vehicle, they send a rookie out on a sleeper call. Locals also nicknamed the ghost the sleeper man. I've heard from a few workers who claim the man always has blood on his face that looks like it comes from his eyes or mouth.

Rumor also claims the parking spot has a stain that looks just like the man's face. Though the owners of the Greenwood Mall repaved the parking lot multiple times, the stain keeps coming back.

The Greenwood Mall is at 2625 Scottsville Road in Bowling Green. It's open to the public during regular business hours and has a rear parking lot where the man's body was found.