The dark history behind the Bowling Green Murder Mansion

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) – On Cemetery Road sits a luxurious old home with a dark past. Known as the Bowling Green Murder Mansion, the house was the scene of a horrific double murder in the 1940s.

Dr. Charles Martin and his wife, Martha Martin, were murdered in the front bedroom of this infamous home in 1948 by Western Kentucky University student Harry Edward Kilgore.

Kilgore allegedly broke into the house one night and, on his way to the front bedroom, noticed Dr. He was surprised by Martin.

The ensuing standoff ended with Kilgore killing both Martin and his wife that night. The reason for Kilgore’s crimes is said to be a love triangle.

“The Martins had a son named Stoney Martin,” explained Wes Swietek, author of Cemetery Road Murders. “Stoney had married a neighbor girl named Ruth McKinney Martin. Harry Edward Kilgore had briefly dated Ruth and was apparently quite jealous of the fact that Martin’s son had married Ruth, who still had feelings for him.”

Following the murders, Stoney and Ruth lived in the house for several years, but after Stoney Martin passed away, Ruth remarried and disinherited the house, at which point the murder mansion remained vacant.

“The house sat vacant for many years, and at that point it became known as Bowling Green’s haunted house. Local school children would dare to enter the house. They come in through the front door and notice old stains etc. on the floor. they would see. They were running out of the house screaming, saying there was blood stain,” Swietek said.

In the years since then, the mansion has changed hands several times. The house was last won at auction by Steven Sheldon in 2023.

According to Swietek, the previous owners of the house said they had no ghostly experiences in the house, while others who visited the house claimed to have bad feelings, as if they could sense a negative aura around the mansion.

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