Nashville Scream: The Scene's Spookiest Stories

A dive into some of the creepiest articles the Scene has ever published

Halloween is all but upon us, but the heat dome of 2026, not to mention the midterm elections, have us ready to put the season — and maybe even the entire year — in the rearview. But before we do, we want to revisit some of the Scene’s all-time-best creepy stories from past issues.

Blame Edgar Allan Poe, but all writers love to test their mettle by digging into the dark and macabre, and Scene writers are no exception. Take Megan Seling’s 2018 cover story on the “extreme haunt” McKamey Manor, which still ranks among our most-read stories of all time. The story hooks you from its first sentence: “Before he gets started, the first thing Russ McKamey has to do is call the cops.”

Nashville Nightmare

Nashville Nightmare is the Nashville Scene’s 2026 Writers’ Choice for Best Haunted Attraction in Nashville for offering a sprawling complex of immersive frights.

We also have stories from not one but two Death Issues in recent years, including a personal favorite from my own archive: an interview with the area couple that makes blinged-out caskets for the recently deceased.

There’s also Randy Fox’s cover story about the long line of local TV horror hosts who’ve made Nashville their home — including Dr. Gangrene, who was also the subject of a 2026 People Issue profile by editor-in-chief D. Patrick Rodgers.

Topping our list is Jim Ridley and Read Ridley’s spine-tingling story of the Harpes, a real-life duo who may have been America’s first serial killers. It’s a fun read, but it's also legitimately chilling — the two men confessed to killing 39 people, some of them babies, with horrific indifference. As the brothers Ridley wrote: “When the baby son of one of the Harpes' wives begins squalling, begins squalling, will not cease its infernal squalling, as the brood holes up in a cave somewhere near Russellville, Ky., Micajah solves the problem as best he knows how. He dashes the infant's head against the wall of the cave, and all is silence.”