Few houses on Taylor Square have a darker legend. As tour guides and ghost sites tell it, Wesley Espy's father, Carl, was a feared judge with a violent temper who ruled his home with an iron fist. Rumor said he was mixed up with Prohibition bootleggers and had even killed a man, but no one dared charge him. Wesley was said to be his father's opposite, a gentle deacon at Wesley Monumental Church. There he fell in love with a young woman from the congregation, who, as fate would have it, was the girlfriend of one of the bootleggers his father knew.

Carl begged his son to give her up, the story goes, but for the first time Wesley stood up to him. Soon after, Wesley was found dead at the family home. The official account was a fall from the tall porch, while the legend insists he was murdered in revenge and that the death was covered up. Ghost City Tours says that in the early morning hours Wesley's ghost appears on the porch, coming home late from a night out with the woman he loved.