What’s lurking in Myrtle Beach store’s attic? Cryptic note says tourist spot haunted

Jason Cooper walked through the trusses of the Myrtle Beach store like any other job he had gotten for his sign company, Grand Strand Visuals.

He was hired to fix the wiring on the front sign of the Build-A-Bear Workshop at Broadway at the Beach.

Cooper crept deeper through the store’s crawl space, stepping around decades-old cigarette cartons and fast food wrappers.

“It was kind of like a time capsule,” Cooper said. “I’m sitting there doing the wiring and it’s pitch-black dark and I look up over my head like ‘what in the heck is that?’”

Cooper saw a pair of boots nailed to the top of one of the attic’s trusses and a note.

“These here boots were worn by the famous truss man of ‘Broadway at the Beach,’ Dave English, his ghost will roam until they are returned,” the note read with a signature and a date from Dave English on Feb. 24, 1995.

“F****** weird,” Cooper said in a video he posted to Facebook after discovering the note.

Cooper had heard of construction workers hanging the boots of their coworkers after they died, he said. He suspected a ghost might actually be haunting the attic of the Build-a-Bear Workshop, Cooper said.

Build-a-Bear Workshop employees declined to comment.

“I’ve always been a prankster at heart,” David English said in an interview.

English still lives in the Myrtle Beach area and is the president of Coastal Nissan in Pawleys Island.

He wasn’t sure if the note was his when his daughter, Brooke showed him, but after matching the handwriting he realized Cooper discovered the 30-year-old practical joke he forgot about.

He’s not a construction worker. He’s been selling cars for more than 45 years, he said.

The note made its way to the trusses above the Build-a-Bear Workshop building from another one of English’s practical jokes where he gave one of his friends a gift.

That gift was a pair of 20-year-old boots he hadn’t worn since he went to college in Michigan, English said.

“I just remember him laughing saying, you son of a b****,” English said. “He probably thought it was a good present, but it’s these worn-out boots.”

English decided to write the note claiming that the boots were haunted and his friend signed them “Dave English,” even though English never goes by Dave, always David.

“It seems like the mystery is solved,” Cooper said. “But I got my Scooby-Doo moment there.”

This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM.