The Ballad of Tom Dooley
The Ballad of Tom Dooley

Author: Sharyn McCrumb

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2011-09-13

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1429990481

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The Ballad of Tom Dooley is a literary triumph—what began as a fictional re-telling of the historical account of one of the most famous mountain ballads of all time became an astonishing revelation of the real culprit responsible for the murder of Laura Foster Hang down your head, Tom Dooley...The folk song, made famous by the Kingston Trio, recounts a tragedy in the North Carolina mountains after the Civil War. Laura Foster, a simple country girl, was murdered and her lover Tom Dula was hanged for the crime. The sensational elements in the case attracted national attention: a man and his beautiful, married lover accused of murdering the other-woman; the former governor of North Carolina spearheading the defense; and a noble gesture from the prisoner on the eve of his execution, saving the woman he really loved. With the help of historians, lawyers, and researchers, Sharyn McCrumb visited the actual sites, studied the legal evidence, and uncovered a missing piece of the story that will shock those who think they already know what happened—and may also bring belated justice to an innocent man. What seemed at first to be a sordid tale of adultery and betrayal was transformed by the new discoveries into an Appalachian Wuthering Heights. Tom Dula and Ann Melton had a profound romance spoiled by the machinations of their servant, Pauline Foster. Bringing to life the star-crossed lovers of this mountain tragedy, Sharyn McCrumb gifts understanding and compassion to her compelling tales of Appalachia, and solidifies her status as one of today's great Southern writers.

The Ballad of Tom Dula
The Ballad of Tom Dula

Author: John Foster West

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781887905558

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Tom Dula was hanged for the murder of Laura Foster. Numerous folklores developed surrounding Foster's murder and Dula's execution. West sifts through the evidence and refutes the popular folklore versions.

Lift Up Your Head, Tom Dooley
Lift Up Your Head, Tom Dooley

Author: John Foster West

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13:

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Tom Dula's trial unveiled a sordid story of sexual immorality, resentment, jealousy and bitterness, and he was convicted and hanged before a huge crowd in Statesville, an event that drew national attention. The story lived on, in time becoming entwined with myth and legend, because it inspired a ballad that was sung throughout the mountains.

Tom Dooley
Tom Dooley

Author: Karen Wheeling Reynolds

Publisher: Little Creek Books

Published: 2011-04

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 9780984639809

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After the Civil War Tom Dooley comes home to find the love of his life, Anne Foster, married to an older man. Anne, who had promised Tom she would wait for him, married for money while Tom was away. When he returns, she makes it clear that she wants to resume their relationship. A hurt and angry Tom begins a romance with sweet Laura Foster, Anne's first cousin. However, Anne's hold on Tom is a strong one, and after a time the relationship between Tom and Anne is rekindled. Meanwhile, a few months later Laura finds out that she is pregnant. Tom struggles to do the right thing for his unborn child. He finally agrees to meet Laura and run off to Tennessee and get married. Tom visits Anne the night before he is to leave with Laura and tells Anne of his plans. What happens next turns a lover's triangle into the nation's first highly publicized crimes of passion.

The True Story of Tom Dooley
The True Story of Tom Dooley

Author: John Edward Fletcher

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2012-11-06

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1625844999

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The crime that shocked post-Civil War America and inspired the folk song that became The Kingston Trio’s hit, “Tom Dooley.” At the conclusion of the Civil War, Wilkes County, North Carolina, was the site of the nation’s first nationally publicized crime of passion. In the wake of a tumultuous love affair and a mysterious chain of events, Tom Dooley was tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of Laura Foster. This notorious crime became an inspiration for musicians, writers and storytellers ever since, creating a mystery of mythic proportions. Through newspaper articles, trial documents and public records, Dr. John E. Fletcher brings this dramatic case to life, providing the long-awaited factual account of the legendary murder. Join the investigation into one of the country’s most enduring thrillers. “Fletcher has spent a great deal of time researching almost all of the characters involved with the Foster homicide and has gone further than any researcher I know in establishing the relationships—blood, marriage and social—between the major actors in the tragedy.”—Statesville Record & Landmark

Unprepared To Die
Unprepared To Die

Author: Paul Slade

Publisher: Soundcheck Books

Published: 2015-11-01

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 099294807X

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The Gory Stories Behind The Murder Ballads Cheerfully vulgar, revelling in gore, and always with an eye on the main chance, murder ballads are tabloid newspapers set to music, carrying word of the latest ‘orrible murders to an insatiable public. Victims are bludgeoned, stabbed or shot in every verse and killers often hanged, but the songs themselves never die. Instead, they mutate – morphing to suit local place names as they criss cross the Atlantic and continue to fascinate each generation’s biggest musical stars. Paul Slade traces this fascinating genre’s history through eight of its greatest songs. Stagger Lee’s “biographers” alone include Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Dr John, The Clash and Nick Cave. No two tell his story in quite the same way. Covering eight classic murder ballads, including “Knoxville Girl”, “Tom Dooley” and “Frankie & Johnny”, Slade investigates the real-life murder which inspired each song and traces its musical development down the decades. Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey, Laura Cantrell, Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family and a host of other leading musicians add their own insights.

The Ballad of Frankie Silver
The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Author: Sharyn McCrumb

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2013-03-26

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1250022681

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The New York Times Bestseller Set in the Appalachian wilderness and blending legends and folklore with high suspense, this stellar novel, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, is considered one of McCrumb's crowning achievements. In 1833 Frankie Silver was an eighteen-year-old girl convicted of murder in Burke County, North Carolina. Through a detailed investigation, the local sheriff, and soon all the townsfolk, discover reason to question her guilt---but the wheels of justice were mercilessly unstoppable, and she was hanged. Now, more than a century later, another woman is convicted of murder in the lush hills of Tennessee. Her life is in the hands of Spencer Arrowood, a man who begins to discover that the convictions of these two women have deep and haunting parallels. Although Frankie's fate cannot be changed, there is still time to alter the fate of another innocent woman. In a voice that could only be Sharyn McCrumb's, the worlds of these two murders, these two women, intersect in this densely plotted and lyrical novel—and characters, generations, and history are breathlessly painted against an Appalachian canvas.

Dr. America
Dr. America

Author: James Terence Fisher

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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The first major biography of the fabled "jungle doctor" of Southeast Asia, "Dr. America" chronicles the life of Tom Dooley, whose much publicized exploits in Vietnam and Laos during the 1950s helped lay the ideological groundwork for the U.S. military intervention a decade later. 33 illustrations.

Otto Wood, the Bandit
Otto Wood, the Bandit

Author: Trevor McKenzie

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2021-08-17

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1469664720

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Legions of bluegrass fans know the name Otto Wood (1893–1930) from a ballad made popular by Doc Watson, telling the story of Wood's crimes and violent death. However, few know the history of this Appalachian figure beyond the larger-than-life version heard in song. Trevor McKenzie reconstructs Wood's life, tracing how a Wilkes County juvenile delinquent became a celebrated folk hero. Throughout his short life, Wood was jailed for numerous offenses, stole countless automobiles, lost his left hand, and made eleven escapes from five state penitentiaries, including four from the North Carolina State Prison after a 1923 murder conviction. An early master of controlling his own narrative in the media, Wood appealed to the North Carolina public as a misunderstood, clever antihero. In 1930, after a final jailbreak, police killed Wood in a shootout. The ballad bearing his name first appeared less than a year later. Using reports of Wood's exploits from contemporary newspapers, his self-published autobiography, prison records, and other primary sources, Trevor McKenzie uses this colorful story to offer a new way to understand North Carolina—and arguably the South as a whole—during this era of American history.

Bimbos of the Death Sun
Bimbos of the Death Sun

Author: Sharyn McCrumb

Publisher: RosettaBooks

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0795311818

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A sci-fi convention gets a dose of true crime in this Edgar Award-winning mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of the Ballad novels. When Virginia Tech professor James Owen Mega wrote a fictional account of his real-life research, he hardly expected it to get published. But when a publisher changed the title of his novel to Bimbos of the Death Sun, James—under the pen name Jay Omega—becomes an overnight sci-fi star. Invited to the annual fan convention Rubicon, James is both a fish out of water and a Guest of Honor among the Trekkies and sword-wielding cosplayers. But he’s not the only VIP at the overrun hotel. Revered fantasy author Appin Dungannon never misses a Rubicon—or a chance to belittle his legions of devotees. But when Dungannon turns up dead, police wonder if a die-hard fan finally turned to murder. As the list of suspects grows and hucksters hunt for the victim’s autograph, James devises an ingenious way to catch a killer.