LIFT UP YOUR HEAD, TOM DOOLEY. The True Story of the Appalachian Murder That inspired One of America's Most Popular Ballads

Softcover. When Laura Foster, a young and attractive woman, disappeared from her home in Happy Valley in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in the spring of 1866, residents of the area assumed that Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley in the hill country), a young Civil War veteran, had something to do with it. He was known to be Laura's lover, as well as the lover of many other young women in the area. Months before Laura's body was found, stabbed through the heart, in a shallow grave near the Yadkin River, Dula was seized and held in jail. His trial inveiled a sordid story of sexual immorality, resentment, jealousy and bitterness, and Dula was convicted and hanged before a huge crowd in Statesville, an event that drew national attention. The story lived on, with time becoming entwined with myth and legend, because it inspired a ballad that was sung throughout the mountains. Nearly a century after the murder that inspired it, that ballad became a major national hit for a popular folksinging group called the Kingston Trio. Illus. with Maps and photographs + Bibliog. 134pp. softcover. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F.