Guns, liquor, racial strife, divisive politics, and war come together in ten well-documented, true-crime stories of nineteenth-century families in the western North Carolina mountains.

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

Explore the international headlines and the little-known crimes, the solved and the wrongly solved, in these tales of the North Carolina mountains. Western North Carolina is known for mountain vistas and wild, rocky rivers, but remote wilderness and quaint small towns can have a dark side. Learn the truth behind the famous murder ballad Tom Dooley. Delve into the criminal history of moonshine, and the tales of two unexpected bombers in idyllic Mayberry. Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist's eye to Western North Carolina's crime stories that define the sinister--and quirky--side of the mountains.

Madison County in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina is a place of ear-popping drives and breathtaking views. It is also where federal antipoverty worker Nancy Dean Morgan was found naked, hogtied, and strangled in the backseat of her car in June 1970. An inept investigation involving local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies failed to find a clear explanation of the motive or events of her murder. The case was left unsolved. Years later, after most of the material evidence had been lost or mishandled, one of Nancy's fellow VISTA workers--the last person known to have seen her alive--became the prime suspect, based on the testimony of one of the town's most notorious resident criminals. Did he kill Nancy, or was he another victim of the corrupt local political machine and its adherence to "mountain justice"? Met Her on the Mountain: A Forty-Year Quest to Solve the Appalachian Cold-Case Murder of Nancy Morgan is a tangled tale of rural noir. Author Mark Pinsky was profoundly struck by Nancy's story as a college student in North Carolina in 1970. Here, Pinsky presents the evolution of his investigation and also delves into the brutal history of Madison County, the site of a Civil War massacre that earned it the sobriquet "Bloody Madison." Met Her on the Mountain is a stirring mix of true crime, North Carolina political history, and one man's devotion to finding the truth. -- amazon.com.

Did the phrase "That's what I was wondering..." solve a murder? In the morning hours of July 16, 1936, Helen Clevenger's uncle discovered her bloodied body crumpled on the floor of her small room in Asheville's grand Battery Park Hotel. She had been shot through the chest. Buncombe County Sheriff Laurence Brown, up for reelection, desperately searched for the teenager's killer as the public clamored for answers. Though witnesses reported seeing a white man leave the scene, Brown's focus turned instead to the hotel's Black employees and on August 9 he arrested bell hop Martin Moore. After a frenzied four-day trial that captured the nation's attention, Moore was convicted of Helen's murder on August 22. Though Moore confessed to Sherriff Brown, doubt of his guilt lingers and many Southerners feared that justice had not, in fact, been served. Author Anne Chesky Smith weaves together varying accounts of the murder and investigation to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Asheville's history.

In June of 1970, the body of 24-year-old Nancy Morgan was found inside a government-owned car in Madison County, North Carolina. It had been four days since anyone had heard from the bubbly, hard-working brunette who had moved to the Appalachian community less than a year prior as an organizer for Volunteers in Service to America. At the time of her death, her tenure in the Tar Heel State was just weeks from ending, her intentions set on New York and nursing school and a new life that she would never see. The initial investigation was thwarted by inept police work, jurisdictional confusion, and the influence of local corruption. Fourteen years would pass before an arrest in the case would be made, but even then, a pall would be cast over the veracity of the evidence. Met Her on the Mountain is the culmination of former Los Angeles Times staff writer Mark Pinsky's efforts to solve the 40-year-old mystery once and for all. An exhaustive piece of investigative journalism, Pinsky's work, now with a new postscript, dissects this modern Southern Gothic tale and takes readers on a journey to convince them that the truth of Morgan's murder is within reach.