On February 14, 1902, six members of the Earll family were found dead in a cabin near Welsh, Louisiana.

Albert Edwin Batson, an itinerant farm worker who had worked for the Earlls, was suspected of the crime.

The case inspired the murder ballad "Batson", most famously recorded by blues musician Wilson Jones in 1934.

[1][3] Albert Edwin "Ed" Batson, born to a divorced mother in Spickard, Missouri, had previously worked as a railroad hand starting in 1897.

[2] At the time of the discovery, the bodies had undergone significant levels of decomposition, a sign that they had already been dead for several days.

[4] The man, later identified as Albert Batson by witnesses, was noted to have a long scar on the left side of his face.

Paul Daniels, a local businessman, phoned Maude Earll, who had not heard from her family in days.

[2] In addition, Earll's buggy was searched, where a vest was found which contained a letter signed by Batson.

[4] Batson was arrested by deputy Isaac Fontenot the same day the bodies were discovered, in Princeton, Missouri.

[1] He was described as a remarkably well behaved and polite prisoner, leading some to maintain that he was innocent; the murders and subsequent trial became a cause célèbre in Louisiana in 1902 and 1903.

[1][4] Authorities argued that the "Ha-Ha letter" showed Batson had been suicidal, though they did not present any reason as to why he did not end up killing himself if that was the case.

In the book he argued this possibly stemmed from an earlier feud the Earll family had acquired in Kansas.

[7] Some commentators suggested the ballad portrays Batson as an unlucky, innocent man, accused of a crime he did not commit, contrary to most contemporary descriptions,[6] though the Lomaxes interpreted the song as showing his guilt, saying "the sympathies of the ballad singer rest wholly with the accused, not with his victims".