Tom Dula

Although Laura was murdered in Wilkes County, North Carolina, Dula was tried, convicted, and hanged in Statesville.

[4] The Trio had taken the song, without acknowledgement, from the singing of singer and folklorist Frank Warner, who had learned it from Frank Proffitt, a preserver of traditional culture, during one of the many singing and song-sharing sessions he and his folklorist spouse Ann had enjoyed at the Proffitt and Hicks homes in North Carolina.

[5] Tom Dula was born to a poor Appalachian hill-country family in Wilkes County, North Carolina,[6] most likely the youngest of three brothers, with one younger sister, Eliza.

[7] Dula grew up, attended school, and "probably played with the female Fosters" – Anne and her cousins Laura and Pauline.

[citation needed] Three months before his 18th birthday, on March 15, 1862, Tom enlisted in the Confederate Army as a private in Company K, 42nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment.

[7] Contrary to newspaper accounts at the time, Dula did not serve in Colonel Zebulon Vance's 26th North Carolina Infantry regiment, he had instead served in the 42nd North Carolina Infantry regiment, under Company K.[9] Also, rumors that he "played the banjo" in the army band for Vance's benefit and entertained the colonel with his antics were false.

[citation needed] Dula did not come through the war completely unscathed, as folklore, oral tradition, and some modern writers have claimed.

The gruesome murder and the lovers' triangle, combined with the rumors that circulated in the small backwoods town, captured the public's attention and led to the lasting notoriety of the crime.

Calling himself Tom Hall, he worked for about a week for Colonel James Grayson, just across the state line in Trade, Tennessee.

His supposed accomplice, Jack Keaton, was set free, and on Dula's word, Anne Melton was acquitted.

As he stood on the gallows facing death, Dula reportedly said, "Gentlemen, I did not harm a single hair on that fair lady's head.

[7] Another myth holds that while Dula was fighting in Virginia, Anne – apparently despairing of ever seeing Tom again – met and married an older farmer, James Melton.

In fact, she had married Melton in 1859, three years before Tom left for the war, though that may not have changed the nature of her relationship with Dula.

People in the area still say that, on her deathbed, Anne saw black cats on the walls and could hear and smell bacon frying.