The ballad of Tom Dooley
(Book on CD)

Title from disc label.

Performed by Shannon McManus and Eric G. Dove.

The Kingston Trio's folk song "Tom Dooley" tells the story of the murder of Laura Foster, a simple country girl involved with returning Confederate soldier Tom Dula. But Tom was also engaged in a passionate affair with his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful, and married, Ann Melton. One May morning in 1866, Laura Foster stole her father's horse and left home, telling a neighbor that she was eloping to Tennessee. Three months later her body was found in a shallow grave only a few hundred yards from where she was last seen. The sensational elements in the case attracted national attention: a man and his married lover accused of murdering the other woman; the former governor of North Carolina, spearheading the defense; and a noble gesture from the condemned man on the eve of his execution, saving the woman he really loved.