The Tale of Tom Dooley (cont.)

After Laura Foster's body was discovered on September 1, 1866, Tom Dula was formally charged with the murder. He had been in jail since mid-July, although to that point no body, murder weapon, or evidence had been found. For being so helpful, Pauline Foster was released from jail, and Ann Melton was arrested. She was charged as an accessory, basically for influencing Tom to commit murder before the fact, and harboring him afterwards. She was placed in a second-floor cell next to Tom Dula's, separated by a solid wall.

Col. James Horton was a cousin of Tom's. He was also a friend of a prominent attorney, former (and future) North Carolina Governer Zebulon Vance, and asked Vance to defend Tom. Many times it's said Vance agreed because Tom had served in his unit during the war, but that is not possible. In April, 1862, when Tom was mustered into the 42nd Regiment, Vance was commanding the distant 26th Regiment— and only for five months before he was elected Governor in September, 1862.

Zebulon Vance was reelected in 1864, but in May 1865, after the war ended, he was arrested by Federal forces. Due to his "Confederate activities", he was sent to prison in Washington, D.C. He filed an application for pardon per President Andrew Johnson's amnesty program on June 3, and was paroled on July 6. When Col. Horton called upon him to defend Tom Dula, Vance was practicing law in Charlotte, North Carolina, while waiting for his pardon to become official.

Whether out of friendship with Col. Horton, or because he saw it as a means to further his political career in the North Carolina legislature by representing a former soldier, Vance took the case.

The first thing he did was obtain a severance— Tom would be tried separately from Ann, with Tom's trial coming first. The court granted the severance based on Tom's affadavit that Ann Melton's testimony would contain "important confessions" that would "greatly influence the minds of the Jury" against him.

At the time of Tom Dula's trial, especially on the frontier or in backwoods areas, juries were made up of available citizens, sometimes selected from within the confines of the same tavern. They were frequently uneducated and often influenced by social standing of the accused or victim, or by race or ethnicity. Rules of evidence were usually murky and often lacking altogether. Hearsay, rumor and "reputation" of the accused or victim often prevailed in coming to a verdict. Because of this, and all the local gossip surrounding the case, Vance was able to negotiate a change of venue to Statesville, a distance of about thirty miles from Wilkesboro, with Judge Ralph Buxton presiding.

There is no record that Tom Dula attempted to escape, either from the Wilkesboro jail or when he was being moved to Statesville, but there was something about his demeanor or behavior which caused the sheriff at Statesvile some concern. At the Prosecutor's insistence the following Court order was handed down:

It appears to the satisfaction of the Court that the insecurity of the jail of Iredell County requires an additional guard for the safe keeping of the prisoner Thomas Dula in said prison. It is therefore ordered by the Court that a guard of eight men be allowed the sheriff of said county for the safe keeping of the prisoner Thomas Dula.

For the county to pay the cost of eight additional guards, the judge must have thought a person like Tom Dula required it. The New York Herald reporter covering the trial vividly emphasized this perception when he wrote about Tom, "There is everything in his expression to indicate the hardened assassin— a fierce glare of the eyes, a great deal of malignity, and a callousness that is revolting."

Although slightly redundant placed here, in his book The Ballad of Tom Dula, Dr. John Foster West discusses the events surrounding the murder of Laura Foster, as they were brought out at trial, in a way that paraphrasing can't improve:

Any detailed discussion of what happened at the Bates place can be, at best, only conjecture. It was the State's hypothesis that the grave was dug on Thursday or Thursday night and that Laura Foster was killed on Friday or Friday night, the implication being that she was buried soon thereafter.

Tom Dula borrowed the mattock from Lotty Foster on Thursday morning, and Martha Gilbert saw him digging, a short time later, within two to three hundred yards of where the grave was later found. It would have been an easy matter for Tom to conceal the mattock in the bushes near the grave site. He returned to Lotty Foster's later in the afternoon without the mattock, and he and Ann Melton left together with the canteen of liquor around 3:00 p. m. He and Ann were missing from their homes for the remainder of the afternoon and night. That would be the logical time to dig a small grave.

On Friday morning, Tom Dula arrived at the Bates place soon after Laura Foster. [Although Tom had a mile less to cover than Laura and left her house ahead of her, she rode horseback along a road. Tom was walking a footpath and stopped several times to talk and rest.] If Laura had died that early in the morning, rigor mortis would have prevented the bending of her legs so that she could be placed in the grave the following night. It is logical to speculate that Tom Dula had planted the canteen of liquor at the Bates place the day before, and that he drank with Laura until she was intoxicated and was then able to talk her into waiting for him at the Bates place all day Friday.

Tom briefly returned to the Bates place just after nightfall that Friday. This was the logical time for the murder. Laura Foster would have grown impatient from her long wait. If the murder was committed at this time, Tom had to do it alone; Ann Melton was at home with her husband, Pauline Foster, and several other visitors. Pauline Foster testified that he habitually carried a five-cent Bowie knife in a pocket in his coat, and the description of the murder weapon in the indictment resembles such a weapon. A discolored spot with an offensive odor near one of the trees to which the mare had been tied convinced the two juries that Laura had been killed at the Bates place and her body carried to the waiting grave.

It is reasonable to speculate as follows: Tom Dula returned home and went to bed after this [Friday night] visit to the Bates place. During the night, he arose and left the house again, without his mother's knowledge. He met Ann Melton [who had also slipped out of her house] somewhere along the Stony Fork road, and they returned to the Bates place. They carried Laura's body down along the ridge through the forest to the grave, prepared on Thursday night. They buried her in the darkness and returned to their respective beds.

The fact is that Laura was murdered either Friday morning just after arriving at the Bates place by Dula alone, Friday afternoon by Ann alone, Friday evening (while his mother was preparing supper) by Dula alone, or sometime Friday night to early Saturday morning, by Tom Dula and Ann Melton together.

In their folklore, the storytellers often seem to want to make Tom Dula into some kind of hero; popular opinion among the locals is that Ann Melton either committed the murder herself or partnered with Tom in the act. In the last paragraph of the above blockquote, Dr. West narrows the known facts down into only two possibilities in which Ann could have been involved in the actual killing. While compiling this tome, I also considered those theories, but then found myself forced to discount them.

The first is that the murder was committed "Friday afternoon by Ann alone." At one point, Pauline Foster testified that Ann had come home just before dawn on Friday morning, which was about the same time that Laura was just starting out for the Bates place. Pauline said that Ann stayed in bed "most of the day." Under cross-examination, Pauline confirmed, "She was home all day Friday... I didn't go off the place that day." We also know Ann was home with a number of people that evening. I concluded it was unlikely that Ann had gotten out of bed in the afternoon, gone to the Bates place to commit the murder and then come back home without being noticed.

The second possibility was that Ann and Tom did it together "sometime Friday night to early Saturday morning." However, Ann was at home surrounded by witnesses until around midnight, and nothing can be found to indicate she left the house after that. Meanwhile, Tom's mother said that he had gone to bed as usual. Of course, she was asleep most of the night, but at one point she awakened and he was still home. Could Tom and Ann each have sneaked out of their houses unbeknownst to anyone, met at some prearranged time, and then killed Laura— who by this time would have been waiting the entire day and most of the night? Certainly, people could sneak out in the middle of the night, to use the outhouse perhaps, but logistics make this second theory far-fetched.

Rigor mortis commences about three hours after death, and gradually dissipates over the next three days. The positioning of the corpse indicated that, at whatever time Laura was killed, she was immediately taken to her gravesite. Either that, or her body was left lying in the woods for days, and retrieved for burial later. Such a delay is never mentioned in any of the accounts, real or fanciful, and there is no reason to think there was one. I mention it here only to demonstrate the extent to which I considered and dismissed possibilites while forming my own theory.

My conclusion, which is at best still only a speculative hypothesis, takes into consideration Occam's razor; it is the simplest explanation which fits the known facts. Unlike most other affirmations, it is not embellished for the sake of making a better story. I posit: Tom Dula met Laura Foster at the Bates place as planned, killed her, and after letting her body exsanguinate for a few minutes, wrapped her in her cloak and carried her body to the grave he had dug the day before. He returned home by lunchtime, and lay in bed all day "complaining of chills" while he considered the ramifications of what he'd done. Later, before sunset, he went back to the scene of the crime to "check on things," perhaps recovering forgotten personal items, hiding evidence; covering his tracks.

The next morning, he found Ann Melton alone and told her about the murder "in a low voice." Her own insinuations to Pauline shortly thereafter that she'd "done what she said she'd do" could easily be interpreted as simply meaning she had successfully goaded him into it. In fact, that is the basis of the charge brought against her by the State.

From the very beginning Tom insisted that he was not guilty, but he would not say anything against or about his relationship with others. The attorneys tried in every way possible to draw him out, but Tom remained mute throughout the trial. Eventually he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Vance, however, appealed and a new trial was held in January, 1868. Further damning evidence (mostly more of Pauline Foster's testimony) ensured the guilty verdict was upheld.

As the noose became an inevitable prospect, Tom Dula apparently became more determined and desperate in his attempts to escape. He was kept shackled as his execution date approached. On April 30, the evening before his death, Tom was laughing, exhibiting "a shocking indifference to the hereafter" according to the Herald. The reporter went on to state that the jailer, before he left Tom that night, discovered that his shackles were loose, a link in the chain having been "filed through with a piece of window glass which was found concealed in his bed." One acquainted with cutting metal and the effort required to saw a chain link in two, even with a hacksaw, can realize the long hours Tom Dula must have spent working on the metal with a sliver of glass.

Tom's only surviving sibling, his younger sister Eliza, arrived that day with her husband, bringing a wagon in order to return Tom's body to Reedy Branch.

Later in the night, Tom asked for his attorney and handed him a note: "Statement of Tom Dula— I declare that I am the only person that had any hand in the murder of Laura Foster. April 30, 1868." A confession perhaps, but equally as likely the note was an attempt to save Ann Melton since Tom knew that his own death was unavoidable.

In the early morning of May 1, Tom Dula called for a Methodist minister, was baptized and prayed ardently. By 11 a.m. a dense crowd had begun to gather, as many women as men, it is reported— unusual for a public execution at the time. The Herald estimated 3,000 people were there, quite a throng considering that the 1870 census shows Statesville with a population of 644. Guards on horseback had been summoned to "keep back the crowd... and for the better preservation of order, the bar rooms were closed."

In a field next to the depot, a gallows had been built, a simple structure made of native pine, two uprights about 10 feet apart with a cross beam. Tom Dula's casket was placed on a wagon for Tom to stand on during the hanging.

One woman present at the event described the day as sunny and warm: "The birds are singing sweetly, everything looks bright and joyous and one could feel happy were it not for being so continually reminded of the depravity of the world— a great many people are coming into town to witness the dreadful scene of hanging a fellow creature." She reported astonishment as a wagon passed with a family in it, including "little boys."

The Herald reporter wrote that many of Tom Dula's former companions from the army attended the hanging, and it was their opinion that he was "a terrible, desperate character, and from their knowledge of his former career, an anxiety and singular curiosity was excited among them to see how he died."

Shortly before 1 p.m. a smiling Tom Dula was led from the jail by the local sheriff to the wagon that would carry him to his death. The wagon also carried Tom's sister Eliza and her husband— and the coffin that would receive his corpse. (Famed folklorist Alan Lomax has Dula sitting atop the coffin, playing the fiddle and singing the ballad that became known as "Tom Dooley" on the ride to the gallows. A pretty story, but highly unlikely since it wasn't reported in any of the newspaper stories of the hanging.) It is known that Tom told his sister repeatedly that he had found God and repented and that he didn't want her to worry about him.

At the gallows, after the rope was placed around his neck, he was allowed to speak to the crowd. For nearly an hour he spoke of his early childhood, his parents, his career in the army, and the politics of the country. His only reference to the murder, however, was a half-explanation of the country and the different roads and paths leading to the scene. His "only anxiety was to show that some two or three of the witnesses swore falsely against him. He mentioned particularly one, James Isbell, who, he alleged, had perjured himself in the case, and concluded by saying that had there been no lies sworn against him he would not have been there."

At the end of the speech, he gave an affectionate goodbye to his sister, and the other end of the noose was thrown over the gallows and tied. Tom stood calm and said nothing further. At 2:24 pm the cart pulled away and Tom dropped about two feet, hardly enough to break his neck. While this may seem like a miscalculation on the part of the hangman, the "short drop," resulting in death by strangulation, was the primary form of hanging until the late 19th century. The young man who had lived surrounded by difficulty, died the same way. The Herald reporter wrote: "He breathed about five minutes, and did not struggle." With the life slowly throttled out of him, it would have taken great willpower, it seems, for Tom Dula to remain so still while dying. Ten minutes later, his pulse stopped. Three minutes after that, his "life was declared extinct" by Dr. Campbell and the body was cut down.

Tom's only sister and her husband hauled the casket holding Tom's corpse back to Reedy Branch where he was interred on the farm of his cousin Bennett Dula III, by the side of the old North Wilkesboro Road near Elkville.

Zebulon Vance went on to defend Ann Melton. Because their cases had been severed, Ann Melton couldn't be tried until Dula's sentence was handed down. After spending two years in the Statesville jail, Ann was tried in the fall of 1868. Her trial was uneventful because of the note Tom had written exonerating her. While in jail she bragged that her neck was too pretty to put a rope around; that they'd never hang her.

On November 5, an article appeared in the Statesville American which read, "The trial of Ann Melton, charged as an accomplice to the murder of Laura Foster, took place at Wilkesboro, at the later term of the Superior Court, and she was acquitted. The unfortunate woman has suffered about two years imprisonment, and if guilty, she has been severely punished, and the gallows would have added little to her punishment. Thus ends this woeful tragedy."

Despite this slightly sympathetic account, the stigma of her nearness to the murder followed her until she died a few years later, and was buried in an unmarked grave in a family plot just down the ridge from Lotty Foster's house.

It is often said she died from injuries sustained when an oxcart in which she was riding overturned on the Stony Fork Road, but no records have been found to verify that, or any other, cause of death. She did have syphilis, and while there may be an indeterminate latent stage in which no physical signs exist, the late stage of that disease usually develops three or four years after contact. This advanced stage is characterized by tumors on the skin, disorders of the bones, liver, and central nervous system, and eventually dementia or psychosis. This dementia may explain why stories persist that Ann confessed on her deathbed and spoke of seeing black cats climbing up and down the walls, hearing meat sizzling, and seeing the flames of Hell at the foot of her bed. And the less sensational aspects of a death from syphilis would not be discussed in polite company in those days.

All we can be certain of is that James Melton wised up and made a better choice of a mate the second time around. He soon married a Louisa Gilbert and remained in the vicinity, where he raised his two daughters and lived another 42 years. But as far as we know, Ann Melton took any real knowledge of Laura Foster's murder with her to her own grave.