Wilson Foster was the father of Laura Foster, who was murdered in Wilkes County, North Carolina in 1866.  Below is an overview of what happened:

In 1868 a man named Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley) was hanged in Statesville, N.C. after being convicted of murdering his lover, Laura Foster, in 1866.

The execution wasn’t the end of Tom Dula’s story. For generations rumors, conspiracies, and a hit song have swirled around the crime and its fallout.

As the story goes, the young Tom Dula was romantically involved with a woman named Ann Melton prior to enlisting as a confederate soldier in 1862. After the Civil War, he returned to Wilkes County, N.C. and resumed his affair with the now married Ann Melton, while also becoming romantically involved with her cousin Laura Foster.

In the spring of 1866, Laura Foster’s body was found in a shallow grave days after she’d been stabbed in the chest. Dula was arrested in Tennessee and returned to North Carolina for trial. His highly publicized case was tried, convicted, temporarily overturned, and ultimately upheld. 

Legend has it that the actual perpetrator of the murder was Dula’s other lover Ann Melton.

Tom Dula