The Untold Story of Frankie Silver: Was She Unjustly Hanged? Book

Three days before Christmas, 1831, Frances Silver killed her husband, Charles, in their cabin in Mitchell County, North Carolina. It was a grisly murder, the body chopped into pieces, some of it burned in the fireplace. Three months later, Frankie was convicted and sentenced to death. She was hanged in Morganton on July 12, 1833.

Frankie's story has been told and retold ever since, the facts blending into ballad, legend and myth, supposedly becoming the basis of the popular song "Frankie and Johnny." Writer Perry Deane Young, a descendant of some of the figures in the case, has been fascinated with this tragic story since childhood. He began collecting material about it as a teenager and was startled to discover as a young man that much of the story he'd always heard was false.