Editing Wilkes County, North Carolina (section)

===Tom Dooley===
Wilkes County native [[Tom Dula]] (Dooley), a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War who was tried and hanged shortly after the war for the murder of his fiancée, Laura Foster. To this day many people believe that one of Dula's jealous ex-girlfriends murdered Laura Foster, that Dula was innocent of the crime, and that he accepted blame only to protect his former lover.<ref name="CB">{{cite web| url=http://criminalbrief.com/?p=11062| title=Who Killed Laura Foster? |last=Lundin|first=Leigh| date=February 21, 2010| work=Tom Dula| publisher=Criminal Brief}}</ref>

The case was given nationwide publicity by newspapers such as ''[[The New York Times]]'' and the ''[[New York Herald]]'', and thus became a folk legend in the rural South. Dula's legend was popularized in 1958 by the top-selling [[Kingston Trio]] song "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley." Dula's story was also turned into a 1959 movie starring [[Michael Landon]] as Dula, and each summer Bleu Moon Productions presents an outdoor drama based on the story.

In 2001, Tom Dula was ceremonially acquitted of all charges by the county.<ref name="CB" />