Summer reading:
Sometimes I sit and wonder about the nature of good and evil in human beings and I wonder how it is that a human can feel ok about taking the life of another human being.
We have several notorious cases going on in East Tennessee at the moment, but in reality, on the absolute true scale of human nastiness, without war we would be small time. Here are a couple of accounts of the Harpe boys, a couple of red headed brothers who emigrated to Tennessee from North Carolina back in the days when we had Indians, slaves, and Tories loose on the Roane County countryside.
Of special interest is the second account, which doesn't actually claim to be the whole truth, but mostly jives with the accounts that do.
As we have seen in real life murder cases, as evil as the men appear to be, they have no trouble getting women to keep them company. It seems that the old saying about ladies loving outlaws is actually a soft sell of the real truth, and before you go all soft on me remember...Laura sticks with George even though he personally ordered a residential bombing that resulted in the deaths of 54 people, over half of which were women and children. He just didn't have the balls to do it himself.
So here are some tales about two cousins or brothers, not sure which, who are known as America's first serial killers. too bad they weren't the last.
Steve
*****
An excerpt from:
The Shannon Family of East Tennessee: A Story of the Scots-Irish© August 2002 by Melinda Shannon Freels
Big Harpe and Little Harpe
This one has a little more focus on the ladies. It makes less claim to historical accuracy but...
The Harpe Brothers
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