Knoxville Girl

Knoxville Girl, American version of Roud 263.

Earliest known commercial recording was by Arthur Tanner & His Corn Shuckers in 1925.

The song in its twentieth century American form appears to relate the story of the murder of Mary Lula Noel, from Pineville, Missouri, by one William Simmons in 1892, but is based on older ballads and older events.
See Paul Slade, Unprepared to die: Knoxville Girl which looks at the historical background to the song, tracing its origins in English ballads such as The Bloody Miller and The Berkshire Tragedy.