Lula Viers [Laws F10]

DESCRIPTION: John Coyer weighs his fiancee Lula Viers down with metal and throws her into the river. The body is not discovered for several months. Coyer is arrested, but is handed over to the army before going on trial
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: homicide river
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Oct 1917 - Murder of Lula Viers by John Coyer. Viers was pregnant by Coyer, and he apparently preferred murder to marriage
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Laws F10, "Lula Viers" (sample text in NAB, pp. 62-64)
Thomas-BalladMakingInMountainsOfKentucky, pp. 144-146, "Lula Vires" (1 text) (OakEd, pp. 150-152)
McNeil-SouthernFolkBalladsVol2, pp. 79-81, "Lula Viers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #57, "Lula Vower" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 203-204, "Lula Viers" (1 text)
DT 804, LULAVIER
ADDITIONAL: Richard M. Dorson, _Buying the Wind: Regional Folklore in the United States_, University of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 195-197, "Lula Voyers" (1 text)
Roud #1933
NOTES [75 words]: Laws was able to verify the basic facts of this ballad from the records of Floyd County, Kentucky (learning in the process that Lula was pregnant); see his notes in NAB, p. 65. Roberts/Agey-InThePine adds additional details, e.g. the fact that John Coyer was a soldier who was on furlough, presumably before deployment to France in World War I, when he killed Viers. The Army nonetheless allowed him to serve, and he never returned to Kentucky. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: LF10

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