The True Story of Tom Dooley by John Edward Fletcher PhD

Author:John Edward Fletcher PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE TESTIMONY

Pauline Foster arrived in Elkville about March 1 to seek treatment for syphilis but did not tell anyone except Dr. Carter that she had the disease. She later testified that she contracted the disease in Watauga County and came to Wilkes under the pretense of visiting her grandfather and to find work to pay for her treatments and to get cured of the disease. It can be presumed that she saw Dr. Carter right away and began treatment at that time.

Wilson Foster testified that Tom Dula began seeing his twenty-two-year-old daughter, Laura, about two months before she disappeared. That would be two months before May 25, 1866, or about early to mid-March 1866. Wilson stated that Dula came frequently, at least once a week, and that sometimes Dula and his daughter shared her bed when he stayed overnight.

Dr. George Carter testified that about the last of March or the first of April, Tom Dula “applied to me for medical treatment. He had syphilis. He told me he caught it from Laura Foster.” Note that this time frame is within the ten- to ninety-day first stage incubation period. Pauline Foster testified that Ann Melton also became sick, and the treatments she used were “blue mass, blue stone and caustic.” Pauline knew that this treatment was for syphilis because she was using the same treatments. However, she did not confide in anyone that she also had the disease before mid-May. Later, on Thursday, May 24, 1866, Ann Melton confided in Pauline Foster that Tom Dula had “the pox” and had given it to her also. She told Pauline that Tom got the disease from her cousin Laura Foster and commented that she was going “to kill her” because of it. She also threatened Pauline with bodily harm if she ever revealed what she had told her. The local expression “I am going to kill you” is not necessarily a real death threat but an expression of extreme displeasure and possibly bodily harm intended toward the person to whom it is directed.

The question is: could Tom have contracted syphilis from Pauline instead of from Laura or some other woman? Pauline Foster testified in the undated transcripts that she never “went around” Tom Dula except for “a blind,” and then only at Ann’s request. Ann had asked her to distract her neighbors from her adulterous affair with Tom Dula. Pauline admitted that she would “romp” with Tom and sometimes sat on his lap when other women were present at the Meltons’ home. She also stated that she spent a night with him in a barn, and that she, Tom Dula and Washington Anderson had spent a night together in the woods. However, she denied having sexual relations with either of them and also denied illicit relations with her brother or with Ann’s brothers (as Ann had reportedly stated to others). No direct evidence or testimony to the contrary was presented in open court. Furthermore, there were no witnesses who testified to any such incidents because neither Ann Melton nor Tom Dula testified at either trial.

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