Mississippi Scoundrels

Author Alan Brown shines the light on some of worst characters in Mississippi history. Mississippi’s nickname—“The Magnolia State”—highlights the region’s natural and architectural beauty. However, Mississippi is also home to a rogue’s gallery of thieves and murderers, beginning with the nation’s first serial killers—the Harpe Brothers—and continuing to the present with Glen Rogers, “The Cross Country Killer.” Lurking through Mississippi Scoundrels is a wide variety of scalawags, ranging from the 19th century “hell raisers ” in Natchez-under-the-Hill to racist murderers, like Byron De La Beckworth and Samuel Bowers. Readers will also find “bad men” who have morphed into folk heroes, like Rube Burrow—“The King of the Train Robbers”—and Texas Red, Franklin County’s African-American outlaw. But this book isn’t all about atrocious men. Here you’ll encounter vile women such as Ouida Keaton and Ruth Thompson, both of whom committed matricide, and Carolee Biddy, who killed her stepdaughter.