Fake news is as old as the news business. Mark Twain is widely quoted as saying: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”
So, how does a world-class historian end up writing a book full of fake news? The answer is simply that he had bad sources. John Spears traveled from New York to Pikeville, Kentucky, obviously determined to get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth. Spears names his sources as Randolph McCoy, his wife, Sarah and his son Jim. He also refers to “A lawyer familiar with the case,” which was certainly Perry Cline. At the time Spears was talking to them in Pikeville, Randolph and Jim McCoy were under indictment in Logan County, West Virginia for the murders of James Vance and William Dempsey. The eldest son of Perry Cline was also charged in those murders. Is it any wonder that persons who were charged with murder in the ‘feud’, or had children facing those charges would give a slanted version of events? Is anyone surprised that Jim Vance, recently murdered by the men who were talking to Spears, is the chief villain of the story?
This story can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.” https://tinyurl.com/ycqlg3oy