What would possess a grandmother to murder her two-year-old granddaughter? The Legend of Nance Dude presents all the known facts surrounding Roberta Putnam's grizzly murder and the arrest, trial, and subsequent conviction of her grandmother Nancy Ann Kerley, also known as Nance Dude.Maurice Stanley learned the story of Nance Dude from his grandmother, who saw Nance and Roberta Putnam out walking not long before Roberta's death. Stanley has woven a speculative tale, drawing on both historical fact and oral tradition, of Nance Dude's metamorphosis from happy, loving child to convicted murderess.

The Legend of Nance Dude

Literature & Fiction

Maurice Stanley

United States

Bright Mountain Books (Historical Images)

After the ill-fated Northfield bank raid of 1876, Jesse James moved to Waverly, Tennessee, posing as the gentleman farmer John Howard. His arrival set off a chain of events that would forever change the life of his young neighbor Henry.Based on the real life of Henry Baker, this absorbing novel reveals a story of desperation and survival. Sorrows End is based on the real life of author Maurice Stanley's paternal grandfather. Family stories long assrted that Henry Baker had been involved with Jesse and Frank James in the Muscle Shoals payroll robbery in Alabama and perhaps others as well. Relying on historical evidence, family folklore, and some speculation, Stanley tells the gripping story of this outlaw who rode with Jesse James.

Sorrows End

Genre Fiction

John F Blair Pub

One cold February morning in 1913, a 64-year-old woman known as Nance Dude led her granddaughter, Roberta Putnam, out of their home in western North Carolina and up the side of a mountain. She returned without the child later that day.    What could drive an old woman to murder her granddaughter? Maurice Stanley has reconstructed the sad, dark story of Nance Dude from newspaper articles, court and prison records, and talks with mountain people who either remember Nance's crime or learned of it from their elders.

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

Marblehead Publishing

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Books by Maurice Stanley