Show Notes
CRIMINAL MISCHIEF BAD BLOOD: The Hatfields and the McCoys
Long before true crime had podcasts, documentaries, or cable television, America had the Hatfields and the McCoys—two Appalachian families whose names became synonymous with hatred, revenge and the terrifying arithmetic of blood answering blood.
This week on Criminal Mischief, Carolyn Ossorio heads into the mountains along the West Virginia–Kentucky border to separate history from legend in perhaps the most famous family feud in American history.
The story emerged from a region still carrying the scars of the Civil War, where divided loyalties, economic competition and family allegiance could turn an argument into something considerably more dangerous. The Hatfields, led by William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield, lived largely on the West Virginia side of the Tug Fork. Across the river in Kentucky were the McCoy's, including patriarch Randolph “Randall” McCoy.
What followed has been reduced over the years to a wonderfully American caricature: two groups of angry hillbillies shooting at one another over a stolen pig.
The truth was considerably darker.
Carolyn follows the feud through disputed property and timber, the infamous hog trial, forbidden romance, political and economic tensions, murder and retaliation. She examines the 1882 killing of Ellison Hatfield, the brutal execution of three McCoy brothers in retaliation, and the escalation that ultimately transformed a local vendetta into a national sensation.
At the center of the story is also one of its strangest tragedies: Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield, two young people who crossed the family divide and discovered that romance isn't particularly easy when practically everyone at Thanksgiving is armed.
Then came the New Year's Night Massacre of 1888, when members of the Hatfield faction attacked the McCoy home, setting it ablaze and killing two of Randall McCoy's children. By then, the feud had moved far beyond family grievance. Governors became involved, posses crossed state lines, courts wrestled with extradition, and the dispute eventually reached the United States Supreme Court.
But Bad Blood isn't simply about who killed whom.
It's about how violence becomes inheritance.
Carolyn digs beneath more than a century of exaggeration to examine how the Hatfield–McCoy feud became American folklore, and why the names of two families from Appalachia still describe any conflict so bitter that the original grievance almost stops mattering.
Because eventually there comes a point when nobody is fighting over a pig, a piece of timber or something somebody said years ago.
They're fighting because the other family is the other family.
And once blood becomes the debt, somebody always believes there's another payment due.
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This week on Criminal Mischief: BAD BLOOD — The Hatfields and the McCoys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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