The Righteous Killers The John A. Murrell Excitement and Southern Mob Law, 1835

William Faulkner once said, " To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi ." In 1883 Mark Twain turned John Andrews Murrell into a legend when he mentioned him in his classic memoir "Life on the Mississippi." He drew a difference between Murrell and the famous outlaw Jesse James when he wrote, "James was a retail rascal...Murel, wholesale...what are James and his half dozen vulgar rascals compared to the stately old time criminal, with his sermons, his medita