The Night Marauder: East Tennessee's Serial Killer, 1919-1926

Two a.m., Knoxville, Tennessee. The night was warm, and the windows were open. Sixteen-year-old Ruth Cox awoke to find someone touching her leg. Confused, she checked to see that her little sister still slept beside her. Then she saw him—a man standing over them in the darkness.

Ruth survived her ordeal. Others were not so fortunate.

The Night Marauder, which grew out of Maryville College Professor Nancy Locklin’s popular “History of Murder” class, recounts the harrowing tale of an early-twen...