Dingess, West Virginia

Episode 250 / 17 November 2021 / 164 min / full

Shocking Backwoods Brutality

""We are going to name withheld here, West Virginia"; it is in south-western West Virginia, "in Mingo County, which is named Bloody Mingo"." about 0:04:56

The case: Murder of Wanda Lesher (August 31st to September 1st, 2002); Murder of Kathy Parsons (November 1st, 1985). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2021

Population

1,196

Median age

about 38 and a half

Median household income

$28,949

Median home value

$61,500

Two-bedroom rent

$700

Cost of living

75 out of a hundred

Religious

28%

Property crime

▼ about half

Violent crime

▼ about 25% under

History, in brief

• The community was named after William Anderson a covered name, a pioneer settler. about 0:06:52
• As of 1894 covered name had two hotels, eight boarding houses, four restaurants, four groceries, four sawmills, and a school with two teachers and about a hundred students. about 0:07:07
• 133 coal miners lived in name withheld here at that point. about 0:07:58
• The community garnered a reputation for being completely lawless. about 0:08:03
• A book called They'll Cut Off Your Project quoted old timers saying it was a common practice to have a killing once a month. about 0:08:32
• A black writer, Uncle Jim Markham, described how a coloured person could not ride through a covered name: they would stop the train, take him off and shoot him, and nobody would say a word. about 0:08:51
• From 1970 to 1972 about 17 police and lawmen of different types were shot to death in this area, which stretches 15 miles up the creek. about 0:09:28
• In 1901 robbers raided the whole community and dynamited a large safe; according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph of November 23rd, 1901, citizens opened fire and about 40 shots were exchanged. about 0:10:42
• The burglars escaped on a hand car with jewellery; it was recovered about four miles from covered name with blood spots all over it. about 0:11:07
• The 3,327-foot tunnel south of town was built by Italian immigrants and opened for rail traffic in 1892; it has carried one lane of vehicular traffic since the mid-1900s. about 0:12:09
• Chinese emigrants were brought in to build part of the tunnel, and locals resented what they called the influx of foreign people. about 0:12:55
• Roving bands of angry locals waited at the tunnel entrances with guns and shot people; there are no official records, but estimates say hundreds were killed and rolled into the creek. about 0:13:30
• In 1898 a fatal train wreck in the tunnel killed seven people. about 0:13:59
• In 1905 a head-on collision between a fully loaded freight train and a work train with people on it killed three people. about 0:14:44
• In 2016 Mingo County was described as one of the places in America most touched by opioids. about 0:14:50

The reviews read out

Open the episode file