The Laurel Creek Murders

The Laurel Creek Murders

Blue Ridge True Crime by Alfred Dockery | Appalachian True Crime
S2 · E10
Apr 13, 2026
19:12

Episode notes

In September 1909, six members of the Meadows family, including three young children, were murdered with an axe and a gun in their remote Virginia log cabin, which was then set on fire. Forty days later and eighty miles away, four members of the Hood family were killed in nearly identical fashion near Beckley, West Virginia. Was Howard Little, a convicted murderer with a questionable pardon, responsible for the Laurel Creek killings? Or did a drifting serial killer known as the "Man from the Train" strike twice and then disappear?

In this episode, we examine the fragmentary newspaper accounts, the role of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, the trial of Howard Little, and an eerie coincidence of gravestones.

Links

Robert Baker’s Laurel Creek Murders Page

Betty Justus Grave

George Hood Grave

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Keywords

Murder
True Crime
Mystery
The Man from the Train

What place this episode is about