The last person known to have seen Nell Cropsey alive was her suitor Jim Wilcox: he had called on her to end their deteriorating relationship and, he said, left her crying on her father's porch. Bloodhounds tracked Nell's trail to the end of a pier on the nearby Pasquotank River, but it was weeks before her body was found floating in the water. Popular feeling convicted Jim of Nell's murder even before his trial (Nell's father refused to lead a lynch mob), and Jim served time, although he repeatedly protested his innocence and the evidence against him was circumstantial
The last person known to have seen Nell Cropsey alive was her suitor Jim Wilcox: he had called on her to end their deteriorating relationship and, he said, left her crying on her father's porch. Bloodhounds tracked Nell's trail to the end of a pier on the nearby Pasquotank River, but it was weeks before her body was found floating in the water. Popular feeling convicted Jim of Nell's murder even before his trial (Nell's father refused to lead a lynch mob), and Jim served time, although he repeatedly protested his innocence and the evidence against him was circumstantial
