John Andrews Murrell (1806-1844) was a horse thief, a slave stealer, and a counterfeiter who was transformed into a legendary highway robber and murderous outlaw whose criminal exploits took him throughout the South in the 1820s and 1830s. Modern-day treasure hunters are still trying to find his supposed caches of hidden gold in Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The disappearance of two slaves belonging to a friend in 1834 prompted Virgil A. Stewart to pursue Murrell in the hopes of learning their whereabouts. Stewart befriended him on his journey to Arkansas, and he...