On Christmas Eve in the year 1900, 14-year-old Delia Green was shot dead by her boyfriend, Moses 'Cooney' Houston, (he was also 14) in the Georgia town of Savannah.
Houston, who was drunk, had been teasing Delia about the sexual side of their relationship and she responded by calling him 'a son of a bitch.' This, apparently, was enough to provoke him to shoot her.
Patrolman J. T. Williams would later testify that he had confessed to the killing and had said he would do it again.
Houston, who appeared in court wearing short pants, served twelve years of a life sentence. He continued to have trouble with the law after his release in 1913 and died in New York City in 1927.
My version of the song is based on the one first recorded by Blind Willie McTell in the 1920s.
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