Cover of Dead Year: The Trials of J.A. Alford and the Unwritten Law, by Eric P. Egbert, showing the 1913 photographs of the depot platform at Trenton

True Crime · Legal History

DEAD YEAR

The Trials of J.A. Alford and the Unwritten Law

Eric P. Egbert

On sale December 1, 2026
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  • Paperback $17.99
  • Hardcover $24.99
  • Kindle $7.99
A verdict of not guilty is a finding about the man in the dock. It is not a finding about the men in the ground.”

The Book

A double homicide that was never a mystery

On the evening of August 11, 1913, a merchant from Rutherford, Tennessee, stepped onto the railroad platform at Trenton and shot dead two of Gibson County’s most prominent lawyers, William Coulter and his son Harry, who never made it to their home in Dyer.

A depot of witnesses saw Jim Alford hand his hot pistols over to the constable. His wife, Fannie, was in the state asylum at Bolivar. The Coulters had been her lawyers. Alford’s defense was not that he hadn’t killed them. It was the “unwritten law”: that they had wrecked his home and had it coming. What followed were two of the most sensational murder trials in Tennessee history, and two acquittals.

Dead Year is the true story of a double homicide that was never a mystery, in 1913, the one year when Tennessee failed to record its deceased.

Officially, nobody died.

Drawn from the Gibson County Circuit Court minute books, the newspapers that covered both trials, and the public record. More than ninety photographs and documents.

Trailer

Watch the trailer

The Record

Sixteen months in Gibson County

  1. About half past six in the evening, W.S. and Harry Coulter are shot on the depot platform at Trenton. Jim Alford surrenders to a constable.

  2. The grand jury returns two indictments for first-degree murder, one for each Coulter.

  3. The first trial, for the murder of W.S. Coulter. After some eighteen hours, the jury returns its verdict: not guilty.

  4. The second case is called. The attorney general’s appointed substitute turns up as counsel for the defense, and the court names a new prosecutor.

  5. The judge holds court on Christmas Day.

  6. The second jury, in the murder of Harry Coulter, finds Alford not guilty.

  7. For carrying the pistols, Alford is fined fifty dollars.

From the Archive

A few of the book’s photographs

Engraving of the railroad station at Trenton, Tennessee, in 1862
Rail-Road Station at Trenton, 1862Harper’s Weekly, 1862.
Postcard of the brick Mobile and Ohio depot at Trenton with its tower
The M.&O. depot, TrentonBuilt in 1912. About sixteen months old on the evening of the shooting.
Hand-colored postcard of the Gibson County Court House at Trenton
Gibson County Court HouseWhere both trials were heard.
Oval portrait of Harry C. Coulter as a young man
Harry C. CoulterCollection of the Fred Culp Historical Museum, Inc., Trenton. Used by permission.
Newspaper photograph of the jury that acquitted Alford, December 1913
“Jury That Acquitted Alford”Commercial Appeal, December 1913.
Newspaper clipping of the Elks lodge resolution on the death of Harry Coulter
The Elks remember HarryTrenton Herald-Democrat, August 28, 1913.

Podcast

Dead Year, in two-minute chapters

1The Last Train North

2The Coulters of Dyer

3Jim and Fannie

More episodes are on the way.

Portrait of author Eric P. Egbert

The Author

Eric P. Egbert

Eric P. Egbert practices law in Trenton, Tennessee, in the building where Jim Alford’s defense attorneys once kept their office. He serves as city attorney for Dyer, where the Coulters called home.

For Readers

You’ve heard the evidence. Now give your verdict.

If Dead Year held your attention, please leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. A sentence or two is plenty, and it is how a book from a small county seat finds readers beyond it.

Press, Reviewers & Book Clubs

Advance reader copies and interviews

Advance reader copies are available to reviewers, librarians, booksellers and the press. For a copy, an interview or a talk to your group, write to Eric@Egbert.Law.