Crimehub: A True Crime Podcast · Crimehub Studios

Shot 13 Times… And Still Didn’t Stop Running | The Legend of the Moonshine King

·42 min·2 clips

Deputy K.S. Ray’s ambush leaves Redmond with six bullets lodged in his body.

1. Crimehub: A True Crime Podcast centers on Louis Richard Redmond, the Appalachian moonshiner known as the “Moonshine King” and “Prince of Dark Corner.” 2. The narrator frames Redmond as a figure shaped by Swain County, North Carolina, Deputy U.S. Marshal Alfred Duckworth, and later Deputy U.S. Marshal K.S. Ray. 3. The episode asks how a farmer’s son born on April 15, 1854 became a federal outlaw, prison inmate, and local legend. 4. Redmond grows up in a family of ten children and is the youngest of three sons, with the other two sons lost after the Civil War. 5. His father keeps several stills hidden around the family farm, and the episode says moonshine is worth more than corn sold as feed. 6. Redmond learns mountain routes for hauling liquor and runs moonshine through western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. 7. The story says revenue agents target Redmond after his name becomes well known in the region. 8. A raid on the Redmond farm leads to his mother’s illness worsening and his father dying in prison. 9. The March 1, 1876 roadside confrontation with Alfred Duckworth becomes the episode’s major legal turning point. 10. Redmond allegedly tells Duckworth, “All right, put up your pistol, Alf. I will go along with you,” before firing the Derringer. 11. Duckworth is shot in the throat, and the episode says he drinks from a creek before dying from the wound. 12. The narration says Redmond and Amos Ladd flee into the woods, and a warrant follows for the first-degree murder of a federal agent. 13. Redmond and Ladd move into South Carolina’s “Dark Corner,” where the episode describes gangs, moonshine routes, and armed intimidation. 14. The January 11, 1877 cabin meeting turns into another major confrontation when Marshals Barton, Gary, White, Hendrix, and Jamison surround the pair. 15. Barton reportedly takes $186 from Redmond, and Redmond escapes with no shoes, no coat, no hat, and his hands tied in front. 16. On January 20, 1877, Redmond enters Barton’s house, demands repayment, and forces Barton to write a $100 check while Mrs. Barton accompanies him to Easley Station. 17. The episode says newspapers split the public image of Redmond between an outlaw like Billy the Kid and Jesse James and an Appalachian Robin Hood. 18. Redmond’s 1881 shooting near his cliffside cabin leaves six bullets lodged in his body, and local newspapers later describe him as a celebrity visitor in Asheville jail. 19. The episode’s tone is dramatic, narrative-driven, and detail-heavy, with a chronological structure built from raids, ambushes, prison time, and public reaction. 20. Listeners interested in Appalachian outlaw history and 19th-century federal law enforcement will likely stay; listeners wanting a short, modern police procedural may skip it.

As heard by us

A moonshiner's legend is built from cold woods, federal pursuit, and a refusal to stay captured.

Major Redmond's legend comes into focus in the Appalachian woods, where a moonshiner's instincts, local loyalties, and refusal to be held turn a pursuit story into something larger.

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Why you'd press play

You get the King of Moonshiners, Appalachian woods, and a barefoot January escape from federal agents.

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