{"id":3734,"date":"2025-11-21T21:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T01:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3734"},"modified":"2025-11-21T19:07:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T23:07:37","slug":"greed-gold-and-deception-in-cocke-county-tn-the-1909-murder-of-a-j-slagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3734","title":{"rendered":"Greed, Gold and Deception in Cocke County TN: The 1909 Murder of A. J. Slagle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/udhqEQi02eo?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In 1909, a Johnson City businessman named A.J. Slagle was lured by promises of buried Spanish gold hidden in a Cocke County house. What began as a desperate bid to recover from business losses ended in a murder, the body tossed into the French Broad River.<\/p>\n<p>Join Steve and Rod as they tell a true story of greed, deception, and a treasure that never existed, a case that shocked East Tennessee and became another one of the Stories of Appalachia.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget to subscribe so you don&#8217;t miss any of our Stories of Appalachia.\u00a0 You&#8217;ll find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts!<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_5433\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3734-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68618450\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68618450\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68618450\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68618450\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3734-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68618450\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1909, a Johnson City businessman named A.J. Slagle was lured by promises of buried Spanish gold hidden in a Cocke County house. What began as a desperate bid to recover from business losses ended in a murder, the body tossed into the French Broad River. Join Steve and Rod as they tell a true [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,11,22],"tags":[1402,1406,1413,512,1405,1408,1419,1404,1418,1412,1407,1411,1416,1409,1410,1128,1403,1051,1414,1417,1415],"class_list":["post-3734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-court","category-crime","category-the-oughts","tag-a-j-slagle","tag-appalachian-crime-stories","tag-appalachian-history-podcast","tag-appalachian-true-crime","tag-bridgeport-tennessee-history","tag-buried-treasure-murder","tag-cocke-county","tag-cocke-county-murder","tag-dan-brooks","tag-early-1900s-tennessee-crime","tag-east-tennessee-true-crime","tag-french-broad-river-murder","tag-historical-murders-tennessee","tag-john-hayden-spencer","tag-johnny-cash-cocke-county","tag-johnson-city-history","tag-slagle-murder-1909","tag-stories-of-appalachia-podcast","tag-tennessee-folklore","tag-treasure-hoax-1909","tag-true-crime-appalachia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-Ye","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3736,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions\/3736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}