As far as Bill Cook of Belmont knows, no one was ever held responsible for killing his cousin, Cpl. Charles Nipper of Lowell, more than 70 years ago.

"Aunt Minnie (Nipper) talked quite a bit about it," said Cook. "She went to her grave not knowing."

Charles Nipper, just 21, was found fatally shot on Oct. 30, 1944, along with a Kansas osteopath Dr. M.E. Lambert, on what was described as a lonely road in McPherson County, Kansas. Investigators at the time surmised Lambert had picked up Nipper, who was in the Army and probably hitchhiking back to his military base near Salinas, Kansas. Both men were shot three times each.

"They suspected a serial killer may have killed him," Cook said, "but that's all we ever knew."

Nipper's death, along with Lambert's, has sparked an interest in an Arkansas author writing a book about James Waybern Hall, a man referred to as "The Arkansas Butcher" in true crime magazines, who was put to death for killing four people in that state, but suspected of many other killings.

Janie Jones, 65, has written two Arkansas travel books and several true crime magazine articles, including one on Hall. While doing research, she said she discovered investigators from Kansas had traveled to Arkansas to question Hall on the killings of Nipper and Jones but said he was never charged.

"When he was traveling around with detectives they said, 'So you've killed about a dozen people,'" Jones said. "And he said, 'It was more like 24 than 12.'

"When he was arrested and word got out about what he had confessed to, lawmen from other states would come down and talk to him about their unsolved killings," Jones said.

She said Hall would talk freely about certain killings. He confessed to killing a woman in Salinas, Kansas, in 1938, a man in San Marcos, Texas, in 1944 and 10 migrant workers from 1938 to 1944 in Arizona. But on others he would offer clues and then decline to talk.

Hall, who was called "Big Jim" for his size and "Red" for his wavy red hair, took offense at those who suggested he was mentally ill, although that was ultimately the defense his attorneys chose for the two-day trial that ended in his death sentence.

The deaths of Nipper and Lambert fit Hall's pattern, Jones said.

"The thing about Red was that he would travel the country hitchhiking. People would give him rides and he would kill them for their money," Jones said. "He did always steal something, but I think the most he ever got from someone was $126. He would kill someone for a carton of cigarettes or something he could turn around and sell for $5."

Hall, who was a few days shy of his 25th birthday when executed, was convicted of killing his 19-year-old wife and three other men around Little Rock, Arkansas. In her research, Jones learned that Hall was one of 10 children born to strict parents, including a father who was a preacher and farmer.

Through research and interviews with Hall's family members, Jones said she learned that Hall suffered a brain injury as a boy, possibly the result of a beating from his father.

"Red walked at a fast pace and leaned toward the left when he walked," Jones said. "All the hair on one of his legs was gray.

"I think he had sustained a head injury when he was 12 years old, and brain injuries can really mess you up," she said.

Law enforcement agencies in McPherson County, Kansas, said their records do not go back as far as the Nipper and Lambert slayings.

Mark Malick, a senior special agent and spokesman for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, said a check with that agency's records system failed to come up with any names or investigations associated with the date of Nipper's and Lambert's death.

"I know the KBI was founded in 1939, but in the early days the bureau was primarily formed to work bank robberies and cattle thefts," Malick wrote in an email.

Cook, now 81, was about 10 years old when his older cousin was slain. He remembers he and his brother looking up to Nipper in part because he was in the military during World War II. Nipper's parents owned a grocery store in Belmont, which Minnie Nipper sold a short time after her husband's death in 1954. Minnie Nipper would die in 1998 in Hendersonville, where she moved a short time after the sale of the grocery business.

Cpl. Nipper graduated from Lowell High School and was a member of the Belmont Abbey College football team before joining the military, according to news accounts of his death.

"I remembered him being in the service, and he gave me and my brother both hats — soft, military-style hats — and I wore the hound out of it," Cook said. "We'd play soldier at 9 and 10 years old while wearing those hats."

"We were just kids, and he was 10 years older," Cook added.

Hall may have taken the secret of Nipper's death with him to the electric chair.

He was electrocuted Jan. 4, 1946, less than a year after his conviction.

"Boys, I'm not afraid," he reportedly told the guards as they fastened the electrodes to his clean-shaven head. "I can take it."

You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin.