Now, my banjo pickin' buddy Claude Hammer insists that it's the dead guy who is talking to the audience from the grave. That makes it a real nice ghost story in his estimation.

For me it presents an unexplained shift in perspective. How come all of a sudden does the story shift from third person to first person? Personally, I think the narrator of the story saw the whole thing happen and knows the truth.

But there is support for Claude's point of view when in the chorus the lyric goes

She walks these hills
In a long black vail
She visits my grave
When the night winds wail.
Nobody knows, nobody sees.
Nobody knows but me.

Personally I've always had difficulty with that sort of unexplained shift in point of view.
Jim