'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' has always affected me emotionally, ever since 1964, so I don't listen to it often. Yesterday, Jan 3, I watched a very old Dylan video on youtube singing 'Hattie Carroll' on black and white television. I burst into tears and couldn't explain my reaction. Now we're told that Zantzinger died on that day.

For what it's worth, murder involves an intent to kill, or doing something that a reasonable person might expect could have a fatal outcome. My reading of events in 1963 is that Zantzinger - drunken, violent, racist bully that he was - had no intent to kill or even seriously hurt Hattie Carroll. His verbal and physical assaults on her were disgraceful and indefensible, and her death very probably resulted from them, but manslaughter was the correct charge. Whether the sentence should have been harsher is another matter.

No small culpability rests with other guests at the 'society gathering'. It seems that nobody intervened to stop a series of assaults by the drunken Zantzinger. Never forget that the best way to ensure that evil thrives is for other people to stand by and do nothing.

The only consolation from that tragic evening in 1963 would have been signs of remorse from Zantzinger and a mending of his ways. There's ample evidence in this thread and elsewhere that he didn't change. Bob Dylan's extraordinary song is the only good thing to have come from Hattie Carroll's death. I hope we can all agree here that we'd have been happier if Hattie had lived a full ration of days and the song had never been written.