A couple of years back, I heard a report on NPR by a folklorist whose name I have since, alas, forgotten. His subject was the well known murder ballad Pretty Polly. It seems that in 1726 in the fishing village of Gossport on the southern coast of England a rather sensational murder did occur. (Our English Mudcatters can correct my geography and spelling. I did look up the town once, and don't have an atlas nearby at the moment.) Anyway, out of this crime of domestic abuse, the girl was in the family way, came our ballad. The exact details of the historic crime escape me, but rather than getting off free, as in some versions of the ballad, Willie, as he's called was hanged for the murder. The broadside ballad writers went to work, and we have another murdered girl ballad.

Well, that's the story aa I remember hearing it.
Jim