Well, I'd feel better about the essay if it didn't open with the statement "We're introduced to a man called Tom Dooley and told he's due to hang tomorrow morning for stabbing an unnamed beauty to death" and if my memory of the KTrio's song didn't have it start with the words:
"Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Killed poor Laura Foster
You know you're bound to die."

Perhaps I'm misremembering the version of the song that was recorded by the KTrio, but "Laura Foster" sounds pretty much like a name to me.