Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song.

Stella Kenney [Laws F37]

DESCRIPTION: Stella Kenney is murdered on her way home after spending ten months with her uncle Rob Frazier. Frazier, married and with three children, is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: homicide incest prison trial family
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1917 (?) - Murder of Stella Kenney. She was pregnant; presumably her uncle was the father
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Laws F37, "Stella Kenney"
Thomas-Makin', pp. 151-153, (no title; Thomas's informant called the girl "Stell" or "Stellie," not "Stella") (1 text)
ST LF37 (Partial)
Roud #2273
File: LF37

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2017 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

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From Ballad Makin' in the Mountains of Kentucky, by Jean Thomas. Oak Publications, 1964, pages 156-159. Originally published in 1939 by Henry Holt.

This time my journey led me to Carter County, where I found Granny Blevins knitting contentedly just inside the doorway of her ramshackle plank house. "There's a heap a body could tell of the killin' of poor Stell Kenny," said Granny eyeing suspiciously my portable, "I reckon that's what you've come to make pick-sures of around here. That's what all the rest has been after for the last month."
Forthwith I opened the case of my portable to assure the old woman it was not a picture-making machine. I told her my purpose was to find ballad singers.
"It might be if you went down in the settlement of Olive Hill you could find a right ditty singer," she drawled indifferently. "I've had a risin' in my side and a misery on my chist so long I've come to be a mighty sorry singer."
The bony fingers resumed their knitting and Granny watched me cautiously from the half-closed lids of her little gray eyes. "I couldn't begin to tell you how many's been out here since the killin' of poor Stell." It was plain to be seen the recent tragedy was uppermost in Granny Blevins' thoughts, but not until I had assured her that I had no "connection with any of the persons concerned," that I only wanted the story and the ballad from an old residenter - who likewise was no kin to any of the folks mixed up in the affair - did she consent to go on with the tale.
"It taken place on Garvin Hill nigh the settlement off yonder," Granny pointed with her knitting needle toward the village of Olive Hill. "Poor Stellie she'd been stayin' with her Uncle Rob Frazier. Been there the best of ten month." She flung a meaning look in my direction, "About ten month," she repeated slowly, with the accent on the numeral, "when Rob hitched up his nag to the buggy and started with Stellie back to her own home." The knitting needles clicked noisily for a moment then were silent. "In Frazier's buggy," Granny's voice was hushed, "they found a bloody hatchet. Stell Kenny had all of seven gashes in her head." The old woman paused again to look toward the winding road. "It was Governor Fields," she added slowly, "that pardoned Rob Frazier." Again she resumed her knitting. "I ain't sayin' who made up this song-ballet about it, though I could if I were a-mind to." While she plied her shiny needles in and out of the bright red yarn which she was fashioning into a mitten, Granny Blevins sang in a thin, quivering voice:
(continued in next post)