Rexford Girl- Georgia Dunaway (AR) 1942 Randolph H
[Fragment from: Randolph, Ozark Folksongs; 4 vols. 1946-50; reprinted Columbia, 1980, II, 92. Randolph notes follow. I've renamed some of his versions without titles by creating local titles.
Randolph attributes his versions to the local murder of Lula Noel in 1892 which, according to a report in History of McDonald County, Missouri (1897), is "One of the most appalling crimes ever committed in McDonald county was the murder of Mary Lula Noel daughter of W. H. and S. E. Noel on the 10 day of December, 1892." Lula Noel and William Simmons (the convicted murderer) are not mentioned in Randolph's versions and neither are the locations Lanagan and Joplin.
The attribution is a stretch but in some versions he acquired corresponding testimony (Version B, for example).
R. Matteson 2016]
H. "Rexford Girl." Part of a text from Mrs. Georgia Dunaway, Fayetteville, Ark., Jan. 30, 1942- She calls it "The Rexford Girl."
Side by side together we strolled
Till we come to a silent Place,
I taken a stick from off'n the fence
And hit her in the face.
It was three weeks, three weeks or more
Before that maid was found,
She was found a-floating down the stream
That flows through Rexford town.