A local man took his genealogy research and delved deep into a historic moment in Taney County to write a book exploring an infamous murder and trial.

Author Randy Pace said as he was doing research on his maternal family tree, the Meadows family of Taney County, he uncovered the truth of a feud, which has since become legend. He has since published a comprehensive book on the events of the feud titled, ‘Blood Feud on Bull Creek: The True and Complete Story of the Meadows-Bilyeu Feud and Events Leading Up to and After the Battle’.

Between the years of 1898 to 1901 the Meadows and Bilyeu families, who lived on Bull Creek near the Taney County / Christian County line, captured newspaper headlines around the country. In November 1898, the violent feud between these families culminated in the killing of Steve Bilyeu and two of his sons by Bud Meadows and his cohorts.

Pace said he was doing genealogy work when he began researching the feud. 

“I’m 63. So I’m getting up there but I’ve been doing genealogy for quite a while,” Pace said. “It really kind of started as a genealogy project to find the documentation of things my grandfather and others have written. They wrote about the feud, they didn’t really have any evidence of what really happened but they wrote about the family tales, and we all know how that works. So I kind…