William Zantzinger, whose notorious killing of a black woman in 1963 inspired Bob Dylan's 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,' died January 3 at the age of 69.

The song was inspired by an incident that occurred wherein Zantzinger, a 24-year-old white tobacco farmer, drunkenly hit barmaid Hattie Carroll in the head with a toy cane for taking too long to serve him a drink. Caroll, a 51-year-old mother of eleven who had heart problems, died a few hours later of a stroke. Zantzinger was charged with murder, but because of Carroll's health trouble, the charge was reduced to manslaughter with six months in prison, and $625 in fines as punishment.

The 22-year-old Dylan penned the song in a New York coffee shop in October of the same year, recording it for his album, 'The Times They Are A-Changin'.' Naturally, Zantzinger was angry with the singer, calling him "a no-account son of a bitch" and "a scum of a scum bag [sic] of the earth."