Now on DVD at is the new film by Break of Dawn Pro­duc­tions, 'A Christ­mas Fam­i­ly Tragedy', a fea­ture length doc­u­men­tary about the no­to­ri­ous Law­son Fam­i­ly Mas­sacre of Christ­mas Day 1929 in Stokes Coun­ty, NC, deep in the heart of May­ber­ry coun­try. The film ex­plores the leg­ends and myths sur­round­ing the mur­ders, and what they mean to the re­main­ing fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty now.

On Christ­mas Day, 1929, a wide­ly re­spect­ed, af­flu­ent to­bac­co farmer named Char­lie Law­son bru­tal­ly mur­dered his wife, 6 of his 7 chil­dren, and then him­self; his el­dest son, Arthur, aged 18, was sent to the store to buy more shot­gun shells just be­fore the vi­o­lence broke out. Nev­er so much a 'who-​dun­nit' as a re­sound­ing 'Why?!', this mys­tery has in­spired clas­sic blue­grass mur­der bal­lads, ghost sto­ries, fam­i­ly feuds, and over­ca­pac­i­ty crowds for an­nu­al retellings of the sto­ry.

But a her­itage of si­lence fol­lows the mys­tery, of­ten with dead­ly con­se­quences, in a bu­col­ic ru­ral com­mu­ni­ty un­able to come to terms with its dark­er side. The bal­lad used to be sung as a warn­ing to the wives and kids in this area to be­have or else; now it is start­ing to be sung as a warn­ing to abusers, to where their malev­o­lent ac­tions could lead.

To put our mon­ey where our mouths are here, we're set­ting aside a healthy per­cent­age of the prof­its of this film to ben­e­fit lo­cal do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or­ga­ni­za­tions, be­gin­ning with Stokes Fam­i­ly Vi­o­lence Ser­vices, where we look to get the coun­ty's first bat­tered wom­en's shel­ter over the hump and in­to op­er­a­tion be­fore the be­gin­ning of the next school year.

The film is avail­able on DVD at and is cur­rent­ly on tour for spe­cial screen­ings through­out the south.