Book excerpt: The central Piedmont North Carolina town of Kernersville is known today for its quiet neighborhoods and lovely historic district homes. Few of its citizens would suspect that in earlier times the town had its fair share of unsavory characters. Wicked Kernersville lifts the veil from this little-known facet of the towns past and introduces the reader to incidents that prompted one early resident to lament that it was unsafe to walk the streets. Using material gleaned from old newspapers and other sources, longtime residents Michael Marshall and Jerry Taylor bring these stories to life, giving the reader a glimpse of the towns history unavailable from other sources.