Tragical affair in Lexington, S. C.
--The arrest of Martha Yarborough at Abbeville, S. C., for the murder of Margaret Frith, has been noticed. The deed seems to have been committed from a love of jewelry and finery on the part of the murderess. The Abbeville Press gives the following particulars of the horrible deed:‘ Two young women, Margaret Frith, aged seventeen years, and Martha Yarborough, aged eighteen years, familiar associates, and both residing at the same house, (the father's of the former,) five miles from this place, went to Columbia on the 12th of December ult, and remained there a day or two, and then visited Augusta, and returned to Columbia on the 20th of the same month, (Sunday,) and visited the factory near Columbia. Notwithstanding the parties had sufficient means to defray expenses for lodgings, &c., in Columbia, on Sunday evening they crossed the Congarec river into Lexington District, and kindled a fire in a thicket, by which they spent the night. Martha Yarborough, early on the following morning, crossed the river at the bridge, and proceeded to the Greenville depot, where she took passage and returned to Abbeville.
’ On her arrival here, it is said, she stated to the father of Margaret Frith that his daughter died at a private house in Columbia; at another time she died at a hospital in Columbia, then again that she was murdered by three negro men at the camp fire where they spent the Sunday night; then that she had accidentally burnt to death. Her statements were so variant and conflicting as to excite suspicion that she had either murdered Margaret Frith, or aided in the murder, and the suspicion corroborated by the jewels and other articles, which were said to have belonged to the deceased, worn and concealed about the person of Martha Yarborough, when she returned home, caused her to be arrested. On examination before C. H. Allen, Esq., the accused stated in relation to the death of the deceased, that after they had built the fire in the thicket and lain down, she felt asleep and in the night heard screams that awoke her, when she found that the deceased clothes were on fire. She was so much excited that she made no attempt to extinguish the flames; when life was extinct she covered the body, which was in a state of nudity, with leaves and pine straw and left it.
The Mayor of Columbia being informed of the statement made by the accused and the place where the tragedy was enacted, made search and found the body of the deceased, which appeared to be very much mutilated by hogs, and the limbs severely burnt.
