The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1907-07-03
NO. 40.
CRIME.
Buried His Wlfe's Little Daughter
Alive in a Refuse Hole.
MYSTERIOUS CASE.

Pretty Little Seven Year Old Mary
Newlin Buried Alive BY Her Step
father, Irwin Lewis, Who Is Now
In JaiI.-Lewis Admits Burying
Her But Declares That He Thought
Her Dead.
Buried alive by her stepfather was
the tragic fate of pretty, little sew
en-year-old Mary Newlin, for whose
death Irwin Lewis is now in jail at
Chester, Pa, awaiting the action
of the grand jury Lewis, thought
admitting that he buried his little
stepdaughter, declares he did not
murder her, or know she was living
when he buried her. u thought
her dead when she fell from the car
riage barn." he moaned in his de-
fense at the coroner's Investigation.
But his excuse was so fimsy land
the weight of the evidence against
him so great that he was quickly
remanded to jail to await the Janu-
ary term of court, and it was only the
prompt work of the sheriff and his
deputies in getting him quickly out
of the little courthouse at Ayondale,
where the hearing was held, that saw
ed the young Pennsylvania farmer
from death at the hands of the mob.
Lewis partial confession was
wrung from him by District Attorney
MacElree on the day in which his
stepdaughter's tiny body was found
by W. C.. Shelley and John O'Br1en,
deputy sheriff, in a hole that Lewis
had declared he dug to bury some
refuse in. The one essential feature
to establish the murder without
doubt on the young stepfather, the
admission that he killed the child,
MacElree was unable to get On
the contrary, the farmer insisted MS
stepdaughter's death was due TO neI
fall from the carriage shed roof, and
that he buried the body after finding
the child dead, giving as his reason
that he wished TO spare his wife VINO
is in a delicate condition, the shock
of her daughters death.
But the alert prosecutor was pre-
pared for just such a move as tnls,
and startled the vast audience at the
inquest by producing medical eVl-
dence to show that the child died
of strangulatiop and sufocation.
There was not mark nor a bru1se
on the body of the child and she naa
not been assaulted, as intlmated. On
her neck. however, were the MARKS
of fingers, showing some one had
gripped the child by the throat, ana
wound tightly around the neck tneIe
was also a piece of string nxeo tlshe
enough to produce sufoeatlon.
This partial confession upon tne
stepfather's part removes all questlon
of kidnappers being mixed up In tae
case. as was at first thought, and, IL
is the opinion of everybody in Cnes-
ter county that when the cell doors
closed on Irwin Lewis, the girls real
murderer had been safely secured.
The prosecution is said to have TWO
witnesses under cover who VII! say
that Mary is said to have told eae4
that some one in her own nome nad
tried to kill her twice during the VIII
ter. The child is said to have dlyui-
ged the attempts upon her III life vsa whi,s os
telling how much afraid nonag she Iev.s was %
az always run and hide when l
see him coming" the dead child Is
reported to have said to tse TWO VIZ
nesses esse sc before she fnal1y disappeared.
That she stood II deadly fear o. a.aea aer
stenfather has been learned from
men and women who have WorRea a
= hout the Lewis farm or visited It,
and and who, on several occasions, watch,
cd ed meetings between the dead girl
and her accused parent. There ;e are
many who reside in the vicinity OF
-be -, alleged crime who believe that
lewis Lev is crazy, and that it will be nee
essary to either take him to an insane
ssylum ~ or have commission inquire
into his state of mind before ms
trial, still months distant, IS oeeuh'