Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1907-07-11

father, Irwin Lewis, Who Is Now
In Jail.-Lewis Admits Buryings
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 httle-
stepdaughter, declares he did not
murder her. or know she was living
when he buried her II thought
her dead when she fell from the car
riage barn" he moaned in his de-
tense at the coroncr's investigation.
But his excuse was so nimsy,and
the weight of the evidence against
him so great that he was quickly
remanded to i'll to await the Janu-
airy 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 AvondaIe,
where the hearing was held, that saw
ed the young Pennsylvania farmer
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. G. Shelley and John O'Brien,
deputy shCrif, in 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
a .,s.s-t-
MacElree was unable to get. On
the contrary. the farmer insisted his
stepdaughter' death was due to her
TALL 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 who
is in a delicate condition, the shock
of her daughters death.
But the alert prosecutor was pre-
pared for Just such n move as this,
and startled the vast audience at the
inquest by producing medical evil
dence to show that the child died
of strangulation and suffocation
There was not mark nor a bruise
on the body of tie child and she had
not been assaulted, as intimated. on
her neck, however, were the marks
of fingers, showing some one had
gripped the child by the throat. and
wound tightly around the neck here
was also n piece of string, fixed tight
enough to produce suffoCation.
This partial confession upon the
stepfather's part removes all question
of kidnaprers being mixed up in the
case, as was at first thought, and it
is the opinion of everybody in Ches-
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 will say
that some one in her own home had
tried to kill her t'vice during the win
ter. The child is said to have divul-
ged the attempts upon her life while
telling how much afraid she was of
her dad" meaning young Lewis
II always run and hide when |
see him coming" the dead child is
reported to have said TO the two wit
nesses before she finally disappeared.
That she stood i'm deadly fear of her
stepfather has been learned from
men and women who have worked
about the Lewis farm or visited it,
and who. on several occasions, watch
ed meetings between the dead girl
and her accused parent. There are
many who reside in the vicinity OF
the alleged crime who believe that.
Lewis is crazy and that it will he nee
essary to either take him to an insane
asylum or have a commission inquire
into his state of mind before his
trial, still months distant, is begun.