A Case of Suicide.

In our last issue we mentioned the fact that a woman’s body had been found in a creek near Red Clay, and that it was supposed that she had been violated and then murdered.  Since then we have learned several facts, which, together with attendant circumstances, convince us that she committed suicide.  The facts, as we received them, are about as follows:

In the afternoon of the day preceding the one on which the body was found, the young woman, whose name was Huffacre, asked her mother to permit her to attend a ball that was to be given that night.  Permission not being granted, she proceeded to some household matters and apparently indifferent to her mother’s refusal.  But while thus engaged she stated to her younger sisters that she would die soon and if so, she would give them all her clothes.  She did not, however, intimate any intention of committing suicide; and her sisters, therefore, paid but little attention to, what they supposed, her vagaries.  Whether any one saw her leave the house or not, we did not learn.  Her absence, however, was noticed; and a search being instituted, her body was found in a creek as stated in our last issue.  The marks of violence which were on her person, and led to the conclusion that her person had been ravished, were slightly and evidently self-inflicted.  Her shoes were discovered lying on the bank where she drowned herself.  The creek in which her body was found was small and very shallow—not being more than two or three feet at the place in which she met her death, which fact indicates that she had made up her mind to die and had the nerve to keep her head under water in order to bring about dissolution.

What motive could have prompted her to commit suicide, unless it was on account of her mother refusing to permit her to attend the dance, we can’t conceive.  In view of the fact that she attempted to destroy her life once before, one would suppose her mind was diseased, and that, at this particular time in which she courted death, it was in a deranged state. – Dalton Citizen.