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FULL TEXT: Granville, S. C., July 25. – Virginia Hudson, aged seven years, a negro child, was jailed here to-day for murder. She killed a child one year old on Saturday [Jul. 23], and threw the body in the well. She struck her victim over the head with a board until it was dead. This is the youngest murderess ever known in the section. Her imprisonment is merely a matter of form.
[“A Seven-Year-Old Murderess,” The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), Jul. 26, 1887, p. 1]
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FULL TEXT: Greenville News, July 26. – Trial Justice P. J.
Verdin, who lives in Butler township, about 14 miles from the city, brought in
a prisoner to tire al County jail yesterday. The prisoner was a negro girl, not
over seven years old, and small even for that tender age. At The story of the
crime for which the infant criminal is being held to account shows a depth of
juvenile depravity, of cold blooded cruelty that is rarely is equaled. The jail
commitment gave the youthful prisoner's name as Georgiana
Hudson; the offense, the murder of Wavely Tippins.
The houses where the Hudson and Tippins families live on Lawrence Fowler's place, in Butler township, are ordinary negro cabins, located not far from each other. Last Saturday morning, Ann Tippins and Fannie Hudson went off to attend a celebration elsewhere in the neighborhood, expecting to be gone all day. Ann Tippins left her one year old baby in charge of her son George, who is five years old, and Fannie Hudson left her three children, Georgiana, Tommy and Sam, seven, five and three years old respectively. When the two women came back about sundown, it was to find that Georgiana had in a fit of rage, killed the year old infant, Wavely Tippins, and made an ineffectual attempt to take the life of the five-year old boy George. None of the children had gone away, the murdered child alone being absent, and from their stories, told at the coroner's inquest Sunday, were gathered the details of the crime.
It appears that after the two women had gone away, Georgiana went down and brought the two Tippins children from up to her mother's house. What was a the cause of her wrath did not appear in the testimony of the children, but in a fit of fiendish cruelty, the young girl beat the babe on its head, and all over its body, rubbing sand in its eyes and mouth, and then finding it dead, stripped the garments off the body and threw at him the well near the house. When the body was recovered, it showed signs of horrible beating and bruising, the skull dur being fractured, the right leg broken and the chest crushed in. But it was not merely a momentary fit of madness, for the precocious criminal next turned to George Tippins. The boy was too the wear her own age and strength, however, and she failed in her effort to kill him. In her rage, she tore the latch from the door, and beat him with it, bruising him very severely. She tried to throw in in the well, but as she herself said, "he kicked," and she couldn’t get him in. The boy's bruises were seen at the inquest, showing too in the well, the truth of that part of the story.
The peculiar nature of the crime, committed as it was by a mere child, produced some excitement, but more curiosity in the neighborhood. A coroner's jury was impannelled Sunday morning, and after examining the mothers of the children and the children themselves, who were the only direct witnesses, rendered a verdict that the deceased, Wavely Tippins, had come to his death at the hands of Georgiana Hudson. In compliance with that verdict, the justice committed the child to jail. Curiosity tempted many to go to the jail yesterday and see the child murderer arid it was noticeable that colored women were the arid most numerous and eager. She seemed not at all displeased at her novel situation, and stood at the cell door or walked about the room, where she is confined at the rear on the first door with several negro women. The child's face has no marks of depravity, and her answers to questions are clear. She told many conflicting stories of the murder to answer to numerous inquiries.
[“An Infant Murderess. - A Negro Girl Seven Years Old, Kills one Child and Attempts the Life of Another.” The Newberry Herald and News (S. C.), Jul. 28, 1887, p. 2]
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