Daily Richmond Whig

HORRIBLE MURDER.

A gentleman just from Spartanburg District S. C., has stated to us the following particulars of one of the most wanton outrages that we have ever heard of. Mr. Woodruff, a very respectable and wealthy gentleman, was about to pay a visit to his father in law, Mr. Dean, who was sick, was met a short distance from Mr. Dean's by five negro men, belonging to Mr. Dean, four of them on one side of the road busily engaged him in conversation while a fifth crept up on the opposite side, and, with a heavy club felled him to the ground, where they killed him; they then placed the lifeless body on the horse, placing the feet in the stirrups, and directed the horse towards Mr. Dean's: when three of the murderers went back to Mr. Dean's, and two fled to the woods. The negroes had scarcely reached home when the horse of Mr. W. came, with the shoe of its owner still hanging in the stirrup. The murderers with hypocritical alarm exclaimed that their master Woodruff had fallen off his horse and perhaps got killed. The horse was tracked back and the inanimate body of Mr. Woodruff found-the search was continued still further until they came to the spot where he had been murdered,-where the deadly club was found and marks of blood and violence on the ground, together with the prints of the negroes' feet. Suspicion immediately fell on the negroes belonging to Mr. Dean, and three of them were taken up and tried, and, as we are informed, two of them hung on Friday the 15th inst., and the third retained to testify against the two others when they shall be apprehended. The cause we have heard assigned for the perpetration of this atrocious deed was, that Mr. Dean being sick, and as his son-in-law would become his heir in case of his demise, and the negroes from some cause not wishing to fall into the hands of Mr. Woodruff, took the measure above related to prevent such an event.-N. C. Spectator.