Former S.C. School Principal Charged With Killing Wife He Reported Missing: 'Stuff Didn’t Add Up'
A former South Carolina principal has been arrested for allegedly killing his wife, whose body was found in the woods about one hour after she was first reported missing.
James Stanton Yarborough, 64, is facing charges of murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime and obstruction of justice in the death of his 63-year-old wife Karen.
She died from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Yarborough is being held with no bond at the Dorchester County detention center.
Karen’s body was found around 9 a.m. Sept. 17 along a dirt logging road near Beidler Forest in Dorchester County by workers employed at a nearby landfill about an hour and a half after Yarborough called to report his wife missing.
“While I am responding, I get a call from Dorchester County [sheriff’s office] saying they found a dead body 15 miles from Summerville,” Lt. Shaun Tumbleston with the Summerville Police Department tells PEOPLE. “We are heading out to his house and they are heading out there. We put two and two together. It all fell together at once.”
According to a Summerville Police Department incident report obtained by PEOPLE, Yarborough claimed he last saw his wife the night before when she told him she was going out for a walk, which “was normal behavior for her.”
“Any normal person would have called sooner,” Tumbleston alleges. “There was a 12-hour window that she wasn’t accounted for. It didn’t make a lot of sense. We started noticing stuff that didn’t add up.”
Tumbleston says while talking to Yarborough, officers noticed that he allegedly had a red stain at the bottom of his shirt and near each of his armpits.
“The shirt he had on at the time of the interview had blood stains on it,” he says. “He said he took blood thinners. Underneath his shirt, he had no marks on him.”
e possessed any firearms, to which he stated that he did not,” the incident report states. “I asked James if he knew why an exposed round would be located on the floor of the master bedroom and he stated that he did not know why it would be there.”
Police also found damage to Yarborough and his wife’s vehicle, as well as broken flower pots and a wheel barrow in the yard. Witnesses allegedly told police that the day before the killing, Yarborough had allegedly driven over the lawn and hit his wife’s vehicle.
“She comes outside and they start arguing and they take it into the house,” Tumbleston claims. “We think that sparked a lot.”
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According to the report, Yarborough also claimed that his wife had been depressed about the recent death of a friend and the illness of another.
Yarborough worked as a principal with the Summerville High School from 1994 to 1998 and later worked a a director with Dorchester District 2 Facilities until 2002, according to WCSC.
