A Columbia woman has been charged with murder in the strangulation death of her mother.
Daphaney Denise Smith, 37, strangled her mother to death at a home the two women shared with Smith’s grandmother on Emory Lane in the Columbia area of Lexington County, according to an arrest warrant.
“Investigators believe Ms. Smith killed her mother sometime between Nov. 1 and Nov. 6 after an argument,” Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon said.
Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher has identified the victim as Denise Hollingsworth. Fisher said Hollingsworth, 54, died of asphyxiation by strangulation.
Smith has also been charged with abusing a vulnerable adult after deputies found her 82-year-old grandmother had been left unattended in the Emory Lane home with Hollingsworth’s body, according to Koon.
Smith is being held in the Lexington County Detention Center after a judge denied her bond Monday afternoon.