According to prosecutors, when a 14-year-old Mississippi girl frantically messaged her friend to come over to help with an “emergency” one afternoon this past March, the friend had no idea what she’d witness next.
“Are you squeamish around dead bodies?” 14-year-old Carly Gregg allegedly asked the friend when she answered the front door, according to Mississippi state prosecutor
Kathryn White Newman, in footage broadcast by CourtTV, who spoke at the now-15-year-old’s murder trial. Local WAPT and WJTV also reported on Newman’s opening statements in the trial, which began Monday.
According to Newman, moments later, Gregg led her friend to her bedroom, where her mother was dead on the floor from three gunshots, CourtTV and WAPT reported.
Newman told the courtroom that Gregg’s mother was searching her daughter’s bedroom for vape pens, WLBT also reported.
Gregg faces murder and attempted murder charges, according to The Clarion Ledger, WLBT, and WJTV, as prosecutors allege the young girl used her mother’s own gun to shoot her dead inside the family’s Brandon, Miss., home before calling her friend to the house.
Later, the teenager is accused by prosecutors of lying in wait an apparent ambush designed to shoot and kill her stepdad, Heath Smylie, when he arrived home, WLBT, WJTV, and The Clarion Ledger reported.
Newman laid out the prosecution’s case to
jurors on Monday, according to video from the courtroom shared by Court TV. Newman alleged the teenager arrived home with her mother, a math teacher at Northwest Rankin High School, where Gregg was a student.
Gregg went straight into her parents’ bedroom to retrieve a .357 Magnum pistol from beneath their mattress, Newman alleged. Hiding the gun behind her back, Gregg went to her own bedroom and confronted her mother, fatally shooting her three times, Newman said, according to The Clarion Ledger, WLBT, and WJTV.
At a preliminary hearing in April that was recorded and released by the blog Jackson Jambalaya, Rankin County investigator Zachary Cotton said there’s home security footage that shows Gregg’s allegedly nonchalant behavior before and after the shooting.
Cotton alleged that one video shows the teenager returning to the kitchen after allegedly killing her mother, where the suspect is seen then texting from a phone. The investigation allegedly found that the teen was messaging her stepfather asking when he would be home, according to Cotton.
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