Some people are defending the 15 year old who murdered her mother and shot her stepfather, so I wanted to outline the case for more clarity.
The girl had been using drugs and hiding that life from her mother by using burner phones. She had a very high IQ and was adept at getting away with what she was doing. Until her mother caught on.
What happened next is not in dispute, as it was caught on the home’s security cameras and cell phone messages. She got a gun and shot her mother. Afterwards, Carly asked one of her friends “Have you ever seen a dead body? My mom is in there.”
Then she sent a text to her step father from her mother’s phone that read: ““When will you be home honey?” then shot him when he walked in the door. He was fortunately able to wrestle the gun away from her before she could shoot him again. She then fled the home, and hid the security camera in the refrigerator on the way out.
During the investigation that followed, police found her journal, in which she had written things like: “You don’t need family” and “It’s okay to be evil.”
Gregg was offered a plea deal of 40 years in prison, but turned it down. Instead, her legal team pursued an insanity defense, which was unsuccessful. The court heard from psychiatrist Dr Andrew Clark, who said he believes Gregg ‘blacked out’ for up to 90 minutes on the day of the alleged offence, but also accepted that someone in Gregg’s position would have a motive to ‘fake’ a mental illness. Dr Clark told the court Gregg reported to him that she’d had ‘auditory hallucinations’ for years prior to the alleged crime, but the voices in her head had never ‘commanded’ her to do anything.
Her own psychiatrist testified that she didn’t have serious mental health issues before the killings.
However, the fact that she had tried to cover up her crimes by tampering with evidence caused the court to not believe that she was insane. (This is called evidence of guilt. In order to be considered incompetent for trial, the defense has to show that the person didn’t know that what they did was wrong. Obviously, tampering with evidence to hide the crime shows that the person knew that what they did was wrong.)
Interesting to me was the fact that she was taking Lexapro and Zoloft, which are both mood stabilizers that have been connected to other teenaged murderers and spree killers. I wonder of the drugs are causing the murderous behavior or not.
When police first began the investigation, the stepfather was the prime suspect until police took a look at the security cameras.
Sources:
Who is Carly Gregg and why did she get life in prison?
Carly Gregg’s Giggles Turn Into Sobs After Being Found Guilty Of Murdering Mother
Outrageous courtroom behavior of ‘killer’ Mississippi girl Carly Gregg, 15, who shot her mom dead
Carly Gregg’s stepfather takes the stand: What we learned from him about the teen murder suspect
0 Comments