Mississippi teen killer Carly Gregg sobbed in court Friday as she was found guilty of brutally gunning down her mother and wounding her stepfather after they learned about her “secret life” of drugs earlier this year.
The 15-year-old sobbed as she was found guilty on all charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and tampering with evidence. She will spend the rest of her life in prison without parole.
The verdict came after the jury viewed chilling surveillance video showing the baby-faced teenager awkwardly shuffling through her Brandon home with a gun strapped to her back, moments before she shot her mother, Ashley Smylie, 40, a math teacher at Northwest Rankin High School, in the face.
The jury deliberated for about two hours before announcing its verdict.
Gregg, who was 14 at the time of the murder, was also on trial for shooting her stepfather, Heath Smylie, in their Brandon, Mississippi, home on March 19 after the couple learned about her “secret life” of drugs.
In the alarming surveillance footage, Gregg, wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, was seen disappearing from the camera’s view and landing in her mother’s bedroom just seconds before three shots rang out – followed by Smylie’s piercing screams, according to the clip obtained by Law & Crime.
About ten seconds later, the teenager returned to the kitchen, still clutching the gun behind her back.
Prosecutors said Gregg was looking at the camera the entire time to conceal the weapon, which was later identified as a .357 Magnum pistol.
When she came back into view, Gregg could be seen picking up her mother’s phone from the kitchen counter and calmly sitting on a stool while her two dogs stood beside her.
Prosecutors allege that Gregg then casually sent several text messages, including one to her stepfather, in an attempt to lure him into her home.
“When are you coming home, honey?” is what the text message sent to Heath is said to have read.
When Heath returned home a short time later, Gregg shot him in the shoulder before managing to wrest the gun from her, the court said.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the teenager also sent a text message to a friend and asked her to come over because there was an “emergency.”
“Have you ever seen a dead body? My mother is in there,” the friend claimed Gregg asked her when she got home.
Gregg carried out the shooting just hours after a friend apparently informed her mother about the teenager’s marijuana use.
When the two returned home from school that day, the mother began searching Gregg’s room and discovered a stash of e-cigarettes, the court heard.
“According to a friend’s testimony, he was so concerned about Carly’s marijuana use, so concerned that she might be high, and so concerned that she had these disposable cell phones that (Carly’s) mother didn’t know about, that he felt compelled to tell Miss Ashley Smylie that same day,” Rankin County Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Newman said at the start of the trial.
Gregg rejected a plea deal and pleaded insanity. Psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Clark testified Thursday that the teenager was suffering a mental health crisis on the day of the shooting.
He said the teenager was experiencing significant mood swings, hearing voices and suffering from dissociative issues that were being made worse by her medication.
“And then her mother finds out that she smokes marijuana,” Clark said in court. “For Carly in particular, her mother’s approval was so important that it was a crisis for her.”
Meanwhile, Gregg’s stepfather testified Tuesday that the teenager – whom he described as a “sweet little girl” – had no memory of the shooting.
“I’ve never seen anyone like her, not even in movies. She wasn’t herself and I don’t think she even recognized me,” Heath said, adding that he and Gregg still talk daily and their relationship is “good.”
The teenager faces life in prison on the murder charge and 30 years to life on the other charges.
