A 15-year-old girl found guilty of shooting her mother to death with a revolver and attempting to kill her stepfather in March in the southern US state of Mississippi was sentenced to life in prison by a court on Friday. Carly Madison Gregg was also sentenced to ten years for tampering with evidence. Gregg was 14 at the time of the murder of his mother, Ashley Smyle, 40, and the attempted murder of his 39-year-old stepfather, Heath Smylie, on March 19 at the family home in Brandon, Mississippi. Before the sentence was read, the prosecutor asked the jury to sentence Gregg to life in prison without parole, arguing that the minor had not shown any remorse for the crime committed and that she did not have serious mental health problems, reported the local newspaper Hattiesburg American.
Gregg's defense had previously rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors that would have sent her to prison for 40 years. As the guilty verdict and sentence were read, Gregg burst into tears.
In defense of the minor, the lawyers argued that she was suffering from a "mental health crisis." Shortly before committing the murder, the minor had a medical appointment where the mental health professional who treated her reduced the dose of Zoloft she was taking and prescribed her a new medication, Lexapro, an antidepressant. Last January, Gregg had told therapists that he had "intrusive and disturbing thoughts," got angry easily and had trouble sleeping, according to one of the testimonies in the trial. EFE