BRANDON, Miss. (Court TV) — A judge has ordered a teenage girl accused of murdering her mother and shooting her stepfather to undergo a mental health examination before her case moves forward.
Carly Gregg, 15, is charged with murder and attempted murder after allegedly killing her mother in cold blood and then lying in wait to shoot her stepfather.
Carly Gregg is charged with the murder of her mother and attempted murder of her stepfather. (Photo courtesy of Jackson Jambalaya)
In court documents reviewed by Court TV, detectives with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office said they were initially called to the family’s home in Brandon on March 19 for a report of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found Ashley Smylie dead and her husband, Heath Smylie, with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Heath told first responders that “when he arrived home he had found his wife on the floor in Carly’s room and when he turned around Carly was standing in the kitchen with a handgun.” Heath said Gregg fired approximately three times, hitting him once. When Heath wrestled the gun away from the teenager, she allegedly fled out of the home’s back door and jumped over a fence before she was caught approximately half a mile away.
At Gregg’s preliminary hearing, investigator Zachary Cotton testified that video from inside the home showed her moving around the house hiding her hands behind her back. Cotton said that Ashley had been shot twice in the head and that after the shooting Gregg could be seen walking through the house and playing with her dogs.
After shooting her mother, Gregg allegedly used her mother’s phone to text her stepfather to ask when he would be home and used her own phone to text a friend saying she had an emergency and needed the friend to come over. When the friend arrived, the detective testified, “Carly asked her if she’d ever seen a dead body before. She said no and proceeded to show her deceased mother. … [Gregg] told Brooke that she had three shots for her mom and then she’s got three more for her stepdad: two to the head, one to the chest.” The friend then went outside as Gregg waited for Heath to return.
The judge found probable cause for the charges to stand and ordered a psychological evaluation to be done of Gregg both to determine if she is competent to stand trial as well as to do an analysis of her mental condition at the time of the shootings.
Gregg’s attorney unsuccessfully petitioned for her $1 million bond to be reduced, saying that the teen, who turned 15 on Wednesday, was an “exceptional student” who had skipped the fourth grade and had no prior criminal history or history of violence.
The victim, Ashley Smylie, was identified as a teacher at Northwest Rankin High School, where she taught Algebra.
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