Mississippi teenage killer Carly Gregg sobbed in court Friday as she was found guilty of ruthlessly gunning down her mother 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.
The verdict came after the jury viewed chilling surveillance video of the baby-face teen awkwardly shuffling around the home — clutching a gun behind her back shortly 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 delivering their verdict, and are now deliberating her sentencing, Vicksburg Daily News reported.
Gregg, who was 14 at the time of the killing, was also on trial for shooting her stepdad, Heath Smylie, in their Brandon, Miss., home on March 19 after the couple learned of her “secret life” with drugs.
In the alarming surveillance footage, Gregg, wearing a Nirvana band shirt, was filmed disappearing off camera into 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.
The teen then returned to the kitchen roughly 10 seconds later, still clutching the weapon behind her back.
Prosecutors said Gregg faced the camera the whole time in a bid to hide the weapon, which was later identified as a .357 Magnum handgun.
Once she was back in view of the camera, Gregg could be seen grabbing her mom’s phone off the kitchen counter and calmly taking a seat on a stool as her two dogs stood beside her.
Prosecutors allege Gregg then casually fired off several texts — including one to her stepdad to lure him to the home.
“When will you be home honey?” the text sent to Heath allegedly read.
When Heath returned to the home a short time later, Gregg shot him in the shoulder before he was able to wrestle the gun away from her, the court heard.
Prosecutors said the teen had also allegedly texted a friend asking her to come over because there was an “emergency.”
“Have you ever seen a dead body? My mom is in there,” the friend claimed Gregg asked her when she arrived at the home.
Gregg carried out the shootings just hours after a friend had apparently tipped off her mom about the teen’s marijuana use.
When the pair returned home from school that day, the mom started searching Gregg’s room and discovered a stash of vape pens, the court heard.
“From the testimony of a friend, he was so worried about Carly’s use of smoking marijuana, so worried about her being high, and so worried about her having these burner phones, that [Carly’s] mom didn’t know about, that he felt compelled to tell Miss Ashley Smylie that day,” Rankin County Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Newman said earlier in the trial.
Gregg turned down a plea deal and was pursuing an insanity defense, with psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Clark testifying on Thursday that the teen was facing a mental health crisis the day of the shooting.
He said the teen was having significant mood swings, hearing voices and having dissociative problems, which were made worse by her medications.
“And then, her mother finds out she’s smoking marijuana,” Clark told the court. “For Carly, in particular, she so cared about her mother’s approval, so for her, this was a crisis.”
Meanwhile, Gregg’s stepfather testified Tuesday that the teen — who he described as a “sweet little girl” — had no recollection of the shooting.
“I never seen anybody like that, even in movies, she was not herself and I do not believe she even recognized me,” Heath said, adding that he and Gregg still talk daily and their relationship is “good.”
The teen faces up to life in prison for the murder charge, plus 30 years to life for the other charges.
