Carly Gregg: "Have you ever seen a Dead Body?"
/“sweet little girl,” but that day it looked as if “she had seen a demon or something.””
carly gregg smiles at her family while waiting to hear the jury's sentencing after she was found guilty on all charges
Sept. 20, 2024. LAuren Witte/Clarion Ledger
March 19th, 2024, Carly Gregg, a 14-year-old girl at the time of the murder, shot her mother, Ashley Smylie a High School math teacher, with a .357 Magnum Pistol two times at her face and one time to her chin at 4:14 pm just after Carly and her mother got home from school. A friend of Carly’s had told her mother at school out of concern about “Carly’s secret life” including having burner phones, cheating in school, self-harming and drug use including marijuana vape pens that were hidden in her room. This caused an argument that ended up with Carly killing her mother. Carly snuck into her mother’s room to grab her gun that was hidden under the mattress of the bed and shot her mom while she was searching her room for drugs and later attempted to murder her stepfather shooting him in the face, Heath Smylie, but failed and shot him in the shoulder instead.
Buildup to murder
Carly Gregg getting arREsted
March 12th, one week before the murder, Carly was put on a new medication, Lexapro, while leaning off the medication Zoloft but went off it completely not listening to her doctor. The morning of the murder, Carly argued with one of her friends at school and cussed him out. Testimony of this friend said he was so worried about her “secret life” of using marijuana and getting high, with also having a burner phone her mom had no idea about. The friend needed to get another friend to distract Carly while her friend went to talk to her mom. He was afraid of what was happening with Carly. Her friend then told Mrs. Smylie after the fourth period.
Everything seemed normal when Carly and her mom drove from school to their home together. Carly goes to let the dogs out while Ashley goes into Carly's room to search. Four boxes of vape pens we found. Once Carly came back inside from letting the dogs out she immediately went to her mother’s room and grabbed the .357 Magnum Pistol on her mother’s side of the bed from under the mattress. Carly then walked out of her mother’s room hiding the pistol behind her walking through the kitchen looking around the corner making sure her mom hadn’t come outside of her bedroom then proceeded to walk straight into her room and shoot her mother three times.
After the Murder
After walking back out to the kitchen with the pistol still behind Carly’s back grabbed her phone and sat down on a stool placing the gun still behind her to try to contact five or six of her friends asking for help and starting to sing. One friend offered to call 911, and she said no.
Gregg later used her deceased mother’s cell phone to text and ask when her stepfather, Heath, would be home. “Are you almost home, honey?” pretending to be her mother to lure him to the house to kill him next. Seconds later singing to herself and texting her friends, (names weren’t mentioned due to being a minor) that there was an emergency. One of Carly’s friends went to her house after 45 minutes and asked at the door of her home, “Are you squeamish around dead bodies?” then mentioned that her stepfather would be next to kill before walking her friend to her room where her deceased mother was “posed” with her arms crossed with a towel over her face. Later saying “I put three in my mom and three more waiting for my stepdad when he gets home.” Carly asked her friend to wait outside in the backyard, “my stepdad’s about to be home.” The testified friend said that they did go in the backyard and then heard gunshots then got told to run and jump over the backyard fence and the two went in different directions.
Step-Father’s Turn
Heath Smylie with parametics
Heath, Carly’s Stepfather, had gotten home over an hour later to have a gun put to his face while opening the door to the kitchen not even three or four inches of the door opening and was put face to face with a gun shooting him in the shoulder by Carly. Heath struggled to take the gun away as Carly made the second and third shots as she ran away from the crime scene with her friend. That was when the 911 call was made.
Charges
Carly Gregg’s mugshot
Gregg was found guilty of murder, aggravated assault and tampering with evidence on September 20th, 2024. Carly was offered a plea deal for 40 years in prison but denied it, and her legal team took on an insanity defence case only to not have enough evidence in one hour in court, Carly was sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity of parole with a bond of one-million dollars and is currently being held in custody at the Youthful Offender Facilityof the Mississippi Department of Corrections. She was also charged as an adult.
What do you think? A kid who got upset after getting caught or an insane little girl blaming mental illness for her actions. Comment below with your opinions and thoughts.
Sources
Megan Parsons, 25, from Osgoode, Ontario, is a published author of two self-published works, Luna’s Way Home and Just Blame Me. She is currently in her third year of the Professional Writing Program at Algonquin College. Specializing in short fiction, Megan has a passion for writing children’s stories, while also exploring themes of psychological horror in her work.
Interested in more of my writing? you can read more here!
