A teenage girl on trial accused of murdering her mother and attempting to murder her stepfather giggled and tried to cover her mouth as the fourth day of the trial began.
Carly Gregg is accused of fatally shooting her mother in their Mississippi home on March 19, when she was just 14 years old.
She was offered a plea deal of 40 years in prison, but she declined the offer, and her legal team is now pleading insanity.
On Thursday, as the fourth day of the trial got underway, Gregg was caught on livestream trying to suppress a fit of laughter.
A teenage girl on trial accused of murdering her mother and attempting to murder her stepfather giggled and tried to cover her mouth as the fourth day of the trial began
On Thursday, as the fourth day of the trial got underway, Gregg was caught on the livestream trying to suppress a fit of giggling
She looked at a member of her defense team who was scribbling something on a piece of paper, but it is unclear what the note said.
In a split second, Gregg smiled and covered her mouth with her hand.
There was no audio available on the livestream to hear what she said immediately after the incident.
Gregg is accused of shooting her mother and trying to lure her stepfather home with a text message from her mother’s phone.
Rebecca Kirk, a licensed professional counselor who saw Gregg nine times in the weeks leading up to the alleged crime, testified Thursday about the teen’s behavior during the sessions.
On February 14, just weeks before the shooting, Gregg said she planned to read Crime and Punishment.
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1886 novel is about a Russian psychopath who, in Kirk’s words, “is highly intelligent… and who obsessively thinks of planning the murder of a woman.”
After fulfilling his desires, he is eventually sentenced to eight years in a Russian labor camp, after being declared insane.
“When he was in the camp he showed no remorse and he didn’t think what he had done was wrong. He thought the woman deserved it,” Kirk told the court.
The defense told the court that Gregg never read the book.
Kirk said Gregg was a very talented student and patient who “had been recognized for her intelligence many times in her life.”
“She was proud of that, but she also had a genuine love of learning,” she told the court.
“She was gifted, that’s a clear fact. Sometimes when you’re so gifted and different from others, you might feel lonely and a little bit more isolated.”
Gregg’s mother, 40-year-old math teacher Ashley Smylie, was fatally shot in the face
This week, shocking footage was shown in a Mississippi courtroom of Carly Gregg casually walking through her kitchen.
The court heard on Wednesday from psychiatrist Dr Andrew Clark, who said he believes Gregg had a “blackout” lasting as long as 90 minutes on the day of the alleged offence.
But he also acknowledged that someone in Gregg’s situation would have a motive to “fake” a mental illness.
Dr Clark told the court that Gregg had told him she had been suffering from “auditory hallucinations” for years before the alleged crime, but that the voices in her head had never “ordered” her to do anything.
Gregg had confided to Dr. Clark that she had started smoking marijuana several times a week and that she was afraid her mother would find out, the court heard.
The court heard she had been using marijuana for at least the day before the alleged incident. She had also been prescribed Lexapro and Zoloft – both medications for mood disorders.
She is charged with murder, attempted murder and tampering with evidence and, if found guilty, faces life imprisonment.