Carly Gregg listens to opening statements on Sept. 16, 2024 in Rankin County, Mississippi (Law&Crime).
Lawyers in the case of the Mississippi teen who shot and killed her mother in their home before turning the gun on her stepfather painted two opposing pictures of the girl at the center of the story.
Carly Gregg, now 15, used a handgun to shoot her mother, Ashley Smylie, 40, three times on March 19. She later took aim at her stepfather, Heath Smylie, when he arrived home. She has pleaded not guilty to murder, and in August rejected a plea deal that would have put her behind bars for 40 years.
On Monday, prosecutor Kathryn White Newman told jurors that over the course of the trial, Gregg, who was 14 years old at the time of the killing, would be exposed as a dangerous killer who had a “secret life” including “burner phones,” hidden vape pens containing marijuana, and a history of cheating at school and cutting herself.
On the morning of March 19, Newman said, Gregg rode with her mother to school, where Ashley Smylie was also a teacher. That day, one of Gregg’s friends was allegedly “so worried about her” marijuana use and burner phones that they “felt compelled” to share that information with Ashley Smylie. Later that day, at home, Ashley Smylie discovered what she believed were boxes of vape pens in Gregg’s room.
Newman said that Gregg went straight to her parents’ room after getting home that day and pulled a gun from under the mattress. Emphasizing that Gregg hid the gun behind her back as she made her way through the house — purportedly to hide it from the view of security cameras in the home — Newman said that Gregg then “walked into her own bedroom and fired three shots into her mother, killing her.”
Concealing the gun another time, Gregg walked into the kitchen and picked up her mother’s cellphone. Impersonating her mother, Gregg purportedly sent stepfather Heath Smylie a message: “When will you be home honey?”
When Heath Smylie responded that he would be “a little bit longer,” Gregg replied with a “thumbs-up” symbol, and then spent the next 45 minutes reaching out to some friends by text and video call, asking them for help and “trying to get them to come over to her house,” Newman said.
The prosecutor emphasized that Gregg “wouldn’t say why” she needed her friends, one of whom offered to call 911 and was told “no” by Gregg.
One friend did come over, Newman said, and when she showed up, Gregg asked: “Are you squeamish around dead bodies?”
She then allegedly boasted to her friend about what she had done, Newman said.
“I put three in my mom and I got three more waiting for my stepdad when he gets home,” Gregg allegedly told her friend, who she then instructed to wait in the backyard as Heath Smylie was returning home. According to Newman, the friend heard gunshots, followed by Gregg running out the back door and telling her friend to run.
Gregg’s defense lawyers, meanwhile, told jurors that while it’s clear that Gregg killed her mother and shot her stepfather that day, what led to that violence is decidedly less clear.
“This is not a whodunit case,” attorney Bridget Todd said at the start of her opening argument, emphasizing that the question, instead, should be: “Why did it happen?”
Referring to Gregg as an “exceptional child with no history of violence,” Todd said that her client “loved her mother,” and that Gregg herself is a victim.
“Evidence will show that Carly had been suffering from a mental illness,” Todd said, adding that Gregg, her mother and her stepfather “were all three victims” that day. Neither Gregg, nor her parents, nor her friends were aware of this illness, Todd said, and that illness is what took over that day. It was the same condition that her biological father had.
Heath Smylie saw that too, Todd said, emphasizing that Gregg’s stepfather has taken her side through the ordeal. He was so convinced by what he saw as terror in his stepdaughter that even after she shot him and ran out, he walked around the house looking for an intruder.
“While the events on March 19 were tragic, the events on March 19 were not intentional,” Todd said.
She also described Gregg as “hysterical” when she called her friends after shooting her mother, “begging them for help,” and not, as prosecutors argue, to show them what she had done.
The defense attorney told jurors that prosecutors want them to believe the reasons underlying Gregg’s actions that day “don’t matter,” but they do.
“[The state’s] story is filled with inconsistencies because they’re not telling the whole story,” she said. She later urged jurors to “retain your common sense and to retain your good judgment, because we know that just doesn’t make sense.”
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