By Jerald Jimenez
21 Jul 2024, 17:11 PM EDT
A 12-year-old girl from Humboldt, Tennessee, has been formally charged with killing her 8-year-old cousin while she was sleeping in an alleged incident over an iPhone.
Gibson District Attorney Frederick Agee said the suspect was caught on security camera suffocating her cousin with bedding while she was sleeping. The suspect cleaned the victim and adjusted her body.
“The video shows the 12-year-old girl with her full body weight grabbing the bedding, it appears the eight-year-old girl is asleep and she grabs the bedding and covers the eight-year-old girl’s face,” Agee said.
Agee described the incident as “one of the most disturbing acts of violence committed by an adult or a minor” that his office has ever prosecuted. Neither of the girls’ identities have been released.
“There is a video where the 12-year-old girl goes to get tissues and papers,” said Agee, who recounted the moments after the crime, “and tries to clean the body and face of the eight-year-old girl, and also moves the girl, so it looks like she was under the sheets.”
A relative told WREG-TV that the girls had been arguing over an iPhone. Both were staying with their grandmother because they were from out of town.
The prosecutor added that he will ask a judge to try the girl, who turns 13 later this month, in adult court. This would allow for “a longer sentence, either through incarceration or supervision with court-ordered conditions,” Agee said.
With reporting from WREG-TV/Action News 5