Mississippi girl Carly Gregg, 15, seen texting stepdad seconds after allegedly fatally shooting mom Ashley Smylie, who discovered her ‘secret life’
Chilling video shows a Mississippi teenager calmly walking through her home to gun down her mom — then sending loving texts to lure her stepdad there, and shooting him, too, according to prosecutors.
Carly Gregg, 15, is currently on trial for allegedly killing her high school teacher mom, Ashley Smylie, and then shooting her stepdad, Heath Smylie, in their Brandon, Miss., home back in March after they learned of her “secret life” with drugs.
Alarming surveillance video shown to the court on Tuesday showed the baby-faced teen awkwardly shuffling around the home — allegedly clutching a gun behind her back shortly before she opened fire.
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 allegedly 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 allegedly 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 allegedly carried out the shootings just hours after a friend had apparently tipped off her mom – who worked as a math teacher at her daughter’s Northwest Rankin High School — 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.
Psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Clark testified that the teen was facing a mental health crisis the day off 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.”
Gregg has been charged with murder, attempted murder and tampering with evidence.
She turned down a plea deal and is pursuing an insanity defense.
The teen faces up to life in prison for the murder charge, plus 30 years to life for the other charges if convicted.
