A 12-year-old girl in Tennessee has been charged with murder, accused of smothering her 8-year-old cousin as the younger girl slept. A relative said they had been arguing over an iPhone.

A security camera recorded the killing, inside the bedroom they shared on July 15 in Humboldt, Tennessee, the county prosecutor said.

The recording shows the older child using bedding to suffocate her cousin as the younger girl slept in the top bunk, Gibson District Attorney Frederick Agee’s statement said. After the child died, “the juvenile cleaned up the victim and repositioned her body,” Agee said.

A relative told WREG-TV in Memphis that the girls had been arguing over an iPhone after coming from out of town to stay with their grandmother.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I didn’t, but you did. We know the kid has issues, thank you for pointing that out.

    But even though my comment is a sarcastic, throw-away response to cope with the heinous news, I do have a point. How did a 12-year-old know to “fix” the crime scene?

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      That’s just basic skills of deception. I’d say most kids figure out at some point in their youth that they can make things appear differently for their own advantage.

      Be it raiding the fridge in a way their younger brother does it sometimes to get them in trouble, or even more likely, they are at some point at the receiving end of it. Hence most people dont need to be taught deception, the actual disturbing thing to me here is the calculated murderous intent.

      Not a rage fit heat of the moment thing, a planned murder including the forethought of deniability. At 12 years old.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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        3 months ago

        That’s just basic skills of deception.

        And according to you those are gained through osmosis.

        🙄

        • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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          3 months ago

          Where am I saying that? Just that kids aren’t usually taken aside by their parents and learn about lying and trickery. They figure that out on their own eventually, which doesn’t mean they do not learn from example obviously.

          • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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            3 months ago

            Kids learn by example, and that includes lying. If parents are always honest with their kids, that’s what the kids learn to do. When parents lie - either to or in front of the kids - they’ll learn that as well.