“Have you ever seen a dead body?”
It’s the chilling question 14-year-old Carly Gregg asked her friend after she shot and killed her mother, teacher Ashley Smylie, in their Mississippi home earlier this year.
Carly told the friend to come over, claiming it was an “emergency.” She then revealed the horrific situation, telling the friend, “My mom’s over there.”
During the week-long murder trial, jurors heard how the teenager shot and killed 40-year-old Smylie with a .357 Magnum rifle on March 19 as they returned home from Carly’s school, Northwest Rankin High School, where her mother was a math teacher.
Prosecutors told the court the shooting was carried out because Smylie had discovered her daughter’s “secret life” with drugs. They portrayed Carly as a dangerous killer with “burner phones”, hidden vape pens filled with marijuana and a history of cheating at school and self-harm.
Carly then lured her stepfather Heath Smylie home by texting him pretending to be her mother: “When will you be home, honey?”
When Heath later arrived at the house, Carly shot him in the shoulder before he overpowered her and she was arrested a short time later.
The teenager’s defence team argued that she was struggling with serious mental health issues and that although she was in a “psychosis during an acute stressful episode on March 19, she lost herself in what was the perfect storm”.
Shocking video footage was shown in court showing the teenager hiding something behind her back just before she walks into a back bedroom, where three gunshots can be heard and her mother’s screams can be heard.
Now, after just four days of testimony, a jury deliberated for two hours Friday before finding the teen guilty of murdering her mother, attempting to murder her stepfather and tampering with evidence.
She is only 15 years old and will spend the rest of her life in prison, without the possibility of parole.
A deadly secret
Prosecutors say Carly killed her mother after the teen’s boyfriend exposed Carly’s “secret life” with drugs on the day of the shooting.
“According to a friend’s testimony, he was so worried about Carly’s marijuana use, he was so worried about her being high, and he was so worried about her disposable phones, that [Carly’s] “My mother had no knowledge of him feeling compelled to tell Ms. Ashley Smylie that day,” Rankin County Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Newman said during her opening statement Monday.
Ashley Smylie searched Carly’s room and discovered several vape pens just before she was shot, WLBT reported.
Psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Clark testified at the trial that the teenager was experiencing a mental health crisis that day and that her severe mood swings were exacerbated by her medications, as she was hearing voices and had dissociative problems.
“And then her mother finds out she’s smoking marijuana,” Clark said. “For Carly in particular, she was so worried about her mother’s approval, so for her, it was a crisis.”
“She suffered from mood swings, eating disorders, cutting herself, hearing voices and having trouble sleeping, all until January 2024,” Clark added.
On March 12, a few days before the shooting, she was prescribed new medications that she said made her symptoms worse.
Prosecutors also presented the jury with a diary in which Carly kept a written list of five “beliefs,” including “God doesn’t exist,” “it’s okay to be bad” and “you don’t need a family.”
The journal was reviewed by a forensic psychiatrist, who called the contributions “deeply disturbing.”
Her defense team argued that the diaries painted a picture of a mentally ill child who had repeatedly described in detail how much she was struggling.
New, shocking video shows moments before and after the murder
Carly was captured on camera walking around the house and then shooting Smylie three times. Smylie was wounded with a gunshot wound to the face and died.
The teen is wearing a Nirvana T-shirt and wanders around the house. She appears to be holding something behind her back, which is later identified as a .357 Magnum pistol. She stands facing the camera and then slides out of the room.
After Carly disappears from view, three gunshots and a woman’s screams are heard.
Seconds after the shooting, the teen returns to the kitchen. She hides the gun behind her back, slides onto a stool by the counter and grabs her mother’s phone as her two dogs hover around her.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Carly used her mother’s phone to text her stepfather and lure him to the house.
She also texted one of her friends, BW, to come over and said there was an “emergency.”
When the friend arrived, Carly allegedly asked her “if she had ever seen a dead body before,” before leading her to her mother’s body and saying her stepfather was next.
Nearly an hour later, video footage from the garage showed Carly running away after allegedly shooting her stepfather and fighting with him over the gun.
Carly burst into tears when bodycam footage was shown in court showing officers finding her stepfather crying, saying his wife was dead.
“She killed her mother!” Heath is heard telling authorities, “She tried to shoot me!”
When Carly’s stepfather Heath testified this week, he said the teen had no memory of the shooting.
“I’ve never seen anyone like that, not even in movies. She wasn’t herself and I don’t think she recognized me,” Heath said.
He said he remembered Carly as a “sweet little girl,” but that day it seemed like “she had seen a demon or something.”
Heath also remembers the horror of finding his wife dead.
“She was laying on her back with her arms here and a towel over her face,” he testified. “I knew she had been shot, there was blood all around, I don’t know exactly where, on the right side of her face.
“As I opened the door to the kitchen, the gun went off in my face before the door was open three or four inches,” he said. “The gun flashed in my face. It went off two more times, but my hand was on the gun after the first shot, and I turned it away from Carly.”
Despite this, Heath said he and Carly still talk daily and their relationship is “good.”
In his closing statement on Friday, prosecutor Michael Smith said Carly “knew the difference between right and wrong.”
“There is no doubt that Carly Madison Gregg is the one who murdered her mother, Ashley Smylie,” he told the court. “There is no doubt that she was trying to kill Heath Smylie when she pointed the gun at his head and shot him in the shoulder and hit him. And there is no doubt that she is the one who hid the camera, and thus tampered with the evidence.”
“We would ask that you go back and find her guilty of all three, because she was not insane at the time this happened. She knew exactly what she was doing and she knew the difference between right and wrong.”
However, the defense urged the jury to find her not guilty by reason of insanity.
“This was not a bad child. This was not a child who was angry. This was not a child who had hatred in her heart for her mother or stepfather, it was the complete opposite. This was a child who was struggling with serious mental health issues,” defense attorney Bridget Todd told the court. “The same mental health issues that ran in her family and that we know are hereditary.”
“This is a child who was compliant with the medication that she was given, but that medication, without them being able to see it, caused her symptoms to worsen,” she continued. “And while she was in a state of psychosis in an episode of acute stress on March 19th, she lost herself in what was the perfect storm.”
Experts testified Thursday that Carly was competent to stand trial and did not meet the state’s insanity standard. However, that contradicted testimony Wednesday from a psychiatrist who said Carly did not remember shooting her mother.
What’s next for Carly?
Before the trial, the teen was offered a 40-year prison sentence, but she turned it down. Instead, her team mounted an insanity defense. But that wasn’t enough.
Carly cried in court Friday as the jury found her guilty on all three charges.
After another hour of deliberation, the jury sentenced the 15-year-old to prison.
She will spend the rest of her life behind bars, without the possibility of parole.