A young girl killed her mother and invited a friend to see the body. She will spend the rest of her life behind bars

“Have you ever seen a dead body?”

That's the terrifying question 14-year-old Carly Gregg asked her friend after she shot her mother, high school teacher Ashley Smylie, in their Mississippi home earlier this year.

Carly told the friend to come over, claiming it was an “emergency” before describing the horrific situation and telling the friend, “My mom is in there.”

During the week-long murder trial, jurors heard how the teenager shot 40-year-old Smylie with a .357 Magnum on March 19 as they returned home from Carly's school, Northwest Rankin High School, where her mother was a math teacher.

Prosecutors explained in court that the shooting was carried out because Smylie had discovered her daughter's “secret life” with drugs. They portrayed Carly as a dangerous killer who owned “disposable cell phones” and concealed vape pens filled with marijuana and who had cheated in school and harmed herself.

Carly then lured her stepfather, Heath Smylie, home by texting him and pretending to be her mother: “When are you coming 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 defense team argued that she suffers from significant mental health issues and that she was in a psychotic state during an “episode of acute stress on March 19 and became lost in the perfect storm.”

Horrifying video footage was shown in court, apparently showing the teenager hiding something behind her back before going into a back room, where three gunshots and her mother's screams were apparently heard.

Now, after only four days of testimony, a jury deliberated for two hours on Friday and found the teenager guilty of the murder of her mother, the attempted murder of her stepfather and tampering with evidence.

At just 15 years old, she will spend the rest of her life in prison without parole.

A deadly secret

Prosecutors allege Carly killed her mother after a friend of the teenager revealed Carly's “secret life” of drugs on the day of the shooting.

“According to a friend, he was so concerned about Carly’s use of marijuana, so concerned about her being high, and so concerned about her having those disposable cell phones that [Carly’s] “He didn't know anything about it, but he felt compelled to tell Miss Ashley Smylie that day,” Rankin County Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Newman said in her opening statement Monday.

According to WLBT, Ashley Smylie searched Carly's room and discovered vape pens just moments before she was shot.

Psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Clark testified during the trial that the teenager was in a mental crisis that day and that her severe mood swings were made worse by her medication, as she was hearing voices and suffering from dissociative disorders.

“And then her mother finds out she's smoking marijuana,” Clark said. “For Carly in particular, her mother's approval was so important that it was a crisis for her.”

“She had mood swings, eating disorders, self-harming, hearing voices and difficulty sleeping until January 2024,” Clark added.

On March 12, just days before the shooting, she was prescribed new medication that she said made her symptoms worse.

Prosecutors also presented the jury with a diary in which Carly had kept a list of five “beliefs,” including “There is no God,” “It's okay to be evil,” and “You don't need a family.”

The diary was evaluated by a forensic psychiatrist who described the entries as “highly worrying.”

Her defense attorney argued that the diaries painted a picture of a mentally ill child who repeatedly described in detail how much she was struggling with herself.

Shocking new video shows moments before and after the murder

Carly was caught on home surveillance video walking around the house before allegedly firing three shots at Smylie, who died from a gunshot wound to the face.

The teenager is seen walking through the house wearing a Nirvana t-shirt and seemingly holding something behind her back, which is later identified as a .357 Magnum pistol. She positions herself facing the camera and then sneaks out of the room.

After Carly disappears from view, three gunshots and the screams of a woman are apparently heard.

The teenager returns to the kitchen seconds after the shooting, hides the gun behind her back, slides onto a stool at the counter, and grabs her mother's phone as her two dogs roam nearby.

During the trial, prosecutors claimed that at that time, Carly used her mother's cell phone to text her stepfather and lure him into the house.

She also texted one of her friends, BW, telling him to come over, claiming there was an “emergency.”

When the friend arrived, Carly reportedly 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 from the garage showed Carly running away after allegedly shooting her stepfather and wrestling with him for the gun.

Carly burst into tears as bodycam footage was shown in the courtroom showing officers arriving to find her crying stepfather saying his wife was dead.

“She killed her mother!” Heath is heard telling authorities. “She tried to shoot me!”

When Carly's stepfather Heath took the stand this week, he said the teenager could not remember the shooting.

“I've never seen anyone like her, not even in movies. She wasn't herself and I don't think she even recognized me,” Heath said.

He said he remembered Carly as a “sweet little girl,” but that day it looked like “she had seen a demon or something.”

Heath also remembered the horror of finding his wife dead.

“She was laying on her back with her arms hanging down and a towel covering her face,” he testified. “I knew she had been shot, there was blood, I'm not sure where exactly, on the right side of her face.”

“When I opened the kitchen door, the gun went 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 after the first shot, my hand was on the gun and I grabbed it from Carly.”

Despite this, Heath said he and Carly still talk daily and that their relationship is “good.”

In his closing argument 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 killed 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 directly at his head and hit him in the shoulder. And there is no doubt that she is the one who hid the camera and thereby tampered with evidence.”

“We ask you to go back there and find her guilty on all three counts because she was not insane at the time it happened. She knew exactly what she was doing and she knew the difference between right and wrong.”

However, the defense asked the jury to acquit her of guilt by reason of insanity.

“This was not a bad child. This was not an angry child. This was not a child who harbored hatred for his mother or stepfather in his heart, on the contrary. This was a child who had significant psychological problems,” defense attorney Bridget Todd said in court. “The same psychological problems that ran in her family and that we know are hereditary.”

“This child was taking the medications she was prescribed well, but those medications were making her symptoms worse without anyone realizing it beforehand,” she continued. “And while she was entering a psychotic state on March 19th during an episode of acute stress, she was lost in the perfect storm.”

Experts testified Thursday and found Carly competent to stand trial and did not meet the state's criteria for insanity, but 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 teenager was offered a 40-year prison deal, but she refused. Instead, her team pleaded insanity. But that wasn't enough.

Carly sobbed in court on Friday as the jury found her guilty on all three counts.

After just one hour of further deliberation, the jury sentenced the 15-year-old to prison.

She will spend the rest of her life behind bars without parole.