Content warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of murder. Please take care while reading.
The kitchen camera footage shows then-14-year-old Carly Gregg of Flowood, MS, disappear from the frame, only to return a short time later, holding a gun behind her back. After checking that the kitchen is empty, Gregg disappears again in the other direction, as several shots are heard, fired off camera, along with the screams of Gregg’s mother, Ashley Smylie.
The harrowing scene described was shown to the jury at Gregg’s trial, as she stood accused of murdering her mother, a math teacher at Northwest Rankin High School, where Gregg was a student, in March 2024. The homicide was committed with her mother’s gun. (Content warning: Some viewers will find the footage disturbing.) Gregg shot Smylie as she searched her daughter’s room for vape pens, and Gregg’s friend later said he had told Smylie that same day that her daughter was using burner phones, and that she had been smoking marijuana.
After the gunshots, Gregg reenters the kitchen where the camera is located, appearing eerily calm. The family dogs gather around her, visibly agitated. Gregg then picks up her mother’s cell phone and, posing as Smylie, texts her stepfather, Heath Smylie, asking him when he’d be home. She also reportedly texted a friend, telling her she needed help with an emergency. When that friend arrived, Gregg asked if she was “squeamish around dead bodies,” People reported, before showing her Ashley’s body.
Gregg then waited for Heath, her stepfather, to come home. When Heath arrived, she shot him, too, grazing him in the shoulder. Heath was able to get control of the gun, assuming at first there had been an intruder, and that his stepdaughter had shot at him because she was scared. Heath discovered his wife’s dead body in her daughter’s bedroom, her head covered in a towel, the Clarion-Ledger reported. With her stepfather in the house, Gregg fled the scene and was arrested a short time later.
Gregg is bipolar, the defense said
According to Carly Gregg’s defense, Gregg, who had no prior history of violence, lives with bipolar disorder and was in the midst of a mental health crisis when the murder happened. “She was having mood issues, eating disorder issues, cutting herself, hearing voices and sleeping difficulty,” psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Clark said, testifying for the defense at Gregg’s trial. Still, the prosecution said Gregg was “not insane at the time” she murdered her mother and shot her stepfather. “She knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew the difference between right and wrong,” the prosecution said.
Also testifying for the prosecution, Dr. Jason Pickett told the jury that Gregg had narcissistic tendencies, and that the teen’s actions were “diabolical” on the day her mother died. On the stand, Gregg’s stepfather, Heath Smylie, remained remarkably empathetic with his stepdaughter, calling her “a sweet little girl” and adding he was not scared of her before the murder happened, and that he was still not afraid of her afterward. He even mouthed “I love you” to Gregg in court.
“She was screaming out of her mind scared,” Heath said on the stand, remembering when Gregg shot him. “It was like she had seen a demon or something, and my first thought was, there was an intruder somewhere, and she thought she was after somebody else,” he added. In September, Gregg was found guilty of murdering her mother, attempting to murder her stepfather, and tampering with evidence, and sentenced to life in prison. It’s unclear whether Gregg will appeal the ruling.