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submitted 4 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 165 points 4 months ago

Is it me or is the newsworthy thing here not the phone but the actual fucking murder?

Children have been arguing about toys for millennia. I got into a few fist fights myself over he-man dolls.

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 44 points 4 months ago

The fact that murder even became an option tels of a fucked up home life or psychotic personality.

[-] Waveform@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago

Psychopathy, not psychosis. It's easy to get the two disorders confused.

From Psychology Today:

Psychopathy is a condition characterized by the absence of empathy and the blunting of other affective states. Callousness, detachment, and a lack of empathy enable psychopaths to be highly manipulative.

Psychosis occurs when an individual loses touch with reality—a break that can be terrifying to experience or to observe in a loved one. Psychosis can include hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech, and abnormal movements.

[-] ironchico@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

Where do you think the story of Cain and Abel came from?

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Yes, why would you think anyone thought the phone was the bigger part of the story...?

[-] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 82 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Why was a security camera in the bedroom? Or was it somewhere else but you could see in the bedroom? Am I the only one who finds this odd, or is this a common thing to have for 12 and/or 8 year olds?

[-] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 58 points 4 months ago

Some people are surveillance'd out. I personally find it weird when people have fuckin Alexa or Google assistant in their house. Like u really want Bezos listening to your every word so u don't have to walk 3 feet to the light switch? Different strokes I guess, but I don't want a doorbell cam n I for sure don't want cam(s) inside my fucking house especially ones connected to multinational conglomerates that are going to use it to spy on me n sell me ads.

[-] Duranie@literature.cafe 32 points 4 months ago

"after coming from out of town to stay with their grandmother."

I'm assuming this means this was the grandmother's house they were staying at?

I work in hospice and and it's not uncommon for a family member to have multiple cameras set up in an elderly loved ones house for safety reasons. Maybe she wants to remain independent, but is a fall risk. We've had patients refuse in home caregivers, but allow family to put in cameras to watch for falls.

[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

They don't need to listen to your every word. They have so much information on you that they can pinpoint you pretty well. They would like to, but it's too risky. However making it easy for you to give them information willingly, yes please they are on board.

There is no evidence they are actually always processing everything, and people have been trying to prove it for a long time now. But it seems like they do what they say they are doing: listening for wake words.

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[-] Album@lemmy.ca 22 points 4 months ago

They're often cheaper and better than "video baby monitors"

[-] bibliotectress@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago

I was also surprised by that, but I'm still surprised people have them in their living rooms. I guess it's like upgrading from a baby monitor??

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

It's getting hard to find a baby monitor that doesn't have a camera.

[-] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 months ago

No idea, glad it’s not just me I guess.

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[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 80 points 4 months ago

Am I the only one that thinks charging her as an adult is a little much? A 12 year old is probably still treatable. Incarceration in our criminal justice system will not accomplish that.

[-] Dorkyd68@lemmy.world 50 points 4 months ago

She's about to spend a ton of time in the system either way. Whether that be juvi or somewhere else. This kid will not reemerge a rehabilitated individual. In the system you simply learn to be a better criminal, rehabilitation is myth

[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 31 points 4 months ago
[-] Dorkyd68@lemmy.world 23 points 4 months ago

Well it is in the US so....?

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[-] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The younger they are, the longer private prisons get to earn government revenue for their incarceration. 👍🏻

[-] TheSealStartedIt@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago

A bit much? She is a child. A very american thing to do... In europe she would get therapy and that's it..

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[-] Doodleschmit@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I definitely agree that whatever decision the courts make, this person is not going to be properly rehabilitated via the sentence.

I obviously have no expertise in the matter, but I really do wonder what the appropriate "consequence" would be for something like this. They're still a child, basically at 12. But they committed to doing something VERY permanent. Do they have any understanding for what it is they've done? I would think they have a semblance of it. Emotions, hormones, and everything about a pre-pubescant can run hot at those ages, but this was an egregious failure for self control.

I'm very likely just being a fence sitter about it. Murdering someone over something petty like this would be an obvious charge for an assumed adult. Just hard to wrap my head around it when I see news like this I guess.

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[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 30 points 4 months ago
[-] solrize@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

If it's a recent model iPhone, it has NFC.

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago
[-] BigFatNips@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

Nearly Fungineering Christ

[-] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago

Who was the genius at apple who came up with a remote-smothering feature?

[-] Ioughttamow@kbin.run 6 points 4 months ago

Leonard ‘Pillows’ Anocksia

[-] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Obviously they're holding it wrong!

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 4 months ago
[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

Ohhh. Because of an iPhone, not over the phone. It seemed like an odd feature; would have been impressive, though.

[-] tooLikeTheNope@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

12 yrs old? over an iphone?

I get the enshitted society weight in all that, but what the actual fuck her parents raised her to?
I'm so sad for her, and for her cousin too of course, but she's going to die a thousand times in her life trying to cope with what she has done

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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
254 points (97.0% liked)

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