A 15-year-old New York girl who fatally stabbed a 16-year-old cheerleader in April has been sentenced to up to nine years behind bars.
The teen, who was not publicly identified because of her age, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in December in the death of Kayla Green, a sophomore at Mount Vernon High School.
The teenage suspect was sentenced to three to nine years in prison on Tuesday, according to Westchester County District Attorney’s Office Announced.
The April 8 stabbing unfolded after a parade was held in honor of the men’s basketball team at Mount Vernon High School for their state championship win.
A «fight» involving some cheerleaders broke out after the off-campus festivities, then-Mount Vernon City Schools Superintendent Kenneth Hamilton, who has since left his post, said in an April statement. live broadcast on the district’s Facebook page.
It is not clear what precipitated the fight. Green and defendant had been members of the Supreme All Stars, an independent cheerleading squad, but Green later became a cheerleader for Mount Vernon High School. LoHudcovering the Lower Hudson Valley, he reported.
The defendant stabbed Green in the abdomen with a knife on Gramatan Avenue in Mount Vernon, prosecutors said. Green was hospitalized and died from her injuries.
The suspected teenager was arrested later that night at Dobbs Ferry.
Another student was injured in the incident but was expected to make a full recovery, police said at the time. An additional assault charge in connection with that injury has been dropped, the district attorney’s office said.
District Attorney Miriam Roach said in a statement about the sentencing: «A mindless teen defendant took the life of Kayla Green and, in doing so, left a community devastated.»
The defendant will be in the custody of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services until she turns 18 years old. After that, she will be transferred to the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the district attorney’s office said.
In court, the defendant addressed the family and tearfully apologized.
«I wish I could do more than just say I’m sorry,» he said. NBC New York informed.
But the apology did not resonate with the victim’s family.
“My family is broken and our hearts will never mend,” Green’s mother, Lavern Green, said outside the courthouse after the sentencing.
“Three years for a murder is nothing. That’s nothing. We have to go visit a grave to see my niece,» said the victim’s aunt, Tasania Rhoden. «And meanwhile, there is a young woman who in three years will be outside jumping.»
Lauren Raysor, the Green family lawyer, said after the sentencing: “All parties, all systems failed. We had a young lady at school, wreaking havoc on the Mount Vernon school system.»
“They were very aware of what this young woman was doing inside that school and she was a danger to all the young people that were in the school, and they did nothing,” he said.
NBC News has reached out to an attorney for the teen defendant and the school district for comment.