14-year-old looked ‘like she had seen a demon’ after shooting her mom in the face and inviting friend over to show off victim’s body, investigator testifies

The shooting death at the home of a Mississippi high school math teacher and mother already appeared to be a particularly grisly case as soon as the victim’s 14-year-old daughter was identified as the suspect and charged as an adult with murder. But a Rankin County Sheriff’s Office investigator has since testified that Carly Gregg shot 40-year-old Ashley Smylie twice in the face, invited a friend over to show off the victim’s body by claiming there was an “emergency,” played with her dogs in the meanwhile, and then told that friend there were “two for the head, one for the chest” waiting for Gregg’s stepfather, too.

The preliminary hearing before Rankin County Judge David Morrow was posted online in full by Jackson Jambalaya — and the details from the proceeding were startling.

Investigator Zachary Cotton took the stand and spoke about how Ashley Smylie, a Northwest Rankin High School teacher once honored as “Teacher of the Month,” went her daughter’s room after 4 p.m. on March 19 and “took some items” out of the bedroom before Gregg opened fire three times, shooting her mother twice in the face and once in the chin.

In March, the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office said that Gregg shot Smylie at their Brandon home on Ashton Way before she attempted to murder her stepfather, Heath Smylie, by ambushing him when he got got home. Sheriff Bryan Bailey said that Gregg shot Heath in the shoulder, but he fought back, and grabbed the gun before his stepdaughter fled the scene by hopping a fence, prompting authorities to track her movements by helicopter and arrest her a short time later.

Cotton filled in some of the gaps with his testimony at the hearing, citing video evidence from indoor and outdoor cameras at the crime scene.

At the same time, however, the defense offered a glimpse of a potential strategy by pointing to the defendant’s mental health and stating in court that Gregg started taking Lexapro, as opposed to a different medication, just one week before Ashley Smylie’s death. The defense added that Gregg heard voices while behind bars following her arrest.

According to Cotton, the defendant walked into her bedroom with a gun and shot her mother, texted her stepdad from the victim’s phone to lure him to the house, and then texted one of her own friends to come over to the house, where Gregg allegedly claimed there was an “emergency” — even as she was playing with her dogs and singing to the canines until her friend arrived.

Once there, Gregg allegedly asked the unidentified friend “if she had ever seen a dead body before” before leading the witness to the victim’s body and saying her stepfather was next.

When Heath Smylie returned home soon after that fateful afternoon, Carly Gregg shot him in the shoulder and a struggle ensued, Cotton said.

The investigator added that Heath Smylie recalled wrestling the gun away from his stepdaughter and that Gregg’s “eyes were really big, like she had seen a demon or something to that effect” during the fight.

The Tuesday hearing ended with the judge refusing to lower Gregg’s $1 million bond, considering her a “special danger to others.”

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]