Ken Lee attacker gets 15 minutes, U.S. teen looking at life

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Mississippi teen Carly Gregg is accused of parking three bullets in her mother.

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She was 14 years old at the time.

Gregg allegedly told a pal who came to her house: “I put three in my mom and I got three more waiting for my stepdad when he gets home.”

The cherub-faced teen is now on trial for murder. If convicted, she faces 40 years in prison.

According to reports, mother and daughter were at loggerheads over the girl’s clandestine dope use, school cheating and a slew of other domestic difficulties not uncommon to teenagers. According to police, she just took matters one step further on March 19.

After she allegedly drilled her teacher mom, Ashley Smylie, 40, Gregg is accused of luring her stepfather to what she hoped would be his demise and pumping three slugs into him.

Contrast that with the treatment of the little darlings who killed Ken Lee, 59, in downtown Toronto on Dec. 18, 2022. Lee was struggling with homelessness. Police say he was swarmed and stabbed by a gaggle of eight girls.

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It seems at least some of those teens were on a quest, in the words of Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, for a little of the “old ultra-violence.”

Eight of them were accused: Three 13-year-olds, three 14-year-olds, and two 16-year-olds. The initial beef was second-degree murder. Three pleaded guilty to manslaughter and another to assault causing bodily harm.

Four more will be in the dock in 2025: Three for murder, and one for manslaughter.

But if crime-weary citizens were expecting a big statement on crime and punishment, they got it although probably not in the way they had hoped.

The first girl to plead guilty — 13 at the time of the attack — will not face any more jail time. Community-based programs, blah, blah, blah. She pleaded to manslaughter.

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And over the boards comes Justice David Stewart Rose who credited the battering brat with 15 months of effective pre-trial custody plus another 15 months of probation.

The judge said because she pleaded guilty early and was forced to strip naked during her incarceration, well, she’d suffered quite enough.

Back in Mississippi, there is no Justice David Stewart Rose to hop on his stallion and ride to the rescue of young damsel Carly Gregg, who torpedoed a plea deal in August. She has pleaded not guilty.

Her stepfather is standing behind her and her legal team is arguing that the teen is suffering from profound mental illness.

Of course, Gregg is just 15. If convicted, should she be locked up for 40 years? Probably not. Does the kid need a headshrinker? No doubt.

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The murders of Ashley Smilie and Ken Lee are very different affairs. However, the commonality is that an innocent person is dead.

In Canada, activist judges and courts have put the idea of a happy medium on the shelf. You don’t necessarily want to send some dumb kid to prison for decades but nor should they be out on the streets in the blink of an eye.

At the time of Lee’s murder, I was having lunch with two veteran Toronto homicide detectives. One described the young killers as a “bunch of wild animals.”

The cop added: “He was just minding his own business, he wasn’t bothering a soul. I don’t think they really cared. And I don’t think they much care about the consequences either because, let’s be honest here, there are none.”

For Carly Gregg, however, if convicted then the debt will be paid in full. With interest.

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@HunterTOSun

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