13-year-old girl admits stabbing her classmate

Erica D. Johnson

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

A 13-year-old girl on Wednesday admitted to stabbing a 14-year-old classmate at a Summerlin golf course and said she routinely carried a pocket knife for protection.

The eighth grader entered the equivalent of a guilty plea in Juvenile Court before Hearing Master Sylvia Beller.

The teen said she stabbed her friend in her right side with a "little fold-out knife" after the girl hit her twice in the face during an argument. The victim was treated at a local hospital and released the same day.

"She hit me," the teen said, weeping. "Then I stabbed her with a knife."

When asked why she was carrying a knife in the first place, the teen responded, "I just had it. I carry it all the time for protection."

Beller said she found it disturbing that the girl commonly carried a weapon, although the teen said she did not carry the knife to school.

"Why do you need a knife for protection?" Beller asked. "I don't carry a knife. That is not a normal thing for a 13-year-old."

The teen's admission came during a hearing in Clark County Family Court. The case had initially been transferred to the adult system because the teen was charged with attempted murder. But prosecutors agreed to amend the charges and send the case to juvenile court if the teen acknowledged she committed the crime.

In Nevada children 8 and older who are charged with murder, attempted murder and some sexual assaults are automatically treated as adults. In juvenile court the teen faces a single charge of battery with a deadly weapon causing substantial bodily harm. She was in custody at the juvenile detention center Wednesday and will be formally sentenced Feb. 24.

The girl's punishment could range from formal probation to an unspecified sentence in a correctional or therapeutic facility, Beller said.

The teen said she was at the Suncoast about 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23 when she went across the street to a ditch near the Badlands Golf Course. A group of other teens, including the victim, had gathered there.

The teen said she had permission from her mother, who attended Wednesday's hearing, to go bowling at the casino.

Once at the golf course, the teen said she began to talk to the victim, whom she described as her best friend, to ask her why "her parents said I wasn't allowed to hang out with her."

An argument ensued and the teen stabbed the victim with a knife that had been inside her pocket, she said.

The teen said she then threw the knife down and approached the girl. "I went over to her and I was like, 'I'm sorry. Are you OK?"' she said, crying.

But Deputy District Attorney Mike O'Callaghan, who prosecutes cases in the juvenile division, said the teen was not providing all of the details.

O'Callaghan said several minutes had elapsed between the time the victim hit the teen and when the stabbing occurred.

"This was an ongoing thing that developed," he said. "She had time between the punching and the stabbing that took place."

O'Callaghan said the girl told others on the golf course she was going to stab her friend before she did it. "She did have the knife on display out on the golf course with the other girls."

The teen's attorney, Kenneth Frizzell, said the teen was a good student who had never been in trouble before. He added that she has expressed sincere remorse since the incident.

"I don't know what was going on in her head (at the time of the stabbing)," he said. "I don't even know if she knows what was going on in her head."

Frizzell had asked Beller to release the teen from custody pending the sentencing hearing. Beller said she would wait until she had a recommendation from the court's Detention Review Release program. At that time, the teen could be released on house arrest, Beller said.

Beller added that there appeared to be a "lack of supervision" by the teen's parents.

"I won't release her right now based on what I've heard," she said. "There are too many red flags that have come up."