A 13-year-old Michigan girl with no prior history of violence is in custody after police say she ambushed her younger sister in the bathroom Saturday, stabbing her repeatedly.
The older girl called her stepfather and 911 after the attack. Officers arrived around 1 p.m. to find the 7-year-old sister, barely alive, in a bathtub inside the family’s home, located about 20 minutes from Detroit. She had been stabbed at least 10 times.
“She had very horrendous injuries. Indescribable,” Taylor Police Chief John Blair told The Detroit News. “I can’t even understand how something like this can happen.”
Taylor Detective Cpl. Zachary Digiacomo said the argument started when the 7-year-old left a note in the bathroom telling family members to flush the toilet when they were done. The 13-year-old took the note and began fighting with her younger sister in the kitchen. The younger girl knocked over a trash can when she left the room, police said.
Around 30 minutes later, the older sister attacked the 7-year-old while she was in the bathroom. She used two knives, police said, starting with a butcher knife that “was not getting the job done,” Digiacomo said, quoting the murder suspect. She then grabbed her mother’s self-defense knife, which was bigger.
The girls’ names are being withheld because they are minors.
The 13-year-old offered no resistance to the responding officers, allowing them to go inside the residence, where they found her little sister gravely injured. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
“This is the worst case I’ve ever had,” Digiacomo said. “I’m assuming it’s got to be up there with the worst cases in Taylor police history. … It’s devastating, you know, it’s shocking.”
The girls had been left alone by their parents. Police said there was no record of past complaints and, according to their parents, the siblings didn’t have an antagonistic history outside of typical sister fights.
“There was nothing they saw in her that would lead them to believe this would happen,” Digiacomo said.
Neighbors said the sisters were close, often playing together outside.
“When my grandma told me, I was horrified because they were best friends … they had My Little Pony toys, and they would play with each other,” Matthew, an acquaintance and neighbor, told Fox 2 Detroit.
One woman recalled the victim as personable and outgoing.
“She used to walk up and down the street every day riding her bike, walking up and down the street stopping and talking to neighbors,” said Julie Pagoto. “She was just the sweetest little girl.”
The 13-year-old was charged, as a juvenile, with first-degree murder, felony murder and first-degree child abuse. Officials considered charging her as an adult, which would give a judge more options in sentencing if she was convicted but concluded keeping her in the juvenile system was the better solution. She remains in police custody.
“Hopefully, then she would not be a danger to others,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. “While this is a difficult decision given these facts, it is the right thing to do in this case.”
If convicted and sentenced as a juvenile, the state would have more than seven years to diagnose, treat and rehabilitate the 13-year-old. State law mandates her release when she turns 21.
“There is absolutely no doubt that the facts in this case are horrific,” said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. “It is beyond disturbing that the alleged person responsible for the stabbing death of her 7-year-old sister is 13 years old.”
