Transcription
She sits in a Mississippi courtroom, smiling, not nervous, not scared. [music] Just calm, like she's waiting to be called out of class, not waiting to hear if she'll spend the rest of her life in prison. Carly Greg had convinced herself the jury would believe her. Her lawyers said she was sick, a child whose mind had slipped away. They told the court she'd suffered a mental break, that voices took control of her thoughts on that terrible day. And for a while, the defense was working. The jury was listening. People started to wonder if a 14-year-old could really plan something like this. Then the prosecutor pressed play and everything changed.
"Your daughter tried to shoot you?"
"Yeah. Shooting at me to kill her mom, but I tried to kill me."
"What's her name?"
"Carly Greg."
[clears throat]
"Hey, I need you to talk to me. What is your son wearing?"
"She was in jeans and a a a grayish t-shirt. She's got short brownish hair. She ran into the backyard. I tried to follow her. She jumped his fence and ran. She shot me in the"
What you're about to see is the moment Carly Greg realized the jury would never believe her story again. The moment she understood she wasn't going home. Not that day. Not for decades. Her mother was dead. Her stepfather was bleeding on the kitchen floor. And the proof of what really happened was caught by a camera Carly didn't even know was recording. This is the chilling case of an honor student who turned a .357 Magnum into an execution weapon inside her own home. If you've never heard this story before, prepare yourself because what happened in Brandon, Mississippi on March 19th, 2024 will challenge everything you think you know about teenage mental health, premeditated murder, and how a simple home security camera can expose even the most carefully built lie.
Before we can understand what happened on March 19th, 2024, we have to understand who Carly Greg was. At 14, Carly seemed like any other high-achieving teen. She was bright, confident, and funny. A 10th grader at Northwest Rankin High School in Brandon, Mississippi, where her mother, Ashley Smiley, taught math. Teachers described Carly as polite and intelligent. Her friends said she was kind, witty, and easy to talk to. On the surface, she looked like a happy, responsible girl with a promising future.
Carly's mother, Ashley Smiley, was 40 years old. A math teacher loved by her students and respected by her colleagues. Friends described her as warm, patient, and deeply dedicated both in her classroom and at home. Ashley had been married before to Kevin Greg, Carly's biological father. Kevin struggled for years with mental health challenges and drug use. And after their divorce, Ashley raised Carly mostly on her own. In 2020, Ashley married Heath Smiley, a man known for his calm and gentle personality. At first, Heath and Carly got along well. He cared for her, supported her, and tried to make her feel understood. But by early 2024, things inside their home had changed. Carly seemed distant, quieter, more withdrawn, and no one could quite figure out why. From the outside, their life looked stable and loving. But beneath that image was a growing unease, one that Ashley and Heath could sense but didn't fully understand.
As the months passed, small cracks began to appear. Carly started having trouble sleeping. Some days she was cheerful and engaged. Other days, she was silent, closed off, and anxious. At first, her parents thought it was just normal teenage behavior. But before long, things started to seem more serious. Heath later testified that he discovered Carly had been cutting herself. The cuts were hidden under her clothes on her thighs where no one could see. They were shallow but deliberate. Carly was using pain to cope with emotions she couldn't express.
Then more troubling signs began to emerge. Her parents found out that Carly had been using secret burner phones, vaping marijuana, and secretly talking to an older boyfriend. She was living two lives, one as the cheerful, high-achieving student everyone knew, and another as a troubled teen hiding her pain. When confronted, Carly often became defensive or angry. She didn't want to open up or talk about what was going on, but deep down, she was struggling with something even more complicated. Carly's therapist later explained that she often felt responsible for her mother's happiness. She wanted to be perfect for Ashley and couldn't stand the idea of disappointing her.
By December 2023, Ashley and Heath decided to get her professional help. They found her a therapist, and by January 2024, Carly was prescribed Zoloft, a medication commonly used to treat depression and anxiety in teenagers. For a short while, things seemed to calm down. But inside, Carly was starting to fall apart in ways no one could tell. She began hearing voices that weren't really there. Feeling like the world around her wasn't real and having scary thoughts she couldn't stop. She wrote about it in her journal, but kept those pages secret.
On March 12th, 2024, exactly 1 week before the tragedy, Carly wrote, "I think I had a psychotic break earlier. The whole ordeal is quite silly. I actually spoke with one of the voices in my head. Well, I didn't hear them until earlier today, but I only do then. My particular friend and I were practically screaming bloodthirstily and ravenously. Thank God physical confrontation was not possible. I sound crazy." That journal entry later became really important in court. Some people thought it showed that Carly was truly struggling with her mental health, but others believed she was writing it on purpose to make an excuse for what she was planning to do next.
The next day, Carly went back to her nurse practitioner for a medication checkup. She said that the Zoloft made her feel numb and disconnected, so her prescription was switched to Lexapro, another anti-depressant. That change happened just 6 days before the shooting. No one realized it at the time, but something inside Carly was spiraling beyond control.
March 19th, 2024 began as an ordinary Tuesday in Brandon, Mississippi. Ashley Smiley went to work at Northwest Rankin High School, where she taught and where her 14-year-old daughter, Carly Madison Greg, was a 9th-grade student. Her husband, Heath Smiley, left for work shortly after. Around mid-morning, something happened that would set the events of that afternoon in motion. A friend of Carly's, concerned about her behavior, approached Ashley at school. He told her that Carly had been vaping marijuana regularly, that she had burner phones, that she'd been talking to boys Ashley didn't know about. Those who interacted with Ashley later said she wasn't furious, but she was worried, concerned for her daughter's well-being more than angry about the rule-breaking itself.
The school day ended. Ashley and Carly drove home together. This is where the security cameras pick up the story. At around 3:54 p.m., Ashley's car pulled into the garage. She and Carly got out, entered the house together, and brought the family's two dogs inside. Nothing in the footage suggested an argument or tension. The layout of the Smiley home is important to understand what happened next. The garage connects to a small laundry room, which opens into the kitchen. To the right of the kitchen is Carly's bedroom. To the left, further down a hallway, is the master bedroom where Ashley and Heath sleep. Security cameras covered several areas of the house: the garage, the kitchen, the laundry room. They recorded continuously, uploading footage to the cloud in real time.
Ashley heads to Carly's bedroom. This makes sense given what she'd learned at school that day. She was going to search for the vape pens and marijuana cartridges to remove them from Carly's possession. Carly takes the dogs outside to the backyard. For a few minutes, everything is quiet. Ashley is in Carly's room searching. Carly is outside with the dogs. Then Carly comes back inside. The footage shows Carly walking slowly through the kitchen. She's not rushed or panicked. She moves with purpose, glancing toward her bedroom, where she knows her mother is searching through her belongings. Then she turns and walks in the opposite direction toward the master bedroom.
At approximately 4:00 p.m., Carly entered her parents' bedroom and retrieved her mother's .357 Magnum handgun from under the mattress. She concealed the weapon behind her back as she moved through the house. Less than a minute later, Carly comes back across the house. She's walking carefully now, holding her right arm behind her back in an awkward position. As she passes the entrance to the kitchen, she stops and looks inside, checking to make sure Ashley hasn't left the bedroom. Carly walks into her bedroom. Three shots echoed through the home. Ashley was struck multiple times in the head and upper body. Though she was alive for a brief moment after the shots, the wounds proved fatal within minutes. The medical examiner would later testify about the trajectory and impact of those three bullets. The first shot hit Ashley in the shoulder. The second hit her in the neck. Either of those wounds could have been fatal, but the third shot sealed Ashley's fate. It was fired from less than 3 ft away, directly into her face, just above her right eye.
And then, in the moments after taking her mother's life, Carly Greg did something that would become the most controversial and analyzed aspect of the entire case. She walked calmly back to the kitchen and sat down. The timestamp on the security footage is crucial here. Ashley was shot sometime between 4:43 and 4:47 p.m. Based on audio analysis, Carly didn't contact 911 until 4:57 p.m. That means there were roughly 10 to 13 minutes where Carly was alone in the house with her mother's body. During those minutes, she didn't try to help her mother. She didn't call for help. Instead, what she did next would become central to the prosecution's argument that this was not a psychotic break or a moment of temporary insanity, but a calculated, deliberate act, followed by attempts to cover it up and continue the violence.
The kitchen camera shows Carly sitting at the counter. She's still holding the gun behind her back, out of view of the camera. She picks up her mother's iPhone from where Ashley had left it on the counter. Carly knows her mother's passcode. She unlocks the phone and opens the messaging app. She texts Heath Smiley, "When will you be home, honey?" The word choice was deliberate. "Honey" is what Ashley calls Heath. Carly was impersonating her mother, trying to make Heath think everything was normal at home and to convince him to come back. Heath responded that he would be leaving work soon and would probably be home in about an hour. Carly sent back a thumbs-up emoji.
Then she started calling her friends. She FaceTimed multiple people in the minutes after killing her mother. She told them she'd really messed up, that she'd done something terrible. She was crying, upset, but not entirely incoherent. When one friend asked if they should call 911, Carly said, "No, don't do that. Don't call anyone." Instead, she invited a specific friend to come over. When that friend arrived, she had no idea what she was walking into. Carly opened the door and asked, "Do dead bodies make you squeamish?"
Carly took her friend inside and showed her Ashley's body lying on the floor of Carly's bedroom. The friend testified that she was terrified, frozen, not knowing what to do or how to process what she was seeing. But Carly wasn't done explaining. She told her friend, "I put three in my mom. I've got three more for my stepdad. He's on his way home now." Then Carly told her friend to go hide in the backyard. When Heath got home, Carly was going to finish what she'd started.
Before he arrived, Carly did something investigators would later describe as deeply disturbing. She repositioned her mother's body, folding Ashley's hands across her stomach as though laying her in a coffin. She then draped a red towel over her mother's face, covering the gunshot wound. And as the minutes passed, the kitchen camera picked up something else. Carly quietly humming and singing to herself while her mother's body lay in the next room.
Heath Smiley left work around 5:00 p.m. He'd gotten the text from what he thought was his wife asking when he'd be home. Everything seemed normal. He had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. When Heath arrived home, he got out of his car and walked toward the door that led into the laundry room and kitchen. When Heath opened the door, Carly was already waiting for him with a gun in her hand. As soon as he stepped inside, she fired several times. One of the bullets hit Heath in the shoulder, very close to his face. Even though he was in pain, Heath reacted without thinking. Since he was much bigger and stronger, he rushed toward Carly and tried to grab the gun to stop her. During the struggle, more shots went off. Later, Heath said he wasn't sure who fired those last bullets, and all he could think about was getting the gun away from Carly. The whole time, Carly was screaming, not saying any words, just screaming. Heath later said the sound was wild and terrifying, completely unlike anything he had ever heard from her before. He eventually wrenched the gun from her hands. The moment he did, Carly ran out the back door and down the street with her friend chasing after her.
[screaming]
Keith, still in shock and bleeding, started looking around the house for an intruder. At first, he couldn't believe what had happened. He thought someone else must have attacked Carly and that she had only been trying to protect herself. Then he entered Carly's bedroom. That's where he found Ashley. He immediately reached out for his phone to call 911 while still bleeding.
"What happened? What's wrong?"
"Your daughter tried to shoot you."
"You had a laugh shooting at me."
"Where's she at?"
"How old is she?"
"14."
[clears throat]
"14."
"Okay, ma'am. Stay on the phone with Ma'am, stay on the phone with me. Just calm down. What's your name?"
"Throw it."
"Are you smiling?"
"Yes, sir. Yes, she hit you."
"Yeah, I got hit in the neck a little bit. I'm not."
"Okay. So, did graze your neck?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right. And what's her name?"
"Carly Greg."
"Carly Greg. Does she still have a gun on her?"
"I took it from her. She ran."
"You took it from her and she ran. Yes, sir. She was screaming something at me. I couldn't understand. I locked the door. She's outside. I don't know what's going on."
"Which way does she run off to?"
"She ran into the backyard over a ran into the backyard and went over your fence."
"What is she? Uh,"
"What is she wearing?"
"Uh, t-shirt gray shirt and some jeans."
"Gray shirt and jeans. About how tall is she?"
[clears throat]
"Uh 5'2"."
"About 5'2". What color hair?"
"Bright brownish. Sorry about brownish. Just short hair. Fire on me. And we're just screaming."
[clears throat]
"Okay, just calm down for me. Oh my god. We got everybody hated her mom."
"She what?"
"She killed her mom."
"She killed her mom. Yeah. Screaming about Where's the mom?"
"When I do that, she tried to kill me."
"Where's the mom?"
"Sir. Sir, sir. Sir,"
"Your wife."
"Where's your wife?"
"She's dead on the floor of my daughter's stepdaughter's room."
"She's on the floor in your stepdaughter's room. stepdaughter and her mom. I don't know what's going on. The steps been for a little while trying to work out some"
Paramedics and police arrived within minutes. The quiet street on Ashton Way in Brandon, Mississippi was flooded with emergency vehicles.
"Hey, where where's your son wearing? Hey, can you can you tell me what your son's wearing? Hey, I need you to talk to me. What is your son wearing?"
"She was in jeans and a a a grayish t-shirt. She's got short brownish hair."
"So, jeans, a gray t-shirt, short brown hair."
"She ran into the backyard. I tried to follow her. She jumped a fence and ran. She shot me back."
"It's okay. I think"
"Does she still have the gun?"
"It's on the kitchen counter. I think there's one live round left in it. I open the cylinder. I went in the back door and she tried to shoot me."
"What's her name, bud?"
"Carly Greg."
"Carly Greg. Yeah."
"How old is she?"
"14. She'll be 15 next month."
"Okay."
While first responders treated Heath and secured the house, other officers began searching the neighborhood for Carly. She had fled on foot, jumping fences and cutting through backyards, leaving everyone uncertain about where she had gone. A deputy patrolling Farmington Boulevard, just a few streets away from the Smiley home, noticed a young girl standing near a drainage ditch. She appeared small for her age, disoriented and frightened. It was Carly. The deputy stopped his vehicle and approached her cautiously. She acknowledged being involved in the incident. Carly was handcuffed and placed in the back of the patrol car. While sitting in the police car, Carly kept asking if Heath was okay and if he would survive his injuries. The car later stopped so officers could do a gunshot residue test on her hands to find out which hand she had used to fire the gun.
"Is that okay?"
"I don't know, baby. I can't talk to you."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
However, back at the house, investigators found a shocking scene. There was evidence everywhere. Security footage from several cameras, text messages, phone records, and physical clues left behind. When they put it all together, it clearly showed what had happened that day. But what the investigators couldn't figure out, and what the trial would later focus on, wasn't what happened, but why it happened. Everyone knew what Carly had done. The real question was whether she acted during a mental breakdown or if she knew exactly what she was doing. The question was why and, more importantly, whether Carly was legally responsible for her actions.
Carly Madison Greg was initially taken to a juvenile detention facility, but that didn't last long. Given the severity of the charges and the nature of the crime, prosecutors made the decision to charge her as an adult. She faced three charges: first-degree murder for the killing of Ashley Smiley, attempted murder for the shooting of Heath Smiley, and tampering with evidence for hiding the kitchen security camera. Under Mississippi law, first-degree murder carries only two possible sentences: life in prison with the possibility of parole or life without parole. Because Carly was a juvenile, the death penalty wasn't an option. The Supreme Court had ruled years earlier that executing someone for a crime committed as a minor was unconstitutional.
Being charged as an adult meant Carly would be held in an adult facility, but because she was still a minor, she had to be kept separate from adult inmates. In practice, this meant solitary confinement. For the next 6 months, from March 2024 until her trial in September, Carly Greg spent 23 to 24 hours a day alone in a cell. She had no contact with other inmates, limited contact with guards. Her only regular visitors were her attorneys. The isolation was extremely hard for anyone, but especially for a 14-year-old who was already struggling with mental health challenges. Her defense team argued that being kept in those conditions was making her worse, increasing her symptoms, and violating her rights as a minor. But the judge ruled that there was no alternative. Mississippi law required that juvenile offenders charged as adults be kept separate from adult populations. If that meant solitary confinement, so be it.
Meanwhile, both sides were preparing for trial, and they were building completely opposite narratives of who Carly Greg was and what happened on March 19th. The prosecution's story was simple. Carly Greg was a teenager living a double life, using drugs, talking to boys, and hiding burner phones from her parents. When her mother found out and started searching her room, Carly made a cold, planned decision to end her mother's life. The calmness seen on the security footage showed she knew she had done something wrong. The text messages to Heath showed planning and dishonesty. The way the body was positioned showed a troubling lack of remorse. And the attempt to harm Heath showed this wasn't just a moment of losing control, but a careful plan to hurt both her parents. Yes, Carly had some mental health struggles, things like anxiety, depression, and normal teenage problems. But nothing that meant she was legally insane. She knew the difference between right and wrong. She knew that hurting someone was wrong, and the fact that she tried to hide what she did showed she understood it was against the law.
The defense's narrative was completely different. Carly Greg was a deeply mentally ill child who'd been suffering for years with conditions nobody fully understood. She had a genetic predisposition to serious psychiatric illness inherited from her biological father who had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She'd been hearing voices since she was young, possibly as early as age 9. She'd been experiencing dissociation, derealization, intrusive thoughts that terrified her. She'd been cutting herself for years as a way to cope with overwhelming emotions. Then, just 6 days before the murder, her medication was changed from Zoloft to Lexapro. For someone with underlying bipolar disorder, this kind of medication switch can trigger manic episodes or worsen psychotic symptoms. By March 19th, Carly was in the midst of a full psychotic break.
Under Mississippi law, to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, the defense had to prove that at the time of the crime, Carly didn't understand the nature and quality of her actions, or she didn't know that what she was doing was wrong. It's an incredibly high bar to meet. Insanity defenses succeed in less than 1% of criminal cases, but Carly's defense team believed they had the evidence to meet it. And if they succeeded, Carly wouldn't go to prison. She'd be committed to a mental health facility for treatment. Eventually, if she stabilized and was no longer considered a danger, she could potentially be released. But first, they'd have to convince a jury.
And before that decision was made, the prosecution made an offer. In August 2024, a few weeks before trial was set to begin, the district attorney's office offered Carly's defense team a deal. She could plead guilty to all three charges, and in return, the state would recommend a 40-year sentence in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The other two charges, attempted murder and tampering, would be dropped or combined into that sentence. 40 years. For a 14-year-old, that meant she wouldn't be released until she was 54. She would spend all her teenage years and most of her adult life in prison. But when it came time to decide, Carly did something no one expected.
"All right, Miss uh Greg, did you receive that recommendation of 40 years?"
"Yes, sir."
"And it was your choice and your choice alone to reject that recommendation?"
"Yes, your honor."
At just 14 years old, Carly Madison Greg decided to take her chances with the jury instead of accepting a 40-year sentence. Her attorneys supported her choice. They believed they had a strong mental health defense and that once the jury learned about Carly's history and heard from their expert, they would see this as the case of a troubled young girl who needed help, not someone acting out of cruelty.
Carly sat at the defense table, flanked by her attorneys. She looked even younger than 14. Throughout the trial, she would be seen crying frequently, covering her ears during particularly difficult testimony, appearing to be genuinely distressed by what was being shown and said.
"In all the time that you've known Carly, would you describe her as callous?"
"No."
"Would you describe her as calculating?"
"No. Except with math."
"Would you describe her as diabolical?"
"No."
"How would you describe Carly?"
"She's just a sweet little girl ever since I've known her."
But then Heath had to describe the worst moment of that day. Finding Ashley's body in Carly's bedroom. "He when when you saw her laying there, um what's the very next thing that that you did?"
"Uh checked her pulse and see and kind of move the towel and then called 911."
"And Heath, when you moved the towel, um what did you see?"
"I knew she had been shot. Oh, there was blood around, but I don't really recall exactly where. Somewhere in the right side of her face."
The courtroom was silent except for the sound of Carly crying at the defense table. It was a heavy, emotional moment that set the tone for what came next. As testimony continued, the focus shifted from what Carly had done to why she had done it. The heart of the trial became the question of her state of mind on the day of the killing. Both sides brought in mental health experts, each painting a vastly different picture of Carly Greg.
The prosecution called four specialists who had examined her after her arrest. They agreed she was a troubled teenager battling anxiety, depression, and self-harm, but not legally insane. Their testimony emphasized intent and awareness, arguing that Carly's actions on March 19th, 2024 were deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew it was wrong. The prosecution emphasized Carly's deliberate actions: unlocking her mother's phone, mimicking her tone in a message, and luring her stepfather home. To them, these were signs of calculation, not confusion. Even her therapist, who had treated her before the murder, said she had never shown signs of psychosis, delusion, or violence. Their medical experts addressed her recent switch from Zoloft to Lexapro, acknowledging possible side effects, but insisting the dosage was standard and the change medically appropriate. There was no evidence, they said, that it could have caused a psychotic break.
By the end of the trial, the courtroom stood split between two opposing views. The defense portrayed Carly as a deeply troubled child whose fragile mind had broken under the strain of mental illness and medication side effects. The prosecution, however, described her as a calculating teenager who knew exactly what she was doing and carried it out with precision. Which version the jury chose to believe would decide the rest of Carly Madison Greg's life.
When it was the defense's turn, attorney Bridget Todd spoke with emotion. She told the jury that Carly was not a cold-blooded killer, but a deeply troubled child. Todd explained her history of anxiety, depression, and hearing voices, arguing that a change in her medication might have triggered a mental breakdown. She said this tragedy destroyed three lives: Ashley's, Heath's, and Carly's, and that what looked like planning was actually confusion. In closing, Todd asked the jury to see Carly not as a monster, but as a sick 14-year-old who needed help, not a lifetime behind bars.
The jury deliberated for less than 2 hours, a clear sign that they had reached a firm consensus.
"All right, the verdicts appear to be in proper form. Verdict of the jury is count one. We the jury find the defendant Carly Madison Greg guilty of first-degree murder as charged in the indictment. Count two, we the jury find the defendant Carly Madison Greg guilty of attempted murder as charged in the indictment. Count three, we the jury find the defendant Carly Madison Greg guilty of tampering with evidence as charged in the indictment. Beginning on the first row, ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"Sir, is that your verdict?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"Sir, is that your verdict?"
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"You got to answer out loud."
"Ma'am, I'm sorry."
"Yes."
"On the back row. Sir, is that your verdict?"
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"Sir, is that your verdict?"
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"Ma'am, is that your verdict?"
"That verdict is proper and unanimous."
Here is what they concluded: The insanity defense had been fully rejected. The jury agreed with the prosecution that Carly knew exactly what she was doing. Next came the sentencing phase. Under Mississippi law, the jury had three options: life with the possibility of parole, life without parole, or leaving the decision to the judge.
"Has to count one, we the jury sentence the defendant Carly Madison Greg to life imprisonment. Has to count two. We the jury sent the defendant Carly Madison Greg to life imprisonment."
The verdict was life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. For the attempted murder charge, Carly received another life sentence to run concurrently. At just 15 years old, Carly Madison Greg was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison. The reaction was mixed. Ashley Smiley's family felt justice had been served, while others were heartbroken that a child would spend her entire life behind bars. Carly wept quietly as deputies led her away back to the detention center where she would remain until transferred to an adult facility. The case of Carly Greg ended with no sense of victory, only the lasting weight of a tragedy that destroyed an entire family.
Carly's father, Kevin Greg, spoke to the media. He believed her illness was inherited and that the system failed her long before the tragedy. Carly's defense team pushed for a new trial, claiming key mental health evidence had been excluded, specifically Kevin's account of Carly's childhood hallucinations. But Judge Dewey Arthur denied the motion, ruling that even if admitted, it would not have changed the verdict. The defense has since appealed to the Mississippi Court of Appeals, though such reversals are rare. For now, Carly remains in a youth correctional facility in Pearl. When she turns 18, she will be moved to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, where she will spend the rest of her life. Her attorney, Bridget Todd, insists the system failed Carly, arguing that a mentally ill child should never have been tried as an adult. The prosecution, however, maintains that justice was done and that Carly planned her actions and understood what she was doing. Carly's appeal could take years, and even if granted, it would mean another trial, not freedom. For now, she remains behind bars, just 15 years old, facing a lifetime shaped by what happened when she was 14.