Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - DEAD IN WALMART: Grandmother of teen girl stabbed dead in aisle speaks to Nancy

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Melanie Lyons' grandmother says the four girls charged in her granddaughter's stabbing were looking to fight the 15-year-old's sister. The four girls (a 12-year-old, two 13-year-olds, and a 14-year old) have been arrested. One of the girls is charged with second-degree murder and the other three are charged with principal to second-degree murder.Footage of the stabbing, which was posted on Facebook and Instagram live, shows one girl armed with what appeared to be a knife as the victim approaches and lunges at her. Video shows the group of girls fleeing the store in a getaway car as one of them screams, “Just stabbed somebody at Walmart.” Joining Nancy Grace today: Yolanda Lemonia - Grandmother of Victim Wendy Patrick - California prosecutor, author “Red Flags” www.wendypatrickphd.com 'Today with Dr. Wendy' on KCBQ in San Diego Dr. Jenn Mann - Marriage and Family Therapist, Host 'Couples Therapy' on VH1, "The Dr. Jenn Show” on Sirius XM, Author: "The Relationship Fix."  Robert Crispin - Private Investigator “Crispin Special Investigations” www.crispinsinvestigations.com Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner State of Florida www.pathcaremed.com Phil Chalmers - True crime writer, Counter Homicide Trainer, Criminal Profiler, Author: “Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer” and “The Teen Killer Whisperer.”  Stephanie Pagones - Digital Reporter, FOX Business & Fox News, @steph_pagones, Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. In about two years, my little babies, as I call them, are going to be 15. And I couldn't help but think about that. When I first read about the case of Melanie Lyons, she had just turned 15, it was her birthday. She celebrated at the movies and then she was stabbed dead. Just let that soak in just for a moment. She celebrated at the movie theater with her friends

and then she was stabbed dead. Sometimes facts of cases are so difficult. It's hard to even say them out loud. And it was so hard for me the first year or so that I began trying felonies. You know, up to then I had been drawing up indictments over in GV Justice, looking at appeals, deadbeat dads. When you stand up in front of a jury and have to explain horrible details of horrible cases, it hurts. And you know that sitting right behind you on row one is the victim's family. And that's what we have today. Because with me is a very, very special guest.

Melanie Lyons' grandmother, Miss Yolanda LaMonia. With me, an all-star panel, but first, I want you to take a listen to this. Yeah, we're about to come out as soon as my sister's come. God, I'm fucking tired of this. How you gonna fucking come through? Get in! Get in! Take those assholes! Oh, Lord Jesus Christ.

She's leaking, y'all. Oh, my God. He just heard not just natural sound, not sound of what happened in the local Walmart. That was actually posted on Facebook Live as it was happening. So not only did these perps, there's really no other word for them, stab the little girl in Walmart. They posted it. And the way they talked about her, we just stabbed that, and I'm just going to say it

like I would have to tell a jury. We just stabbed that bitch in her heart. We don't give a f***. A little 15-year-old girl with me, an all-star panel, Stephanie Pagonis, reporter, Fox Business and Fox News. Phil Chalmers, true crime writer, counter homicide trainer, author of Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer and the Teen Killer Whisperer. Dr. Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the state of Florida at PathCareMed.com. Robert Crispin, private eye, longtime in law enforcement, now runs CrispinInvestigations.com.

Dr. Jen, host of Couples Therapy VH1, The Dr. Jen Show, Sirius XM, and author of The Relationship Fix on Amazon. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags, and host of Today with Dr. Wendy on KCBQ. You can find her at WendyPatrickPhD.com. But first, I want to go to our very special guest, and that is the grandmother of Melanie Lyons, just 15 years old. Ms. Yolanda Lamonia. Ma'am, thank you for being with us. My pleasure. ma'am thank you for being with us my pleasure Miss Lamonia I'm just imagining you

on the front row behind me as I'm giving an opening statement to a jury and it hurts me that you heard those girls running out of Walmart talking that way about your granddaughter. And I felt much the same way when I went to the murder trial when my fiance was murdered. And I saw the way that people were handling his bloody clothes.

They meant so much to me and they meant so little to them. When you hear that audio footage, what, Ms. Lamonia, what goes through your mind? Hurt, pain, unimaginable pain. It hurt. This is my first time hearing it. It was a betrayal. I can't even explain. It also hurts me, Ms. Yolanda, because they don't seem to have any remorse.

They're not upset at all. They're almost, well, not almost, they're gleeful. A bunch of pain. Tell me something. I want to hear about Melanie in life. Tell me about her as a girl, because she just, I know she loved riding horses.

I know she loved music. I know a lot about her, but I want to know more. Melanie, her death, of course, was January 27, 06. Melanie is the second daughter of my son, Dedrick Lyons. Melanie lived in Lake Charles, but my son and her mother had joint custody. Of course, my son being disabled, a disabled veteran, PTSD, he lived with me.

And so Melanie spent lots of time here in what we call the country the country is a little area outside the city down the gravel road where you can find horses walking in the front yard you have chickens you have goats you have ducks and i mean everything just stays together like one little family well this is what Melanie enjoyment was. She would get up in the morning, of course, and her thing was to jump on, get on a pair of boots. It don't matter if it was my cowboy boots, her grandfather's cowboy boots, any boots she was available. She gets on a ranger with a little utility vehicle or the four-wheeler. She'd go in the back and she'd feed the animals. It was her day all day. She'd ride back and forth on theeler she'd go in the back and she'd feed the animals. It was her day all day she riding back and forth on the range and outside in the pasture with the animals and this was Melanie routine every day when she was here in the country.

Of course, Melanie was kind of quiet on the quiet side, a little reserved, very compassionate. She didn't talk very much, but she was able to get our point across. Melanie, she was very attached to her grandmother, and it's like she wanted to be a grandmother. It's like she'd seen herself in me, and I'd also seen myself in her. She wouldn't mingle much. She came to live with me, went to school in Welch, Louisiana. When she reached the age of, when she was in sixth grade,

Melanie enjoyed school here. She enjoyed riding the bus because she used to ride in the bus, drop off on the gravel road. She would get off and immediately come in the house and take everything, all school clothes, all change out and get on her car by her belt buckle. I mean, she was on top of the world. This was her. One day, two weeks after she started schooling, well, she came home. She had a little teddy bear in her hand. She had a little note in her hand.

And I come in. She said, Mama, this is for you. I said, what do you mean this is for me? I said, what is it? She said, here. And I received the teddy bear for her, and I opened the little note. My dad says, dear Melanie, I love you. Do you love me?

This is my number. Call me after homework. And I said, well, Melanie, come back.. Do you love me? This is my number. Call me after homework. And I said, well, Melanie, come back. This is LaVoy, right? She said, I don't want my LaVoy. And so I took it and I put it on the shelf in the living room. And I left it there just to see if Charlie Stewart, she was going to go back and read it or go back and take it and call the number. It sit there. And it sit there for months until one of my little grandsons came, and he decided he wanted to take the head off, whatever. He's playing with it.

He wanted to open it and put candy in it. But Melanie, I've never heard her raise her voice. Even when I correct on things, Melanie never sass it back. She never had anything to say. And when she did something wrong and I would raise my voice she would never cry it was always a little tear and in return she would come and she would either give me a little piece of candy or give me a glass of water or fix me some my favorite kool-aid or something and bring it to me

because she realized that she hurt my more feelings. Melanie um of course she got we went on through the years she She ended up going back home. Her mom wanted her to come stay. And I asked her a year after she stayed with her mom, can she come back? The little boy came. When he was the oldest son, he wanted to come back and stay in the country. And I said, well, Melanie, what do you want to do? I said, Melanie, do you want to do I said Melanie do you want to come back and stay she said but I do um I said well Melanie you can play sports and then we got sports and things to go on she said well I just wanted me to be out there and just be out in the country she said I want to I know how to drive and then because we have the little range is more like a little car she said I just want to be out there in the country and I just want to drive and just be out

here I said well Melanie got little things for little girls to do. They have little dances. They have little things we can go to. Of course, she would go to the movies, but her grandfather and I would take them to the movies and we would bring them to the movies and we would go sit way in the top because in the movies, they kick in the back of the chair with no peace with them. The kids are going to be kids. But Melanie never got into any. She went to school.

She never got into anything. Never had to be sent to the office or no notes from home, like most kids or anything. She was just a little quiet, reserved little Melanie. Loving little Melanie. Love you, LaMelanie. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, with me is our very special guest. It is Yolanda LaMonia. Miss LaMonia is Melanie Lyon's grandma. And when you talked about the gravel road,

it reminded me of the dirt road, the red dirt road I grew up on. And the way you're describing Melanie, you know, with horses and chickens, I don't even think anything about seeing a chicken in somebody's yard. And, I mean, that's just the way we grew up and now you know if city residents saw a chicken in somebody's yard they'd do a backflip you know they just they just don't get it right and the way you're describing Melanie just reminds me so much of Lucy, my little girl. She brought home a note from some little boy, said the same thing. I love you. Do you love me?

Yes, no. She folded it up and put it away, and she's never looked at it again. It just reminded me so much of her. And my grandmother, who I also called mama helped raise us my grandmother Lucy that I'm named my daughter after and so the things you're telling me just sound like a wonderful childhood just idyllic and it just doesn't jive, Miss Lamonia, with what happened to her. I just, who were these horrible girls that chased her? I don't mean their names.

I know their names. I'm not going to say them because they're juveniles. But who were they to Melanie? Were they in the same class, the same school? Why did they hate Melanie? Were they in the same class, the same school? Why did they hate Melanie? I have no answers for that. I know Melanie, doing her, Melanie, I don't, from my understanding, Melanie didn't really know. They was more or less on friends with Melanie's little sister.

And in the past, Melanie, little sister, and one of the girls, I'm going to call her the perpetrator, had an altercation. It wasn't physical. But Melanie's mom went to go, like a mother, and discuss the altercation with the other mom. Mm-hmm. Well, the little perpetrator's mom. You know that's true. Okay. The perpetrator's mom decides she wants to get physical.

So Melanie's mom took Melanie's little sister, and they went on back home, and they tried to resolve it. See, they couldn't resolve it. So this had been an ongoing dispute. But with the hurricane and the pandemic and all coming through, I kind of lost. I'm with Melanie. She wasn't coming as much because my husband and all and then social distances, this pandemic had, everything was in an uproar. So Melanie was there. So it was only communicating through phone and text.

Well, when the hurricane came to Louisiana and then the second hurricane, Melanie and her family become displaced. So Melanie went to New Orleans and from New Orleans, they end up in Dallas. So when I heard back from Melanie, she was in Dallas. And so being that we wasn't communicating only through phone and text, Melanie called me on her birthday. And she was like, my mom, what are you doing? I said, where you been? She said, it's my birthday. And I was like, my mom, what are you doing? I said, where you been?

She said, it's my birthday. And I was like, oh, well, Melanie, I know it's your birthday. Really?

Who does that? And she started laughing. And, and I was like, she said, I said, what are you going to do? She was like,

I'm going to the movies. I said, well, Melanie, who are going to the movies? She said, all of us. And I was like,

but you better be careful because they got the pandemic out there to make sure y'all wear your mask because if their kids are spread in the bars. And she just laughed. And she's like, well, what's the point? I said, he's right here. She said, tell him I love you, mama. I love you too.

And she blows a little kiss. And she hung up. And my husband and I, we continued out doing what we had to do. We had to go make sure we go. We shouldn't do other things. We had some heart speed. And I got a call back about an hour or or two later and it was from Melanie's mom and she was like Miss Elena because he called me Miss Elena. Melanie just got stabbed at Walmart. Melanie got stabbed

at Walmart. I think I said when Melanie got stabbed at Walmart Melanie was at the movies. She said when she got stabbed at Walmart and they're bringing her to the hospital. So I hung up the phone. I started putting my clothes on and everything, and I told my husband. I was like, well, Melanie got stabbed. I don't know how serious it is, but we need to go to the hospital. So by the time I got out, I said, let me call her back, the mom back. So I called the mom back, and I was like, well, anything, how is she?

She said, like, it's serious. They told me they don't want them in the back. They just told me that they're working on it. I kept working on it. I looked at my husband and immediately I turned the television on. I had a newsflash, homicide at Highway 14 in Lake Charles, Walmart. I looked at my husband, I was like, homicide? I called Melanie's mom's back, and she said, yes, she's gone. They killed my baby on her birthday. I just went to pieces. It's just unbelievable because I just spoke with Melanie. The happen was she went to the movies.

She got to the movies. She got to the movies. The little sister, they paid for the movies. They paid their fee for the movies. They seen that a mob of girls was there, which Melanie really didn't know the girls. Mob was there. They started, let's run. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go where they got light at. So when they come outside, they went to, let's go to Walmart. So they ran to Walmart. So, of course, when they got in Walmart, Melanie went on. She was in Walmart with all the birthday fees and her movie fees and her birthday money. She proceeded to buy candy and buy things in the Walmart. I don't know what transpired after that. I don't know.

I didn't see any of the videos. I refused to see any of them. My daughter and Melanie's aunt and uncles was playing a video in the house where I could hear them. The only thing that I heard on the video was Melanie screaming. She said, I'm bleeding. I did hear that part. And that was all I heard.

I didn't see anything or anything. I don't understand. I couldn't figure out where was everybody in Walmart? Where was the shoppers? Where was the shoppers? Where was the security? Then I started hearing bits and pieces of the story like the little girls in Walmart.

They charge their cell phones. They communicate on the cell phones like walkie-talkies. And they're selling what I and retrieve the knife. And she feels the need to, she needed to end Melody's life. And two days later,

after this, three days later, my daughter went over to Melody's mom, brought things over to try to comfort her. And the little sister said, Hey, Brittany, I need to talk to you. She told Brittany, she said, Hey, Brittany, the girls didn't come to fight Melanie. They came to fight me.

Melanie didn't know. So you're telling me these girls, 12, 13, and 14 when the mother went to the accuser's house to try to resolve the matter, Melody at that time was here in, the Walmart attack, what has been going through your mind? I'm just trying to process it. I'm trying to figure out how can a 13 year old have so much anger, so much anger to feel the need to use a knife to end someone else's life. As I was getting pieces, they was telling me this video on the language they was using. and Melanie, I've never heard Melanie use that type of language at all. Like I said, she rarely spoke.

And for them to approach Melanie with that type of language, I mean, Melanie was scared. And she knew, being that she ran for Walmart at that time, they didn't come to shake her hand or hug her. They was coming with something else on their mind, and she had to prepare herself. Do you feel that Melanie has tried to contact you or give you peace after her death? It's fine. Peace. I do have peace with it. I lost a daughter at eight years old. Her name

is Delana Nicole Lyons. Melanie's name is Melanie Delana Lyons. And I feel like Melanie was here. God gave her to me for a while. I love her, but he loved her better. He loved her most. And I feel like she's in a better place and a better body, and I have confidence in her because she left me with fond memories. I'd be able to go on. What do you think, Ms. Lamonia,

should happen to these girls they're ages 12 13 13 and 14. i feel as though i mean i know with the juvenile system it's it's to the age of 21 and all of them in common together would only be a matter of seven years. And even with that, they have, like, programs in place where they can go through the programs and get out on good behavior, per se. I feel like the perpetrator should spend every day of her juvenile sentence in the juvenile detention facility by herself with the Bible and a picture of Melanie. Amen to that, Ms. Lamonia. What is your message, Ms. Lamonia, to other parents? To me, I'm a parent of two 13-year-old children.

I message not only to the parents, but to the community, that I stand firm as well as open-minded to any steps in the community as a whole to take back our youth. It's time to go in, open those cell phones, look in those closets, pull up those mattresses, look in the shoeboxes. It's time to get involved and take back our kids and our youth.

I would hate to see another Melanie. The meteor is raising the kids. Time to take them back. Ms. Lamonia, please know that ever since I heard about Melanie Delaina, I heard about you. You've been mentioned every time she's mentioned, and your connection to her is so strong. So many people, including myself and my family,

have been praying about you and about Melanie. Just know that for what bit of encouragement it is. Deep in prayer for her family, including you. Thank you. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were talking about the death of just a beautiful young girl. Her name, Melanie Delaney Lyons. As you heard, raised up in the country, and as soon as she was in big city living, everything went sideways in the worst way take a listen to this If she killed, then she killed. Nobody give a **** if she killed, then she killed that bitch. Oh, **** it, ho.

She dead now. Let me tell y'all. We ain't mean to say nothing. We said it. But, but, yeah, we sorry. We sorry for saying F that, girl. Y'all know I ain't mean to say that. Y'all know when I get in my heart, I just start going off.

Zay, shut up. But I'm just saying sorry. I'm sorry, I understand. Yeah, we saw women say all that. We apologize to y'all. I told them. We're sorry, but then they go on to say, just stab somebody at Walmart. We just add that B-I-T-C-H in her heart, and we don't give an F.

It goes on and on and on. And what you're hearing is later postings after the stabbing, photos, video continuing to be posted. Straight out to Stephanie Pagonis, digital reporter, Fox Business and Fox News. Stephanie, first of all to you and the rest of the panel, I want to thank you for being with us and waiting until I finish speaking

with the grandma in Salamonia because I didn't want her to hear everything that we were going to talk about. And it would make her hurt even more. So thank you for being so gracious, Stephanie, and to the rest of you. Stephanie, what's happening to the four girls? And if you could tell us what you know went down that night. Absolutely.

So like you said, and like Miss Lamonia said, there was a fight at a movie theater. It seemed to continue to the Lake Charles Walmart. As you can hear in that awful, heartbreaking video, a fight breaks out. These four girls,

not all of them are even teenagers. One is a preteen, 12 years old. They allegedly begin to attack this 15-year-old victim, Melanie, with, might I add, a weapon that appears to have been stolen from the Walmart, according to police. And then they seem to go on whether they are still in custody. They also will not share with me whether any of these girls have a criminal history. hours of this stabbing in the Walmart, police had already identified at least one of the suspects, had her name, had her photograph, and they so far have really attributed that to the social media activity. You know, if they were adults, Wendy Patrick, I would say what a bunch of idgits for posting their crimes online, but these are not adults. I know for a fact the 13, the two 13-year-olds, one of them

charged with the actual murder, wielding the knife, and the 14-year-old can be tried as adults. And I'm not sure in that jurisdiction whether the 12-year-old cannot be tried as an adult. What that would mean in most jurisdictions is that they would be tried for murder as a group, all for one and one for all. They would serve till age 18 to 21 in juvie jail. Then they'd be transferred to adult jail. What do you think is going to happen, Wendy Patrick? Yeah, you know, you queued it up to exactly right. Those are the issues that a court's going to look at. With respect to what's going to happen to these kids, there will be much made of the reality that they actually, as Ms. Lamonia said, they appear to be raised by social media. And one wonders whether that desensitization will be raised by the defense as some sort of a mitigant to their behavior. On the other hand, you and I as prosecutors could see how the bragging afterwards

being a sign of the times might exactly be the type of aggravant that might lead them to argue in court that these girls knew exactly what they were doing and therefore should be charged as adults if, as you say, that's permissible in the jurisdiction. So I think it cuts both ways that horrific video that they made afterwards bragging about the crime. Joining me, Dr. Tim Gallagher, medical examiner of the state of Florida at PathCareMed.com. Dr. Gallagher, as I recall, the little girl was stabbed in the upper torso, possibly the neck. Would she have even been alive at the time she got to the hospital or would

this have been a sudden death well it's certainly difficult to say you know without knowing it may have actually been closer to the heart jackie's telling me right yes go ahead right it's uh actually without uh exact details on where she was stabbed and what organs were injured is difficult to say if she was stabbed in in her lung for instance that that lung cavity would begin to fill up with blood but she would have the use of her other lung which would prolong her life so if she was just stabbed in the lung then yes it would be very reasonable to expect that she was alive when she went to the hospital. If she was stabbed directly in the heart, no. Chances are she would have desanguinated or bled out probably within 30 seconds or certainly less than a minute.

But one point that I do want to make while we know, while we do have the listeners that, you know, again, that we, we criticize Walmart and Target, you know, for coming into our neighborhoods and kind of taking over. But a lot of crimes have been solved by the video surveillance cameras that they have. And we see that in our office quite often that suspects are caught quite readily, quite frequently and quite fast because of the video surveillance cameras that these superstores use. And we have access to that. And then we can actually corroborate the injuries, who did what at the time of autopsy. So I just want to comment on their good, high-quality surveillance systems that they use in capturing these suspects. I've said a million times, Dr. Gallagher,

that NASA could take hints from Target and Walmart regarding their video. You're absolutely correct, and that was the case here as well. And also thanks to them posting it online. Dr. Jen Mann, you can find her not only on Sirius XM, she's also the author of Relationship Fix on Amazon. Dr. Jen, I'm just thinking about this girl who was really not even a part of this fight. They were coming after the little sister, according to the grandmother. And what she went through, she's unarmed in a Walmart. There's nobody around to help. And she's lying there on the floor, attacked by this girl gang, 12, 13, 13, and 14 years old. old and they sound wild they just sound wild almost gleeful i think one of the things that stands out to me and and you know this this poor girl's grandmother you know you can just hear the sorrow and the heartbreak in her voice and she said you know where did the anger come

from with these girls to me as a therapist it's know, where did the anger come from with these girls? To me as a therapist, it's not just where did the anger come from, but where did the lack of a conscience come from? And typically that comes from one of two places. It's either nature or nurture. You know, there are these rare cases where someone is just born without a conscience. But that's highly, highly unusual. And that this group of girls all found each other, what it makes me wonder is what in the world was going on at home? Because we are typically born with empathy. We are born with an understanding of when we inflict pain, what that pain feels like for another person. But what stands out to me as a therapist is this group of girls,

these young girls, have no conscience, have no empathy, and that is quite shocking. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Phil Chalmers, true crime writer, counter homicide trainer, criminal profiler, and author of Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer and the Teen Killer Whisperer on Amazon. Phil, thank you for being with us. I want to hear your thoughts on this. Sure. Wow. First of all, it's sad, and I appreciate having the victim's family on because that keeps us centered on why we all do what we do.

This is not just about cases and crimes. It's about hurting families, and that's why I do what I do. My top two causes of why kids kill doing you know, doing this for 35 years is there's two things, no father, the fatherless home and an unstable home. And as the last guest just said, I think there's got to be something at home. And that's what the sheriff said in this press conference that this starts at home. And we all as a community, they've had like multiple teen murders there in the last few months in that county. And it starts at home.

So that's what we're doing, trying to do this work to try to get parents to get more involved. Mr. Solomon, of course people learn behavior at home. But I guess the divorce stats are over 50% of American marriages end in divorce. So the number of abused children has skyrocketed. But those children are not committing teen murders. These are. So I think you can blame mommy and daddy just so far. I mean, the first thing out of your mouth, Chalmers, is home.

Yeah, of course, behavior is learned at home. But not stabbing somebody dead in the aisle of the Walmart. You don't learn that at home. It is. It's shocking. And, you know, it takes multiple causes contribute to this. But it does start at home. And, you know, a kid raised in a good home usually doesn't end up in this situation. But you're right. I mean, I was raised in an abusive home as well, and I turned out to be a law abiding citizen.

So that happens a lot. But if you have enough of these contributing factors, you can head down this way. And this is a very violent generation, five teen murders a day, every day in this country. And, you know, we have to do a better job at trying to prevent these crimes. To Robert Crispin, Private Eye, former law enforcement, you can find him at CrispinsInvestigations.com. Robert, you were a law enforcement before you became a PI. And during your time as law enforcement, you saw a lot of juvenile crime. Sometimes I have argued to juries that juvenile felons are even worse than adult felons because they haven't even formed a conscience yet. They don't completely grasp how awful what they're doing is. Like an adult would have some awareness that they could get the death penalty or go to jail for the rest of their life.

They're taking another human's life away. They're causing intense pain and a wake of suffering. An adult may have an inkling of all that at the time of a murder or before a murder but juveniles they're invincible they don't get it so sometimes i think that makes them even more dangerous it does and some of the issues is in some of these is video games believe it or not these video games that these juveniles are playing glorify killing, glorify shooting people in the head. Any type of video games that are out there, not up to speed on a whole bunch of them, but there's a lot of video games out there that parents don't even want their kids playing because they glorify homicide.

They glorify beating people up. These kids don't have a perception of what reality is. And they don't realize that, you know, walking in and stabbing someone in the heart is putting them in prison. They don't realize that it's ending their life and they don't realize the traumatic, you know, things that are happening to their families. It's over. And it's all because they think it's reality because they see it on video games. They see it with all their friends talking about it, not realizing what the ramifications are of all this.

Do you agree with that, Phil Chalmers? Oh, definitely do. It's video games, but it's the entire, I was telling you that not too long ago, Nancy, that it's the violent culture these kids live in, the videos that they watch nonstop on YouTube of people being assaulted and beaten and leaking as you've heard it's the video games it's the violent music videos listen we all grew up in a light and a kinder gentler time the rape torture sodomy and murder that these kids grow up in is unheard of does it affect all kids no does it affect some kids? Absolutely. To Stephanie Pagonis, digital reporter, Fox Business and Fox News.

Stephanie, again, thank you for being with us. What's going to happen to the perps? So that's a good question. And it really depends on how the court system chooses to go forward with these young women, especially considering their age, whether they're tried in adult court as adults or as juveniles, it will make a world of difference in this case. I believe Stephanie Pagona said if they're tried as juveniles, I mean, the max, the very max they could get would be till they're 21. And of course, that would be seven years for the 13-year-old, six years for the 14-year-old, no, eight years, then seven years, and then for one, nine years. I doubt they would even do that long. Another thing to consider here, and a question that I don't yet have the answer to, but you've got to wonder, is the criminal history that any of these young girls have. The fact that, and I don't have an answer to this, but the fact that the

police department knew one of these teenagers' names before they even arrested her makes you wonder whether she did have a history. And if so, that could contribute to any sort of discipline going forward. Well, I can't guarantee you, Stephanie Paganis, your instinct is correct. There is no way in H-E-double-L that this is the very first brush with the law for at least one of these girls. You don't just go from reading a book in the library to stealing a knife off a display at Walmart and stabbing somebody dead. You don't go zero to 110 MPH just like that. I think you're right. Who did I hear jumping in? Was it Wendy or Dr. Jen?

It was Wendy. Go ahead. You know, Nancy, this case is going to come down to a battle of the experts. You are going to have a psychologist like some of our illustrious guests here that are going to be able to explain, well, this is why these girls didn't appreciate the nature and the wrongfulness of their actions. And then the prosecution is going to bring their own psychologist or psychiatrist in to talk about brain development and how that would have made them liable, even though, even given their tender young ages. So much of what we've discussed, the video games, the culture, the reality that, as you say, you don't go from zero to 80 in a minute. All of those types of things are going to be really put through a lens of brain development for a jury in order to decide and to really understand how in the world does a 12, a 13 and a 14 year old resort to this type of violence.

We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.