A 13-year-old girl in Taylor, Mich., who is facing murder charges for allegedly stabbing her 7-year-old sister to death while babysitting is accused by the investigating detective of appearing to show “no emotion” after the violence.
On Saturday, Sept. 28, at around 1 p.m., Taylor Police Department officers responded to reports of a possible stabbing at a residence. The young victim was transported to a local hospital but later died from her injuries.
Detective Zachary DiGiacomo alleges to PEOPLE the stabbing took place after an argument about a note that the 7-year-old had left in the bathroom to “generally tell people to flush the toilet.”
DiGiacomo alleges that the 13-year-old suspect took the note, and the 7-year-old “knocked over the trash can in the kitchen and trash got everywhere” while trying to get the note back.
The 13-year-old eventually went to her bedroom and came down to stab her sister “about 30 minutes later” in the bathroom with a “butcher-style knife,” the detective alleges.
According to DiGiacomo, the older sister then went to get a larger knife and then stabbed her sister some more. In total, the victim was stabbed more than 10 times, according to DiGiacomo.
While speaking to police afterward, the 13-year-old allegedly appeared to show “no emotion,” DiGiacomo claims.
“Myself and another detective, we did do an interview with the 13-year-old,” he says, alleging that the teen appeared “emotionless. Showed no emotion at all during it.”
“She didn’t deny anything, she went into detail about the incident, what she did,” he says.
“She went into great detail about everything that happened,” DiGiacomo claims, speculating that the suspect appeared “perfectly fine” with what police think she did.
“Almost like things were normal,” DiGiacomo says.
DiGiacomo said the girls’ parents were “devastated” and had “no idea” the 13-year-old was allegedly capable of doing something like that.
“No arguments besides normal sibling arguments,” the detective says of what home life was like for the teenager, insisting she’d done nothing to lead the parents “to believe that something like this would happen.”
The 13-year-old, who allegedly called 911 after the stabbing, is now facing charges of first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder, and first-degree child abuse, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release obtained .
Prosecutor Kym Worthy said, per the release, “We considered adult designating her which is not the same thing as trying her as an adult. It gives the judge the option of sentencing the respondent as a juvenile, or as an adult, or giving a blended juvenile sentence with an option of imposing an adult sentence if the juvenile is not rehabilitated.”
“Our other option was to keep her in the juvenile system. We opted to do just that. Given her young age, the State would have seven years to diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate her until her mandatory release at age 21. Hopefully then she would not be a danger to others. While this is a difficult decision given these facts, it is the right thing to do in this case,” Worthy added.
