12-year-old Tulsa girl tells cops she fatally stabbed brother, 9: bodycam
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A hysterically crying 12-year-old girl told police officers she was entranced by “demonic s–t” after she stabbed her 9-year-old brother to death in their Oklahoma home, newly released bodycam footage shows.
“I’m so sorry, please!” the girl can be heard saying. “I really didn’t want things to happen like this … I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison.”
The girl — whose identity has not been released — admitted to officers that she used a knife to repeatedly stab the 9-year-old boy while he was sleeping in Tulsa’s St. Thomas Square neighborhood shortly before midnight in January.
The brother was rushed to the hospital but died at 2:30 a.m.
In the newly released footage, the girl was seen bounding out the door to meet police officers and immediately began profusely apologizing.
“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” she said through tears. “I don’t know what the f–k happened.”
Her mother, identified by Law and Crime as April Lyda, frantically follows and screams at her daughter as the young girl begs for forgiveness.
“There’s stab wounds in the chest. You could kill him!” Lyda tells her daughter. “You better pray to God he f–king lives.”
The girl tells her mother she loves her and repeatedly apologizes: “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened! It’s some demonic s–t!”
The 12-year-old immediately tells police she used a knife on her sleeping brother before running up the stairs to her bedroom and tossing the weapon out the window.
She then offers to take cops to the spot where the knife landed while her brother lies dying inside.
Cops inspected the girl, who had self-inflicted cuts across her arms, while paramedics rushed her brother, Zander, to the hospital.
He was taken into emergency surgery but succumbed to his three stab wounds just over two hours later.
According to Lyda, the girl had recently been put on medication before the attack, though the type wasn’t disclosed.
The grieving mother said her daughter never had behavioral issues until she was “put back on medication she was off for over a year,” but she never had any reason to believe the child was dangerous.
In one heartbreaking portion of her interview with cops, Lyda says that her now-deceased son “will never forgive” his sister.
“There will always be issues now between them,” the mother said.
At one point while in custody, the girl asks police: “Are the handcuffs necessary? I’m a good child.”
While sitting in the cruiser with officers, the young girl repeatedly expressed fears that she “ruined her life” and was going to spend the rest of her life in prison.
The Tulsa deputies tried to reassure the terrified middle schooler, who at one point prayed to God to “please help me.”
“I ruined my life,” the girl says in the car. “I ruined my whole future … It’s all my fault.”
“I just want to wake up from this nightmare.”
The highly edited police footage does not shine a light on a potential motive for the tragic fratricide.
The Tulsa District Attorney’s Office could not disclose any information about the case — including what charges are lodged against the 12-year-old girl — because of her age.
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