A 15-year-old girl has been sentenced to three to nine years in New York state prison after fatally stabbing 16-year-old honor roll student and cheerleader Kayla Green.
On Tuesday (January 24), Judge Susan Cacace handed down the sentence to the 15-year-old defendant who pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in December for the 2022 stabbing death of Green, per CBS News.
The fatal incident unfolded in April as Mount Vernon was celebrating a win in the state basketball championship. Green, the caption of the junior varsity cheerleading team at Mount Vernon High School, was attacked following a rally by the 15-year-old, who remains unidentified because she is a minor, with a knife she had previously shown off on social media.
After the stabbing, Green was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where she was pronounced dead.
According to prosecutors, the defendant also stabbed another teen who was reportedly Green's best friend.
The 15-year-old was also a cheerleader on an independent team that Green had previously been a member of, according to reports. Judge Cacase cited "a long-standing rivalry between two cheerleading squads in the city of Mount Vernon" as the motive for the stabbing.
Laverne Gordon, the victim's mother, spoke in court about the pain she will forever feel after losing her daughter, who was an "honor roll student and a talented dancer" who was "loved and admired by everyone in her community, school, and family," per a GoFundMe page set up by the family.
"Her killer gets to get out in three years to live her life, to have family, to have a career. My daughter will never see that," Gordon said.
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