Mundelein Murder: 14-Year-Old Girl Fatally Stabs Sister 40 Times
A 14-year-old girl stabbed her 11-year-old sister Tuesday morning, and police can hardly comprehend the reason behind the attack. Police say that the 14-year-old from Mundelein, Illinois, eventually told police that she brutally stabbed her younger half-sister because she believed the girl was ungrateful.
CNN stated that police found the 11-year-old girl unconscious in an upstairs bedroom of the Illinois suburb home on Tuesday morning. The 14-year-old reportedly made the call to police, and told them that an intruder was to blame for the bloody attack.
The original 911 call came in around 8:30 am Tuesday morning. The 14-year-old called and said that an intruder entered the home, attacked her younger half-sister, and then fled the scene. The call was very alarming and resulted in the lockdown of schools in the area. Mundelein Police Chief, Eric Guenther, told reporters that “the area-wide school lockdown lasted only 15 minutes.”
According to the Chicago Tribune, the older girl’s story broke down at the police station when detectives told the girl that “they had found strands of hair in her sister’s hand” that should lead to the killer.
“She indicated she was mad from the night before,” said assistant state’s sttorney Claudia Kasten, during a detention hearing for the 14-year-old, charged as a juvenile with first-degree murder. “She went downstairs to get a knife…With each stab wound, she said she (the younger sister) was not thankful for what she (the older girl) had done.”
The 14-year-old girl was then arrested and charged with first degree murder. She appeared in court today with her mother. The Lake County State Attorney’s Office said that the case is in juvenile court, but a decision could be made in the future to move the case to adult court.
The Chicago Tribune noted that the 14-year-old looked straight ahead without emotion during much of the hearing. The prosecutor told the court how she stabbed her 11-year-old sister multiple times which ultimately killed the young girl. Once the prosecutor started to detail the events of the murder, “her face became flushed and her eyes reddened.”
The community has been shocked by the news of this event. Neighbors said that the siblings had seemed close as they were often seen playing together and practicing cheerleading routines. “They would always be together,” Mary Ann Gryder, a neighbor told CNN affiliate, WLS. “The older one would be taking care of the younger one, and vice versa.”
Another neighbor, Verona Da Costa, said she was surprised when she was awakened about 10 am Tuesday by two detectives knocking on her door. “I didn’t even know something was going on,” she said. “If they hadn’t knocked on the door, I wouldn’t even (have) come outside until the mail came.”
[Image via Mundelein Police Department]