The 15-year-old girl accused of brutally beating Kaylee Gain and leaving her in a coma will not be charged as an adult, a judge ruled.
The decision followed testimony from a juvenile officer earlier this month, who claimed that Gain, 16, was a serial stalker who tormented her attacker, 15-year-old Maurnice Declue.
It was also alleged that Gain started the fight and threw the first punch, and was suspended for fighting with another girl just the day before.
On Wednesday, a St. Louis judge followed the officer’s recommendation and decided the case will remain in the juvenile court system.
Kaylee Gain, the 16-year-old seen being brutally beaten by a fellow student in a now-viral video filmed in March, was a serial bully who started the fight, a juvenile officer testified.
Footage of Gain, 16, being attacked by fellow student Maurnice Declue, 15, went viral, as Gain was seen being slammed into the concrete.
Gain made national headlines and saw outpouring of support after footage of his confrontation with Declue outside his school on March 8 went viral.
In the clip, Declue is seen slamming Gain’s head into the pavement, which left her in a coma with severe brain injuries, and she only started walking again two months later.
Declue was charged with first-degree assault and remained in the juvenile detention system while she waited to learn if she would be tried as an adult.
But on May 10, months after the video circulated widely on social media, a judge heard testimony from the juvenile officer that went against the initial narrative of the fight.
The officer subpoenaed both girls’ school records and said Gain was a serial bully at her school who picked on Declue before their fight and had been suspended the day before for another fight.
It was also recently revealed that Declue was an honor student who skipped seventh grade and was said to have been well-behaved while locked up in a juvenile detention center.
The defense also presented several witnesses, including both girls’ teachers, who revealed that Declue had never had behavioral problems before, as the officer suggested the serial offender had goaded her into fighting.
Spanish teacher Richard Bly praised Declue as a ‘model student’ who behaved well in her class, further revealing that her grades were so good that she had skipped seventh grade and was one of the youngest girls in the class. .
Kaylee was left in a coma after suffering serious head injuries during the fight and only started walking two months after the incident.
The Missouri teen’s family says she has been recovering well, but has no memory of the attack and has had to relearn how to speak.
Gain’s stepmother, who was allowed to remain anonymous, said during the same hearing: “A terrible decision made by two teenage girls to resolve their problems through violence caused one of them to go too far with her own hands and a cement road.”
She detailed how Gain had to relearn how to walk and talk while recovering from injuries, still experiences memory loss and was forced to wear a custom-made helmet to protect her brain.
Declue’s mother, Consuella Declue, added through tears: “My family, my church, we all pray for KG (Kaylee Gain).
‘I think (my daughter) was just defending herself, I don’t think she had any intention or thought this would happen.
“We are very sorry,” he concluded, adding that his daughter regretted the incident, but still acted in self-defense.
Gain’s family said she has “improved considerably” since the incident, but is still missing part of her skull and will need to undergo additional surgeries to reattach it.
Attorney Bryan Kaemmerer wrote in a statement: “While hospitalized, Kaylee underwent a craniectomy, which is a neurosurgical procedure that involved removing a portion of Kaylee’s skull to relieve pressure on her brain.
“The part of Kaylee’s skull that was removed has not yet been returned,” he added, weeks after the father of the St. Louis schoolgirl whose beating horrified much of the country revealed that she suffered a scarred childhood. for drugs.
Clinton Gain, 41, said The New York PostThe couple had accepted the fight, presenting text messages between the two as evidence.
Gain’s father, Clinton Gain, 41, (pictured together in their childhood) revealed that his childhood was marred by both parents’ drug addictions.
Clinton Gain said her daughter and her attacker agreed to meet before the fight so they could “resolve” a dispute that lasted weeks.
He admitted that a period of dysfunction and instability involving him and the girl’s mother predated the images, and offered an account that somewhat matched that of the juvenile officer on Friday.
“I was just a normal kid,” Clinton said, recalling how he and Kaylee’s mother, April Nordstrom, were addicts during their youth.
“We tried to give them some stability and structure,” she continued, before admitting that she did, indeed, suffer during those years.
Things got worse, he said, when the couple separated, when Kaylee was just five years old.
This left her and her little brother to live with Nordstrom, she said, while she was still knee-deep in addiction.
Finally, when Kaylee was 8, she said, the situation got so bad that both children were sent to live with their grandparents for about two years.
He said his childhood continued to be up and down as Kaylee longed for her mother, who he said had also kicked her drug addiction, but after Kaylee moved in with her, the teen’s behavior skyrocketed.
After the viral fight, she told the Post that both girls had been insulting each other for weeks before the fight, and “they both agreed to fight, get together and work out what was going on.”