SHELBYVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Authorities have charged two teenagers with attempted murder and conspiracy for allegedly plotting to stage a shooting at a central Indiana school that one of the teens attended.
Alexis Pickett, a student Morristown High School in Shelbyville, Indiana, and Melanie Little of Corinth, Mississippi, both 17, are charged as adults in an alleged crime planned over social media and involving Pickett sending video of the school’s layout, according to law enforcement documents.
The investigation began in December when Pickett’s mother, Rhonda Nicholson, approached sheriff’s police with concerns that Pickett showed behaviors indicating she intended to harm others or herself, including online conversations obsessing over past school shooters.
Pickett, who lives in Arlington, was charged in January. Little was charged this week.
“The mother saved a bunch of lives,” Shelby County Prosecutor Brad Landwerlen said. “What I say to parents is, ‘It’s OK to check your child’s activities, see the conversations they’re having.’”
Shelbyville is 32 miles (51.5 kilometers) southeast of Indianapolis.
A probable cause affidavit lays out detailed conversations Pickett and Little had, mostly on the communication app Discord. Pickett acknowledged to investigators that she had considered suicide for a long time and has a desire to hurt others. Her devices had photos of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. For Halloween, she dressed as a school shooter from a movie.
A senior, Pickett suggested a mass shooting around graduation and planned on May 25, even though graduation is two days earlier. Little intended to tell her parents that Pickett was a friend from grade school who had moved away and she wanted to attend her friend’s Indiana commencement.
She sent Little a video of the school’s layout, its hallways and dead ends. Pickett owns a muzzleloader firearm, according to the affidavit, and showed Little photos of targets she said she had hit using a shotgun and a .357 revolver. The two discussed without resolution how to obtain other guns.
Both women face a single count of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, each of which carries a sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison, Landwerlen said. Pickett also is charged with one count of intimidation.
Pickett is being held in jail on $1 million cash bond. Her trial is set to start April 20, Landwerlen said. A message seeking comment was left with the public defender who is representing her.
Little is in jail in Mississippi. Indiana officials have begun the extradition process after Little refused to waive it. A message was left with a Corinth, Mississippi, attorney who is associated with Little’s family.
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