Tel Aviv Israel: Sixth-grade girls charged with planning classmate’s murder

ArticleSource timesofisrael.com

A group of four 12-year-old girls were charged Sunday with conspiring to murder a classmate and then dispose of her body in revenge for the victim having cursed at a family member.

The girls, from the central region of the country, were charged at the Tel Aviv Youth Magistrate’s Court on Sunday. A fifth girl, who was also involved in the plan, was too young to face charges.

The girls, all in the sixth grade, said they intended to murder the girl because she cursed at one of their sisters.

The incident first came to light at the beginning of the month after several girls, including the intended victim, overheard the accused discussing details of the plot in the school bathroom. They alerted school authorities, and the principal called in police who discovered that the accused were armed with two knives that they had stolen from the teachers’ kitchenette.

During questioning, more details of the carefully planned scheme came to light, police said. The girls revealed that they had picked up tips on how to cover their tracks from a popular Israeli teen TV show called “Galis” set in a summer camp, according to the Walla news site.

The girls tried to obtain rubber gloves so as to not leave any fingerprints, and planned to wear old shoes so that their footprints would be harder to identify.

The plan involved leading the victim to a wooded area near the school and then, upon an agreed signal, two of the attackers were to repeatedly stab their target before changing their clothes and then making their escape. The charge sheet noted that the girls planned to dig a pit at the site to hide the body, Walla said.

The alleged attackers were held under house arrest until they were to brought before the court to face charges of conspiracy to murder, theft, and carrying a knife.