The mom of the 13-year-old girl accused of stabbing 15-year-old De’Kayla Dansberry to death told her daughter to retrieve the murder weapon — a switchblade knife — from her purse before the slaying, Cook County prosecutors said Wednesday
Tamika Gayden should have been protecting both girls, a visibly disturbed Judge James Brown said before ordering the single mother of five held without bail for murder and contributing to the criminal delinquency of a minor.
“We have another promising young life snuffed out in the city of Chicago,” Brown said, adding that there have been 235 murders in the last 139 days.
“To me, that’s unprecedented insanity,” the judge said of the violence.
“Here we have a situation where we have two little girls having a dispute. One is given a knife by her mother and basically encouraged to kill another little girl.”
Brown continued calling the situation surrounding De’Kayla’s murder “despicable and unconscionable.”
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Shortly after the bond hearing, a fight between De’Kayla’s relatives and Gayden’s family broke out outside the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
No one was arrested but several sheriff’s deputies ran across the street to quell the scuffle in which several men took off their shirts.
Gayden, 35, and her daughter turned themselves into authorities on Tuesday.
Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Whang said the girl and others were on her third-floor balcony in the 6400 block of South King Drive Saturday night when they started arguing with De’Kayla and her friends, who were on their way to a nearby store.
Before Gayden’s daughter left the apartment to confront her rivals, Gayden allegedly told the girl to get the switchblade knife from her purse.
Gayden looked at the knife and told the girl to use it in case a fight broke out, Whang said.
The girl then put the knife in her pocket and went outside the Parkway Gardens housing complex, authorities said.
Soon De’Kayla was fist fighting with some people from the other group. That’s when Gayden’s daughter, who previously was just watching the rumble, stabbed De’Kayla once in the chest, Whang said.
The young assailant, wearing a pink hoodie, ran back inside her apartment and cleaned the knife, Whang said.
Another person wrapped the weapon in tape.
The knife was later recovered by police, Whang said.
Surveillance footage captured the 13-year-old stab De’Kayla and holding the knife, Whang said.
On Tuesday, when the girl appeared in Juvenile Court, her attorney said she had “no publishable background” and was “absolutely terrified” of the situation she was in.
Gayden went to Dunbar Vocational High School but had to drop out her junior year when she became pregnant, Assistant Public Defender Kathryn Lisco said.
She has a supporting father, but he lives in California and is suffering from dementia, Lisco told the judge.
