A 14-year-old girl is currently battling for her dear life after a pair of 16-year-old schoolboys allegedly shot her in the head because her Snapchat messages were annoying.
Deserae Turner
A pair of schoolboys have allegedly shot a 14-year-old girl, Deserae Turner, in the head because her Snapchat messages were annoying.
The suspects, Colter Danny Peterson and Jayzen Decker, both 16, allegedly left the victim for dead in a ditch near Smithfield, Utah.
But the teenager survived and she was found by a search team who were looking for her after she was reported missing.
Peterson and Decker allegedly planned to slit her throat and let her bleed to death, according to charges filed against them.
But they eventually decided to shoot her in the head. Peterson, who was allegedly annoyed that Deserae kept messaging him on the Snapchat app, is alleged to have pulled the trigger, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
It is believed that one of the boys kept the shell casing from the incident, although it is unclear which one.
The pair will be tried as adults after Judge Angela Fonnesbeck at the First District Juvenile court in Salt Lake City ruled the pair had "planned and acted" out the shooting.
"She had no idea that was going to happen," Sheriff Deputy Brian Groves told a preliminary hearing. "(The teen) said it was the most merciful way."
After his arrest, Peterson said he had become annoyed with Turner for texting and contacting him through the messaging app Snapchat, the court heard.
Charged with attempted aggravated murder as adults, both Peterson and Decker could receive up to 15 years in jail.
Deserae does not remember the incident and has been left with paralysis and partial blindness.
At a news conference last month on the day she left a hospital, the teenager declined to talk about her injuries, but said she's happy to be alive and she was "tougher than a bullet."
Her mother said, before the shooting, that her summer goals would have been to "ride horses, practice karate. Now it's just to move her fingers."