HUMBOLDT, Tenn. — A young girl from Nashville is facing charges after West Tennessee investigators said she murdered her 8-year-old cousin.
According to WMC Action News 5, an NBC affiliate in Memphis, the victim was identified as 8-year-old Demeria Hollingsworth. Investigators in Humboldt said her 12-year-old cousin was visiting from Nashville on Monday when the preteen suffocated the sleeping girl with bedding from the bunk bed they shared.
Investigators found home security video that they said showed the 12-year-old killing her cousin before moving her to "make it appear that she was under the covers."
District Attorney General Frederick Agee, who oversees the 28th Judicial District, called the crime "unimaginable."
"No words can describe it," he said, adding the video showed the younger girl struggling to survive the attack.
Agee said police are struggling to figure out what motivated the killing.
“We’d ask your viewers to pray for the family and pray for our officers,” Agee said. “This is intense. It’s just not something that happens here.”
The DA said he asked the courts to charge the preteen as an adult. She is charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence and is being held in a juvenile detention facility in Rutherford County.