Texas Teen Found Guilty of Stabbing to Death Friend During Argument Over Sleepover

A Texas teen has been found guilty of murdering her best friend, whom she stabbed to death during an argument over having a sleepover, officials said.

Nylah Lightfoot, 14, died on May 29 after being stabbed in the neck and the chest during a fight with a 13-year-old friend at the Sycamore Center Villas apartment complex, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Nylah was rushed to John Peter Smith Hospital, but she could not be saved.

The friend, who is not being identified because she is a minor, and Nylah had been in the middle of an argument that started the day before when they got into a physical fight, Nylah’s mother, Antoinette Carter, told the paper. Nylah apparently won the fight, but the friend then attacked her with a kitchen knife. 

“Now I’m daughterless,” Carter said. “And my heart feels like it’s just been ripped out and stomped on.”

The friend admitted during her testimony that she killed Nylah, who she said was “the best friend anyone could ever have.”

“She was like a sister to me,” the girl testified. 

A jury deliberated for a little more than an hour before finding the girl, who is now 14, guilty of murder, the paper wrote. She was found not guilty on aggravated assault charges, which stemmed from her allegedly swinging the knife at another friend who tried to stop her attack on Nylah. 

“There is no arguing what her intent was,” Tarrant County prosecutor Jim Hudson said. “When she came outside with the knife she was still in control. But not even her friend could stop her. She was only following through with what she had threatened twice.”

She could receive as little as probation or as much as 40 years in prison, with the possibility of transfer to an adult prison when she turns 19, prosecutors said. She is scheduled to be sentenced Friday. 

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