Missouri high school student Kaylee Gain and the fellow student involved in the attack that put Gain into a coma exchanged insulting text messages in the weeks before their March 8 fight, her father has revealed.
During the fight, Maurnice DeClue was shown on video pounding Gain’s head into the pavement. The violence of the attack has led to calls for DeClue, 15, to be charged as an adult. DeClue's family says she should be charged as a juvenile.
Clinton Gain, 41, said the insults flew back and forth for weeks, according to the New York Post.
On the day before Gain, 16, was pounded into a coma, she was involved in a fight with a friend of DeClue and was then suspended.
After a new round of insults between the two teens, they agreed to fight it out one-on-one, Clayton Gain said.
“They both agreed to the fight, to meet up and settle what was going on,” he said, adding that he did not want to reveal the content of the messages.
Jamie Gain, Clayton Gain’s wife and Kaylee’s stepmother, called the agreement a “terrible decision.”
Both Gains said that hostility went back and forth in equal doses and that DeClue was not bullied by Kaylee Gain.
“We hope the justice system sees that she went way overboard and nearly killed her,” Jamie Gain said, speaking about DeClue.
“And that it doesn’t matter who said what to who before it all happened,” she said.
Kaylee Gain, who suffered a brain bleed and was in a coma for two weeks, is still unable to walk unaided
“Some days are better than others,” Clayton Gain said. “Some days she will laugh a little bit, other days she’ll be quiet.”
“She’ll ask us why she is there in the hospital,” he said. “She doesn’t remember the fight or a few days before it. We told her what happened, but not too much.”
The teen is undergoing therapy for speech and movement.
“She speaks, but it doesn’t always make sense,” Jamie Gain said. “She sort of talks in a loop.”
However, she recognizes her father.
“She says, ‘Hi dad,’ when she sees me,” he said. “She knows it’s me.”
Last week, a judge ruled that a certification hearing will be held on May 10 to determine whether DeClue will be tried as an adult, according to USA Today.
Gain family lawyer Bryan Kaemmerer will argue the attacker should be tried as an adult.
He revealed: "Kaylee is still showing signs of significant cognitive impairment during the limited conversations that she is able to have, and she tends to reiterate the same short sentences over and over. Although Kaylee seems to realize she is in hospital, she does not understand why she is there," according to the Mirror.
"Given the particularly violent nature of this assault, and also taking into account the devastating injuries that Kaylee has incurred, it is difficult to imagine a more appropriate case for a juvenile to be certified as an adult," Kaemmerer said.
