Predatory Girls

Source: Art by K. Ramsland

Mashenka Reid, 17, called 911 in February to tell a dispatcher in Reno, Nevada, that she’d just killed her father and four-year-old special needs brother. She “couldn’t resist,” she said. She “just had to kill somebody.” The call was real. Both were dead from gunshot wounds in their home. Her two-year-old sister was locked in a bedroom, safe. Reid had sent her father on a grocery errand to gain time to learn how to use his gun. When he came home, she shot him three times.

In an interview on February 10, Reid said she’d been depressed over her mother leaving home in December. She’d been tasked with care of her younger siblings. She’d grown angry. At that point, she’d begun to fantasize about murder and rape. The image of blood aroused her. She watched YouTube videos of people inflicting pain on themselves. This inspired her to imagine how she would torture those people, as well as harm her family. No one noticed her growing desire to inflict harm.

Around the same time, Scarlet Blake, accused of murdering Jorge Carreno, was on trial at the Oxford Crown Court in England. She’d also talked about killing people and claimed she needed blood. In June 2021, Blake allegedly baited her victim, who'd gotten separated from his friends., with vodka. Carreno’s body was later found floating in the river. She'd bludgeoned him. Blake’s DNA at the scene implicated her.

At her trial, the jury learned that Blake was obsessed with torture and death and had a collage of female killers on her cellphone. She also took inspiration from a Netflix series about Luka Magnotta, who’d killed kittens live in an online video. Likewise, Blake had killed a cat to music and described how much she loved doing it. Her idea of a first date involved knives, a gun, and bondage. Again, no one around her recognized these red flags for future violence. In boys, these behaviors might have triggered an intervention, or at least observation.

Then there’s Scarlett Jenkinson, 15, who in December 2023 in the Manchester Crown Court was found guilty of the sadistic murder of trans teenager Brianna Ghey. She’d murdered Ghey with a 16-year-old partner, Eddie Ratcliffe, with whom she’d shared sadistic fantasies. She’d taken the knife from Ratcliffe, who’d tried it and panicked, and done the stabbing herself. Jenkinson claimed to an acquaintance that she’d spent two hours killing Ghey and would do it over again. She was proud of it.

For two years before the murder, Jenkinson had immersed in material about serial killers. Among her favorites were Richard Ramirez, Harold Shipman, and John Wayne Gacy. She loved the idea of having complete control over others. She even had a list of other kids she wanted to kill, and had made one that listed staff at the facility where she was held after her arrest. Jenkinson had asked one of the staff members to purchase a book about Jeffrey Dahmer. She admitted that the idea of murder sexually excited her. A note found in a drawer described her plan: "Give them alcohol with sleeping pills. Slit throat. I kill her. Dismember body. Place pieces in bin bags, bury bags 7ft underground, bones including. Get her to go to Linear park, go to the hidden spot near the bridge I usually go to. Someone jumps out and restrains her (plan B). I kill her."

Some violent girls are even younger. In March 2024, three girls were charged for the October 2023 killing of a disabled 64-year-old man, Reggie Brown, in Washington, DC. They bludgeoned him to death on the street. The girls were 12 and 13. By July 2024, two more girls, 13 and 15, were charged.

In a recent survey, Cochran, et al found limited research on female juvenile homicide offenders and no empirically driven typologies. To address the gap, they looked to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report to collect a sample of 3887 female juvenile murderers from 41 years of data. They detected unique classes based on age, race, victims, and types of homicide (victim-offender relationship, weapon used, homicide circumstances) and compared them with similar classes of male homicidal juveniles (n = 44,000). A subtype unique to females was the killing of intimate partners. Otherwise, there were overlapping themes. Still, there is a dearth of information about predatory violence in young females.

Psychologist James Garbarino, an expert on juvenile killers, suggests that as girls have gotten increasingly involved with sports and other assertive behaviors (a largely positive development), some grow more comfortable with physical aggression. He says we haven’t yet addressed how to train aggressive girls toward more prosocial outlets. Add to this the significant media exposure to pervasive true crime programs—especially romanticized serial killers—and you have the ingredients, in some girls, for a fascination with negative, violent role models.

One study found that youths with medium levels of exposure to TV/movie violence had lower blood pressure when viewing violent media compared to those with low exposure. These results suggest that sustained exposure to violent media, especially in the form of hero worship like we see with Blake and Jenkinson, can lead to emotional numbing over violent thoughts or images.

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The true crime audience is largely female. Although watching crime doesn’t necessarily inspire violent acts, in some cases it has at least provided models, even ideas for how to kill. We need more studies specifically on predatory female violence to try to understand how some girls and young women begin to target others for harm.