April Lyda holds Zander Lyda, inset, against a body camera still from her 12-year-old daughter’s arrest in January 2023. (GoFundMe; Tulsa Police Department)
The mother of a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl who admitted stabbing her 9-year-old brother to death stands by her daughter.
April Lyda shared the news in a GoFundMe update posted on May 26, the same day Law&Crime released body camera footage of the immediate aftermath of Zander Lyda’s death – obtained from a request from Cases opened with the Tulsa Police Department.
“She’s been very well behaved in the six months she’s been away and yes I’m very supportive of her and love her very much, obviously there’s a lot of healing that we both need before we can live together again and she needs mental and emotional help after this, she may have permanent damage that we don’t know yet, but she had no issues,” April Lyda wrote.
The name of the girl who admitted stabbing her brother to death is not printed. Her mother seems optimistic about her progress in the juvenile facility where she is being treated.
“[S]it has a very amazing team of experts who spend almost every day with it for hours at times,” the update reads. “They’ve been around her for those six months, they know her pretty well, they also feel like she’s telling the truth, and I believe the experts on that. She’s going to be in treatment, for how long do we don’t know yet.
A friend of the grieving mother launched the fundraiser for the family in February. The deadly and seemingly inexplicable violence occurred at an apartment in the St. Thomas Square neighborhood of downtown Tulsa just before midnight Jan. 5, police said.
One explanation put forward by April Lyda is pharmaceutical.
“[T]Hey, they were good kids and I never let that stop me from supporting them in every way including emotionally, mentally, financially, etc. “, she wrote. “[T]They were raised as God-fearing children and never had any behavioral issues until she resumed medication she had been off for over a year.
The girl’s mother clarified that the drug was not psychiatric, but said she did not want to elaborate ‘because I don’t know everything I’m allowed to share yet’.
“She never even yelled at me, she was happy and energetic, she loves school, she’s not mentally ill and hasn’t been diagnosed,” April Lyda wrote, later adding, “She was as normal as [your] child like any 12 year old who wasn’t allowed to swear or watch scary and evil movies she was just starting to rebel but she was also going through normal teenage things so no he wasn’t There were no signs that would have warned any of us that she was a threat.
In the video, the 12-year-old doesn’t understand why she did what she did – but quickly assesses the potential consequences.
“I’m so sorry,” she cries through tears at one point. “I am really sorry.”
The girl admits she used a knife to stab her brother, ultimately leading police to where she dumped him after the attack.
“I’m so sorry,” repeats the young girl, raising her head to the officer who has her arrested. ” I do not know what happened. I do not know what happened. I do not know what happened.
A police officer eventually pulls off the 12-year-old girl’s hoodie and notices a series of cuts on her arms. He notes that most of them look old but eventually finds a more recent, albeit minor, injury.
April Lyda addressed this segment of the footage.
“I want to clarify something, my daughter was not a cutter!” she wrote. “She had old cuts from two months before when she was first put back on her medication and everyone agreed to have it removed straight away and that’s what I did and unfortunately it was too late for the damage to be done. The new cuts are from the night she attacked my precious son.
Do you have a tip we should know? [email protected]