Logansport, Indiana: Two 12-year-old girls have been arrested for reportedly abusing a third 12-year-old girl that they had invited to a sleepover on the night of Friday, February 25, 2022.
On Saturday morning around 7:00 am a police report was filed concerning the attack which left the girl with at least one cut on her face, part of her head shaved and burns from lighters.
According to Sgt. Dan Frye of the Logansport Police Department, some of the attack, which he described as "very significant, very severe," was recorded and shared to social media.
Due to their ages, the identities of the suspects are not being released and the investigators have declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations against them.
What is known though is that the girl was homeschooled while the two girls that invited her to the sleepover attended public school.
"The [two suspects] obviously did something things to suggest they were friendly," Frye stated.
He described what happened at the sleepover some time after the girl was dropped off between 4:30 and 5:00 pm as beyond bullying. "We felt terrible for that young lady, and what she had to endure. You wouldn't wish this upon anybody. There's certainly no justification for it."
Both girls were arrested and one of them was released the same day into her parent's custody. The other was ordered to be detained by a circuit court judge after making an initial appearance on March 1 according to the Cass County Prosecutor's Office.
"What the juveniles have been arrested for at this point are different charges related to battery, and anything that you could look at that goes along with that," Frye disclosed. They are both being charged as juveniles.
The girl's mother, Jamie Tribbett spoke with WXIN saying, "They didn't bully her. They tortured her. Mentally, physically tortured my daughter and that's not right."
The girl's aunt, Renita Contreras saw some of the footage that had been uploaded to social media. "My niece in the video, looked like she was laying there dead and it wasn't an image our family needed to see or was ever ready to see."
She also alleged that the girls sat on her niece for an extended period of time making it difficult for her to breathe.
Tribbett said her daughter is physically recovering, but expressed concern for the long term ramifications of what she experienced. "It hurts bad because now she has to, for the rest of her life, look over her shoulder or wonder if she can trust this person or that person. It's absolutely horrible."
"Officers will continue to investigate the other incidents that are alleged and we're going to continue to investigate this one in particular," Fray stated. "There's still information coming in, there's things that we're going to do in conjunction with the prosecutor's office, for instance, search warrants and whatnot."
Frey went on to say that, "One of the best things that we can end up with is video. Video of an alleged incident that helps corroborate a victim's story and there's likely some of that stuff going to happen here."
Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to contact the Logansport Police Department at (574) 722-6060.