A Perth student has pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder; revealing that she devised the plan to kill her teacher while chatting with another student on the gaming app Discord.
The girl, who was aged 14 at the time of the crime, took a 25cm knife to Willetton Senior High School in November 2021 and attacked a 55-year-old female teacher during a meeting.
Court records reveal that the teacher dodged the knife and ended up with only a small gash near her armpit. However, the same records reveal that the Perth Children’s Court was told that the intention was to inflict fatal injuries on the teacher.
The other girl, who allegedly helped devise the murder plot during numerous chats on Discord, was aged 13 and has pleaded not guilty to the charge of attempted murder. It is alleged that she hid the knife in her bag and handed it to the 14-year-old just before the attack took place.
Court documents reveal that the only chats between 14-year-old mentioned that an artery would be the “best” place to stab the teacher and that the 13-year-old alleged accomplice reportedly wrote back, “that sounds fun” and “that’s so cool”.
The 14-year-old girl will be sentenced in court on July 1, 2022 and the 13-year-old girl will fight her attempted murder charge at trial next month.
Discord, the social platform that the teens allegedly planned the teacher’s murder on, was originally built for gamers but has progressed into a popular chat program. It has the option to start up separately “servers” or “rooms” where friends can send messages to a group – much like “chat rooms” that were popular in the noughties. However, Discord has the option to either chat in a ‘Text Channel’ where messages are typed or a “Voice Channel” where users communicate via voice chat.
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Police are able to obtain a warrant to get Discord to release a certain user’s data if they suspect criminal activity.
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