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Ex-Mayfield star Carissa McGee awaits sentence
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If sentenced as an adult, former Mayfield High School standout Carissa McGee could face up to 21 years in prison for a gruesome attack on her mother and sister.
State District Judge Robert Robles accepted McGee's no contest plea Monday, part of an agreement with prosecutors. The judge then began a two-day hearing to determine whether McGee will be sentenced as a juvenile or an adult.
As a juvenile, she could be held in state custody until she is 21.
McGee listened in court Monday as her mother and sister described how they were stabbed repeatedly by the one-time college basketball prospect.
McGee, 17, entered no contest pleas to two counts each of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery against a household member.
"I couldn't stop her from stabbing me," the girl's mother, Anita McGee, told a packed state district courtroom.
Earlier in the case, McGee had pleaded not guilty.
Anita McGee, questioned by prosecutor Amy Orlando, told the judge how her daughter attacked her early in the morning of March 27, 2006. The girl woke her by saying, "Mom, I'm scared," then attacked.
"She rolled on top of me. I couldn't stop her from stabbing me," the elder McGee said. "I put my hands up but the covers were over me. So I called out, `Marie, help me.' "
Marie McGee, 18, also took the stand and described how her sister turned to attack when she arrived in the bloodstained bedroom to aid her mother.
"I saw my mom's cell phone and tried to call 911," she said. "Carissa grabbed my hair and tried to cut my throat. I put my hand up and she cut it. Then she flipped me over and stabbed me in the chest.
"Her face wasn't mad," Marie McGee continued. "It was like she was going to laugh. Like, `You're not getting out of this.' "
Anita and Marie McGee described how the attack followed a rising series of disagreements with Carissa McGee over her relationship with an Albuquerque girl who also played high school basketball.
Former Sandia point guard Martina Holloway told The Tribune in September last year it was her relationship with McGee that caused friction in the McGee family. It was something McGee's family couldn't accept and wouldn't condone, Holloway said.
Tension between Carissa and Marie boiled throughout the 2005-06 basketball season, friends said, to the point of not talking.
McGee's mother, Anita, and sister Marie, then 17 and also a Mayfield basketball player, were taken to Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas. Anita McGee was stabbed 20 times and Marie was stabbed 15 times. Both recovered.
Carissa McGee has been at the Children's Psychiatric Hospital in Albuquerque since last fall.
Marie McGee described how her sister often sneaked out of the home and traveled to Albuquerque to visit Holloway. Other times, Carissa's girlfriend would stay secretly at the family's Las Cruces home.
Carissa McGee sat silently with her lawyers, sometimes dabbing a tissue at tears. The courtroom was packed with about 50 people, including Mayfield coach George Maya and several of McGee's former teammates.
Prosecutors said if the case went to trial, they could prove McGee's acts were premeditated and that she had planned to kill her mother at least one week before the attack.
She had stolen some porcelain dolls and simulated a break-in, prosecutors said, then planned to kill her mother and return to bed so her sister would discover the killing after waking up.
Instead, when Carissa McGee began attacking her mother in the bedroom, Marie McGee responded and was attacked when she tried to intervene, prosecutors said.
They described the turmoil in the house and said Anita McGee fled.
"You're killing me! You're killing me!" she screamed at her daughter.
Marie McGee barricaded herself in her mother's bedroom and didn't come out until a neighbor persuaded her it was safe.
Carissa McGee, meanwhile, went to another residence and told neighbors someone had attacked her family.
Marie McGee, now 18, recently completed her freshman year at the University of Arizona, where she is on the basketball team on scholarship. She has been undergoing physical therapy for her injuries.
Carissa McGee, a junior when the attack occurred, was being recruited by California and Arizona, her mother said, but wanted to attend another college to be on the same team as Holloway.
