Kaylee Gain text war with Maurnice DeClue before beating led to brutal fight as Kaylee’s dad, Clinton Gain and her step-mom deny their teen daughter is to blame amid claims she had been bullying her foe as Missouri prosecutors seek to try the girl as an adult with a hearing to decide the matter forthcoming.
The father of a Missouri teen girl who had her head repeatedly smashed against a concrete floor has shared ongoing texts his daughter had with her teen foe leading up to the March 8 fight that left her with brain damage and a fractured skull.
Clinton Gain, 41, detailed how his daughter, Kaylee Gain suffered brain bleeding, and being unable to walk by herself and now ‘talking in a loop’ as the 16 year old struggles to recover from the beat-down she had with fellow Hazelwood East High School girl, Maurnice DeClue, 15.
The father and Kaylee’s stepmother, Jamie Gain, speaking to the nypost told of going through Kaylee’s electronic devices to understand what led to the caught-on-video clash, which has since captivated the entire nation.
The teens, were part of rival friend cliques at their St Louis area high school who had been ‘exchanging insults for weeks leading up to the fateful fight,’ the dad explained.
The back and forth sparring led to Kaylee getting into a fight at school with DeClue’s friend — an episode which led to her suspension the following day.
That altercation set off a fresh round of phone threats between Gain and DeClue — now charged with felony assault — with the two teens agreeing to square off one-on-one, her dad said, the next day on March 8 at nearby Spanish Lake.
‘They both agreed to the fight, to meet up and settle what was going on,’ Kaylee’s dad said.
The parent acknowledges that both teens had made the ‘terrible decision’ to address their dispute with violence.
The father rebuffed claims that Kaylee had bullied DeClue, 15, insisting that the the teen girls’ messages to each other were equally hostile.
Discussing their daily trek to hospital, Clinton and Jamie Gain described Kaylee’s ‘gruesome’ recovery process.
‘Some days are better than others,’ Clinton told the tabloid. ‘Some days she will laugh a little bit, other days she’ll be quiet.’
Gain said Kaylee requires assistance to walk because she remains weak and wobbly after having her skull fractured and suffering brain bleeding.
To date Kaylee has yet to come to terms with how she ended up at the hospital and nearly losing her life.
‘She’ll ask us why she is there in the hospital,’ Kaylee’s dad told the nypost. ‘She doesn’t remember the fight or a few days before it. We told her what happened, but not too much.’
Kaylee’s days are spent mostly in speech and movement therapy sessions, as she tries to recover from her ordeal.
‘She speaks, but it doesn’t always make sense,’ Jamie said. ‘She sort of talks in a loop.’
However, she does still recognize her parent.
‘She says ‘hi dad’,’ when she sees me,’ the step-mom said. ‘She knows it’s me.’
‘It’s been really hard. It’s very slow. When she gets out of the hospital she’s going to live with me, it’s already been decided. She needs that stability and structure again,’ the dad added.
Prosecutors are seeking to charge DeClue as an adult in the case, and a May 1 hearing is slated on the matter.
DeClue’s parents and attorney have described Maurnice as an honors student who speaks multiple languages and played the violin in the school band and the ‘real victim’, who has been tried by the public without all the facts.
The fight, they’ve asserted, stemmed from Kaylee Gain’s ongoing bullying of their daughter — a claim Kaylee’s father and stepmother strongly deny.
