9 year old girl stabs to death 11 year old playmate over a ball

[savafan]

This world is getting more and more screwed up by the day.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-269062c.html

BY KERRY BURKE and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A baby-faced 9-year-old allegedly stabbed her best friend through the heart yesterday as the girls fought over a pink rubber ball - a killing that shocked even hardened Brooklyn cops.

Queen Washington, an 11-year-old straight-A student and the "star" of her family, was left dead in a tragic, senseless crime that tore apart the two girls' mothers - also best friends.

The 9-year-old was charged with manslaughter last night after she allegedly plunged a kitchen knife into Queen as they tussled outside the apartment where they had spent many hours playing together.

"She wanted to go over there to spend Memorial Day weekend," Queen's devastated grandmother Muriel Washington, 44, told the Daily News.

"She loved being with" the 9-year-old, Washington added sadly. "That was my baby. It's terrible, terrible."

Shocked cops could not remember a girl this young being accused of such a brutal act.

As the 9-year-old was led away by police, her weeping mother followed her out of the Linden Houses in East New York, carrying a pair of shoes for the barefoot fourth-grader.

Because of her age, the 9-year-old will face charges in Family Court rather than Criminal Court, law enforcement sources said. The News is withholding her name.

The tragedy unfolded at 1:30 p.m. as the two pals got into a squabble over a spaldeen ball in the seventh-floor hallway outside the 9-year-old's apartment.

When Queenie, as her friends called her, refused to hand over the ball, the 9-year-old ran into her flat, grabbed the knife and buried it in the fifth-grader's chest, cops said.

The 9-year-old's mother had just stepped out to borrow a brush to fix her daughter's hair.

The girl's 16-year-old brother came out of the Wortman Ave. apartment to find Queen lying in a pool of blood, said neighbor Lissette Vega, 54.

"She looked like a bundle, she was not moving," Vega said. "The young guy was standing over her with a cell phone calling the police. I didn't want to look.

"How could one child kill another?"

The alleged stabber seemed stunned and didn't try to flee, sources said.

Queen's grandfather Earl Washington described the vivacious girl as the "star of the family, she was going places."

She was a straight-A student who loved books and dancing and playing Double Dutch, relatives said. Relatives said the tragedy came five years to the day after the death of Queen's father.

Queen was set to graduate from fifth grade next month at Public School 256 in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

"She was really excited about it. She asked everybody if they were coming to her graduation," said her grandmother, a drug counselor's assistant who raised Queen since the girl was born.

Now, instead of attending Queen's graduation, the family will plan her funeral.

What makes the horror even more baffling was that Queen's mother, Felicia Washington, was best friends with the 9-year-old's mom, relatives said.

Queen had been invited to the girl's home for a Memorial Day barbecue and loved spending time there.

"I can't imagine what happened," Muriel Washington said. "I can't believe it. [The 9-year-old's] mother was supposed to be watching her. I don't like them being left alone."

There were few tears for the 9-year-old suspect.

"She was a little thug," said neighbor Diva McPhatter, 44. "I always asked her to behave, but she was rude. She fought all the time. She was out of control. I'd confront her, but she'd just roll her eyes."

"We're not going to have any youth left," McPhatter added. "Now babies are killing babies. It's crazy."

With Tanyanika Samuels