Kaylee Gain, the 16-year-old filmed being brutally beaten by a fellow student back in March, was a serial bully who started the fight, a juvenile officer has testified.
The unnamed officer added Gain threw the first punch during the on-camera brawl with 15-year-old Maurnice Declue, which happened on March 8 outside their school in St. Louis.
In the hearing Friday in St. Louis Family Court, he testified Declue should remain in the juvenile court system, but painted a very different picture of the other principle in the fight, who has received sympathy due to the extent of her injuries.
She was left in a coma after Declue got the best of her and began slamming her skull into the pavement, only recently walking again two months later.
Revealed to be an honor student who skipped the seventh grade, Declue has been charged with felony assault and is being held in St Louis as proceedings continue.
Kaylee Gain, the 16-year-old seen being brutally beaten by a fellow student in a now-viral video filmed in March, was a serial bully who started the fight, a juvenile officer testified Friday
The unnamed officer added Gain threw the first punch during the on-camera brawl with 15-year-old Maurnice Declue, which happened on March 8 near their St. Louis, Missouri school
‘A terrible choice made by two teen girls to solve their issues through violence caused one to go too far with her bare hands and a concrete road,’ Gain’s stepmother, allowed to stay anonymous, said during the same hearing.
Declue’s mother, Consuella Declue, tearfully added: ‘My family, my church, we all prayed for KG [Kaylee Gain].
‘I think [my daughter] was just defending herself, I don’t think she had any intent or thought this would happen.
‘We are very sorry,’ she concluded, adding that her daughter regretted the incident, but still was acting in her self defense.
The unnamed juvenile officer’s testimony supported her assertion, in which he confirmed Gain had been suspended for fighting another girl just the previous day.
The defense also produced several witnesses, including both girls’ teachers, who revealed Declue never before had any behavioral problems, as the officer suggested she had been baited into the fight by the serial offender.
Declue went on to easily get the best of her, repeatedly slamming the other girl’s skull into the pavement as others watched.
Spanish teacher Richard Bly praised Declue as a ‘model student’ who behaved well in his class, further revealing how her grades were so good, she had skipped the 7th grade and was one of the youngest kids in class.
Kaylee Gain, the 16-year-old seen being brutally beaten by a fellow student in a now-viral video filmed in March, was a serial bully who started the fight, a juvenile officer testified Friday
Revealed to be an honor student who skipped the seventh grade, Declue has been charged with felony assault and is being held in St Louis as proceedings continue. Teacher Richard Bly said Declue behaved well in his class, as others agreed she never showed any bad behavior
Declue’s mother, Consuella Declue, tearfully added: ‘My family, my church, we all prayed for KG [Kaylee Gain] I think [my daughter] was just defending herself, I don’t think she had any intent or thought this would happen. We are very sorry.’ The girls allegedly agreed on the fight
Gain’s stepmother, who was allowed to be anonymous in open court, gave a statement describing how her daughter has had to relearn how to walk in the wake of the attack, which both sides concurred was needlessly brutal, and agreed upon by the two girls.
She also said Gain has had to relearn how speak and take care of herself, still experiencing memory loss and forced to wear a custom-made helmet to protect her brain.
Still, she said, she has ‘improved considerably’ since the incident, but is still missing part of her skull and will need to undergo additional surgeries to have it reattached.
Lawyer Bryan Kaemmerer wrote in a statement: ‘While hospitalized, Kaylee underwent a craniectomy which is a neurosurgical procedure that involved removing a portion of Kaylee’s skull in order to relieve the pressure on her brain.
‘The portion of Kaylee’s skull that was removed still has not been put back in place,’ he added, weeks after the father of the St. Louis schoolgirl whose beating horrified much of the nation revealed she endured a childhood marred by drugs.
Offered up to The New York Post, the revelation was aired by Clinton Gain, 41, who previously told the paper the pair had agreed to the fight, producing text messages between the two as proof.
DeClue proceeded to beat down Gain, leaving her with a skull fracture and frontal lobe damage – and in intensive care.
The revalation comes weeks after the father of the St. Louis schoolgirl, Clinton Gain, revealed she endured a childhood marred by drugs and was a troubled youth
Offered up to The New York Post, the revelation came weeks after Kaylee was left in life-threatening condition, only recently learning to walk again
He admitted that a period of dysfunction and instability involving him and the girl’s mother predated the footage, offering an account that somewhat coincided with the juvenile officer’s on Friday.
‘She was just a normal kid,’ Clinton said in an exclusive interview, recalling how he and Kaylee’s mother, April Nordstrom, were both addicts during her youth.
‘We tried to give them some stability and structure’, he went on, before conceding that she indeed suffered during those years.
Things got worse, he said, when the couple split up – back when Kaylee was only five.
This left her and her little brother to live with Nordstrom, he said – when she was still knee-deep in addiction.
Eventually, when Kaylee was 8, he said, the situation became so bad that both kids were sent to live with their grandparents for some two years.
By then, Clinton said he had cleaned himself up, along with remarrying and finding a job.
At that point, Kaylee, then 10, came to live with him and his spouse in St. Louis, he said.
But a new struggle came when struggled to accept her stepmom, he said – before claiming the six or so years that followed were for the most part free of turmoil.
‘She was becoming a young woman,’ he recalled, how his daughter had an upbringing marred by drugs and dysfunction because of him an her mother, both of whom were drug addicts. ‘She said she needed her mother’
Another feud – this one surrounding Gain and DeClue – replaced those struggles at home, he said, before culminating with the widely seen beating
But another feud – this one surrounding Gain and her high school nemesis DeClue – replaced those struggles at home, he said, before culminating with the widely seen beating that occurred last month,
Just before that, her dad said, the teenager began to yearn for her mother, who he said has also since kicked her drug habit.
She went on to repeatedly ask to return to Nordstrom’s home – a request Clinton said he begrudgingly agreed to.
He quickly came to regret that decision, he said – citing another tumultuous period where where Kaylee began to have problems at school, Hazelwood East High, and was repeatedly found herself involved in altercations, like the one with DeClue.
‘She was becoming a young woman,’ he recalled. ‘She said she needed her mother, and April was in a good place by that time. She was working, she was doing okay.’
‘We don’t know who started things, if it was her or other people,’ stepmom Jamie Gain added of the problems at school that followed. ‘But there were problems.’
Clinton recalled how his ex would go on to relay word of these incidents to him and his new spouse, but claimed he was not provided with a full picture of what was occurring.
He admitted that a period of dysfunction and instability involving him and the girl’s mother predated the footage, offering an account that somewhat coincided with the juvenile officer’s on Friday, which painted Gain as the instigator
Clinton further asserted that he reached out to Kaylee’s teachers and told them to alert him of any issues, but claimed they were not helpful.
He said that under her mom’s care, ‘[Kaylee] just didn’t have the structure anymore… [and] the things [her stepmom and I] tried to tell her weren’t reinforced.
‘There weren’t these issues until a few years ago,’ he said.
The father then claimed he knew his daughter was experiencing another difficult period, and said he tried to convince her to return to his home.
She refused, he recalled – citing his stricter parenting style.
Moreover, he claimed he and Nordstrom were on good terms at this point, stating how she and him were committed to raising Kaylee collaboratively.
However, he said she failed to keep a handle on her daughter’s behavior, and left him unaware until the 25th hour.
The girl’s stepmom went on to recall the call she got from her husband’s ex following the March 8 fight, in which a hysterical Nordstrom told her that Kaylee had been seriously hurt at school.
The stepmother proceeded to speed to the hospital and called Clinton, after which the dad also arrived.
The officer said she was suspended for fighting another student the previous day, weeks after rushed to the ICU with a brain bleed. She is seen here in an old photo with her former drug addict father
‘When I first got to the hospital I was worried and concerned,’ he told the Post, before quickly adding, ‘But when I found out this was from a fight, I got angry.
‘Because I felt like this could have been prevented.’
Claiming he and his ex have already agreed to have Kaylee come live with him again when she fully recovers, he conceded: ‘I have a lot of guilt that I didn’t bring her back sooner.’
Meanwhile, video of the fight – and Kaylee’s head being repeatedly smashed into concrete – continues to circulate on social media.
It shows how the fight left the youngster twitching on the ground and completely unconscious, after the two agreed to settle their differences roughly a mile away from the school they both attend.
She was subsequently rushed to the ICU with a brain bleed, though is now on the mend.
‘They both agreed to the fight, to meet up and settle what was going on,’ Gain told Post, adding that Kaylee and DeClue had been insulting each other for weeks ahead of the fight.
DeClue, as of writing, is currently in custody, facing felony assault charges as officials mull trying her as an adult.
Her family on Friday continued to paint her as an honor student who was simply defending herself during a fight started by Gain – an account Clinton dismissed as false.
County Prosecutor Wesley Bell did not object to keeping Declue in custody, but left it up to the judge decide. That decision is expected to come sometime next week, as proceedings continue
County Prosecutor Wesley Bell did not object to keeping Declue in custody, but left it up to the judge decide.
That decision is expected to come sometime next week, as proceedings continue.
It was also ruled Declue will stay in the detention center until her upcoming trial – a decision Judge Dodson said was made for her own safety.
The comes after she and her family have received threats as a result of the now viral fight video, which continues to circulate.
Both sides on Friday further acknowledged Gain started the fight with Declue, before losing badly.