THEIR UNGAINLINESS was the most striking thing about them. Kayla Narey (17), entered Superior Court No 2 first, her wheat-coloured hair carefully combed, with red polish on toe and fingernails.
She stared at her flip-flop shod feet as she walked in to the whirr of cameras, swaying as if trying to keep her balance. She then sat ramrod straight, waiting for the machinery of justice to lurch into motion.
Sean Mulveyhill (18), was in complete contrast to his former girlfriend. Cocky and self-confident, he slouched into the armchair, chomped on his chewing gum, looked around the room. It was hard to believe this short, stocky, ill-dressed young man with the spotty face and bristly goatee apparently so broke the Irish girl Phoebe Prince’s heart that she made a first apparent suicide attempt last November.
Mulveyhill abandoned Prince to return to Narey, his childhood sweetheart. Yesterday they saw each other for the first time since Prince hanged herself last January 14th after Narey, Mulveyhill and a third girl allegedly hounded Prince in the school library, on the school grounds and on the road home.
The former lovers are co-defendants, charged with felonies that could land them in prison for a decade, including violating Prince’s civil rights with bodily injury, and also for him, statutory rape. Not a glance passed yesterday between them.
There was nearly a quarter of an hour of silence before Judge Judd Carhart held three minutes of proceedings. Mulveyhill’s trial will take place next March, he said. Narey’s trial was scheduled for October, but her lawyer requested more time to study the 700-page “discovery packet” of police reports, witness statements and grand jury minutes. Narey’s date will be decided later.
Michael Jennings, Narey’s lawyer, signed a protective order, Judge Carhart mentioned. Lawyers defending the six teenagers accused of driving Prince to suicide are signing the order, enabling them to examine Prince’s medical, psychological and school records, on condition they keep the records secret. The judge will decide later whether evidence of Prince’s fragility will be admissible in their trials.
The line of defence has become apparent. Prince, the victim, will also be on trial. “One charge alleges that my client caused physical harm,” Jennings told me. “Phoebe had a history of self-harm. The poor thing did take her own life, and there are numerous potential causes other than what my client did.”