being punched, kicked and cursed at in the home of her friend, mercedes nichols. ooh, yeah, baby. ooh, yeah. the beating is an ambush. tori had spent a week at nichols place in lakeland, florida, because she allegedly is having problems at home. so why would mercedes and five other girls turn so viciously on tori? polk county sheriff grady judd. this all erupted as a result of our victim supposedly trash talking these other girls on her myspace account and through text messages. you can hear one of the girls talking about the myspace messages. no, you said that, tori. i have the message on myspace. still! tori, you lying. i read it. you talk [ bleep ] on myspace all the time. yeah, yeah. according to court documents, tori tells prosecutors she believes the brutal attack was because mercedes was also angry at her for borrowing a hairbrush and a razor from the house without telling her.
what about your family? how much i love them. how much you love your family. how much i love my mom and i m going to miss her. and i m sure she s going to miss me too. it s now just past midnight. after being driven down a dark road, danielle is taken out of the car and carried like a sack into the snow-covered woods. travis, who just an hour earlier danielle considered a new friend, continues to narrate as they approach what looks like a pre-dug grave. we re going to set you down. if you say one word, i promise you [ bleep ] you won t say another. we re giving you the chance, for what it s worth, to enjoy what you have left. then they start to fill the grave. we re burying you alive. you are going to die. you scream right now, we bury you half alive.
as having blood in her mouth, a big knot over her left eye. tori s rushed to the hospital. she suffers a concussion, bruising and damage to her left eye and ear. the police are called, and eight teens are arrested. six girls who were inside the home and two guys who stood outside as lookouts. the sheriff s department releases a snippet of the videotape, and it becomes breaking news. let s begin with that ambush in florida. eight florida teens, the youngest just 14. they posted a savage beating on youtube. all eight are accused of kidnapping and battery in the beating attack on a 16-year-old. matt lauer from nbc s today show interviews christina garcia, the mother of mercedes nichols about the beating. what about the actual beating on tape? do you think this has been overblown? i didn t say that. mercedes, my daughter warned this girl before she came into the house. the two girls that you have been running your mouth about over myspace and threatening are in the house. p
it apparently sparks this beating and sets it in motion. why did you [ bleep ]. don t [ bleep ]. the assault takes place over a span of 30 minutes. at one point on the video, tori pleads with her attackers to let her leave the home. huh-uh. you re not leaving. let me leave! i ll go home. no! but they refuse to release her and continue the vicious assault. don t ever [ bleep ]. why don t you like her? why don t you like her? don t act adding to the brutality of the beating is the fact that someone s videotaping the entire scene. the attackers are not only beating the victim but playing to the camera. the girl holding the video camera says to the others, as if she were directing a motion picture, to make it good. make this 17 seconds good. [ bleep ] come on. after a half hour of this torture, tori is finally released and driven to meet another friend who describes her
a jury never gets the chance. following a plea bargain, travis payea, jonathan cockerill and james carlyle all plead no contest to attempted kidnapping and felony assault. and christina lumm pleads no contest to attempted felony assault. they are sentenced to the time they ve already served in jail, about 60 days plus probation. travis payea gets the toughest sentence, three years probation. but just two months before it was to end, in april 2006, payea is found dead at a friend s house. he was 24. his family never reveals the cause of his death. coming up [ bleep ]! do you have a street address for me? oh, crap. dude, i m so scared. these kids, i don t know why they re doing this to me. we saw people being stomped, people being hit with hammers. [ bleep ]! people being kicked in the head. it was horrific. when caught on camera: teens gone wild continues.