be able to see that tape and make their own determination. 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 ]!
this is what the world saw, 16-year-old victoria lindsey, or tori, as her friends called her, 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
tanner hanson has just wrapped up his junior year in high school and is enjoying all the graduation parties with his friends. on a warm saturday night, tanner drives to this park where he meets his best friend craig. some girls show up. and one of them suggests going to a party. another friend winces at the idea. but the group decides to go anyway. that s a decision tanner now wishes he had never made. tanner s friend craig. a lot of kids were coming in. some of my friends that i knew, and i was just like, oh, we don t have to worry about that. there are no problems. the group seems to be having a good time. but then without warning, says craig, the mood at the party changes. people they don t know are staring at them. one in particular. i ve never been stared at like that. they decide to leave but as craig and tanner head for craig s truck, that intense stranger and a whole group of boys follow them. he came up to the window. we would ask him if he could
others aren t so lucky. brittany hartcastle described bycker in the video pleads guilty to false imprisonment and battery. she is sentenced to 15 days in jail and three years of probation. we may have our differences but no one deserves that kind of treatment. prosecutors offer to drop false imprisonment charges against april cooper and brittany mays if they agree to plead guilty on misdemeanor battery charges. all accept and are sentenced to a year of probation. prosecutors say mercedes nichols partially arranged for the fight to take place and pleads guilty to battery and tampering with a witness and given three years of probation and 100 hours of community service. as for tori lindsay she is recovering from the injury. coming up if you so much as sneeze, i ll split your [ bleep ] throat.
come on. after a half hour of this torture, tori is finally released and driven to meet another friend who describes her 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 wouldn t say that. mercedes, my daughter warned this girl before she ca