A 12-year-old girl has been arrested after police say she performed a cruel prank at a sleepover.
On Monday, Jamoneisha Merritt, 11, fell asleep at a slumber party and was jolted awake when a 12-year-old friend allegedly poured boiling water over her face, police told the Associated Press. Jamoneisha was taken to New York City’s Harlem Hospital in serious but stable condition, suffering second-degree burns to her face, shoulders, neck and chest.
The 12-year-old girl who allegedly poured the water has been charged with assault. Her name has not been released.
“Her and her friend got into an argument and she told her if she go to sleep they were going to do something to her,” the victim’s cousin, Yolanda Richardson, told CBS2, a local CBS affiliate in New York.
Jamoneisha’s family says that they have not yet shown the girl the severity of her injuries, but that she is in good spirits, per NBC News 4, a local news channel in New York.
“She’s just a bundle of joy, you can’t be around her and be sad,” Jamoneisha’s cousin, Starshanae Nixon, told NBC News 4.
Though she’s in good spirits, her family also told the outlet that she’s in a lot of physical and emotional pain.
Jamoneisha’s accused attacker is not doing well, either. Her mother told New York Daily News that she has attempted to commit suicide as a result of her actions.
“My daughter tried to stab herself with a knife,” she said. “It was a prank — not a good prank. But after she saw what she did to [Jamoneisha] was really wrong, she tried to kill herself.”
Some outlets have linked the prank to the “Hot Water Challenge,” a social media trend involving people subjecting themselves and others to extremely hot water. However, police told Buzzfeed News there is “no indication that it was a hot water challenge.”