Location Massachusetts Start date January 1995 Parents Charles Grant, Dorothy Mayfield Similar Mary Bell, Craig Price (murderer), David Brom | ||
Gina Grant (born 1976) is an American woman who gained notoriety for receiving early admission to Harvard University, only to have it rescinded when it became known that she had killed her mother and had omitted this fact from her college application.
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Background
Gina Grant was the daughter of Charles Grant and Dorothy Mayfield, both of whom lived in Lexington, South Carolina. She had one sister, who was 9 years older than she was. Gina's father died of lung cancer when Gina was 11 years old.
1990 killing and aftermath
At the time of her crime, Grant was a juvenile so as per the law pertaining to minors, the criminal records are sealed. However, the Lexington County sheriff, James Metts—who handled the original case—released Grant's name immediately after her arrest. Thus, the facts of the case are available in copious newspaper and magazine articles published in the early 1990s.
On September 13, 1990, in Lexington, South Carolina, the 14-year-old Grant bludgeoned her mother 13 times with a crystal candlestick, crushing her skull. She mopped up pools of blood from the kitchen floor and hid the candlestick and bloody rags in a closet. She then tried to make the death look like suicide by sticking a carving knife into the side of her mother's neck, and wrapping her mother's fingers around the handle.
Grant altered her account on multiple occasions. Her initial statement to the authorities indicated that her mother assaulted her wielding a knife before inflicting a self-stab wound in her own throat. Once a candlestick was found at the scene, Grant revised her account, ultimately admitting to law enforcement that she carried out the act in response to a perceived threat to her own life. Consequently, she was accused of murder.
In mitigation, evidence suggested that Grant's mother was an alcoholic. Gina claimed that her mother had been physically abusive, to which Gina's sister attested. Grant pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention, with probation until age 18. Her boyfriend pleaded no contest to being an accessory to voluntary manslaughter after the fact and served nearly a year in juvenile detention.
The juvenile court authorized Grant to move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to reside with her paternal aunt and uncle. She enrolled at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School in 1992, where she distinguished herself academically, provided tutoring to underprivileged children, and served as co-captain of the tennis team.
Admissions revocations
In January 1995 Grant was admitted to Harvard University, reportedly having told her Harvard interviewer that her mother had been killed in an accident. After she was featured in an April 2 Boston Globe article about students who had overcome difficult circumstances, Harvard and The Globe received anonymous communications containing old news articles about Grant's mother's death. Harvard rescinded Grant's admission the next day, referring only to a list of general reasons that admissions are sometimes rescinded. Harvard refused Grant's request to meet with the admissions committee.
Her lawyer later argued that educational institutions are forbidden by Massachusetts law to ask about criminal matters not resulting in "convictions"—juveniles are "adjudicated delinquent" rather than "convicted"—and that she was not obliged to disclose an event that occurred when she was a juvenile and reflected only in her sealed juvenile record.
Some campus publications sided with Grant, citing her mother's alcoholism and Grant's allegations of physical abuse. An editorial in The New York Times, an article in the Chicago Tribune, and Harvard professors Charles Ogletree and Alan Dershowitz also criticized Harvard's action.
Columbia University and Barnard College also rescinded acceptances they had extended to Grant, but Tufts University allowed their acceptance of her to stand, and Grant entered Tufts as part of the Class of 1999.