Smyrna Teen Gets Prison Time for Hot Oil Attack

A Smyrna teenager who was among a group of girls who brought cooking pots of hot oil to use as weapons in a fight with another group of girls will be spending several years in prison, the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.

Myzelle Chantel Armstrong, 19, was convicted of two counts of aggravated battery and eight counts of aggravated assault for her participation in the attack at a Smyrna apartment complex in February 2013, the DA’s Office said. On Wednesday, Cobb Superior Court Judge Robert D. Leonard II sentenced Armstrong to 40 years, four of which must be served in prison.

Armstrong and group of friends had gotten into an argument on Instagram with another group of four girls, and things came to a head when one group challenged to other to a fight, according to the DA’s Office. The two groups met up at the Cumberland Glen apartments in Smyrna, but from the outset it was clear this would not be a fair fight.

When the outsiders saw Armstrong’s group armed with a baseball bat and cooking pots full of hot oil, they wisely tried to get back in their car and escape. As the girls were trying to close the car door and make their getaway, Armstrong stuck the bat in the door frame and prevented the door from closing, while her co-defendants dumped the hot oil inside the car, said the DA’s Office; one of the girls inside the car needed skin grafts to repair the damage done to her by the hot oil.

ADA Jaret Usher pointed out that the process of bringing cooking oil to a boil and bringing it to a fight shows that Armstrong and her friends had deliberately planned to hurt the other group of girls.

Zawadi Athenails Clark, 22, of Marietta, who was one of Armstrong’s co-defendants, pleaded guilty last week and was sentenced 40 years with three to serve. The third co-defendant, Mykhal Antoinette Tait, 22, of Morrow, has not received her day in court yet.