GUILTY TX - Gabriel Granillo, 14, stabbed to death in Houston park, 6 June 2006

That year, there had been several stories in the media about Houston’s growing gang problems, but this one sent shock waves through the city. In part, what surprised residents was that the fight had taken place not in the gang-ridden apartment complexes of southwest Houston but in the city’s center, midway between the Galleria and downtown.

Yet what was really startling was that Ashley was a beautiful Anglo girl, with thick brown hair, full lips, and glowing amber eyes; newspaper accounts described her as an Angelina Jolie look-alike. She lived with her mother, a talented jazz singer who performed at local nightclubs and at society parties, in a fourplex not far from Ervan Chew Park. Until the confrontation, she had never had a serious brush with the law.

Why, just about everyone wanted to know, would such a girl be involved with a gang?

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Ashley Paige Benton, a teenager who fatally stabbed a gang member during a melee in Montrose in 2006, hugged her lawyers and the prosecutor who tried to put her in jail for murder after a judge on Thursday ended her probation three years early...

State District Judge Kevin Fine agreed to end Benton's probation early after two years of court-imposed restrictions. Benton completed 300 hours of community service and raised $4,000 for the victim's funeral...

Benton pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and received five years of deferred adjudication.

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