Mom supplied knife used to kill teen girl in Facebook feud, Illinois prosecutors say

A 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in Chicago while trying to break up a fight that was sparked by a Facebook feud, prosecutors said.

The feud began after a friend of Erica Blackhawk, 15, blocked Barbara Clifton, 19, from a Facebook Live video, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Two days later on Aug. 26, Clifton’s mother began arguing on Facebook with her own sister, who is also the mother of Blackhawk’s boyfriend, according to the newspaper

Clifton’s mother challenged her sister to an in-person fight, the Tribune reported. Not long after, Clifton and her family confronted Blackhawk and her boyfriend’s family, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Cook County prosecutors said Clifton’s mother was holding a knife “in a menacing way” and started chasing the group toward their home that was nearby before handing the knife to Clifton, the Sun-Times reported.

The two groups began to argue before a physical fight erupted, according to the Tribune. Blackhawk was trying to hold back a friend from the fight when Clifton allegedly stabbed her with the knife her mother had given her, prosecutors said, the newspaper reported.

Clifton is accused of grabbing Blackhawk by the shoulder and stabbing her “two or three times in the chest and abdomen,” according to prosecutors, the Tribune reported.

Blackhawk doubled over and tried to walk back home before she collapsed on the sidewalk and named Clifton as her attacker, according to the Sun-Times. Clifton and her group went back to the car when a witness screamed, the Sun-Times reported.

Blackhawk, a high school sophomore, was pronounced dead at a local hospital, WBBM reported.

“What hurt me the most is my baby’s last words — ‘I think I’m about to die,’” her mother, Natasha Jenkins, told the outlet.

Others were also hospitalized in the incident. Blackhawk’s cousin, 15, was stabbed under an eye during the fight and another woman, 38, was hit by a bottle, WBBM reported. Both were hospitalized. The 15-year-old was released Sept. 3, according to the outlet.

Clifton was arrested Sept. 5 and is charged with first-degree murder, the Sun-Times reported. Her mother has not been charged.

Clifton’s attorney said Monday that the teen was not the instigator of the violence nor the aggressor, according to the newspaper. Judge David Navarro said he wasn’t able “think of a greater failure of any of the so-called adults present to control or mitigate anything that occurred there,” the Sun-Times reported.

Clifton is being held on $250,000 bail, according to the newspaper.

Blackhawk’s mother is warning young people not to engage in social media feuds.

“Don’t respond to it. Don’t even entertain it,” Jenkins told WBBM, “because when you say something back, it adds fuel to the fire.”