{"id":280893,"date":"2026-05-22T14:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280893\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T14:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:46:11","slug":"lake-brantley-teen-accused-of-plotting-to-kill-classmate-writes-judge-says-internet-made-me-a-horrible-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280893\/","title":{"rendered":"Lake Brantley teen accused of plotting to kill classmate writes judge, says \u2018internet made me a horrible person\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 A 15-year-old accused of planning to stab one of her classmates at Lake Brantley High School<\/a> has written a letter to the judge in her case asking for sympathy. <\/p>\n

Isabelle Valdez has been held at the jail in Seminole County since January. Investigators say she and co-defendant Lois Lippert planned to stab a boy in a bathroom at Lake Brantley High School and were only stopped the day of the alleged attack after an anonymous tip.<\/p>\n

Minutes after their arrest, both girls were caught on patrol car video laughing together<\/a>. But months later, Valdez\u2019s tone in writing is strikingly different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very remorseful for my actions,\u201d Valdez writes in the opening line of the letter, which was sent to the judge and filed with the Seminole County Clerk of Court this week. <\/p>\n

In the letter, Valdez writes that being away from everything since her arrest \u2014 \u201cisolated from people, the internet\u201d \u2014 has changed her perspective on life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was exposed to the internet at a very young age, and all that was bad stemmed from it,\u201d she writes. \u201cThe internet made me a horrible person.\u201d<\/p>\n

News 6 spoke to an expert on mental health and teens, Dr. Cherlette McCullough with Center Peace Couples and Family Therapy, about the letter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat letter is very interesting,\u201d McCullough said. <\/p>\n

McCullough says the letter reads less like an excuse and more like a psychological portrait.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis letter, psychologically, it\u2019s not that she was giving an excuse, but it sounds like she was telling how I ended up in this place,\u201d McCullough said. <\/p>\n

In the three-page letter, Valdez describes her struggles and experiences since childhood. She also references joining an online true crime community she calls \u201cTCC,\u201d writing that the group \u201cpromoted violence\u201d and that she was groomed into \u201cbelieving that violence was good.\u201d Court documents also confirm Valdez referenced the TCC in the patrol car after her arrest, saying they were \u201cwere supposed to spread our story around the TCC.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese behaviors that we\u2019re seeing, they go right along with a teen living in isolation or feeling unloved, feeling rejected, feeling alone, which would drive a teen to join a group like she says she was a part of online that promoted violence,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n

Valdez also writes about co-defendant Lippert in the letter, saying, \u201cwe both got worse together.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, Valdez told investigators she had been planning the attack for months. She reportedly told investigators that she was obsessed with deceased Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza and planned to kill a student at Lake Brantley High School who she said resembled him.<\/p>\n

Lippert is accused of helping Valdez sharpen the knife in a bathroom, as well as testing its sharpness against her own skin and Valdez\u2019s shirt, court documents state. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what it looks like when we have teens who are suffering in silence, but on the outside, it looks like they\u2019re totally fine,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cIt sounds like this is a teen who has had years of psychological struggles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valdez ends the letter saying that when she was detained, she started acting \u201crecklessly and edgy\u201d and made \u201ceverything sound worse than it was\u201d because she wanted help. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about my life and my choices,\u201d she writes, asking the judge for sympathy. \u201cI\u2019m not the same girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why it\u2019s important for parents to have conversations with their children. This is why it\u2019s important for parents to understand who their children are connecting with, what they\u2019re doing in their downtime,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cThis is a perfect example of why it\u2019s so important for parents to get involved in their children\u2019s lives. And not just getting involved by saying, \u2018who are you hanging out with?\u2019 But literally going into their computers and finding out what are they doing on their downtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valdez and Lippert were initially processed through the juvenile court system before the Seminole County State Attorney\u2019s Office made the decision to prosecute both as adults. During a hearing in March, a judge ruled there was too much of a danger to the community for the two girls to be released on bond.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 A 15-year-old accused of planning to stab one of her classmates at Lake Brantley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8219,265,56516,27642,4070,139,141,140,1014,1953],"class_list":["post-280893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-court","tag-crime","tag-lake-brantley-high-school","tag-letter","tag-mental-health","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-seminole-county","tag-teen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}