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Karrissa Theret was blonde, popular, and used to doing whatever she pleased. "She did what she wanted and didn't care what anyone thought," says Amanda Turner, 19, who had served on the student council with her. Karrissa, a cheerleader at McKinney North High School in McKinney, Texas, was in a tight clique with four other squad members. The cheerleaders, all seniors, were practically famous - at school they were called the Fab Five. They got a lot of attention because they wore low-cut tank tops and drove around in one of the girls' flashy SUVs. But they were also blatantly mean to other students, obnoxiously rude to teachers, and callously manipulative of their coaches (forcing four to quit) - and they got away with it for years.
Karrissa, now 18, was the ringleader, and often insulted other kids in total 'Mean Girls' style. "We'd be walking down the hall, and Karrissa would say to another girl 'Hey, I like your pants,'" says Amanda. "Then as soon as the girl walked away, she would tell me they were hideous." Karrissa and her clique even targeted girls on their own cheer squad. When two new girls joined the team, "they would sit there during lunch and rag on them," recalls Amanda. "They'd talk about their plan to make them miserable." Kayla Walker, 18, who was on the squad with them for a year, witnessed the same bitchy behavior: "if you weren't cute or popular, they were rude to you behind your back." When the team went to cheerleading camp (the squad arrived in a stretch limo), Karrissa laughed at one cheerleader who couldn't keep up. One day another squad member suggested a new move. "Shut up! That's stupid!" Karrissa snapped. "The other cheerleaders were always afraid of being criticized by Karrissa," recalls Michaela Ward, who became their coach in February 2006. But a lot of students think the girls didn't do anything wrong. "What they did was nothing out of the ordinary," says a senior at the school. "It was nothing you couldn't find at any other high school."
The girls' teachers and coaches, on the other hand, did not see it that way. One night at camp one of the other Fab Five members, Elizabeth Griffen, now 18, took Ms.Ward's cell phone and sent a text message to her husband about trying sex activities. There was also an incident at a basketball game when a different cheerleading coach to get in her cheer formation - and she flipped of the coach in front of the entire crowd. The coach yelled, "Get out of my gym!" But Karrissa screamed back, "No!" and just ignored her. The crazy thing was, the girls were never seriously punished for any of it. The reason? Karrissa's mom, Linda Theret, was the school's principal, and she looked the other way when it came to the Fab Five's bad behavior. One day, Ms. Ward found out that one of them had gotten in trouble in class for talking on her cell phone. Ms. Ward reported the incident to the principal - who then warned her not to punish the girl. "Do not do that!" Ms. Theret said. The girls' outrageous behavior probably would have continued if another student's mom hadn't found a shocking photo on her daughter's MySpace page. It showed four of the cheerleaders posing in their uniforms in a condom shop, holding penis-shaped candles (one of them had it near her mouth). The mother then sent the photos to Ms. Theret. A few weeks later the superintendant stepped in and temporarily suspended the girls from the team and put them on probation. "One more mistake and you'll be kicked off the squad for good," Ms. Ward told them during a team meeting. But they still thought they were untouchable. "Good luck with that!" Elizabeth snorted back.
Frustrated with not being able to discipline the Fab Five, Ms. Ward resigned as coach and complained to the school administrator that she was unable to do her job effectively. In October the board hired an attorney to investigate if Ms. Theret had protected her daughter and her friends. The Fab Five quit the squad, and in December, Ms. Theret resigned. Karrissa transferred to a different school. Some of the Fab Five admit they made mistakes. "There is no doubt that they regret what happened," says the father of one of them. As for Karrissa, who is now enrolled at a Texas University, "she learned a lot," says her mom's attorney. "She knows she needs to tone herself down and not get caught up in all the power."
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