Prosecutors said the teenager had considered attacking her former middle school before turning the violence against her mother in 2024.
TIFTON, Ga. — A Georgia teenager has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to felony murder and aggravated assault in the 2024 shooting death of her mother, a case prosecutors say followed months of interest in school shootings and an abandoned plan for an attack at her former middle school.
Lilyana Rose Wagner, now 16, was 14 when her mother, 51-year-old Rachel Suzanne Wagner, was killed on Nov. 19, 2024, at their home in Tifton. Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney Patrick Warren announced the guilty plea and sentence this week. Wagner must serve at least 30 years before she can become eligible for parole, according to the district attorney’s office and local news reports.
The case began after Wagner was involved in a vehicle crash in central Georgia and was the only person in the vehicle, prosecutors said. She told authorities that she lived with her mother in Tifton. After officers learned that Rachel Wagner had not arrived at work and could not be reached by phone, Tifton police went to the family’s East 18th Street home for a welfare check. Officers found Rachel Wagner dead in her bed from a single gunshot wound.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Tifton Police Department then spent months examining evidence, including information recovered from the teenager’s phone, according to prosecutors. Investigators said the records showed Wagner had developed a strong interest in school shootings and other mass-casualty attacks. Authorities said she had also communicated through phone applications with anonymous people who encouraged her to commit violent acts.
Prosecutors said Wagner’s online activity showed she had built a presence around her interest in mass violence and had discussed carrying out an attack herself. Investigators said those communications continued even after her mother’s death. Authorities have not publicly identified the anonymous people involved or announced whether anyone else will face charges related to the online exchanges.
A handwritten confession recovered during the investigation provided another major piece of evidence, prosecutors said. In it, Wagner admitted killing her mother and wrote that she had previously planned an attack at her former middle school before changing her plan. Authorities said she identified several perpetrators of past mass shootings as influences. Their names and specific attack details are not necessary to explain the prosecution and are omitted here.
Investigators also examined how Wagner gained access to the firearm used in the killing. Local reports citing the district attorney’s office said Rachel Wagner had purchased the gun at a Valdosta pawn shop about a month before her death and had allowed her daughter to keep the firearm and ammunition in her bedroom. That account differs from some secondary descriptions suggesting the teenager purchased the weapon herself. The district attorney’s account identifies Rachel Wagner as the purchaser.
Warren said the case showed the potential consequences when young people are influenced by anonymous online communities centered on violence. He urged parents to pay attention to whom their children communicate with and what messages they encounter online. He also pointed to the teenager’s access to a firearm and the family’s need for support as factors that, in his view, raised difficult questions about whether the outcome could have been prevented.
The killing became public in November 2024 after police conducted the welfare check, but details about the abandoned school attack plan and the extent of Wagner’s online activity emerged more fully with the resolution of the criminal case. Because Wagner pleaded guilty, the case did not proceed to a trial where prosecutors would have been required to present their evidence to a jury.
Warren thanked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Tifton Police Department and investigators who worked on the case. He said the prosecution left no positive outcome for the family, with Rachel Wagner dead and her daughter facing decades in prison. Wagner’s sentence allows the possibility of parole only after she serves the required minimum of 30 years.
Wagner remains sentenced to life in prison following her guilty pleas to felony murder and aggravated assault. Authorities have not announced additional charges against other people in connection with the online communications described during the investigation.
Author note: Last updated August 28, 2026.