My dilemma, part one and a half

If you've been following the saga of the politically incorrect classroom, this is an update.

Today someone took something off of my desk and put it in a student's desk. "Who put it there?" I asked. No answer. I said, "It didn't walk there on it's own, who took that off of my desk and put it in his desk?" Silence. "Okay, no gym until someone is honest with me." The African American girl raised her hand and said she did it. When I talked to her about it, she changed her story. "I didn't do it, I just wanted the class to have gym."

Fifteen minutes later, she raised her hand again and said she really did do it. This time she blamed another boy, telling me that he told her to do it. He denied it. I didn't buy her story at all. I found out after lunch that another girl did it. She confessed to the whole thing, and there were 3 witnesses who all confirmed her story. So my question is, why would that one girl take the blame two different times, even going so far as to concoct an elaborate story and implicate someone else, if she knew she didn't do it?

She hasn't given me any other behavior problems, but there were some more disturbing incidents today. She called herself "stupid," and during the after-school program she said, "I want to die." I was still in school when that happened, and the after-school teacher sent her to me to talk. I asked her why she said that, and she said, "Because I always get in trouble." (She was put in time out for yelling at some Pre-K girls.) I spoke to her mom briefly, but we're still going to meet with the counselor later this week. Hopefully we can come up with some plan of action to help this girl.