Witnesses say that after her arrest for murder, Tiffany Taylor talked of stories she "made up" to tell police, including the one that is now her defense at trial: that she accidentally stabbed her mother to death during a nightmare.
She also told of plotting to murder her mother some time before the killing took place, one witness said.
And she wrote a letter to a man named Barry (presumably Barry McMurray) sometime before her mother's death and told him she wished she had already killed her mother, according to testimony yesterday in her first degree murder trial.
The state rested its case against the 17-year-old Cookeville girl late yesterday, and her defense, expected to rest upon medical testimony about a sleep disorder, was to begin this morning.
Three girls who were also in the Putnam Juvenile Detention Center at the same time as Taylor was after her arrest in late November of 1996 testified for the state yesterday, telling what the girl said about the killing.
"She said her and her mother kept getting into arguments because her mother caught her sneaking out with some black guys," one former Detention Center detainee said.
"She said she had slept with her mother another night and thought about killing her that night, but her hand got nervous and she put the knife down and didn't do it.
"Then the next time, she had the knife, and her mother woke up and said, "Tiffany, you're going to kill me." And she said she said, "Die, bitch." And she said she stabbed her mother, and her mother tried to get the phone and she stabbed her hands.
"And then she laid down beside her mother to sleep, but couldn't because it stunk. She said she called somebody--Marty or Barry--after she had done it.
"She said when her father went out there (the next day) and found the body, she tried to act kind of shocked so he would think she didn't have anything to do with it.
"She told me she was glad the bitch was dead. She said she had made up a couple of stories, one about being kidnapped and another about having a dream of somebody chasing her and she woke up stabbing her mother."
Another girl, now 17, testified that Taylor told her she had "lied to the TBI about the kidnapping and about the dream she had."
Another girl, now 14, who was in Detention at the time testified that Taylor told her "she was upset because her mom wouldn't let her date blacks."
"She said that after she stabbed her mother the first time, her mother raised up and said, "God, forgive Tiffany because she doesn't know what she's doing." She said that made her so mad she just kept stabbing her. She said she cut herself too so it wouldn't look so bad."
That girl also said Tiffany Taylor told of having to pay her mother rent and having to pay for her own food.
"She said she couldn't eat if she didn't buy her own food," the girl said.
That girl, who roomed with Taylor at Detention, also confirmed for defense attorney Joe Edwards that Taylor slept fitfully, sometimes flailing her arms violently and causing the bed to be moved away from the wall.
Also testifying yesterday was John Short, owner of the trailer where Tiffany Taylor lived with her mother.
He said the window screen to Taylor's bedroom "started coming out," apparently meaning that he frequently had to replace it.
Short said Teresa Parramoure worked for him at the Discount House store and said he was aware that she "had quite a few problems with her daughter sneaking out of the house at night."
And Short confirmed, under cross examination, that in the summer of 1996, Teresa Parramoure forced her daughter to come to work with her at 6:30 a.m. and "sit there with her all day long" till she got off at 6 p.m.
Sheriff's Deputy Greg Cooper testified yesterday that about a week before Teresa Parramoure was killed, she called the Sheriff's Dept. and asked for an officer to come to her home.
"When I got there (at 11:36 p.m.), Ms. Parramoure told me she'd gone to Tiffany's room and heard voices in there. She said the door was locked and she knocked, but they wouldn't let her in. Then she saw two boys leaving and running off through a field.
"We looked all around, but couldn't find the boys. Tiffany came out of her room and sat on the couch with her arms crossed in front of her and just stared ahead. She didn't want to talk to us. We tried to talk to her about the problems, and I commented on her attitude, but got no reaction."
Also testifying yesterday was James Hoak Jr., who was assistant manager of the Shoney's restaurant on Willow Ave. at the time and knew Tiffany Taylor, who worked there part-time.
Asked by Asst. District Attorney Lillie Ann Sells if the girl ever made threats, Hoak said, "She did, but no more than a lot of people have said. I didn't take it seriously."
"She did say once that if her mother touched her again she was going to kill her."
Shane Brooks, the son of Teresa Parramoure and Tiffany Taylor's half-brother, testified, saying his mother "was trying to keep a better eye on Tiffany."
"She had been skipping school," he said.
Referring to an allegation made about Teresa Parramoure by a defense attorney in opening statements, Asst. DA Ben Fann asked Brooks, "Did your mother ever have sex in front of you?"
"No," Brooks said.
"Do you know of any sleepwalking that took place?"
"No."
Brooks said his mother was "a good woman."
"She treated us like a mother should treat us," he said.
The state's most difficult witness yesterday was Barry McMurray, a man in his 30's who is a friend of Tiffany Taylor's.
McMurray allegedly recently told Asst. DA Sells and a detective investigating the case that he had heard the girl talk of killing her mother.
But subpoenaed to court, he denied that.
"Did you hear her make threats against her mother?" Asst. DA Sells asked him.
"No, not that I can recall, right off hand," McMurray said.
"Did you not tell us just the other night when we interviewed you that she had made threats against her mother?" Sells asked.
"I don't recall her making threats," he said.
Asst. DA Sells introduced into evidence a letter Tiffany Taylor wrote to McMurray at some point when she was in Juvenile Detention. She asked McMurray to read it for the jury, and he did.
In the letter, which was filled with vulgar language, the girl told McMurray, "I have a mad love for you."
In another letter addressed to "Barry" and found in the girl's room after arrest, the girl writes, "My mom has my pager now, so if I were you, I wouldn't page me."
That letter, read into the record by Detective David Andrews, also says, "One of these nights, I'm going to call you and have you come over and help me bury my mom. I should have done it before now, but I had to go and feel sorry for her."
Barry McMurray admitted on the stand that Taylor called him the morning of the killing.
"She was asking for help cause she had cut herself and wanted someone to come down and help her stop the bleeding," he said. "I told her I couldn't come, I was running late. She asked to speak to Marty Martin, and I gave him the phone."
McMurray denied that Taylor mentioned her mother in that phone conversation. He also denied being the "guy" knocking at Taylor's window late on the night of Nov. 26, the night Teresa Parramoure caught her daughter about to open the window and forced the girl to come and sleep with her.