Sister of woman accused of killing mother testifies in Osceola
The trial of a woman accused of killing her mother in 2015 and burying her in the backyard of the Osceola County home they shared began Tuesday.
Twelve jurors will have to decide whether Amy Day, now 46, is guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Ora “Lea” Hawkins, 79. The two had lived together for about five years.
Day’s sister, Judy Shult, took the stand Tuesday to describe the day her mother went missing — Sept. 19, 2015.
Hawkins stopped by Shult’s home, about five minutes away from the home she shared with Day, about noon, Shult said.
“We were sitting on the back porch, just talking,” she said.
Hawkins left after about an hour. That night, Shult received a call from her mother’s landline, she said. Her mother was crying and said she had to leave Florida to move to Colorado with a friend from church named Rose, whose husband had just died, Shult said.
Shult hung up and rushed to her mother’s house, she said. She knocked on the door and windows but did not get an answer. She did not go into the back yard because it was too dark, she said.
Shult said she called Day, who claimed to be in Chiefland, a small town west of Gainesville, with the man she was seeing.
Court records show that deputies were never able to verify that Rose, the friend from church, was a real person. They also were unable to find the man Day claimed to have been dating. When they called the number she gave them, another man picked up and said he had never met her.
Jurors also heard Tuesday from Osceola County deputies who responded to Shult’s home, then to Day and Hawkins’ home after Shult reported her mother missing. They described finding suitcases in the attic filled with Hawkins’ clothing and hearing Day make inconsistent statements about whether she had met Rose.
The trial will continue this morning.