Alaska Teen on Trial in Mother's Killing

Feb. 7, 2006 — -- Closing arguments are scheduled to be heard today in the case of an Alaska teenager accused of conspiring to kill her mother.

Rachelle Waterman, 17, is on trial, accused of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the November 2004 death of her mother, 48-year-old Lauri Waterman.

Jason Arrant and Brian Radel, two of Rachelle's former boyfriends who were both 24 at the time of the killing, have already pleaded guilty to killing Lauri. After the closing arguments, the jury will be asked to decide whether the young men were acting on Rachelle's wishes.

"They [Arrant and Radel] spent about 20 minutes here trying different ways to kill her and finally ended up bludgeoning her and smothering her to death," said Bob Claus of the Alaska state police.

In court, the two young men testified Rachelle constantly had complained that her mother was abusive and had asked them to kill her.

Prosecutors also say Rachelle has admitted to hatching the plot during a videotaped conversation five days after the killing.

"I told them I wanted to know what was going on," Rachelle said on the tape.

The defense has questioned the investigators' methods, saying that they used deceptive tactics in their questioning of Rachelle and that Rachelle also told police that she never thought her friends would actually go through with the plot.

An expert witness for the defense also testified Rachelle had been traumatized by three events in her life: her body's early physical maturing at age 10; her rape by a stranger at age 13; and her mother's disapproval of her grades, her clothes, her weight and her friends.

The rape was never reported to police, and Rachelle said the only person she had told was her mother, who did not believe her.

The apparently cold-blooded killing stunned the tiny town of Craig, Alaska.

"It's a horrible shock, and we are not used, in a town of 1,200 people, to the random kind of violence that sometimes people expect other places," Claus said.

Many who know Rachelle find it hard to believe she would commit such a crime.