Friends said Michele Neurauter was always smiling and a great mother.

They said she loved to garden and throw parties for her friends, often inviting them over to relax and hang out on her porch. Many are still in disbelief that Michele's daughter Karrie played a role in her death.

Karrie pleaded guilty to second degree murder, agreeing to testify against her father Lloyd. The two are accused of murdering Michele and staging it to look like a suicide last year.

A motive is unclear at this point, but prosecutors said Karrie admitted in court that her father confronted her with an ultimatum last August. She said that her father told her either she could assist him with killing her mother, to free him from the financial burden of child support and alimony and give him custody of his youngest child, or he would kill himself.   

Marianna Raho taught Michele's three daughters, including Karrie, and said she never could have imagined this happening.

"I knew the girls," said Raho. "I loved the girls. And so I'm just in so much sorrow. The amount of manipulation that must have gone on, the parental alienation, it's so serious when one parent is acting against another."

Friends of Michele said they want to turn her house into a place for women who are dealing with domestic violence.