MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - The teen mother on trial for murdering her infant daughter told so many lies, even her mother didn’t know what to believe. That was the testimony in the second day of Shakara Dickens' first degree murder trial.
She’s accused of killing her nine month old daughter in September 2010. The baby’s body has never been found.
Tracey Dickens has lost her granddaughter and her daughter could be locked up for life. She was visibly upset when she took the stand to testify against her daughter.
Shakara's mother told jurors she was angry because she felt police stopped looking for her baby granddaughter, and that her own daughter let Lauryn become a missing child.
The problem was no one got a straight story from Shakara Dickens.
Tracey Dickens was out of town on Labor Day weekend in 2010; when she came home, Lauryn wasn’t there. She asked her daughter what happened.
She said Shakara told her "that she was with her paternal grandparents and they would be looking after her."
Tracey Dickens said she called them, but "they didn’t have Lauryn," she said.
She confronted her daughter again and got a different story.
"I told her what they said and asked, 'Who had the baby?' She told me she put the baby up for adoption."
In a text message shown to jurors, Shakara Dickens told her mother she went to a place called Adoption Connection. She even went as far as to say the adopting couple's name was Lisa and Richard Brown. Still confused, Tracey Dickens called the adoption agency.
"They said they didn’t have an adoption for Lauryn."
She testified her daughter then told her a third version; this one involved a call from the baby’s incarcerated father.
"She told me she gave her baby to a woman Ben sent to take care of her until he got out [of prison]."
While concerned family worked for the truth, trying to find the missing infant, text messages between friends revealed Dickens was making plans for a new tattoo and a night out clubbing. A text message sent September 12, 2010 said, “my dress real little, don’t call me fast”
The father of Lauryn Dickens also took the stand, telling jurors he never sent anyone to pick up his daughter from Shakara.
