SELMER, Tenn. — The 9-year-old daughter of a Tennessee preacher was reduced to tears Monday as she described the morning she heard a "boom" in her parents' bedroom and discovered her father wounded and dying.

"I went in and I saw my daddy face-down on the ground," Patricia Winkler quietly testified Monday in the first-degree murder trial of her mother, Mary Winkler. "He was just groaning."

McNairy County prosecutors rested their case Monday after calling 20 witnesses over four days to support their theory that Winkler, 33, intentionally killed her husband.

Fourth Street Church of Christ Pastor Matthew Winkler died within minutes of being hit in the back with a single round from his 12-gauge shotgun the morning of March 22, 2006, according to the forensic pathologist who performed his autopsy. The round of birdshot released 77 pellets into Winkler's body, perforating his ribs and lungs.

Patricia testified that, before her mother closed the bedroom door on her, she noticed a telephone "behind" her father. When investigators arrived at the scene later that evening, Matthew Winkler was lying face-up and the telephone was unplugged at his feet.

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By that time, Mary Winkler had fled the state with her three children.

"She said we were going somewhere special," said Patricia, describing her mother's demeanor as "normal" for the next day that they spent driving to Orange Beach, Ala. "She said Daddy was in the hospital."

Winkler was apprehended with the children in the car the next day after an Amber Alert was issued.

In her first reunion with her mother since September 2006, the dimpled fourth grader testified before a packed courtroom in Selmer, Tenn., against strenuous objections from Winkler's lawyers that the experience would traumatize the child.

Defense lawyers also suggested that the child had been turned against her mother by Matthew Winkler's parents, who have custody of Patricia and her two sisters, Allie, 7, and Brianna, 2. The Winklers have also filed a $12 million wrongful death suit against their daughter-in-law.

Winkler, 33, sat beaming at the defense table for the duration of the testimony, during which her daughter maintained remarkable composure, answering, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir."

Both mother and daughter cried, however, when Patricia told the court that she did not want to see her mother outside of court.

"Well, I mean, I still love her, but I just ..." Patricia said before lowering her head into her hands. One female juror and several people sitting in the gallery reached for tissues.

Earlier in the day, Matthew Winkler's mother, Diane Winkler, denied that she had "poisoned" the minds of her granddaughters against their mother. But she admitted that she and her husband suspended Winkler's visits with the children in September 2006 after discovering that she had "lied" to the children about what happened to Matthew Winkler.

"Did you ever tell the children that their mother murdered their father?" defense lawyer Steve Farese asked.

"We told the children that their mother shot their father," Diane Winkler answered. "The only time we ever talk to the girls about it is when they come home asking about it."

"You didn't tell them that Mary had stolen money from a bank?" Farese continued.

"If that had been made public, we would not deny it," Diane Winkler testified.

After losing a male juror Monday for undisclosed reasons, the panel learned more about an alleged check-kiting scheme that the bank suspected Winkler was involved in.

An agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations testified that in December 2005, Winkler attempted to deposit her first fraudulent check for $6,455 from a so-called lottery scam.

In February, she changed the mail delivery address to a post office box and opened a checking account in Henderson, Tenn., where she attempted to deposit another fraudulent check for $4,900 from a bank called Saatchi and Saatchi, TBI agent Brent Booth testified.

From there, Booth explained, Winkler began writing checks on the insufficient funds and depositing them into her personal account at Regions Bank in Selmer.

The scheme inflated Winkler's hometown account, but the bank eventually caught on, according to Booth.

"It's a house of cards that will fall," Booth testified.

The day Matthew Winkler was killed, Regions Bank teller supervisor Paulette Guest testified that the Winklers were supposed to meet her at the bank to devise a plan to clear up the negative $5,000 balance on her personal checking account.

In Winkler's statement that was transcribed by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent Chris Carpenter, the defendant said she and her husband argued about finances the night before the shooting.

"I was upset at him because he had really been on me lately, critising [sic] me for things, the way I walk, what I eat, everything," Carpenter wrote in a summary of his conversation with Winkler after her arrest in Alabama. "I guess I just got to a point and snapped."

Lawyers for Winkler claim the shooting was accidental, and that her husband was abusive and domineering. They are expected to call psychiatrists to testify to mental health issues she was suffering from when the shooting occurred.

They have also indicated that the defendant might take the stand. The proceedings are being streamed live on Court TV Extra.