The Bermudian-born mother of murder victim Lantanya Lavallais yesterday fought back tears as she told a Denver District Court how she and her daughter spent their last hours together.

Valeria Vermont (nee Cox) -- daughter of Pembroke resident Maurice Williams -- testified on day three of the first degree murder trial of 16-year-old Jennifer Tombs that she had tried numerous times to contact her 23-year-old daughter and could not sleep the night of her murder.

Tombs, the daughter of a Christian Assembly Church pastor, is accused of gunning down Ms Lavallais, a fellow pastor's daughter, in the basement of the Tombs' home in Denver's Montebello district the night of September 28 last year. Ms Lavallais was babysitting Tombs, who at the time was under house arrest and wearing an electronic ankle bracelet.

Ms Lavallais' body was found the next morning sprawled in a pool of blood, shot six times in the head by a 25-calibre handgun. State prosecutors charge Tombs borrowed the gun from an old boyfriend the night of the murder and, upset that her babysitter would not allow her to have boyfriends over, emptied a clip into Ms Lavallais.

In prior testimony, said Rocky Mountain News reporter Sue Lindsay, four male witnesses told District Court Judge Warren Martin and a 12-member jury they were in an upstairs bedroom around 11 p.m. when they heard "booming'' sounds; they testified earlier Tombs had smuggled them into the house and hid them in the bedroom with another female friend, 15-year-old Tiffany Lofton.

During one of her many attempts that night to contact her daughter Mrs.

Vermont spoke to Tombs over the phone who told her: "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to my big cousin.'' "She's (Mrs. Vermont) a very dignified lady. At one point she got choked up but she held it together,'' Ms Lindsay yesterday told The Royal Gazette .

Tombs, who has pleaded not guilty and faces life in prison if convicted, told Police in a videotaped statement following the murder she found Ms Lavallais' body after hearing an intruder and "three booms'' around sunrise. The statement was played for jurors on the second day of the trial.

She also contends Ms Lavallais had left her alone that night to go to a nightclub with a boyfriend, though the youths hiding upstairs said they neither saw nor heard her leave. Mrs. Vermont also disputed that, saying her daughter was too responsible to leave Tombs alone.

Meanwhile, the man who gave her the gun testified Tombs called him in the middle of the night and told him she had killed a woman who barged into her home.

Joaquin Johnson told the Court earlier Tombs called him around 11 p.m. that night and said "she had done something really bad'' but wouldn't talk about it over the phone.

Tombs subsequently told him "a girl barged in and attacked her'' when she answered the door. "They got in a scuffle and she (Tombs) unloaded the clip in her head.'' BERMUDIAN BDA