BARTOW | A 60-year-old woman maintains she was acting in self-defense when she killed her boyfriend with a filet knife.
Mary Ann White is on trial for first-degree murder in the slaying of Buford T. Scarborough.
White repeatedly stabbed the 65-year-old Bartow man during a late-night argument June 16, 2010, on the porch of their mobile home on Dietz Road.
If convicted as charged, White faces life in prison.
Testimony continues today.
During Tuesday's opening statements, prosecutors portrayed White as ambushing Scarborough during a drunken rage fueled mostly by Natural Light beer and some Canadian Mist whiskey.
Assistant State Attorney Cass Castillo said the two were quarreling because Scarborough didn't want White's son, who wasn't working, staying at their mobile home.
White was also upset because Scarborough didn't want to marry her, said Castillo.
White told people that she wanted to kill Scarborough, and her heavy drinking made it possible, Castillo said.
"It loosened the self-control and allowed her to act on those thoughts and threats," he said.
Charlotte Davis, 52, testified she lived at Scarborough's home.
She said White threatened to cut Scarborough "beyond recognition" and bury him in the backyard. White even held the filet knife when making the threat, Davis said.
When asked what she thought of the threat, Davis said she never took it seriously.
Davis and her fiancé, Billy Wayne Dorminy, were inside the mobile home when they heard Scarborough's cries for help.
Davis said they rushed outside and saw Scarborough covered in blood and holding White back from stabbing him again.
Davis recalled her fiancé disarmed White, and Scarborough went to sit down but collapsed on a glass table.
Castillo told jurors in his opening statement that the multiple injuries to Scarborough's body were consistent with White standing behind him, reaching around and plunging the knife into his chest.
"It was a bushwhack," said Castillo.
Candy Murphy, one of White's assistant public defenders, said her client used deadly force to save her life.
White wasn't serious when she told people that she wanted to kill Scarborough, and she was "running her mouth," Murphy said.
She described Scarborough as the aggressor with a reputation for carrying knives and a history of stabbing people who upset him.
Scarborough had once stabbed a man in the groin during a barroom argument, she said.
On the night of the fatal stabbing, White told Scarborough that she was going to move away, Murphy said.
Scarborough grabbed White and threatened to cut her throat with a pocket knife, Murphy said.
"She knows if you mess around with him that he will cut you," Murphy said.
Murphy noted investigators found three knives in Scarborough's pockets.
White grabbed a filet knife that Scarborough had been sharpening on the porch to defend herself, Murphy said.
This isn't the first time that White has had a deadly encounter with a beau.
In 1980, she was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison for fatally shooting her fiancé from Volusia County.
She has also spent time in prison for a 1990 sexual battery case as well as cutting off an electronic monitoring device in 2007.
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