Waynesboro, TN: Woman dead after husband dreamt he killed her

WAYNESBORO, TN (WSMV) -
A mysterious dream is at the center of a young Middle Tennessee mother's murder. Police found the body of Julie Rayfield in her son's bathroom Monday morning.

Her estranged husband Dennis surrendered himself to police, and it turns out what he thought was a rough night's sleep was more fact than fiction.

There had been problems in Dennis and Julie Rayfield's marriage for some time, but the woman's mother says she had no idea it would end in murder and no idea a bad dream would play such a big part in the case.

"She made you feel like she was your best friend," mother Teresa Pope said.

A single wedding photo and leftover crime tape remind Pope of what was and what went wrong.

"None of us are doing good at all. Not well," she said.

Inside a home north of Waynesboro Sunday night, Julie Rayfield died at the hands of her estranged husband Dennis, according to the Florence Times-Daily.

"They weren't divorced yet. He did not live here since September. He had no business here," Pope said. "He's something. He has a temper."

According to investigators, Dennis Rayfield had a plan. He parked his pickup truck at a church then walked nearly a mile down the road to get to his wife.

"He planned it out. It was all a plan," Pope said.

At the home, investigators said Dennis broke in through a front window and confronted Julie, then shot her in their four-year-old son Gage's bathroom.

All of this took place as the little boy slept on the other side of the house.

"When he broke in, it'd be like her to say, 'Let's go to the other side of the house and talk,' you know. It would be like her to do that," Teresa Pope said.

Detectives say Dennis surrendered to authorities in neighboring Lawrence County after he told his family he dreamt he hurt Julie, then later realized it really happened.

His mother-in-law says she doesn't buy the story and that she will insist on justice for the sake of her only child.

"We had no idea he could do something like this," Pope said. "And there's no doubt in my mind he did it. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind."

Dennis Rayfield is held in the Wayne County Jail facing a murder charge.

The couple's four-year-old son, Gage, is with Julie's parents. They said they will do their best to raise him as their own.