CONYERS, Ga. -- It was almost exactly four years after the murder. The once fragile-looking 16-year-old twins -- now aged and hardened by incarceration -- give police yet another version of the story. Only this time, it's not another denial. It's a confession.
Jasmiyah and Tasimyah Whitehead are serving 30-year prison sentences after confessing to the brutal murder of their mother.
"My state of mind at the time was defend yourself. It wasn't like a fight on the street, it was more like a fight until somebody dies," said Jasmiyah Whitehead in her taped confession.
In chilling detail, the twins described what really happened the morning of the murder.
It started with a fight with their mother in the kitchen after waking up late for school.
"You're late for school, you're not going to do what you want to do, you have to live by my rules," recalled Rockdale County District Attorney Richard Read.
The twins say their mother began threatening them with a pot from the stove.
"She just started waving the pot around things like that whatever so I guess she was trying to hit us with the pot," said Jasmiyah.
The twins claim they wrestled the pot away from her, but it was the start of all-out brawl.
"Was your mom yelling," asked Read.
"We all yelling, we all mad. Somehow, someway I don't know where she got it from, I don't even remember a knife block but she has a knife," said Jasmiyah.
"I had took the pot from her, that's when she grabbed the knife and said get back but she didn't keep the knife in here hand," added Tasmiyah.
The combat moves to the living room and gets more intense. Jas breaks a red vase over her mother's head -- the first sight of blood. Her mother fought back.
"So my mom is winning the battle with the knife or whatever, so I pick up the pot and hit her with the pot," said Tasmiyah.
"She bit me in the chest and like I said, I'm not that that big so when she bit me she latched on to me and I tried to get her off because it hurts so I'm trying to punch her, I guess that then Tas stabs her. She stabbed her," said Jasmiyah.
After more fighting, Jas says at some point she begins to choke her mother with a ribboned medallion she won as a child. Her mother delivers a swift backhand blow that catches her by surprise.
"So I think I was stunned. Then I picked up the knife and I think I stabbed her but they wasn't cuts like they wasn't deep because I couldn't bring myself to do it," said Jasmiyah.
After all the biting, punching, screaming and stabbing, the twins drag their mother in to the bathtub. Neither can really explain why they did.
Read: So you had her hands?
Tasmiyah: I think I was at the top.
Read: And Jas had her feet?
Tasmiyah: Yes, she was heavy.
Read: And so what did y'all do?
Tasmiyah: We put her in the tub
Jarmecca Whitehead was in the tub and was still alive. The twins both recall her talking to them as she was dying.
Read: What's she say?
Jasmiyah: That she hates us, she hates us. I guess the same thing we're going to jail, we're going to jail
Read: What are you saying to her?
Jasmiyah: I'm sorry, I told her I was sorry not just sorry for things but sorry for everything that we couldn't get along and stuff.
A few minutes later the twin claim their domestic troubles with mom would be permanently over.
"She went under a couple of times and that was it," said Jasmiyah.
"When that was it -- I'm going to use your words-- when that was it what did you and your sister do," asked Read.
"I guess we were just shocked. We couldn't believe what we did. We cried, we cried for a long time. We argued a bit," said Jasmiyah.
But then the girls collected themselves. After trying to clean up some, they thought it best to leave the crime scene and head to school.
"We got her purse, cell phone and got the knife and the pot and put it in a plastic bag," said Jasmiyah.
The girls admit that when they returned, they expected the police would be there and their mother would not. The sight of what they had done was a shock.
"Just really wish it didn't happen like that and I wish I could have solved something. I do I wish…sorry...It was just confusion and turmoil and it never stopped," cried Tasmiyah.
The girls claim they wished they would have called police during the fight rather than hours after the murder and been truthful from the start. They wish they still had a mother.
"I'm sorry and I miss her. It's not how ya'll are trying to make it seem. I didn't hate her. And Tas didn't hate her either. I guess it was just the heat of the moment and the anger between all three of us," said Jasmiyah.
