Lesley Elliott said she knew Sophie was dead as soon as she saw her.
She was on her back in the corner. There was a lot of blood.
"The whole room seemed to be red," Mrs Elliott told Justice Judith Potter and the jury hearing the trial of the accused, former University of Otago economics tutor Clayton Robert Weatherston, in the High Court at Christchurch.
The young woman's 33-year-old ex-boyfriend admits killing her at her home on January 9 last year but denies it was murder.
His defence is he lost the power of self control through provocation, that he was unable to deal with the emotional pain of the torrid and tumultuous relationship he had experienced with Miss Elliott since the middle of 2007 and responded by stabbing her when she attacked him with a pair of scissors.
The Crown earlier told the jury the number of wounds - 216 - and the way they were clustered pointed to a "persistent, focused and determined attack" aimed at disfiguring areas of Miss Elliott's physical beauty.
Mrs Elliott, who maintained her composure during her several hours in the witness box, had a friend sitting nearby for support.
By late yesterday, she had completed her evidence in chief and cross-examination, but she must return to court today for any further questioning by the Crown.
Weatherston is represented by Judith Ablett-Kerr QC, assisted by Greg King, of Wellington, and junior counsel Luke Macris, of Dunedin.
Robin Bates and Marie Grills appear for the Crown in the trial, which is expected to take about three weeks.
Mrs Elliott had run upstairs after hearing her daughter scream "Stop it Clayton, stop it", or "Don't Clayton, don't" but she could not open the bedroom door, so she ran downstairs to get a meat skewer to use on the lock.
Her husband had had the locks installed on her door and Sophie's for their safety.
Sophie's screaming then stopped and there was a rhythmic sound which Mrs Elliott thought was a headboard banging against the wall.
"I thought Clayton was raping her," Mrs Elliott said.
But when she got the door open and stepped inside, she saw Weatherston straddling Sophie and continuing to stab her.
"His arm was going up and down. I thought he was stabbing right through her. That was what the rhythmic noise was."
As she stood there screaming, Weatherston leaned over and closed the door in her face.
She thought she went to the study to make a 111 call but was now aware she was already on a cellphone to emergency services when she got the bedroom door open, Mrs Elliott said.
She told the court she had opened the door to Weatherston when he arrived unexpectedly at the house shortly after midday.
He asked if "Soph" was there and said he had "something to give her".
He seemed friendly and relaxed, Mrs Elliott said.
He was holding a supermarket bag with something made of yellow or orange fabric inside.
Sophie was in a hurry, as she was packing, and said to Weatherston if he wanted to talk, he would have to come up to the bedroom.
Because she recalled her daughter telling her of previous assaults, Mrs Elliott said she became very nervous.
She stood in the kitchen and listened intently for any sound from upstairs.
When she heard nothing, she went to the bottom of the stairs to listen.
She heard the bathroom door close and Sophie came downstairs, saying to her mother she did not know what was going on, that Weatherston was "just standing there, not saying anything".
She told her daughter to "get rid of him", as she still had a lot to do before she went out with friends that night, Mrs Elliott told the court.
Sophie went back upstairs and "the next minute, there was screaming".
She could not recall exactly what her daughter was saying, Mrs Elliott said, but she "raced upstairs at the first scream".
Sophie then "just started screaming and screaming and screaming".
"I belted on the door, kicked at it, screamed at him to open it. He didn't."
Earlier, she told the jury Sophie had been upset and tearful when describing two assaults by the accused, the most recent two days before the fatal incident.
On that day, Sophie had gone to the university to leave a gift for her course adviser.
She also had a bank cheque for Weatherston for repairs to a glass door pane she had broken 10 days earlier at his flat.
Weatherston saw her and came after her, saying "we need to talk".
Sophie told him she was scared of him because of the earlier assault on the day the door pane was broken.
And Sophie told her that when Weatherston denied the earlier incident, she "lost it" and did to him what she said he had done to her, pushing her arm against his neck and over his mouth, Mrs Elliott said.
When Sophie told him she had been advised to go to the police over the earlier assault, Weatherston's response was that he could now go to the police because of what she had just done to him.
He then chased her as she ran to the stairs and pushed her.
When she asked him why, he said he was giving her his hate.
Sophie was very upset and crying while telling her of this incident, asking "why does he hate me so much, I don't understand it", Mrs Elliott told the court.
And Sophie had also been quite upset when describing the incident at Weatherston's flat on December 27 when she had gone to give him an album of graduation photographs.
He had a present for her, a painting of the Titanic, but she told him there would not be enough room for it in her flat in Wellington.
As they were talking, Weatherston said "we've got to sort this out" but she told him "it's over".
He became amorous and suggested they go to the bedroom and have sex but Sophie said, "You're obviously not getting the message - it's over."
Her daughter told her Weatherston then "turned nasty", Mrs Elliott said.
He grabbed her, threw her on the bed, putting his arm against her throat and across her mouth.
Sophie said she screamed and struggled and managed to get away, slamming the door on the way out and breaking a glass panel.
When Weatherston followed her out, she apologised and, as he was standing by the door of the car, he told her he had hoped the plane she would be on coming back from her holiday in Australia would crash and she would be killed.
Mrs Elliott said Sophie told her she had talked to her friends about it and they had advised her to go to the police, but her attitude was "what's the point", that she was leaving soon for Wellington.
Then she came home, burst into tears and told her mother what had happened, demonstrating what Weatherston had done.
"I also advised her to go to police," Mrs Elliott told the court.
