Rachel Hutson, 21, shot her critically ill mother, Sarah Lee Hutson, in their home while her dad was out shopping on Black Friday in 2013.
She then called her father, Donald Hutson, to tell him what she’d done — but he hung up on her because he thought she was joking.
Rachel then sent him a photo of her mother’s bloody body.
“That’s when I realized this is probably real,” Donald testified, the Virginian-Pilot reports.
Rachel, who was 19 when the murder took place, told the court she had originally planned to kill herself, but decided it would be too hard on her mom.
She added that when she aimed the shotgun at her mother, the bedridden woman thought she was joking, called her crazy, and said she would be in trouble when her father got home.
Rachel, who had cared for her mom since she was 9, said the murder was more of an afterthought than anything else.
“I felt like I was just nothing, and nobody really needed us,” she said.