Mother Dismisses Daughter's Alleged Murder Plot

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Karen Colleen Stribel loves to talk about the beauty and serenity of her land in Watertown, Tenn., not far from Nashville. But this mother of two girls and computer consultant by trade got the shock of her life when a sheriff called her and told her about an audio tape that detectives had secretly recorded. On it was the voice of her 19-year-old daughter, Lauren Ashley Morrow, who was plotting to kill her.

Lauren Ashley Morrow, left, holds hands with her mother, Karen Colleen Stribel, during an interview...

Lauren Ashley Morrow, left, holds hands with her mother, Karen Colleen Stribel, during an interview with ABC News. Morrow and her boyfriend, Andrew Bland, are accused of conspiring to hire an 18-year-old high school senior to kill Stribel in Lebanon, Tenn.

(ABC News)

Morrow was caught on tape talking to two young men — allegedly plotting Stribel's murder — in grisly detail.

"If you hit her with a shotgun, don't hit her in the face, please," Morrow said on tape.

To which, one of the young men responded, "Well, if there's a steering wheel blocking her chest, then her head's the only thing that's sticking over the top … They'll just have a closed casket."

"I was in total shock," Stribel said when she learned about the tapes. "No one writes the handbook on that one. No one."

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Tension Growing Up

Both Stribel and her daughter insist they were close in the early days, but there also were conflicts, like Morrow's smoking. "That was a problem I had. She started smoking at a younger age. And I was very sad about that one," Stribel said.

And there was more trouble. Morrow dropped out of school as a sophomore and began home-schooling. But it wasn't long before the home-schooling ended. Stribel "had some problems when it came to me not doing the home-schooling," Morrow said. "But we got over it."

Stribel believes their problems were the result of personality clashes. "I really felt that it was two strong people kind of buttin' heads. She was tryin' to grow up and be her, and I still wanted her to be mine."

Her defense team does not want Morrow to discuss the case itself because it's yet to go to trial. And although the two held hands in an interview with ABC News, their relationship has been tested before, as when Morrow got pregnant at 17.

When Morrow broke the news to her mother, Stribel said she would be there for her.