Somewhat related to the killing of Lisa McPherson in that the victim was also starved to death. This case appears to have had a medical examinor that wasn't "gotten to" by the Scientology crime syndicate.

Her mother, Michelle Tharp, walked into Tausha's bedroom in their Burgettstown apartment to get the little girl up for breakfast. Immediately, she saw things weren't right. Tausha's head lay half off the bed, her eyes wide open and glassy. Foam bubbled from her mouth, and she appeared stiff.

Tharp checked Tausha's hands. Ice cold. She crooked a leg. It stayed bent. She got a thermometer and tried to take Tausha's temperature, but couldn't pry open the little girl's mouth.

Later, Tharp would tell the investigators who charged her and her live-in boyfriend, Douglas Bittinger Sr., with killing Tausha that she knew then her child was dead, Pennsylvania State Trooper James McElhaney told a jury yesterday during the opening of Tharp's murder trial in Washington, Pa.

At that moment, though, on April 18, 1998, Tharp kept talking to Tausha, telling her to blink her eyes if she could hear, to squeeze her fingers if she were aware.

Soon after, Tharp conferred with Bittinger.

"I asked Doug if he thought they would find her if we disposed of her body,"

according to a statement Tharp gave McElhaney, which was read into the record.

"He said if they found her body, it would be murder."

Despite 15 witnesses taking the stand during the first day of what is expected to be at least a weeklong trial, what was easily the most riveting testimony came from Tharp's statements to police, in which she described in horrible detail her encounter with her cold, stiff daughter and how Bittinger wrapped Tausha in a sheet and garbage bags and tossed her atop a large bush in the woods of West Virginia.

For a murder case, it was highly unusual in that there were no gunshots, no stab wounds, no tangible weapon. Instead, police have accused Tharp of starving Tausha to death. The little girl was emaciated, weighing less than 12 pounds, far below normal for her age. Meanwhile, her three siblings -- two sisters and a brother -- were all healthy and well-fed, and investigators testified that they found a well-stocked refrigerator and freezer.

Aside from mostly passing references to Tausha's health and a gruesome parade of the tiny clothes she was wearing when investigators found her corpse -- clothes that looked more suited to a toddler than a 7-year-old -- there was little mention of what caused Tausha's death, or who.

Tharp has been charged with homicide, endangering the welfare of a child, concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse.

Bittinger, who faces the same charges as well as aggravated assault, is expected to travel to the courtroom from his cell at the Washington County Jail to testify for the prosecution.

Washington County District Attorney John C. Pettit, who is personally handling the case and seeking the death penalty, took a subdued approach during his opening statement to the jury of seven men and five women.

He refrained from coming right out and accusing Tharp of killing her daughter.

Instead, in his 15-minute speech, he warned that this would not be a typical murder trial.

"We have somewhat of an unusual case here," said Pettit, an avuncular man with close-cropped white hair and a beard. "Not too often does our society come to grips with homicide by starvation."

Glenn Alterio, the county's public defender, took a more aggressive stance, telling jurors that his client was not guilty. Acknowledging that Tharp was not the best parent, he nevertheless said she was not a murderer. Instead, Alterio outlined his strategy by saying that Tausha had a "failure to thrive."

In an interview, Alterio defined that as "an inability to properly process nutrients from food that you intake so you can grow and develop." Alterio said he would have medical experts testify that Tausha was not the victim of her mother and Bittinger but instead fell prey to a medical condition. He also said there was paperwork documenting Tausha's visits to doctors in regard to her health problems.

Alterio said Tausha was born prematurely and had a history of liver and thyroid problems. In his opening remarks, Pettit made mention of Tausha's small size, saying that birth records indicate she was between 1 and 2 1/2 pounds -- small enough to be held in the palm of a hand.

"It is our contention that this is not a homicide case," Alterio told jurors.

"Miss Tharp did not kill her."

During the trial, Tharp, 31, remained mostly inscrutable. Dressed in a kelly green jacket and skirt, she listened quietly, rocking gently on her swivel chair and occasionally dabbing at her eyes with a Kleenex. Aside from investigators and the media, hardly anyone attended the trial before Judge Paul Pozonsky.

Pettit structured his witness list to form a chronology of how the case unfolded before the public and police. At first, investigators have said, Tharp and Bittinger misled everyone by claiming that Tausha had disappeared during a family outing to the Fort Steuben Mall in Steubenville, Ohio.

First to testify were mall workers who encountered Tharp and Bittinger the night that a massive search was launched. What they and investigators quickly noticed was that neither seemed particularly frantic or upset. Soon, scores of people were combing the area, including police from several jurisdictions, mall workers, citizens and a volunteer search-and-rescue group that uses dogs to track scents.

After several hours, Steubenville police took Tharp and Bittinger to the station to get them away from the search and into a calm environment. By then, Sheriff Fred Abdalla of Jefferson County, Ohio, had been alerted. He watched Tharp being interviewed on the evening news and testified that he had a strong gut reaction.

On TV, Michelle Tharp was holding one of her children with one hand, smoking with the other, and leaning in a position that appeared entirely too relaxed.

"It just struck me that this is not ordinary," Abdalla testified. "This is not what someone does when a child is abducted."

Abdalla arrived at the police station, where he joined detectives interviewing Tharp and Bittinger. By then, they, too, had grown suspicious of the couple's nonchalance.

"The longer we spoke with them, we realized the story just wasn't adding up.

They weren't upset. They didn't ask one time, 'Why are you talking to us instead of looking for my kid?'" said Steubenville police Detective Sgt.

Charles Sloane.

Police told Bittinger they had reviewed videotapes from mall security and did not see Tausha anywhere. And Abdalla told the man he had a hunch that Tausha was dead. At that point, both Sloane and Abdalla testified, Bittinger told investigators what they had feared: "The baby was dead."

Another Steubenville detective, John Lelless, went over to Tharp.

"I said, 'Did you hear that?' She said, 'Yes.' I then read her her Miranda rights."

According to a statement Tharp gave Lelless, and another she gave to McElhaney of the state police, Bittinger wanted to take Tausha to the hospital after Tharp found her, but Tharp refused.

"She stated, 'No, no, they'll take my other kids away from me,'" Lelless said.

"She was scared about losing her children."

Tharp also rejected Bittinger's suggestion to contact her grandmother and his sister, saying she didn't want to involve them, according to testimony.

So Tharp told police she called off work and straightened her house, dressed Tausha, put her in a car seat in Bittinger's Buick, and got in with Bittinger, daughter Ashley, who was 3, and 6-month-old Douglas Jr.

They ended up going to Tharp's grandmother's. They returned to their house, carrying Tausha's body in the car seat. It was then that Tharp asked Bittinger about disposing of the body. They got back in the car to visit Bittinger's sister, who wasn't home.

From there it was to a friend of Bittinger's to get some money. Then, Open Pantry, to buy $5 worth of gas. During their meanderings into Ohio and West Virginia, Bittinger gave Tharp $2 in change to buy a bag of white, handle-tie Glad kitchen garbage bags.

Investigators found Tausha's body wrapped in a white sheet with a bird pattern, and that in turn was stuffed into three such garbage bags. A 10-pack of the bags found in Bittinger's car contained only seven, police said.

At one point, police said, Bittinger put Tausha's body into the trunk, fearful that someone would spot it. When the couple entered Brooke County, W.Va., they found a spot to dump Tausha, investigators testified Tharp told them. Bittinger was the one who handled the body, they said.

"He got out, opened the trunk," McElhaney said Tharp told him. "He threw the bag with Tausha in it."

From there, the couple went to the mall.

The next day, Abdalla found the body lying atop a large bush. He testified that he lifted Tausha's frail corpse.

"The child," he said, "looked like a victim of the Holocaust."

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