California prosecutors said that a woman accused of stabbing a retired nurse to death in a mall parking structure was looking for money so she could send her daughter on a cheerleading trip.

Opening statements were presented in Torrance Superior Court on Wednesday in the murder trial of 47-year-old Cherie Lynette Townsend, according to courtroom reporting by Daily Breeze, a local news outlet. Prosecutors said Townsend is responsible for the fatal stabbing of 66-year-old Susan Leeds, a retired nurse, who was found bleeding in her Mercedes-Benz SUV on May 3, 2018. Leeds had just finished a shopping trip at the Promenade on the Peninsula mall in Rolling Hills, California. She died minutes after she was found.

Townsend had also been shopping there that day, and her gold sedan was seen leavin

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