Wooden boards, screwdriver and box cutter were all missing from the house where 'valedictorian, 22, bludgeoned and stabbed his mentally unstable mother to death'

• Jeffrey Pyne, 22, charged with first-degree murder after mother's body found at Michigan home
• High school valedictorian says he is innocent - and father supports him
  
• Ruth Pyne, who had a history of psychotic tendencies, spent two weeks in jail in 2010 for beating and trying to choke her son
  

By Louise Boyle, Rachel Quigley and Meghan Keneally
UPDATED: 02:03 EST, 20 November 2012

Prosecutors revealed that in the days leading up to the brutal murder of Ruth Pyne, her husband noticed that two wooden boards, a box cutter and a screwdriver were all missing from the family's Michigan garage.

Ruth's 22-year-old son Jeffrey is on trial for her murder, when he allegedly bludgeoned and stabbed her to death in their home.

The latest revelations come on the second full day of the trial, after the prosecution opened last week by playing the chilling 911 tapes where the suspect's father tells the operator that 'there's blood everywhere, I don't know what's going on'.

Scroll down for video

Family: Jeffrey, left, stands behind his little sister Julia, beside his mother Ruth and his father Bernard, right, who maintains his son's innocence

Jeffrey, who was described as a star student at the University of Michigan, was known to have a tempermental and oftentimes violent relationship with his mother who suffered from several mental illnesses.

She was bipolar and had spent two weeks in jail nine months before her death for attempting to strangle Jeffrey, according to reports.

From 1998 onwards, Ruth Pyne's mental health deteriorated, and she would threaten to kill herself and her son. After this she was diagnosed with being both bipolar and a paranoid schizophrenic.

Over the coming years, psychiatrists would describe her as 'angry and violent', 'severely mentally ill', 'a danger to herself and others' and suffering from 'acute mania', court records show.

In 2009, in a petition to the probate court asking that his wife be committed to a mental hospital, Bernard Pyne wrote she was refusing medication, believed a computer chip had been implanted in her daughter and had been 'striking our son for no reason'.

Now prosecutors say that Jeffrey was the one striking his mother, as he allegedly broke her arm and skull with one of the missing 2-4 wooden boards before stabbing her 16 times, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Trial begins: Jeffrey Pyne, 21, faces life in prison if found guilty of the murder of his mother who was found bludgeoned to death in the family garage

Charmed life: The Pyne family owned a roomy tri-level home on a one-acre lot with a pool in Highland Township, a rural community in western Oakland County

An Oakland County detective testified that Bernard Pyne, Jeffrey's father, called him over to the house days after the May 27th murder to report that the construction items were missing but nothing in the house itself was gone.

The defense has suggested that the brutal murder could have been committed by an intruder although nothing was stolen from the home, according to the Detroit News.

Detective Steve Zdravaovski also said that traces of Ruth's blood was found in the drain of the upstairs tub, implying that the murderer went to the first floor to clean after the afternoon murder.

The murder trial of a star athlete and school ace accused of brutally murdering his mother began Friday and prosecutors decided to start by playing the shocking 911 tapes that catch the horrific scene of the crime.

'She's laying in the garage,' Bernard Pyne is heard saying. 'There's blood everywhere. I don't know what's going on.'

According to ABC. , the accused Mr Pyne sat expressionless through the opening statements.

He was arrested five months after the murder and held without bond for more than a year.

Accused: Pyne has been described as a star student and a fine athlete

Prosecutors showed jurors photos of the blisters on Jeffrey's hands hours after the murder. He explained the wounds to his boss as the results of throwing a shipping pallet.

'It did seem odd to me,' his boss, farmer William Cartwright said. 'I expected more of a splinter or scrape than what looked like rope burns.'

Still, community members and Jeffrey's father Bernard maintain that he is innocent. It took two days to find an impartial, 12-member jury.

'The people in the community are hugely supportive of this young man,' Detroit Free Press journalist Lori Brasier told ABC News. 'Even people who believe he may have actually killed his mother still support him, and you don't usually find that in the community.'

Jeffrey Pyne's defense attorneys says he is innocent, too.

'Somebody else committed the crime,' they said. 'We believe the evidence will show you that.'

If convicted, Jeffrey Pyne faces life in prison.