AUBURN – A tall, thin, muscular bald man, shirtless and tattooed, walked over to a blue Dodge parked at the Coastline Inn in broad daylight and punctured the car’s passenger-side tires, a witness testified Wednesday.


The car was rented to Melissa Mendoza, 29, who was staying at the hotel at the time. About a half-hour after the vandal drove off in a dump truck, Mendoza went to the car, strapped her 2-year-old daughter, Savanna, into the toddler’s car seat in back then climbed into the driver’s seat.

Trevor Cooley of Auburn said he called to Mendoza from a nearby tire shop where he worked and told her she wasn’t going anywhere.

Cooley told her somebody had slashed her tires. “She was definitely nervous,” he said.

She told Cooley somebody was following her, he said from the witness stand at Androscoggin County Superior Court.

That was in July 2005, he said.

Less than a month later, when she was back in Maine from California, Mendoza would find the windshield of another rental car smashed on the day she was to visit Savanna. That was one week before she was killed.

In the first day of testimony, the prosecution in the murder trial of Daniel Roberts began to piece together its case against the 37-year-old Sabattus man in an effort to show a pattern of intimidation through violence.

Roberts has admitted shooting Mendoza in the back of the head at his home early on the morning of Aug. 15, 2005. He claims she pointed one of his guns at him and threatened to kill him, their daughter and herself. He fired in self-defense, he said.

But the picture presented Wednesday by Deputy Attorney General William Stokes showed a mother and ex-girlfriend who feared Roberts, who even secured a court protection order less than a week before she was killed.

Diane Destrini, related through marriage to Roberts, testified she had agreed to serve as supervisor for court-ordered visits between Savanna and Mendoza, while Mendoza stayed at the Destrinis’ home during her visit back in Maine. Roberts had custody for that six-month period of time, according to a court agreement, but a judge allowed periodic visits between the girl and her mother. They had to be supervised because Mendoza had violated the terms of the agreement by secreting Savanna back to California earlier in the summer.

Roberts was unhappy with the court’s arrangement to have Destrini supervise, Mendoza’s attorney testified. The next morning, tires on both of the vehicles parked at the Destrinis’ home had been slashed.

Later that day, Destrini’s husband told his wife that he didn’t want her to be involved in the court-ordered visits involving Savanna.

An 8th District Court judge changed the visitation order, naming two other supervisors picked by Roberts. The judge allowed Mendoza to stay at Roberts’ home with Savanna, despite objections raised by Mendoza, her attorney, Robert Guillory said.

Stokes also called Lewiston Police Cpl. Robert Ullrich to the stand. Ullrich testified that he pulled over Roberts’ pickup truck for an expired inspection sticker. Roberts had affixed a sticker to his license plate. Ullrich told him it was illegal and that Roberts could be fined for it. Roberts replied: “When you’re looking at 25 to life, that doesn’t matter,” Ullrich said. The police officer recognized the reference as the statutory sentence for homicide.

That was a week before the fatal shooting.

Although it was the state’s turn to call witnesses and start to build its case Wednesday, Roberts’ attorney, Leonard Sharon, appeared to score a few points with the jury.

When, on cross examination, two workers at the Auburn tire shop described the man who slashed the tires on Mendoza’s rental car, Sharon told his client to stand.

Dressed in a dark striped shirt and dark slacks with short cropped gray hair, Roberts complied and got to his feet.

Both witnesses said Roberts was not the man at the hotel.

“I’m 100 percent sure it wasn’t him,” Cooley said.

Later, as Destrini testified about Mendoza’s anger over her situation, she said Mendoza told her several times she wished Roberts was dead.

Stokes sought to blunt the statement, asking whether Destrini thought Mendoza meant the phrase literally.

It was always said after a fight, as an emotional response, Destrini said. She said she’s sometimes said the same thing about her husband.

The trial is expected to resume Thursday with conversations between Roberts and Mendoza that she secretly taped.

The beginning of the recording was played shortly before court was adjourned Wednesday. When Mendoza’s voice came over court speakers, members of her family, seated in the front row, dissolved into tears.