AUBURN — Daniel Roberts lured his ex-girlfriend to his remote Sabattus home with false accusations about their toddler because “he had murder on his mind,” Deputy Attorney General William Stokes told a jury Monday.

He lay in waiting early on the morning of Aug. 15, 2005, the lights in his garage shut off, standing next to the unlocked door, a loaded revolver in his back pocket. The moment Melissa Mendoza, 29, stepped through the door, into his trap, Roberts, 37, put his gun within a couple of feet of the back of her head and pulled the trigger.

He planted another gun next to her dead body slumped on the concrete floor to make it look like self-defense. Stokes said Roberts concocted a story about Mendoza stealing one of his guns and wanting to kill their 2-year-old daughter, Savanna Marie, who lay asleep in the adjoining house. According to Roberts’ bogus story, Mendoza told him she planned to kill him after she killed their daughter, Stokes said. But, Mendoza never got more than 28 inches inside the garage, Stokes told the Androscoggin County Superior Court jury.

That’s because the whole story was contrived. The evidence shows Mendoza actually entered the garage that morning juggling a Pepsi bottle, her handbag and her cell phone when she was ambushed. There was no evidence connecting her to any gun, Stokes said.

Or, was it Mendoza “who had murder on her mind?” defense attorney Leonard Sharon posed to the jury. The evidence suggests it was Mendoza who came to Roberts’ home with a gun that morning, Sharon said. After all, a loaded .38-caliber revolver was found next to her at the scene of the shooting.

Trial testimony showed Mendoza was angry at Roberts. She had told several witnesses before the shooting she would like to kill him and see him dead. She said hours before the shooting she might do “something crazy or stupid.”

She had assaulted Roberts with a car door and drew his blood with her fingernails.

Two of Roberts’ former girlfriends testified that Mendoza had wrestled them to the floor during her fits of anger. Roberts knew about those incidents and feared Mendoza, Sharon said.

And Roberts suspected she had stolen one of his guns the weekend before, he reminded jurors.

If he had planned to shoot Mendoza, Roberts could have done a better job of framing her, Sharon said. Roberts could have pressed her fingers against the gun that lay next to her to make sure it could be traced back to her, he said. He didn’t because it didn’t happen that way, Sharon said. Instead, Roberts made a “split-second” decision to shoot.

Roberts had no reason to kill Mendoza, Sharon said. Roberts had custody of his daughter at that time and didn’t risk losing it. It was Mendoza’s actions a month earlier that jeopardized her legal relationship with Savanna, having secreted the girl away to California during Roberts’ period of custody.

Stokes took an hour to present his closing arguments; Sharon, nearly an hour-and-a-half. Stokes then rebutted Sharon’s conclusions, accusing him of changing Roberts’ story last minute to attempted kidnapping because no one would believe Mendoza would want to kill her child.

Both lawyers gave impassioned arguments, shouting at times for emphasis and looking accusingly at each other. They borrowed each other’s phrases, using them repeatedly: “he/she had murder on his/her mind” and “Are you kidding me?”

The two lawyers had thrown barbs at each other throughout the contentious trial. At one point, Sharon called for a mistrial because he said Stokes was laughing at his witnesses, thereby diminishing their credibility in the eyes of jurors.

Security at the courthouse was the tightest it’s ever been. All entrances have been locked except for the main door where security guards have been stationed, using x-ray machines and metal detectors on visitors.

Roberts is former leader of a local Hells Angels chapter. Signs on the courthouse door warned against gang colors, badges or pins being worn in the courtroom.

Justice Joyce Wheeler cautioned courtroom spectators in the back row not to make eye contact with jurors, some of whom felt they were being stared at.

Before the jury entered the courtroom Monday, Roberts waived his right to have the jury consider a lesser charge of manslaughter.

Justice Wheeler told the jury it must first decide whether Roberts murdered Mendoza. To do that, it must determine that she is dead; that Roberts caused her death and that he did so intentionally or knowingly.

If they were to decide Roberts did those things, the 12 jurors — seven women and five men — must consider whether he acted in self-defense. She went on to say that self-defense is justified when somebody is about to use unlawfully deadly force against a person or a third party to kill them or kidnap them.

But it’s not justified in this case, Wheeler said, if: • Roberts provoked the encounter; • He didn’t believe Mendoza was about to use deadly force against him, and Savanna and he didn’t believe she was about to kidnap Savanna; or • He didn’t believe his use or deadly force was necessary to defend himself or Savanna. Stokes only needed to prove one of the three possibilities beyond a reasonable doubt for a murder conviction, Wheeler instructed the jury.

After a three-week trial, the jury was sent home to start deliberations this morning.

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