LEWISTON – He should have done more, said Charlie Roberts, father of convicted murderer Daniel Roberts.

He saw the relationship between his son and his ex-girlfriend deteriorate, but was reluctant to get involved because the couple were adults.

“We should have gotten involved,” he said. “We might have been able to prevent some of this.”

Now, it’s too late.

“We’re going to have to live with that,” Roberts said Friday, three days after a jury found his son guilty of murdering Melissa Mendoza, who was 29 years old.

Roberts shot Mendoza in the back of the head when she came to his home around 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2005. He said she had a gun and threatened to kill their 2-year-old daughter.

Prosecutors said Roberts had laid a trap for Mendoza that morning and ambushed her. Apparently, the jury agreed.

The older Roberts said he was satisfied that his son’s self-defense argument would prevail in court. Practice juries had split in their mock verdicts.

“We were very, very confident. The worst-case scenario would have been a hung jury,” he said.

The jury at Androscoggin County Superior Court reached a verdict after only about three hours of deliberation following the three-week trial. That shocked the defendant’s father.

“I still can’t get over how cut-and-dried it was,” he said. “He was guilty before he went to trial.”

Roberts said the verdict is baffling and hasn’t quite sunk in.

“I’m still dumbfounded,” he said. “I’m still having a hard time every day of the week.”

He said he also is grappling with the loss for everybody involved, including the Mendoza family.

“No one feels sorrier that they lost a daughter,” he said.

“A split second can ruin a life, two people’s lives and family. They lost a daughter, we lost a son and a granddaughter. But, we, at least, we can still see him.”