AUBURN – Roland “Jerry” Poirier is dead. Scott Poirier killed him. But did he intend to cause his father’s death? Did he know he was killing him?

If the answer is yes to either question, the jury deliberating in Scott Poirier’s murder trial must find him guilty.

If the jury answers no to both, it next has to consider whether Scott Poirier caused his father’s death recklessly or with criminal negligence. If it decides he did, the jury must find him guilty of manslaughter.

Those were among the instructions jurors took from Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler on Thursday at they pondered Scott Poirier’s fate. After meeting for 15 minutes Thursday, the jury asked to hear a recording of Poirier’s police interview for a second time. They deliberated for another 45 minutes before being sent home at 4:30 p.m. They are expected to resume deliberations today at 9 a.m.

Assistant District Attorney General Lisa Marchese told the jury at the close of the six-day trial that it’s an “easy” case.

Poirier admitted killing his father on Nov. 8, 2006. The 35-year-old Sabattus man drove his pickup truck to his parents’ home in Lewiston that rainy night with his .270-caliber hunting rifle. He walked around the back of their house, raised the gun, sighted the scope on his father’s neck and pulled the trigger once.

His father, who was celebrating his 65th birthday party with family, was sitting at the head of the dining room table. The bullet pierced a glass, shattered the neck of a wine bottle and struck Roland Poirier, killing him.

The trial focused on what Scott Poirier was thinking at the time.

Prosecutor Marchese said he was thinking about killing his father. That’s what he told police at the scene and again at Lewiston Police Department two hours later.

He said he shot his father in the throat. An autopsy revealed that was the manner of death.

“No one knows with 100 percent certainty what goes on in another person’s mind,” Marchese told the jury at the end of the trial. The most reliable evidence of his thinking is found in his conduct and words, she said.

“His actions match his words,” she said.

Then, use common sense, she added, but leave sympathy and pity for the defendant outside the courthouse.

“No matter what kind of rotten individual (Roland Poirier might have been,) Scott Poirier had no right to be judge, jury and executioner on Nov. 8, which is exactly what this man did,” she told the jury.

Poirier never sought counseling for the abuse nor did he get help for his drinking problem, aside from a single Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, she said.

During the same police interview, Poirier said he shot his father because he had been molested by his father as a teenager, she reminded the jury. Poirier said he brought the gun to the house specifically to shoot his father then described the scene and his actions, she said.

Poirier told police he’d been drinking that night. The alcohol made it easier to shoot his father, Marchese read from a transcript of the interview. It was something he’d thought about doing for a while, he’d said.

Although several people testified that Poirier had been suicidal that day, at some point he became homicidal, Marchese said. Even if it was seconds before firing the shot, it’s still murder, she said, because he behaved in a goal-oriented way in achieving the aim of unleashing his anger on his father. A psychologist and psychiatrist agreed, she said.

Maybe not, Steven Peterson told the jury.

If Scott Poirier suffered from an abnormal condition of mind at the time he shot his father, he isn’t guilty of murder, said Peterson, a defense attorney from Rockport.

Peterson said there was “substantial evidence” in Poirier’s case that he had such a condition. He was not in his right mind, that night.

Not only was he severely depressed and suicidal, Peterson said, his client was also suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He was drunk on airline-sized bottles of liquor and a half-bottle of wine, self-medication for the abuse, Peterson said, though police didn’t measure his degree of drunkenness with a blood or breath test.

In the days and hours leading up the shooting, he was talking to friends and family about his abuse and theirs. That night, people he talked to said his thoughts were scattered, his words mumbled.

In the police interview, he wasn’t asked whether he was aware of shooting his father, Peterson told the jury. He wasn’t asked whether he intended to shoot him.

A psychologist testifying for the defense said goal-directed action doesn’t always show intent, Peterson reminded the jury. His intention that night was to commit suicide. He even left a note scribbled in highlighter on a chunk of Sheetrock found at his home.

Justice Wheeler spelled out for the jury what “abnormal condition of mind” means as a legal defense.

“An abnormal condition of mind is a mental disease or defect that negates the existence of the mental state required for the crime,” she told the jury.

Wheeler also said evidence of intoxication “may raise reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant acted intentionally or knowingly.”