It's been nearly two years since the death of popular San Antonio restaurateur Viola Barrios, and her family still tries to avoid thinking about the grisly way in which she was killed — shot in the head with an arrow, her lifeless body burned.

“The only way to celebrate my mother's life is to focus on the love,” her son, Louis Barrios, said last week. “Otherwise, my mother would be defined by the last 10 seconds of her life.”

But today, attention will again turn to those final moments as the first day of testimony begins in the capital murder trial of Joe Estrada Jr., 19. He's accused of killing Barrios, 76, as he burglarized her Northwest Side house April 24, 2008. The two were neighbors.

The trial was moved to Victoria late last year after defense attorneys Therese Huntzinger and Patrick Hancock argued that the case had created such a media frenzy that it would be impossible to find unbiased jurors locally.

Even as jury selection has taken place over the past four weeks in Victoria, some people have had to be dismissed because they knew too much about the case, the attorneys said. But both the prosecution and the defense have agreed on a 10-woman, two-man panel.

If the trial gets to a punishment stage, the Barrios family will likely be on hand as jurors decide whether to assess the death penalty for Estrada, despite statements from Louis Barrios that his mother wouldn't have ever wanted such a conclusion.

“She would have wanted him to go to jail — don't get me wrong,” he said. “But my mother would have found out when his parents were visiting him, and she would have cooked something. That's the kind of woman she was.”

Estrada, who turns 20 next Monday, has been described in the past as a high school athlete who enjoyed stylish clothes, dancing and bow hunting with his father.

But his life seemed to spiral from that of a normal teenager in the months leading up to Barrios' death, according to previous reports.

He was kicked off the Clark High School cross-country team for stealing during an off-campus run, a teammate told the San Antonio Express-News in 2008. He later dropped out of school.

The Barrios slaying wasn't the first time he became the subject of police attention. Employees at a Hollister clothing store accused him of a string of thefts after he was hired there for seasonal work at the end of 2007.

A month later, his aunt was in contact with police after reporting that her home had twice been burglarized. A neighbor spotted a suspicious car outside the home that turned out to have been stolen from a Hollister employee, according to police reports.

Then he began sending disturbing messages via MySpace to his cousin, warning him to “make sure your mom isn't there so she doesn't have to see me kill you,” Estrada's relatives told police.

Estrada's mother, an accountant, declined to comment for this story.

Authorities have said they believe Estrada shot Barrios using a bow and arrow when he found her in her home in the 10800 block of Tioga. He had gained entry, they speculated, by breaking a window.

Estrada then took Barrios' 2006 Mercedes to a nearby gas station, where a surveillance camera recorded him buying $10 worth of gasoline, according to police reports. An accelerant was used to set her bedroom ablaze, investigators said.

Officers first confronted Estrada after finding him walking down the street just after midnight the next morning, according to Detective Holly Ripley, who said she had had been staking out the neighborhood.

“He was crying, upset, and he said, ‘I'm sorry. I did it,'” Ripley said during a pretrial hearing last year.

He confessed again during subsequent interviews with police, according to testimony and court documents. Police said they believed his motive was drugs.

Police also said Estrada at another point told them he needed $300 for a girlfriend's abortion.

While searching Estrada during the initial confrontation, Ripley said she found keys to a Mercedes and two of Barrios' credit cards in his pockets. The cards had been used to buy a laptop, clothes and hair gel.

About 70 witnesses have been subpoenaed by the district attorney's office to testify during the trial, ranging from forensic analysts to lay witnesses who might have seen Estrada driving Barrios' vehicle.

It's unknown if Estrada will take the stand.

“Obviously, we don't know our case until we've seen theirs,” Huntzinger said, hinting that the narrative offered by police and prosecutors so far might not be the end of the story. “There's always more than what you see at first glance.”

The trial will begin at 9 a.m. today on the third floor of the Victoria County Courthouse Annex. Senior District Judge Dick Alcala will oversee the proceedings, which are expected to last two weeks.